The Great TAU Debate
If there’s one thing to say about the founder of TAUcoin, he’s both brilliant, and brave. Wait… That was two things, nevermind. Currently, the TAUcoin founder David Wu (iMorpheus) is hosting an intense month long debate surrounding the strength of the Proof-of-Transaction consensus protocol, allowing anybody and everybody to challenge the strength of Proof-of-Transaction by whatever means necessary.
If you are not familiar with the Proof-of-Transaction concept, we recommend first reading through the TAU whitepaper (here).
To sum it up, we believe that Proof-of-Transaction is the best consensus mechanism when it comes to being:
- The most secure decentralized network
- The fairest decentralized network
- The most environmentally friendly decentralized network
Let’s take a look at some of the points raised so far, and the response from iMorpheus.
Argument 1: PoT leaves TAUcoin vulnerable to a Sybil attack
According to user Ubiubi18, TAUcoin is vulnerable to a sybil attack as it incentivizes the creation of new wallets and the production of transactions. The user postulates that excessive fake transactions between sybil accounts will lead to monopolization of the block reward. Because of this, some sort of KYC or identification system is required to restrict account ownership.
iMorpheus Response
To accumulate transaction weight, TAU holders will need to pay fees to compete for their transactions to be packed into the next block. Therefore, sybil account holders would need to transfer large numbers of coins between their own addresses, and pay extremely high fees to be recognized, making this quite difficult to profit from. We are against performing centralized KYC.
Argument 2: Club leaders should not be able to choose fee distribution structure
According to user rexxarofmoknathal, club leaders should not be allowed to determine the amount of fees distributed to the remainder of the club. Instead, Rexx suggests that the harvest club leader should receive a fixed fee, with the remainder automatically distributed to the club members by harvest power weight.
iMorpheus Response
Great idea! We think that setting up an automatic payment percentage for club members will reduce the potential for club leader manipulation. We will take this into consideration moving forward, and will likely implement something in this fashion.
Argument 3: Block rewards must not be higher than the fees they contain or TAU is attractive for Sybils
User Ubiubi18 posits that so long as the block reward is higher than the fees spent to produce the transactions it contains, the TAU network will be a target for sybils. Because of this, a club leader will create numerous sybil accounts to generate a net profit on the high transaction fees they used to secure the next block.
iMorpheus Response
Market competition will be so intense that the reward received by a harvest club will be very close to the cost of the transaction fees to begin with. Additionally, harvest club leaders might even have to subsidize to attract transactions, hence making no profit at all from their reward. These club leaders would instead benefit from their branding and reputation, rather than the block reward. Additionally, implementation of accumulated transaction weight (by total fees), rather than number of transactions per time period would yield an additional layer of difficulty.
Argument 4: Harvest Power based rewards promote the formation of few, very large harvest clubs.
According to user akosipepot, Proof-of-Transaction promotes the formation of a few, very large harvest clubs, in-turn increasing the centralization of TAUcoin. To counteract this, akosipepot recommends limiting the number of club members to 5,000, increasing the number of harvest clubs in total.
iMorpheus Response
Limiting the number of club members to 5,000 does not reduce the risk of harvest club concentration, as one club leader could simply run many nodes under their control. Instead, I believe that allowing club members to freely switch between harvest clubs will mitigate the risk of centralized leadership.
Argument 5: A sudden increase in average transaction fee can lead to block hoarding
User akosipepot follows up by stating that if a well-funded bad acting harvest club were to suddenly spike its transaction fees, this would massively increase their chances of a new block, thereby excluding smaller harvest clubs from participating in the block reward system, hence reducing the utility of TAUcoin for these users.
iMorpheus Response
Sudden transaction fee massive increase is a problem for non-economical person. This is definitely an area to dig into.
Along Comes A Challenger
Think you’ve got what it takes to take this debate to another level? Well, let’s see what you’ve got. Want to draw up a diagram to show exactly why Proof-of-Transaction doesn’t meet the above criteria, do it. Or perhaps you are a math whiz who can prove it with an elegant (or not-so-elegant) math proof? Maybe you just want to throw some ideas around to see what kind of response you get? We welcome all challengers, whether you be a crypto-visionary or complete noob, we would love to have your input.
Oh, and did we mention that the winner of this debate will win a cool $1,000 BTC and a whopping 1 MILLION TAU. Yes, you read that correctly, we are going to pay you to find any flaws in the Proof-of-Transaction consensus! To enter, simply submit your debate response in the Bitcointalk thread (link) and brace yourself for a rebuttal.
The TAU community will then decide among the top 3 arguments/proofs in the TAUcoin Telegram community (link), where a community vote will take place on the 1st of October to determine the prize winner!
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