{"action":"created","issue":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/gnuclear/gnuclear-whitepaper/issues/31","repository_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/gnuclear/gnuclear-whitepaper","labels_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/gnuclear/gnuclear-whitepaper/issues/31/labels{/name}","comments_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/gnuclear/gnuclear-whitepaper/issues/31/comments","events_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/gnuclear/gnuclear-whitepaper/issues/31/events","html_url":"https://github.com/gnuclear/gnuclear-whitepaper/issues/31","id":161803502,"number":31,"title":"Unclear assertion re Nakamoto consensus","user":{"login":"taoeffect","id":138706,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/138706?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/taoeffect","html_url":"https://github.com/taoeffect","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taoeffect/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taoeffect/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taoeffect/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taoeffect/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taoeffect/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taoeffect/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taoeffect/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taoeffect/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/taoeffect/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"labels":[],"state":"open","locked":false,"assignee":null,"milestone":null,"comments":10,"created_at":"2016-06-22T22:42:40Z","updated_at":"2016-06-23T00:42:36Z","closed_at":null,"body":"From: http://tendermint.com/blog/on-thedao-and-blockchain-governance/\r\n\r\n> Satoshi Nakamoto wrote that Bitcoin can handle up to 1⁄2, but that only works because clients are suppose to wait on the order of an hour for confirmation, thereby allowing the network to be modeled as a (slow) fully-synchronous system.\r\n\r\n#### Problem 1\r\n\r\nReading [the wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance#Early_solutions), I see the following statement:\r\n\r\n> It can be shown that if n is the number of generals in total, and t is the number of traitors in that n, then there are solutions to the problem only when n > 3t and the communication is synchronous (bounded delay)\r\n\r\nThat last bit, *\"and the communication is synchronous\"*, seems to stand in contrast with the statement made in the blog; i.e. indicating that even a synchronous environment can only handle 1/3 byzantine actors.\r\n\r\n#### Problem 2\r\n\r\nThere's a fundamental difference between BFT/PoS consensus systems and PoW, at least in how they think/talk about/model consensus. One is based on % of ***actors***, while the other is based on % of ***computation***. Those are very different things, and that difference is what leads to the number 51% in PoW, and 67% in BFT/PoS."},"comment":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/gnuclear/gnuclear-whitepaper/issues/comments/227918891","html_url":"https://github.com/gnuclear/gnuclear-whitepaper/issues/31#issuecomment-227918891","issue_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/gnuclear/gnuclear-whitepaper/issues/31","id":227918891,"user":{"login":"ebuchman","id":2300911,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/2300911?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/ebuchman","html_url":"https://github.com/ebuchman","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/ebuchman/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/ebuchman/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/ebuchman/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/ebuchman/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/ebuchman/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/ebuchman/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/ebuchman/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/ebuchman/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/ebuchman/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"created_at":"2016-06-23T00:42:36Z","updated_at":"2016-06-23T00:42:36Z","body":"ye. you can assume block latency is much greater than network latency because producing blocks is economically expensive (takes around ten minutes). if you can break the economic factor with unlimited hash power or breaking the hash function, the synchrony assumption crumbles because you can make blocks as fast as you want. \r\n\r\nof course, additionally, bitcoin hedges the failure of its synchrony assumption with the randomness of the PoW lottery, so we can eventually make progress with high probability."}}
{"actor":{"display_login":"ebuchman"}}