Vitalik Buterin continues on "Tweet Storm" about Casper of Ethereum

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin launched a "tweet storm" on August 16, allegedly to succinctly explain the Casper protocol to the crypto-enthusiast while rejecting rumors and misunderstandings.

The 75-tweet update from Buterin showed the developer's rage with commonly-spread rumors, in addition to fear, uncertainty, and doubts ( FUD ). Casper, the pole test project (PoS) of the blockchain protocol, also explained.

Buterin kicked off his tweet storm at the beginning when Ethereum was in his concept of 2014. At the time, the lesser known but significant developer, Vlad Zamfir was taking into account a system of incentives that required network validators to "deposit" deposits, "much larger than the premiums, which could be removed for misbehavior." [19659003] Despite his lack of presence in the media, Zamfir dedicated the lion's share of his time to the construction of Casper, which Buterin highlighted:

4. Here is the story of Vlad: https://t.co/ODnHkHHeWS

– Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) August 16, 2018

List of the results of the protocol, Buterin noted the threat of "long-range attack" as a point of discussion with Zamfir. He also said that proof-of-work proponents argue that such attacks are inevitable with the PoS system, mainly using this argument to reject the consensus mechanism. That said, Buterin tweeted:

9. We realized that we could tackle long-range attacks by introducing a further security assumption: clients connect at least once every four months (and deposits take four months to retreat) and customers simply refuse to go back .

– Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) 16 August 2018

10. This was an anathema for PoW advocates because it seems like a guesswork of trust: you need to get the blockchain from a trusted source when syncing for the first time.

– Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) August 16, 2018

Buterin added that Zamfir's proposal was initially ignored in favor of a "consensus for bet", an article he considered "unproductive"

15. I have undertaken a long, long and unproductive, tangent to a direction I have called "consensus for bet": https://t.co/dIdFX0HCpv

– Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) August 16 , 2018

17. The theory was that PoW also has this property, given that mining is a bet where if you bet on the right chain, you earn (reward – mining cost), and if you point on the wrong chain, the cost of mining is lost except that with PoS we could push the odds on betting much higher.

– Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) August 16th, 2018

Over time, Zamfir has highlighted the errors in Buterin's proposal and introduced the latter in a different school of thought "corrected by construction":

20. Vlad decided that the traditional BFT was lame (in particular he did not like the hard thresholds, like the 2/3 in PBFT and Tendermint), and would try to reinvent the BFT theory from scratch, using an approach that he called "Correct by construction" (CBC

– Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) 16 August 2018

At this point, Zamfir's research laid the groundwork for Casper and its FFG (Friendly Finality Gadget) update, which could overlap with any PoS system to add purpose guarantees.In those years, Buterin fiddled with various iterations of the Byzantine fault tolerant algorithm strongly focused on block voting mechanisms that later identified themselves with the following article:

27. I managed to simplify PBFT (https://t.co/bvJ0N7PDwq) and translate it into the blockchain context, describing it as four "cutting conditions", rules that indicate which combinations of messages they are self-contradictory and therefore illegal: https: //t.co/ch1rcaPLLl

– Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) 16 August 2018

After much simplification of the above proposal, it was formed the Casper FFG:

30. In the end I simplified the minimum four-to-two reduction conditions, and from there came Casper the Friendly Finality Gadget (FFG), which was designed to be usable as an overlay on any PoW or PoS or other blockchain to add guarantees of purpose .

– Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) 16 August 2018

Buterin revealed that Zamfir and himself criticized their works and their solutions; the two even argued over the search for synergy to escape the 51% attacks. At that time, Zamfir worked with Georgios Piliouras to estimate the cost of launching a feared attack on the network Ethereum :

47. Meanwhile, my main criticisms of Vlad's model were "attacks of discouragement", in which the attackers could credibly threaten to make an attack of to 51% which makes everyone lose, thus pushing all the others to retreat, dominating the chain at almost zero cost

– Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) August 16, 2018

Following endless arguments, Zamfir and Buterin achieved success in their respective paintings, with the This last one addresses the "enormous progress" made by FFG regarding the blockchain Ethereum .

However, Buterin later revealed that FFG was highly incompatible with Sharding and ESwarm, which were both updates to increase the scalability of the network:

53. Unfortunately, the development of FFG has slowed down. The decision to implement FFG as a contract made some things easier, but made things more difficult, and also meant that the possible transition from EVM to EWASM and Casper single-chain to Casper in series, it would have been more difficult.

– Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) 16 August 2018

55. In June 2018, we made the fatal decision to eliminate "the hybrid Casper FFG as a contract", and instead we pursue the full Casper as an independent chain, designed in such a way that the integration of sharding would be much easier [19659003] – Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) August 16, 2018

Not one to move back, Buterin shared that the team focused its research efforts on a hybrid solution compatible in sync with the evolution of Ethereum blockchain. He then unveiled the idea of ​​Casper's "chain of beacons", which tries to integrate the whole PoS protocol.

Concluding his tweet storm, Buterin highlighted several conversations with Zamfir about the tolerant 99% Leslie Lamport algorithms based on GHOST fork choices and validation rules.

The co-founder of Ethereum concluded his long narrative of 75 tweets on a forward-looking note:

75. What remains now? On the FFG side, formal tests, refinements of specifications and ongoing progress on implementation (already started by> = 3 teams!), With an eye to safe and fast distribution. On the CBC side, much of the same. Forward and upward!

– Vitalik Non-donor of Ether (@VitalikButerin) August 16, 2018