Read_438 - Blockchain Proof of Work is a Decentralized Clock [grisha]

September 10, 2020 00:49:38
Read_438 - Blockchain Proof of Work is a Decentralized Clock [grisha]
Bitcoin Audible
Read_438 - Blockchain Proof of Work is a Decentralized Clock [grisha]

Sep 10 2020 | 00:49:38

/

Hosted By

Guy Swann

Show Notes

"This explanation rests on illustrating a few interesting properties of how Proof-of-Work is used in the blockchain that are not immediately obvious and sometimes are rather counter-intuitive, for example how participants collectively solve a problem without ever communicating." - grisha

While we incessantly focus on the side-effects of the proof-of-work system in Bitcoin, the security it attributes to the Bitcoin history, the incentive structure it enables, etc, we can often forget the reason Satoshi himself stated for its use: to enable a distributed timestamp server. i.e. a decentralized clock.

An epic piece from @humblehack posted back in January 2018 on his blog at grisha.org. Check out the original and many other works at the link below:
https://grisha.org/blog/2018/01/23/explaining-proof-of-work/

Other great reads to dig further into the concepts:
The Drunkard's Walk: https://amzn.to/2Mzzr2K
Fooled By Randomness: https://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Markets-Incerto/dp/0812975219/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=fooled+by+randomness&qid=1599781258&s=books&sr=1-1
Bitcoin Astronomy: https://anchor.fm/thecryptoconomy/episodes/CryptoQuikRead_303---Bitcoin-Astronomy-Part-1---Dhruv-Bansal-e6eqo5

Thanks to Marty & Chris from TFTC for bringing this to my attention again:
Episode 188: https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/188-Chris-Bendiksen-ein7nj

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bitcoinaudible/message

Other Episodes

Episode

March 01, 2023 01:03:09
Episode Cover

Read_704 - The Three Generations Theory [Aleks Svetski]

"People are very quick to project technology adoption curves onto Bitcoin. But the problem is that Bitcoin is not just a technology. It’s not...

Listen

Episode

December 18, 2019 00:36:26
Episode Cover

CryptoQuikRead_331 - Proof of Stake & The Wrong Engineering Mindset [Hugo Nguyen]

What is the true set of differences between Proof of Work, and Proof of Stake? What are the engineering mindsets behind them both, and...

Listen

Episode

November 08, 2022 02:09:51
Episode Cover

Chat_74 - Synonymous with Sovereignty, with John Carvalho

Today we bring John Carvalho back on to talk about Bitkit and the release of Synonym's first major product in the BitKit wallet and...

Listen