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(IJCH) Ethereum's Casper Protocol: A Powerful Approach to PoS (Proof of Stake)

IJCH - Inside JaiChai's Head (meaning: My warped, personal opinions and musings)

From the Author

Salutations.

I am JaiChai.

And if I haven't had the pleasure to make your acquaintance, it's always nice to meet a fellow Steemian.

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Please Note:

To ensure we have a shared baseline point of departure, I highly recommend reading the precursor to this post first:

https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@jaichai/ijch-get-smart-a-pow-proof-of-work-and-pos-proof-of-stake-primer-why-are-more-upcoming-and-existing-cryptocurrencies-e-g

If you've already read the above article [(IJCH) Get Smart: ...], you are well aware of the arguments against PoW (i.e., massive power consumption, the advantage that wealthy players have over others - due to economies of scale, and the concentration of power that leads to centralization).

Now we're ready to charge on with Ethereum's version of Pos.

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Casper Protocol - Addressing Traditional PoS Weaknesses

Two Ethereum teams - lead by Vlad Zamfir and Vtalik Buterin - have been busy developing the Casper Protocol for Ethereum's move from PoW to PoS.

The Casper Protocol was created to deal with the shortcomings of traditional PoS:

• Low Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) - No disincentive for malicious behavior.

• The "No Stake Problem"

• Incompetent or Lackadaisical Nodes

• Spawn Camping (otherwise known as "Swarm Campaigns" - repeated 51% attacks on the network).

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Casper vs. Byzantine Behavior and the "No Stake Problem"

Byzantine Fault Tolerance:

"In fault-tolerant computer systems, and in particular distributed computing systems, Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) is the characteristic of a system that tolerates the class of failures known as the Byzantine Generals' Problem, which is a generalized version of the Two Generals' Problem – for which there is an unsolvability proof."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance

The Casper protocol punishes any person who acts maliciously/Byzantine by slashing off their stake of previously locked coins.

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In other words, "Play nice or get spanked - spanked hard!"

It's almost like the scene from a Western movie where a poker player is caught cheating. If he's lucky, he doesn't get shot; but he surely loses all his bets (stakes) that are on the table.

This is VERY DIFFERENT than traditional PoS where there's no disincentive (punishment) for Byzantine behavior.

Before Casper, the lack of disincentives was the cause of the "No Stake Problem".

With Casper, the slashing of the stake for malicious behavior represents a POWERFUL DISINCENTIVE.

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Casper Polices Bad Validators

Another aspect of Casper that differs from traditional PoS is the policing and punishment of bad validators (Keep in mind that validators are essentially nodes within the network).

Incompetent or lackadaisical nodes are those - for whatever reason - have unacceptable downtime periods.

Obviously, this adversely affects the network by making other validators work harder; consequently taxing the network unnecessarily and slowing down transaction times.

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Casper is rather strict on its rules governing validator performance:

Validators who go offline intentionally to censor their transactions or unintentionally due to incompetence or plain laziness will lose their stake.

Slashing validators' stake should they go offline (Again, let me stress this: For whatever reason, no excuses.) is another, bold aspect of Casper that differs from previous PoS.

This policing and punishment of bad validators forces all validators to stay alert and perform as promised.

End result?

A more effective and efficient network.

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Casper vs. Spawn Camping

As stated earlier, a continual 51% attack is called Spawn Camping (or a Swarm Campaign) and can easily debilitate a network.

How does Casper deal with this threat?

Two out of three validators, in order to get the maximum transaction fee rewards, put up the most stake possible. Because of this, the validators have a major stake in the network's processes.

And that makes the punishment for malicious behavior (the loss of their stake, "slashing") a STRONG INCENTIVE to follow the rules.

In short, the act of colluding with another validator - who has also put up their maximum stake - is an expensive, risky and counterproductive endeavor; virtually a non-option.

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What about Kamikaze Collusion?

Hypothetically, say there is a collusion of a couple rogue players that are attempting a major theft or are simply Hell-bent on sabotaging the network.

If this should ever occur, Casper's high BFT, policing and punishments, and inherent safeguards will spot the malicious behavior early, contain the rogue elements' transactions and correct the problem with little or no disruption of the network.

The types of Ethereum's Casper Protocol and planned "phase-in" implementation will be discussed in a future post."

By JaiChai

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Many thanks for reading my post. And if you enjoyed it, please: Upvote, Follow, Comment and Resteem.

- JaiChai "My mind was a terrible thing to waste..."

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About the Author

He is a retired U.S. Military veteran. Believing that school was too boring, he dropped out of High School early; only to earn an AA, BS and MBA in less than 4 years much later in life – while working full-time as a Navy/Marine Corps Medic.

In spite of a fear of heights and deep water, he freefall parachuted out of airplanes and performed diving ops in very deep, open ocean water.

He spends his days on an island paradise with his teenage daughter, longtime girlfriend and three dogs.

Parting Shot -

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"Appreciate all comments/replies. - JaiChai"

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