Abstract: Although in 2018 Bitcoin may have somewhat moved on beyond this issue, in this sixth piece on consensus forks and chainsplits, we provide a list of 44 tokens which seem to have forked away from Bitcoin since the Bitcoin Cash split.

(Source: gryb25)

From late 2015 to the end of 2017, there was significant focus and analysis in the Bitcoin community about a chainsplits, finally resulting in the launch of Bitcoin Cash and then a plethora of other tokens. We have already covered some of topics related to these splits, in the five articles below:

• Bitcoin Cash: Potential Price Implications of Investment Flow Data
• The SegWit2x (B2X) Hardfork – Protecting Yourself and Your Coins, Part 1: Coin Splitting
• The SegWit2x (B2X) Hardfork – Protecting Yourself and Your Coins, Part 2: Investment Strategies
• The Bitfinex chain split tokens
• A complete history of Bitcoin’s consensus forks

In this sixth piece we list 44 Bitcoin forked tokens.

List of Bitcoin forked coins since Bitcoin Cash

(Source: BitMEX Research, Forked coin websites, findmycoins.ninja)

Please note it is very important to handle these new fork tokens with caution. In particular, we would strongly advise you not to import your Bitcoin private key into any new fork token wallets without first spending the Bitcoin to a new output associated with a different private key after the token snapshot point, so that your Bitcoin is not at risk.

Abstract

We look at Bitmain’s new Ethereum miner and notice that it may be less energy efficient than one might expect for an ASIC. We explore the possibility that this miner contains a new more advanced form of technology, which is less efficient than ASICs, but potentially partially immune to PoW algorithm changes. We then conclude that whether this particular Ethereum chip is capable of this or not, this type of technology may eventually end the era of anti-ASIC PoW changes designed to improve decentralisation, such that crypto-coin communities may have to accept the inevitability of ASICs.

Overview

Bitmain have recently launched a new Ethereum miner, widely believed to be an ASIC, and it is expected to ship in late July 2018. However, many in the Ethereum community oppose ASICs and prefer GPU mining, since GPU companies are primarily concerned with gaming rather than crypto-coins, which should mean that the hardware is distributed more widely and fairly, improving decentralisation. Therefore a risk to Bitmain could be that the Ethereum community decide to hardfork to change the PoW algorithm, which could devalue the Bitmain machines and result in a large wasted investment.

In this report, we speculate that Bitmain may already be one step ahead of the Ethereum community. Bitmain may have already learnt a lesson with Monero, two coins which recently conducted PoW changes, potentially resulting in large devaluations of Bitmain’s ASIC chips. Developing a custom chip requires a considerable financial investment and therefore we think Bitmain may have taken some countermeasures to avoid another loss. Bitmain could have designed a new type of mining chip, less efficient that ASICs, but immune to PoW changes. This could make an Ethereum hardfork PoW change mostly pointless.

The recent Monero anti-ASIC PoW change

At the start of April 2018 the Monero community decided to hardfork and change the PoW algorithm, in an attempt to “brick” ASICs and make Monero more GPU-friendly. Due to sharp increases in hashrate, illustrated by Figure 1 and 2 below, the Monero community believed that ASIC manufacturers had developed Monero ASICs, in secret, and were mining the coin.

As Figure 2 shows below, the rolling 90-day hashrate growth rate reached c. 300% in the early part of 2018 (based on 7-day rolling averages). Even after factoring in the sharp increase in value of the Monero coin, this is an extraordinary growth rate. After Monero developers announced plans for a hardfork, Bitmain began to sell Monero ASICs on their website, indicating that they could indeed have been mining in secret. After the PoW change, as Figure 1 shows, the Monero hashrate dropped off significantly.

After the hardfork, the Monero chain split into two, with the original rules coin being called Monero Original (XMO). Although this coin had a lower value than Monero, it had a higher hashrate, since there was little else for the Monero ASICs to mine. There was no replay protection implemented for the split, however Monero increased the ring signature limit, therefore one can split Monero and Monero Original by first initiating a transaction on the Monero Original chain with fewer ring signatures than are allowed on Monero (less than 7).

