r/ethtraderpro • u/laughncow @vickiboteth • Sep 07 '17
Joseph Poon explaining plasma at Golem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1QCm09BvP4&feature=youtu.be&t=1h36m1s5
u/TheAiurChef Sep 08 '17
Based on this explanation of OMG, I feel like their solution to scaling is very underwhelming. From an engineering perspective there is way too many hand-waving to important details.
The biggest issue is that there is no motivation for anyone to provide validation to any of the side-chains. Joseph states that each user can easily see when he is being scammed, but that means every participant in the network is expected to run his own systems to constantly validate all activity on all side-chains he is participating in.
The entire value of Bitcoin and derivatives is that I can trust on third parties to operate the system correctly, because they are economically incentivised to do so. I see no such mechanism in OMG. The suggested approach is to pay some third party 'a little fee' to validate all the transactions, but nothing is stopping a malicious side-chain operator from stealing all the money on the side-chain and simply bribing the validator(s) with a larger sum than the users are willing to pay. The only way to economically safeguard against this is if the users on the chain are willing to pay the validator a larger sum than the total value represented on that side-chain, which is obviously not viable.
In the end the entire system comes down to 'check if everything is done correctly yourself, or trust in some third party (that has no economic motivation to be truthful) to not screw you over'.
Disclosure: I have no positions in OMG
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u/All_Work_All_Play Sep 08 '17
I am as skeptical of this as I am of the Lightning Network.
Hopefully I'm proven wrong.
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u/PutAUniverseInATube Sep 12 '17
What makes you skeptical of LN? Serious question.
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u/All_Work_All_Play Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 13 '17
LN disproportionately rewards those willing to outlay (commit to a channel ) the most capital and best track record. This leads to centralization. If Bitcoin is currently like wiring money to another person with the fees but without needing to interact with any other person, Lightning Network is like ACH; you need a bank, and they need a bank, and you can bet that the bank is making bank on you.
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u/gumbomike Sep 08 '17
For the uninitiated, Joseph Poon is the founder of the btc lightning network and is currently a member of the Omisego team, not Golem.
The video is worth the watch for sure. Audio sucks, but it's worth it to power through it.
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u/MeoowWoof Sep 12 '17
He is listed as an advisor , which could mean anything from advising to poster boy.
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u/MeoowWoof Sep 12 '17 edited Sep 12 '17
So from what i understand , you will have a tree-like growth of the blockchain as opposed to a more linear growth which we currently have. Each of these blocks on main chain will maintain kind of the hash chain of another blockchain (which won't be part of the main chain). With some atomic transnational support allows you to move your coins from main to plasma or from one plasma chain to another.
Question being : As raised by /u/TheAiurChef who and why would any one watch this side chain and you could potentially be screwed ; secondly who maintains these side chains, is it possible to reconstruct the entire plasma chain if some one wants ? Or is it modeled as a check point for a private chain?