Johan Nygren, Bitnation, 2017
In 2008, Craig Wright published the Bitcoin whitepaper, and the idea to use proof-of-work as a trusted authority, provably distributed. This Nakamoto consensus allowed the Bitcoin ledger to extend itself in a way that was resilient to censorship as well as to servers being shut down, and in a way where as the security of the network grew, the number of users and therefore the value of the network also grew following Metcalfe´s Law. Bitcoin was the beginning of what can be broadly defined as “network-states”, successors to the nation-state consensus.
The next generation of a distributed authority for a “network-state” was developed in 2014 by Vlad Zamfir, with the Casper protocol and “consensus-by-bet”, an evolution of the idea of proof-of-stake. With consensus-by-bet, validators would stake their capital in a betting game, and converge on a block, in a way that was also resilient to being shut down, an evolution of the Nakamoto consensus.
Proof-of-power builds on the work of Vlad Zamfir, and uses a swarm to select validators, where people “power up” validators using proof-of-suffrage, and proof-of-personhood. The validators then bet with their power, in the consensus-by-bet game that Zamfir invented. Mining rewards are shared between validators, and the people they represent.
Proof-of-power is a new breed of mining systems, which uses a swarm to select miners. In general, and perhaps as a universal rule, what can be done with proof-of-stake can be done with proof-of-suffrage and proof-of-power.
For example, proof-of-power can be used similar to delegated proof-of-stake, powering up miners, that then perform dPoS tough stake people-votes. Proof-of-power can also be used in the way Casper is used, consensus-by-bet.
In proof-of-stake, validators are conceived to view the security of the network as a self-interest, and, that is combined with mining rewards as an incentive. In proof-of-power, those two incentives are separated, the people who use proof-of-suffrage to “power” validators are conceived to have self-interest to secure the state, and oversee the validator, who, as an employee, is rewarded with a mining reward (and, the mining reward is also divided on those who “power” the validator. )
In the age of computers, a recorded history is achieved by linking transactions to previous transactions, so that that each new transaction signs onto the history of the state as a whole. In BitLattice, from a pseudonymous developer known as Hibryda, proof-of-history is from appending transactions to four previous transactions, in a multi-dimensional laminar lattice, rather than appending transactions onto the previous element in a chain (line), and so the increased surface area means that the lattice can grow from many points all at once, making BitLattice as a network-state very fast. The metric structure of the lattice also allows “proof-of-structure”, that the integrity of the state can be verified even when “chunks” of it are stored across a network of computers.
Proof-of-power could possibly be integrated with BitLattice, if there is an value added from using the swarm selection of miners (in BitLattice, known as “authority entities”. )
Proof-of-power is secured by proof-of-suffrage, which shows, provably, that a person has people-vote in how the state authors itself. Proof-of-suffrage is in turn secured by proof-of-personhood (Ford, 2017), which in the context of this whitepaper builds on Virtual Pseudonym Parties.
Pseudonym Parties were first described by Bryan Ford in 2008, and I put forth the idea of online pseudonym parties in 2015, simultaneous and global events where people from all over the earth would verify each other, in hangouts that use telepresence (including video chats. )
The online pseudonym parties use a security token, NYM, to protect itself against bot attacks. Within the pseudonym parties, which are 5 people (random strangers), there is a point-system where 3 always win over 2, and if unverified, the desposit of NYM (put in when registering for the pseudonym month) is lost. For every group where a potential bot attacker had 3 nyms (using nym as in pseudonym, not as in the security token NYM), there would be lots more groups where they had 2 or 1 nym, where they would loose their deposit.
Network-states, by outgrowing the biases that are inherent to the human brain, make it possible to a have a free market for rules, what Gavin Wood describes as a “rule-space commons”, a concept that was described as Panarchy in the 19th century.
Proof-of-power is not democracy, there is no mob rule, rather, a permissionless, unbiased state, for what Paul Emile de Puydt conceptualized as Panarchy in 1860, a free market for government.
In 2016, Silvio Micali described Algorand, where people were selected by random (algo-rand) to verify transactions. Bryan Ford published a similar idea in 2017, and combined it with his idea for pseudonym parties from 2008, so that each person also had proof-of-personhood. The idea of virtual pseudonym parties was developed by Johan Nygren in 2015, who later in 2017 conceptualized proof-of-power based on on a combination of Bryan Ford and Vlad Zamfir´s ideas.
Proof-of-power is a "consensus proof" for coordination around network-states, with broader consensus than proof-of-work and proof-of-stake. The use of representative authority, as a protocol, has evolved through natural selection and been used in the Westphalian consensus for hundreds of years, specifically because state, as a resource, is an extension of social cognition, an "external frontal lobe", an augmentation, and a long-lived state that will not suddenly be overthrown by a fork, is a more secure augmentation, enabling secure trails for stigmergy.
The Panarchy protocol with proof-of-power scales and self-adjusts to dunbar's number as the number of validators are selected for in a feedback loop with the global population.
Proof-of-Personhood: Re-democratizing Permissionless Cryptocurrencies, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7966966/ (2017)
Pseudonym Parties, an offline foundation for online accountable pseudonyms, http://www.brynosaurus.com/log/2007/0327-PseudonymParties.pdf (2008)
Anti-sybil protocol using virtual pseudonym parties, https://www.scribd.com/document/339117426/Anti-sybil-Protocol-Using-Virtual-Pseudonym-Parties (2015)
Virtual Pseudonym Parties, anti-bot protection using the NYM security token, http://telegra.ph/Virtual-Pseudonym-Parties-anti-bot-protection-using-the-NYM-security-token-10-23 (2017)
Introducing Casper “the Friendly Ghost”, https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/08/01/introducing-casper-friendly-ghost/ (2015)
Panarchy, an idea for a mining system that socializes control of a blockchain, building on Ethereums’ Casper, https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/panarchy-an-idea-for-a-mining-system-that-socializes-control-of-a-blockchain-building-on-ethereums-casper/2017/06/26 (2017)
Algorand: Scaling Byzantine Agreements for Cryptocurrencies, https://people.csail.mit.edu/nickolai/papers/gilad-algorand-eprint.pdf (2015)
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf (2008)
Teleport - The Network State, https://teleport.org/blog/2015/07/the-network-state/ (2015)
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