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<div name="messageBodySection" style="font-size: 14px; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, sans-serif;">Erik,
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<div>I completely agree that it will be in the long term interest of bitcoin to migrate, gradually, toward a commoditized POW away from the current mass centralization. There is a big problem here though: Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on the current algorithm, and will be a huge loss if this is not done slowly enough, and the miners who control the chain currently would likely never allow this change to happen.</div>
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<div>Do you have any ideas regarding how to mitigate the damage of such a change for the invested parties? Or even how we can make the change agreeable for them?</div>
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<div>Warm regards,</div>
<div>Garrett</div>
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--
<div>Garrett MacDonald</div>
<div>+1 720 515 2248<br /></div>
<div>g@cognitive.ch</div>
<div><a href="https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x0A06E7F9E51DE2D6">GPG Key</a><br /></div>
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On Apr 9, 2017, 2:16 PM -0600, Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>, wrote:<br />
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<div dir="ltr">Curious: I'm not sure why a serious discussion of POW change is not on the table as a part of a longer-term roadmap.<br />
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Done right, a ramp down of reliance on SHA-256 and a ramp-up on some of the proven, np-complete graph-theoretic or polygon manipulation POW would keep Bitcoin in commodity hardware and out of the hands of centralized manufacturing for many years.  <br />
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Clearly a level-playing field is critical to keeping centralization from being a "defining feature" of Bitcoin over the long term.   I've heard the term "level playing field" bandied about quite a bit.   And it seems to me that the risk of state actor control and botnet attacks is less than state-actor manipulation of specialized manufacturing of "SHA-256 forever" hardware.   Indeed, the reliance on a fairly simple hash seems less and less likely a "feature" and more of a baggage.
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<div>Perhaps regular, high-consensus POW changes might even be *necessary* as a part of good maintenance of cryptocurrency in general.   Killing the existing POW, and using an as-yet undefined, but deployment-bit ready POW field to flip-flop between the current and the "next one" every 8 years or or so, with a ramp down beginning in the 7th year....  A stub function that is guaranteed to fail unless a new consensus POW is selected within 7 years.  <br />
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Something like that?  <br />
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Haven't thought about it *that* much, but I think the network would respond well to a well known cutover date.   This would enable rapid-response to quantum tech, or some other needed POW switch as well... because the mechanisms would be in-place and ready to switch as needed.</div>
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<div>Lots of people seem to panic over POW changes as "irresponsible", but it's only irresponsible if done irresponsibly.</div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Apr 7, 2017 at 9:48 PM, praxeology_guy via bitcoin-dev <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org" target="_blank">bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org</a>></span> wrote:<br />
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<div>Jimmy Song,<br /></div>
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<div>Why would the actual end users of Bitcoin (the long term and short term owners of bitcoins) who run fully verifying nodes want to change Bitcoin policy in order to make their money more vulnerable to 51% attack?<br /></div>
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<div>If anything, we would be making policy changes to prevent the use of patented PoW algorithms instead of making changes to enable them.<br /></div>
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<div>Thanks,<br /></div>
<div>Praxeology Guy<br /></div>
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