No, as previously mentioned, stake holders can band together to form stake pools and share the rewards according to each participant's contribution. It is fully expected that stake pools will form to not only amortize the rewards, but also to support voting on specific features. For example, let's say there is a heavy demand for some controversial feature with different opinions about the specific details (say a new block size). Different proposals can be added to be voted on and then stake pools can be formed around each proposal. Obviously the pool(s) that end up with the largest number of stake holder participation will end up winning more of the votes and voting for the proposal the pool supports. Then, after a set period of time, whichever proposal got the most votes will become active. So, instead of simply asserting that "everybody" wants this or "nobody" wants that and leaving it up to a handful of people to decide, the community bands together, puts their money where their mouth is so to speak, and publicly and transparently makes a decision. The people that supported proposals that didn't win were clearly in the minority regardless of any skewed perception that might be inferred from a minority of very vocal people on social media.
So it's like a referendum question bound to a block? Can you describe in more detail how the protocol "incorporates" the question?
Maybe, in far future somwhere in universe, this idea can develop to the new voting system which would be more attractive to common people and what is more important it could be really democratic which is for sure not case in existing voting systems. Power to the people .
Basically there are extensible voting bits that are included in each block. Each bit (or group of bits for more complicated questions than yes/no) is defined to give some meaning based on what issues need to be voted on. A voter sets the bit(s) according to how they want to vote.
A few more questions from another beginner. When you talk about 'stake ticket price', is that something that actually deducts Decred, or do you just mean that you agree to 'lock' this amount of Decred for a period of time? If there is no actual 'cost' to voting except for a time lock, will not everyone with savings and no voting agenda put all their coins towards one huge 'yes' pool? (The reasoning being that in this way they get the largest chance to share the 6% block subsidy, and they vote 'always yes' because it is the easiest way to vote without breaking the network.) (And, if so, isn't this a problem? It seems to generate a huge momentum for 'yes' that will be very hard to overcome once there is a cause for pushing a certain voting agenda, e.g., larger block size.)
@Tino: It means the amount of Decred you agree to "lock" for a period of time in exchange for a stake ticket. Once you lock the coins, you can't unlock them until either your ticket wins or it expires. That locking action has a very tangible opportunity cost to it. For example, what if the ticket price falls drastically while your coins are locked at a higher price? Had you not locked your coins, you could purchase more tickets at the lower price and therefore have a very high probability of increasing your rewards. Another example: What if the exchange price goes up drastically and you'd like to sell high and wait for the price to fall in order to buy back in lower? You can't do that if your coins are locked. There is also a small chance (< 1%) your ticket won't get selected before expiration, so it's possible you might not even ever get a reward at all for that ticket. In regards to the voters without any voting agenda joining one huge "yes to the previous block" pool, that is a possibility. Welcome to democracy! In any democratic system, there are a lot of people that just don't care even when they very well should. That said, I don't think it's really an issue. The reason is that there is a distinct difference between voting on a previous block and voting on specific agendas. There is only one vote that is persistent and required -- voting on the previous block which acts as a check on miners. Voting agendas (such as larger block sizes from your example) are only open to vote on for a specific period of time and involve different bits, so any pools designed to do something like vote "always yes to the previous block" would not be voting on any other agendas. Given that, it is highly unlikely the specific agendas would have to worry about that. In regards to always voting yes to the previous block having momentum on a properly functioning network, this doesn't seem to be an issue either. Remember that the point of this vote is only to offer veto power over miners if they try to do something egregious the majority doesn't want. There are still consensus rules too, so it's not like a miner can just decide to reward themselves more subsidy and such. However, if say after a larger block size has been decided by a separate vote and the consensus rules are updated to accommodate it, but all of the major mining pools decide to band together and refuse to cooperate, resulting in a huge backlog of transactions, once it starts to adversely affect people, they will be incentivized to start caring and veto those blocks. Meanwhile the miners who are following what the majority wants will be getting the rewards instead. Thus, the system will overcome any momentum and self correct to be aligned with incentives.
Very interesting thread. But I get confused. If someone solo mining solves a block does he gets the 60% percent of the reward of it no matter what(not having to do anything else) or not? So can someone just earn coins by only mining(not buying lottery tickets) while someone else can earn coins by only investing in buying lottery tickets?
Yes, with a couple of clarifications: Buying lottery tickets isn't really the correct way to describe it. You're buying stake tickets which are randomly called upon to vote (via the lottery system). The action of voting is what generates the reward. The "no matter what" part isn't completely accurate because, just like in bitcoin, it's possible the block is reorganized out of the chain and Decred also introduces the possibility for the stake voters to veto/invalidate the block with the next block if the generated block is against their wishes. However, yes, the vast majority of the time once a block is mined, the miner will get 60% of the subsidy as long as it conforms to consensus rules and majority stake holder desires. The net effect is both PoW miners and PoS voters secure the network in exchange for being incentivized to do so.
Thank you, the proof of stake portion of decred was a bit dense before this discussion. I appreciate everybody participating and teasing out the edge scenarios for how this will actually work. My own question is if you aren't interested in mining, but are interested in pooling together for PoS, how does one go about doing that?
Given that the test and main networks aren't released yet, there isn't really aren't any specifics that can be given yet. I'm sure once everything gets rolling, more specific details and instructions will be compiled. Please read the thread. This has already been answered in detail.
Thanks for the clarifications. So I guess we need to wait for the mining launch to really see and understand how this PoW / PoS hybrid works.
@davecgh Can you help the community to build the first POS mining pool? Or can we have any suggesstion or advice on how to build up a POS pool? Thanks a lot.
@davecgh thanks for the answers, very interesting, couple questions which i havent been able to figure out. How does buying a ticket work, is it through the wallet with a simple "buy ticket" button or something or does it require some tech knowledge? Does the wallet allow you to monitor the tickets that you have bought? Like which are still valid and which have been expired. How will you get noticed if your ticked gets selected and how do you vote yes or no, again through a gui or is it technical? What kind of rewards are there for stakers? So stakeholders are incentiviced through a reward to vote, but on the other hand they need to buy a stake ticket(s) first, i guess the reward is higher then the stake tickets price in order for people to buy, or how does that work out? Lets say the reward i get for getting selected is lower than the actual ticket i bought why would i apart from having the right to vote buy tickets? As a miner how do i know the block i mined has been vetoed against and how do i adapt to blocks that the majority has voted yes on, is there a lot of switching between blocks required? I am a beginner in mining so not sure how this would work as a miner.
I personally wouldn't be able to contribute code to it for some time because I have a list of things I need to get to that is already probably at least 2-3 months of work and I'm sure more will come up in the mean time. That said, I know that building a stake pool is one of the top priorities for the devs after launch. I think involving the community there would be ideal. I don't mind providing guidance as needed.
Just read @above https://forum.decred.org/threads/understanding-of-pos-for-decred.180/page-2#post-2506
I would be interested in how to set parameters for which blocks i vote "yes" on e.g. only if it has more than x tx.