Figure 1 – Monero hashrate compared to Monero price

Source: Coinmarketcap, BitMEX Research

Figure 2 – Monero hashrate compared to Monero price – Rolling 90-day percentage growth of 7-day moving average

Source: Coinmarketcap, BitMEX Research

Note: In the 7 days following the PoW hardfork, the hashrate rolling average excludes the period prior to the hardfork

Bitmain’s new Ethash miner

As we mentioned above, Bitmain has recently launched a new Ethereum miner, which is expected to ship around late July 2018. Given the history with Monero and the fact that many in the Ethereum community, including those mining Ethereum at home on GPUs, are likely to be unhappy at a new Bitmain product, Bitmain may be concerned. One downside to the new miner could be increased miner centralization, but in addition to this, the product may also receive hostility from some in the Ethereum community due to their financial interests in the existing Ethereum miners, GPUs. Bitmain’s management is not stupid, and therefore in our view the company is likely to act with caution and may have taken measures to mitigate against some of these risks.

Figure 3 – Bitmain’s new Ethereum miner: the Antminer E3

Specifications:

• Power consumption: 800W
• Hashrate: 180MH/s

Source: Bitmain

The advertised specification of the product is disclosed above. As the table below illustrates, a back -of-the-envelope calculation could imply this new Ethereum miner is less efficient than one would expect if it was an ASIC, based on comparisons with the efficiency gain measured on some of the other ASICs related to other coins. For instance a Bitcoin ASIC is c. 521x more efficient than an FPGA, while the Monero ASIC is c. 88x more efficient than a GPU. In contrast the new Ethereum miner is only c. 1.4x more efficient than a GPU. This could indicate that the new Ethereum miner is not an ASIC at all, but merely a new device more efficient than the existing GPU miners. However, we appreciate that the below table is a crude approximation which ignores many crucial variables and factors, such as the memory-intensive nature of the Ethereum mining algorithm. But although the calculation is inaccurate, the figures can still potentially illustrate a point:

Figure 4 – Approximate miner efficiency calculations

Source: BitMEX Research, Bitmain
Note: Figures are approximations

Mining chip types & Vector processors (VPs)

As Figure 5 below illustrates, when Bitcoin launched in 2009, mining was conducted using CPUs. However, the architectures of GPUs and FPGAs are more efficient at processing repetitive hash operations. Therefore the network shifted, first to GPUs and then to FGPAs. In 2013, ASICs designed for specific hash functions emerged. Compared to CPUs, GPUs and FPGAs, ASICs are far more efficient at running a particular algorithm, however excluding this, ASICs are far less efficient or actually totally useless.

Figure 5 – Crypto-coin chip type timeline

Source: BitMEX Research
Note: The inclusion of Vector Processors (VPs) towards the end of 2018 is speculative

It might be possible that Bitmain has developed a new type of chip, a Vector Processor. The architecture of this chip could be designed for PoW hash functions in general, but not for a specific hash function. These chips could then be more efficient than GPUs and FPGAs, but less efficient than ASICs. The advantage over ASICs is that they could be, in some respects, immune to PoW changes. It is possible that the new Ethereum miner falls into this category of chip, although this is mostly speculation on our part.

Figure 6 – The evolution of crypto-coin chip types

Higher efficiency

It is possible that Bitmain’s new Ethereum miner is tailored for Ethash, in that the components inside the miner such as the electric circuits, power control devices, memory and control modules could all be specifically calibrated for mining Ethereum. However the chip itself, which is the area that requires by far the most financial investment, could be more general and not specifically designed for Ethereum. Therefore if Ethereum conducts a PoW change, it could be possible to direct the chips into a new device as they leave the foundry or perhaps even recover the chips from the old device put them into a new Ethereum miner. Although again, at this point we are speculating.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology

At TSMC’s latest set of quarterly results on 19th April 2018, Co-CEO Mark Lie said the following:

[Bitmain] is doing a lot of things on blockchain technology, like AI. They are doing very well. We expect them to slowly move to the AI area.

Source: Q1 2018 earnings call

“AI” is a term with many meanings. Although at this point the situation is unclear, it is possible that any new Vector Processor chips could be what TSMC mean by AI technology. Since any such chip may be able to switch between hashing algorithms, at a stretch, one could argue this falls within the scope of AI. It remains to be seen if the chip is merely programmable, like modern GPUs, or if there is a trick up its sleeve that could give it an efficiency gain vs. GPUs in most cases. If present, this advanced technological capability is likely to be seen as a major achievement for Bitmain. Such technology may also be even more expensive to develop and more specialised than the technology in ASICs, which could make the decentralisation problem even worse.

