Proof of work and blockchain

[Luca Matteis]

Hi all,

I understand, after reading the paper, that the PoW is used to secure the blockchain which contains the usernames (mapped to their addresses) so that users can use usernames rather than the long unreadable addresses.

However I don't understand who's actually running the PoW. Is each peer running the PoW in the background? If yes, which algorithm? If it's a well known algorithm, wouldn't miners from cryptocurrencies (which have ASICs laying around) be able to fork the blockchain and replace certain blocks and obtain control of specific usernames?

Thanks for any clarification,

Luca

[Miguel Freitas]

Luca,

We use Scrypt algo for PoW, so in that sense we are closer to Litecoin than Bitcoin.

But we also do soft check points, read about it here:

http://twister.net.co/?p=245

PoW is not performed in background for every peer unless you explicitly enable it. If you do so, you will be able to send promoted messages whenever you "mine" a new block.

regards,

Miguel

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[Luca Matteis]

Thanks Miguel,

Sorry for the late reply, have been busy. So the soft checkpoints idea
is really cool and I applaud you to be the actual first implementation
of this (don't think bitcoin has implemented this yet).

Anyway, I'm still wondering how an emerging mining system, which is
not backed by currency, would work. I understand that the incentive is
the "promotion" tweet. The problem I see is that once you reach a
large base of miners, finding a block becomes exponentially rare. This
is why there are pools in bitcoin; because it's actually almost
impossible to find a block for solo miners at the current difficulty.
How do you deal with this issue?

Best,
Luca

[Julian Steinwachs]

The other day i had this idea, that there could be a DAO [1] type of
twister fund that would send out e.g. bitcoin for every promoted post
that contains a bitcoin address. That fund would be filled voluntarily
by individuals and at some point also businesses that have an interest
in a secure twister blockchain. No change in the software required.

For both types of mining, my new crazy idea and ad-based mining, there
can always be mining pools. For the ads the pool would simply resell the
ads and split the money.

If hell breaks loose, the twister blockchain could be sealed off and new
registrations could happen in the ethereum blockchain, but that would
mean that every user has to pay upfront to join twister.

Greetings

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_Autonomous_Organization