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Hugo Nguyen Profile picture
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12 Jul, 9 tweets, 3 min read
Can MEV happen in PoW? Yes.

Will it be a big deal? No.

IMO the mistake with these doomsday analyses of PoW in the fees era is to assume non-adaptive behavior.

Simply waiting for more confs under PoW will give strong protection against reorgs (CZ-like scenario). Not so for PoS.
The likelihood of reorgs is beyond just fees variance.

How to calculate the optimal number of confirmations?

...while accounting for events like CZ trying to roll back the chain?

This is a rich research and software development area, IMO.

Game Theory is hard!

A secure system needs to assume that people are, at times, irrational.

Hence I think the focus should be spent on simplifying the underlying Bitcoin protocol, ossification, and striving towards as much decentralization as possible.

I'm bullish on these fronts.

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More from @hugohanoi

Hugo Nguyen Profile picture
5 Jan
A friend, who's a seasoned CFA analyst, cited Buffett's criticism of Bitcoin that it's a nonproductive asset and most successful Bitcoin investors were "lucky", i.e. investing based on sentiment not skill (like valuing stocks based on DCF).

Of course I need to play defense 🙂 1/
First of all, I’ve always been a fan of Buffett. Love his autobiography “Snowball” and I take his compounding interest lesson to heart. In investing and everything else in life: everything compounds. Knowledge, friendship, etc. 2/
I also love his humility, most successful people have a lot of luck on their side, whether they know it or not. There’s no such thing as a self-made man (Ovarian Lottery theory). 3/
Read 25 tweets
Hugo Nguyen Profile picture
31 Oct 20
I just published Introducing Nunchuk: Multisig Made Easy link.medium.com/7uYBIDxk2ab
(Bitcoin, year 11.)

Alice: This year sucks. You know what’s almost as bad as 2020?
Bob: Yeah?
Alice: Multisig is still scary.
Nunchuk: Hold my beer.

1/
It’s somewhat ironic that for a technology that reveres decentralization as its central operating principle, Bitcoin still heavily relies on single point of failure as the dominant method of ownership. 2/
Read 32 tweets
Hugo Nguyen Profile picture
12 Apr 20
Why S2F has been misapplied in Bitcoin, in mathematical terms:

By using S2F and by restricting ‘flow’ to merely rewards, you are saying Bitcoin supply is an integral function (of changes in supply over time).

But asymptotically changes are zero. There’s nothing to integrate.
Applying S2F to things that are not integrals in nature is a mistake. Math is useful only when it’s applied correctly to phenomenon. It’s mental masturbation otherwise.
Examples of things with true S2F characteristics: population, CO2 concentration, the Bitcoin’s ledger (security strength as an integral of fee flows over time)

link.medium.com/dQ2RDcS3B5
Read 6 tweets
Hugo Nguyen Profile picture
28 Jan 19
Last few words on @VladZamfir's poor piece of “work” (or is it propaganda?).

A 18-min rant to express what are some very simple ideas should be enough of a major red flag. But let me point out some tactics/fallacies. They are used elsewhere in this “space” too.
Tactics/fallacies used:
(a) “Call black white, white black”
(b) Deflection
(c) Framing
(d) Ad Hominem
(e) Intentional Vagueness
When someone suggests Zamfir’s idea invites centralized control/reinvents the status quo, note that he doesn’t respond to that point directly.
Read 15 tweets
Hugo Nguyen Profile picture
31 Dec 18
1/ People have asked me to elaborate on the “verification-not-computation” point. And why Ethereum has a flawed architecture from the get-go.

Thread. 👇

*Note: I use “blockchain systems” to refer to Bitcoin-like blockchains that are based on PoW.
2/ First of all, Greg Maxwell explained verification-not-computation concept so well already so I highly recommend reading his full post, linked in @TuurDemeester ’s thread here.
3/ @BobMcElrath also succinctly described the problem here.
Read 32 tweets
Hugo Nguyen Profile picture
29 Sep 18
1/ Emin again with the BS that PoW’s role is merely a “Sybil-controlled mechanism”. (And therefore PoS is a reasonable drop-in replacement.)

It’s the classic mistake domain experts make when analyzing systems purely from their Point-of-View.
2/ Here is Emin’s original “lecture” for reference

I seriously hope Emin is not the only one teaching blockchain at @Cornell. Because he is dead wrong.
3/ Reducing PoW’s role to Sybil control is like an alien looking at cars and conclude that their main purpose is for protecting people from external objects. When they try to create the same thing, they might end up with something like the Flintstones’ car. 🙄
Read 12 tweets

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