Ethereum hashrate growth – No evidence of deployment of the new chips

Despite the above, we have not yet seen any strong indications of the deployment of the new chips on the Ethereum network. As Figures 7 and 8 below indicate, Ethereum’s hashrate appears, broadly speaking, to be following a normal trend given the price volatility.

Figure 7 – Ethereum hashrate compared to Ethereum price and NVidia GPU sales

Source: Bloomberg, Etherscan.io, Coinmarketcap, Nvidia, BitMEX Research

Figure 8 – Ethereum hashrate compared to Ethereum price – Rolling 90-day percentage growth of 7-day moving average

Source: Bloomberg, Etherscan.io, Coinmarketcap, BitMEX Research

Conclusion

When discussing the possibility that Bitmain’s new Ethereum miner isn’t an ASIC and that the new chip may be somewhat immune to PoW changes, Vitalik Buterin told us:

I have a very similar impression myself

Despite what we have said above, most of the content in this article should be considered guesswork. However, even if we are wrong about this particular chip, we still think it is reasonably likely that at some point in the future, Bitmain or another company, will develop a general-purpose hashing chip, which is more efficient than GPUs for almost all hashing algorithms. At this point the era of anti-ASIC PoW changes could be over, with crypto-coin communities having to make a choice between two potentially unfavourable outcomes:

1. Allowing ASICs, or,
2. Allowing general purpose hashing chips, where technologies and production capabilities could be even more concentrated.

Unless of course proof-of-stake systems prove robust enough.

Disclaimer

Whilst many claims made in this note are cited, we do not guarantee accuracy. We welcome corrections.

Abstract

In this piece we examine proof of stake (PoS) consensus systems.  We look at their theoretical advantages and weaknesses. We then analyse the specific details of some of the most prominent and novel PoS systems attempted thus far, where we learnt that some pure PoS systems becomes increasingly complex, to the point which they became unrealistic. We review the latest Ethereum proposal, which we think is a significant improvement compared to previous attempts and it could provide net security benefits for the Ethereum network. However, the system may still be reliant on proof of work (PoW), which is still used to produce the blocks and at this point it is not entirely clear to us if the PoS element of the process contributes to ensuring nodes converge on one chain.

Introduction

Before diving into the specifics of Proof of Stake (PoS), it’s important to clarify what one is trying to achieve when building these consensus systems. Essentially one is trying to construct a data structure with the following properties:

1. No one entity controls the content of the data (distributed storage and verification of the data is not sufficient);
2. The database can move forward, (Casper terminology: “Liveness”); and crucially
3. Participants agree on the content of the data i.e. nodes have a mechanism to decide between conflicting valid chains (Casper terminology: “Safety”)

PoW uses the most accumulated work rule to decide between competing valid chains (fork choice rule). This is not only an apparent solution to criteria three above, but the PoW mechanism also inherently solves the block production and block timing issue. While total accumulated work is the fork choice rule, a block producer is also required to include an element of PoW in each block, a stochastic process, and therefore the issue of who produces each block and when each block is produced, is also be addressed by PoW.

PoS is the general concept of a fork choice rule based on the most accumulated stake (i.e. the chain with the most coins backing, voting or betting on it). However, unlike PoW, this does not necessarily directly address the issue of who produces each block or when blocks are produced. Therefore these issues may need to be addressed by alternative mechanisms. PoW is also a solution to the coin distribution problem, something which may also require an alternative solution in PoS based systems.

Theoretical overview of PoS

The byzantine generals problem

The Byzantine generals problem illustrates some of the  main challenges involved when attempting to construct a data structure with the properties mentioned above. Essentially the issue is about timing and how to determine which updates to the ledger occurred first. Actually if one third or more of the actors are disruptive, the problem is provably unsolvable, from a mathematical standpoint, as Leslie Lamport proved in 1982.

It is shown that, using only oral messages, [reaching agreement] is solvable if and only if more than two-thirds of the generals are loyal; so a single traitor can confound two loyal generals

Source: The Byzantine Generals Problem (1982)

PoW can therefore be considered as an imperfect hack, which seems a reasonably strong Byzantine fault tolerant system, but certainly not a mathematically robust one. It is in this context, of imperfect systems, which one should analyse PoS alternatives, as like PoW, these systems will also have flaws.

In PoS there are two competing philosophies. One of which is derived from PoW. Coins based on this include Peercoin, Blackcoin and earlier iterations of Ethereum’s PoS proposals. The second philosophy, is based more on Lamport’s academic research from the 1980s and embraces the conclusion Lamport reached that a two-thirds majority is required to build a Byzantine fault tolerant system. Ethereum’s current iteration of the Casper proposal adopts this second approach.

