ishishkin

I assume you agree with my argument. It's reasonable to assume that block delay in PoW network has log-normal distribution too. Let's see what will happen if we add delay due to the block mining. If there is a Poisson point process, then time delay between two arrivals in it has exponential distribution. Then if we add to random variables, one with log-normal distribution and one with exponential distribution, then we will get a random variable with log-normal distribution. So in the case of PoW we have the same type of probability distribution as in PoS! So there is no any problem here. Your original argument is invalid.

> There's some confusion in this question. A log normal distribution is proof enough that multiplication exists.

Ha-ha. Maybe it's a good reason to forge the evidence. However, it doesn't mean you can't forge an additive law here!

In 3 you can add value of house to the value of car instead of "multiplying" them. In 7 you can add values "cent by cent". "Multiplicative cycle" in 5 is a real conspiracy theory. Is there the same thing for "cow's milk"? Could you increase milk yield with the same "multiplicative cycle"?

According to this logic bank interests for credits with "simple interest" should have a normal distribution and those with "compound interest" should have a log-normal one!

I can give you more simple criteria for all cases above:

1) "The length of comments" can't be negative

2) "Users' dwell time" can't be negative

3) income can't be negative

4) cow's don't suck milk from farmers

5) Law of Gravity works for rainfalls

6) Size rainfall droplets can't be negative

7) Payer is the one who pays

8) "Latency" and "delay" for nodes can't be negative too. It's very likely that it has a log-normal distribution as many other sort of delay.

Don't you think this claim should be supported by some reputable secondary source?

You appeal to your intuition. However, it could be misleading. Log-normal distribution has been found in many real world processes. Could you explain where is multiplication in cases below?

1) The length of comments posted in Internet discussion forums

2) Users' dwell time on online articles

3) income of 97%–99% of the population

4) Milk production by cows

5) Amounts of rainfall

6) Size distributions of rainfall droplets

7) The size of cash payments and size of transactions in Bitcoin

Many other examples could be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution

> Not sure what these two versions of the blockchain you're talking about are.

Really?! One version is "Vitalik's fork" and another one is "non-Vitalik's fork". Which one of them is a valid chain? Any idea?

Assume the attacker is Vitalik and there an "evidence" of his attack. Who will dare to slash him? Vitalik won't include this evidence into "Vitalik's fork". If Vitalik wants to have his own blockchain, nobody cares, isn't it?

> Vitalik Buterin came up with a solution for the nothing-at-stake problem

Is that a link to an article from a peer reviewed academic journal?

> There are several PoS networks out there such as Cosmos, Tezos, etc, holding more than a billion dollars. If there was an issue, someone would have hacked them by now.

I'll give you a hint: "slashing" is not a thing that sustains security of these networks.

But it doesn't mean there should be a normal distribution there! Have you ever heard about log normal distribution?

Is that a link to fairy tales from Vitalik? The fact that "stateless client" is written in Ethereum 2.0 roadmap is an evidence that this project has no future.

What has happened in 2014? Is that a time when brain-washing campaign in crypto-media has been started? "Slashing" is not a solution to this problem.

> They get slashed when anyone submits evidence of them doing this.

Who will record this "evidence" to the blockchain? Anyway there will be two versions of the blockchain. In one of them attacker's stake was not slashed and there is no any "evidence" of his malicious actions.

> ... both of your big-O comments have counter examples (check out Coda for 1)

Have you ever checked on your own any such "counter example"?

Block propagation time is only a part of the problem and it doesn't make sense to consider it separately from other parameters. By the way, why do you think block times in PoS have a normal distribution?

But at what cost? There is no chance it could preserve the same level of decentralization.

There is no validation of blocks in a "stateless manner". Network is secured by those validators who know what they validate.