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RE: Gridcoin 4.0-2018 General Roadmap Poll - Proof of Research Blockchain
What are the advantages of using magnitude over balance for securing the Gridcoin block chain?
Is it simply an argument that powerful researchers should have as much chance to stake a block as wealthy investors?
You are more or less correct. Whoever stakes a block could be said to own or control the blockchain. Do we want the blockchain to be owned by researchers and those with balance or do we want it owned only by those with balance.
Those with magnitude eventually get balance, so they also own the blockchain, however not as much as if the amount of research they contribute is factored in.
Further discussion is taking place here
I have read the article Some thoughts regarding a Proof of Research Blockchain by core developer TheCharlatan and found it very useful in clarifying what "using magnitued to secure the block chain" means and why magnitude was replaced with pure PoS.
I can see how this could be a tricky discussion balancing the ideals of a coin that supports research with the importance of security and technical difficulties in leveraging data from many disparate third party systems (ie BOINC projects) in a way that is difficult to exploit.
To me this poll is posing a broad philosophical question regarding distribution of power rather than proposing to bring back a flawed mechanism. Personally I like the idea but I don't see it as a development priority at this point in time, I would like to see some of the other issues from the road map proposals addressed fist then re-evaluate distribution of power in the next round.