Advantages of PoS

PoS is typically looked at in the context of PoW, as an alternative which solves or mitigates against negative externalities or problems inherent in PoW based systems:

More environmentally friendly

Perhaps the most widely cited advantage of PoS systems is the absence of the energy intensive process which PoW requires. If PoS based systems can achieve the same useful characteristics as PoW systems, environmental damage can be avoided. This is a significant positive for PoS, although as we discussed in our piece on Bitcoin’s energy consumption, the problem may be slightly overstated, due to the incentive to use lower cost or otherwise failed energy projects as a source of power, limiting environmental damage.

Stronger alignment of incentives

Another major problem with PoW based systems is that the interest of miners may not align with that of coin holders, for example miners could sell the coins they mine and then only care about the short term, not long term coin value. Another issue is that hashrate could be leased, with the lesee having little or no economic interest in the long term prospects of the system. PoS directly ties the consensus agents to an investment in the coin, theoretically aligning interests between investors and consensus agents.

Mining centralisation & ASICs

Another key advantage of PoS based systems is potentially improving decentralisation. PoW mining has a number of centralising forces which are not applicable to PoS:

• ASIC production is expensive and centralised (In Bitcoin Bitmain has a high market share);
• Chip foundries are expensive and centralised (TSMC, Intel, Samsung & SMIC are the only players with scale);
• ASIC related technologies can potentially be patented;
• There may be a limited number of cheap energy sources, with restricted access; and
• Many aspects of mining can have economies of scale, such as maintenance costs and energy costs, resulting in centralisation.

General and economic weaknesses of PoS

An incomplete solution

As we alluded to above, Satoshi’s PoW systems appears to kill four birds with one stone:

• • Chain selection (the fork choice rule),
  • Coin distribution,
  • Who produces blocks, and
  • When blocks are produced.

PoS only appears to be a proposed solution to the chain selection problem, leaving the other problems open. Although these other issues could be less significant than the chain selection issue.

An “unfair” economic model

One of the most common criticisms of PoS systems is that they allocate new funds in proportion to the existing holdings. Therefore the “rich get richer” and it results in a few wealthy users holding a higher proportion of the wealth than the more egalitarian PoW alternative. If one invests in a PoS system at the start, you can maintain your share of the wealth, alternatively in a PoW system your wealth is diluted as new rewards are distributed to miners. Indeed, if rewards are allocated in proportion to the existing holdings, one could argue its not inflation at all and that the reward is economically equivalent to adding more zeros to the currency. Therefore one can even claim the reward system is pointless and does not provide an incentive at all. However this only applies if all users become PoS validators, while in reality some users will want to use the funds for other purposes.

Risk of a loss of funds

Another issue is that staking requires signing a message from a system connected to the internet. Therefore stakers are required to have a “hot wallet” which increases the risk that funds are exposed to theft from hackers. Although it may be possible to mitigate this downside by having a private key only entitled to stake for a short period of time, after which the balance reverts back to the owner. Although if there is a slashing rule (punishment for voting on two conflicting chains), a hacker could conduct action which destroys the funds even if this mitigation strategy is used. Another potential mitigation strategy could be the creation of specialist hardware for staking.

Technical & convergence weaknesses of PoS

Nothing at Stake

Core to the consensus problem is timing and the order of transactions. If two blocks are produced at the same time, PoW solves the problem by a random process, whichever block is built on top of first can take the lead and then miners are incentivised to build on the most work chain. PoW requires energy, a finite real world resource and therefore miners have to decide which chain to allocate this resource to.

In contrast this process in PoS based systems is not entirely clear. If two blocks are produced at the same time, each conflicting block can build up stake. Eventually one block may have more stake than the other, which could make it the winner. The problem here is that if stakers are allowed to change their mind to back the winner, such that the system converges on one chain, why would they not use their stake on multiple chains?

After-all stake is a resource inherent to the chain and not linked to the real world, therefore the same stake can be used on two conflicting chains. Herein lies the so called “Nothing at stake” problem, which we view as the most significant issue facing PoS.

The “Nothing at Stake” problem

The long range attack consensus problem

Another potential issue with PoS is the so called “long range attack” problem. This is the idea that attackers could, for instance, buy a private key which had a large token balance in the past and then generate an alternative history from that point, awarding oneself more and more rewards based on PoS validation. Due to the large amount of rewards given to the attacker, one could then generate a higher stake chain than the existing chain and a large multi year chain re-organisation could be performed.

