Centercoin: A Peer-to-Government Electronic Cash System
Antoshi Yorsomoto, November, 2108
Abstract
A purely peer-to-government version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent fast and reliably from one party to another without need to burn year amount of power and seek ways for inter-exchange.
Digital signatures provide part of the solution: we already have math, laws and infrastructure, regulating this part. We propose also a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-server network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-authority, forming a record that cannot be changed without having the right level of permission and redoing the full chain.
The network itself requires minimal structure and space. Messages are not just broadcasted everywhere but translated directly on a best effort basis.
Introduction
Few people know but our current peer-to-peer cash system and relationships in the society were formed in the last century. One hundred years ago our neanderthaler community decided to completely divide the society into infinite number of parts with its own rules and values.
Since that time each human in the world got crazy and started emitting own currency, also known as coins or tokens: exactly the same way as it was in the beginning of human history. Everything become messy: with 50 billion population every piece of thing is now tokenized. No one has reliable approach to distinguish between “valuable” and “scam”, every new second new currency is being born.
You can’t just sit in the restaurant and go to WC for free: you have to pay tokens for it. The problem is that each new restaurant and even each urinal unit has own number of investors who vote real time to allow you to use this thing. Another problem is that you usually don’t have exact this type of token in your multi-trillion-coin-type wallet: you wait until you exchange some of your own tokens at another one-of-trillion stock market system, wait blocks to be mined and several blocks more to confirm the branch is stabilized. Of course, you can plan your WC-visit two hours in advance but I have the solution.
Transactions
More than 130 years ago people invented ACID Transactions and now is the time when society and technology is ready to adopt them. Compared to CAP-theorem limitations and distributed systems issues the central authority is the most efficient and reliable approach. Since now you as a “client” just send one transaction without thinking of which type of token it has because single-emission center with its full responsibility provides a service you need. You as an “end-user” don’t bother anymore for block mining and inter-exchange issues. You as an “end-user” don’t pay high commissions because having huge amount of transactions Earth government can maintain the system with low margin costs. Everyone since now has common rules and values.
Timestamp Server
The solution we propose is a timestamp server by itself. The timestamp proves that the data must have existed at the time, obviously, in the right order. Each timestamp includes the previous timestamp in its hash, forming a chain, with each additional timestamp reinforcing the ones before it.
Proof-of-Authority
To implement a centralized timestamp server on a peer-to-government basis, we will need to use a clock. People used sun-dial in the past but with current level of technology we have more practical and reliable atom-based watches and some CPU-ticks counters.
Network
The steps to run the network are as follows:
- New transaction is sent directly to the government node.
- The node puts transactions into some ACID-based centralized database like YourSQL.
- Profit!
Incentive
Any transaction is extremely efficient and atomic which doesn’t require any additional incentive for node-holder except the minimal commission. This fact allows to get rid of all these yotta-hashes equipment and use it for AI systems instead.
Reclaiming Disk Space
No additional mechanisms are required since now for efficient space usage: the centralized server have to just follow some best architecture practices for 99.99999% SLA. Since now millions of nodes across the world with the same information are not needed anymore.
Simplified Payment Verification
It is possible to verify payments without running a network node. A user only needs to have a client implementing the necessary API. You mobile phone since now can have only 128 Gb memory instead of 128 exa-bytes storages. Other verification is done by a centralized server using your fingerprint / SMS / face ID.
Combining and Splitting Value
No more these crazy inputs and outputs. Just a single value representing your balance with access by your identity.
Privacy
More than 100 years people don’t care about privacy anymore. Privacy itself doesn’t exist since Apple / Google/ MS time. Everyone has open social profile and everyone is a “thing” now in a global IoT world.
Calculations
I did some calculations on the blackboard but I’m not totally sure it is related somehow to the topic.
Conclusion
We have proposed a system for electronic transactions relying on common sense. We started with the usual framework of coins made from digital signatures, which provides strong control of ownership. It is complete and prevents double-spending using central Government server. No more 51% attacks and needs to maximize the network computation power. The network is robust in its simplicity. No more problems with coordination, mining, ICO-ing and other crazy stuff. Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this simplified mechanism in a new, 22-nd century way!
References
- S. Nakamoto, November, 2008, https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
- A. Yorsomoto, Common sense