The solution to this problem is checkpointing, which is the process of locking in a certain chain state once a certain stake threshold has been met, such that it can never be re-organised. Critics argue that this solution requires one to keep their node online at all times, since an offline node cannot checkpoint. Some claim that if one goes offline, the security model therefore degenerates to “ask a friend”, since one is dependent on asking others for their checkpoints. Although in the past the Bitcoin reference implementation included checkpoints, the purpose of these was to speed up the initial sync, although the impact of this could be said to result in an “ask a friend” security model.

However, in our view this is a matter of different priorities. If one wants each individual user to fully verify all the rules and the state of the system, then relying in these checkpoints is insufficient. Indeed, the Satoshi’s original vision appears to imply that the ability of nodes to be switched off and then verify what happened when was was gone is potentially important:

Nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone

Source: Bitcoin Whitepaper

Although the ecosystem is expanding, many businesses and exchanges operate 24×7 and are therefore required to keep a node running all the time, and can therefore do checkpointing. There are strong incentives preventing them from allowing a large chain re-organisation. To many, this is sufficient security and the risks posed by the long range attack problem are therefore irrelevant or too theoretical.

Stake grinding

In a pure PoS system, stakers also need to produce blocks. These systems have often worked by selecting a sequence of authorised block producers randomly from a pool, where the probability is proportional to the stake. The issue here is a source of randomness is required inside the consensus system. If the blocks themselves are used for generating the entropy, stakers could try to manipulate the content in blocks in order to allocate themselves future blocks. Stakers may then need more and more computing power to try more and more alternative blocks, until they are allocated a future block. This then essentially results in a PoW system.

In our view, the stake grinding problem is less of a fundamental problem with PoS, when compared to significant issues like the nothing at stake problem. All that is required to solve this problem is a source of entropy in the network and perhaps an Ethereum smart contract like the RanDAO, in which anyone can participate, can solve this problem.

Case Studies – Peercoin & Ethereum’s Casper

1 – Peercoin – 2012

Overview

Peercoin is a hybrid PoW and PoS system, built on the idea of coin age. The fork choice rules is the blockchain with highest total consumed coin age.

Coin age is simply defined as currency amount times holding period. In a simple to understand example, if Bob received 10 coins from Alice and held it for 90 days, we say that Bob has accumulated 900 coin-days of coin age

Source: Peercoin Whitepaper

In Peercoin, some blocks were produced purely using PoW, whilst other blocks were produced using PoW where the difficulty adjusts based on the coin age destroyed by the miner in the transaction (the coinstake transaction as opposed to a coinbase transaction). “For example, if Bob has a wallet-output which accumulated 100 coin-years and expects it to generate a [PoS block] in 2 days, then Alice can roughly expect her 200 coin-year wallet-output to generate a [PoS block] in 1 day.

Analysis

Conclusion

At the time Peercoin was an interesting early novel approach, however the proposal resulted in a centralised system, not able to match the properties of PoW.

2 – Ethereum – Caper full PoS system – 2015

Overview

This is a full PoS proposal, based on “consensus by bet” methodology.

• Blocks are produced from a pool of block producers, a random number generator is used to select whose turn it is to produce a block and then the producer is given a time window in which they can produce a valid block.
• There is a set of bonded validators, one must be in the set to make or take bets on blocks.
• Validators can then make or take bets on block propositions, providing a probability each time, representing the return betters can make.
• After several rounds of betting, as the probability approaches 1 or 99%, the block is considered final.

Source: Ethereum Blog

Betting strategy

According to the Ethereum blog, betting should occur using the following strategies by default:

• If the block is not yet present, but the current time is still very close to the time that the block should have been published, bet 0.5.
• If the block is not yet present, but a long time has already passed since the block should have been published, bet 0.3.
• If the block is present, and it arrived on time, bet 0.7.
• If the block is present, but it arrived either far too early or far too late, bet 0.3.
• Some randomness is added in order to help prevent “stuck” scenarios, but the basic principle remains the same.

The default betting strategy had a formula (given below), to push the probability away from 0.5, such that the chain would move forward, with the probability expecting to either approach zero or one.

Let e(x) be a function that makes x more “extreme”, ie. pushes the value away from 0.5 and toward 1. A simple example is the piecewise function e(x) = 0.5 + x / 2 if x > 0.5 else x / 2

If a validator bets when the probability is 99%, the return is very small (a 1% return used as a measure from which the reward is calculated), in contrast a winning bet placed placed with odds of 0.5, represents a return of 100%, which results in a higher return from the rewards pool.

The fork choice rule then is the sum of all the weighted probabilities, which have crossed a certain threshold, say 0.99. For instance a chain of five blocks, each with a probability of 1 will represent a score of 5. Any validator who changes their mind after the 0.99 threshold has been crossed, can be punished (slashed) for staking on multiple chains. While changing your mind before the threshold is considered legitimate and there is no punishment in that scenario.

Analysis

In our view, this proposal is highly complex, which we consider as the main downside.

Conclusion

The proposal was not adopted by Ethereum. In our view the proposal was never complete, as some parameters and aspects of the system lacked a specification. Although the consensus by bet approach was interesting, it seemed too complex and there were too many uncertainties. This approach illustrates the difficulties involved when constructing full PoS systems and how when one tries to address the weaknesses, it just results in more and more complexity, until the system becomes unfeasible.

3 – Ethereum – Latest version of Casper – The hybrid PoW/PoS System – 2018

Overview

The current Casper proposal represents a change in philosophy or a pivot, compared to some of the earlier PoS systems. It returns to the academic work of Lamport in the 1980s and Lamport’s theorem that these systems work if and only if two-thirds of agents in the system are honest. Therefore the current version of Casper is less ambitious than before. PoS is no longer used to produce blocks or decide on the timing of blocks, which is still done by PoW miners. The PoS system is used as a checkpointing process. In our view, this proposal is superior to the more complex earlier iterations of Casper.

The system works as follows:

• The PoS system is only used every 100 blocks, to provide an extra layer of assurance over PoW, as a checkpointing system.
• Participants in the PoS process send their Ether into a “validator pool”.
• Every 100 blocks validators put their stake behind a checkpoint block, whilst also referencing a previous checkpoint block. If two-thirds of the funds in the validator pool support a proposal, the block is considered “justified”.
• Once a block is justified, it can be used as a reference for future votes. Once two-thirds of the stake use a justified block as a reference, this justified block is considered finalised and this finality takes precedence over PoW.
• Validators votes are only valid 12 confirmations after the last checkpoint block.
• If the two thirds threshold is not met, the chain continues to progress based entirely on PoW.
• If stakers do any of the following banned behaviors, in return for a small 4% fee, a third party can submit a proof of this, such that the cheater loses their entire stake/deposit (slashing):
  1. Votes for multiple conflicting blocks at the same height.
  2. Votes for multiple conflicting blocks at different heights, but using conflicting reference blocks, unless the new reference block has more height.

The Ethereum reward structure will be adjusted, such that PoS validators also receive a share of the rewards, in addition to the PoW miners. As far as we can tell, the details of this new allocation have not been decided yet.

Analysis

The latest iteration of Casper is a significant improvement from earlier versions, in our view, primarily because of lower levels of complexity and greater reliance on PoW mining.

In theory, there are only three problems with the new proposal:

1. Over one third of the stakers refusing to participate – in which case we are just back to a PoW based system
2. Stakers changing their mind after finality such that more than two thirds supports an alternative chain – the long range attack problem
3. Stakers reaching two-thirds majority support for a lower PoW chain than the current leading PoW chain, a new way of causing a re-organisation. We view this as the most significant downside of this proposal.

Core to the assumption behind this system is that its PoW which drives the chain forwards and that the PoS system only comes into play, once the PoW miners have decided on a chain, PoS votes are not even valid before 12 miner confirmations. Indeed, if the two thirds majority cannot be achieved then the chain continues on a PoW basis.

Therefore, we conclude, that the core characteristic of this latest Casper proposal is that the PoW happens first, and only after this does PoS potentially provide an extra assurance against a chain re-organisation, orchestrated deliberately by a hostile PoW miners. PoW therefore still provides computational convergence, with the PoS mechanism defending against the threat of a human threat of a miner re-organisation. Therefore although PoS provides this safety, as point three above indicates, it also provides extra risk, therefore its not clear if there is a net benefit.

Other potential unresolved issues

In the event of a contentious hardfork and chainsplit, if the new chain alters the format of the validator checkpoint votes, two-thirds of the validators could conduct destructive re-organisations on the original chain, while avoiding punishment (slashing) due to the new voting format. Validators could therefore destroy the original chain, while still moving forward on a new chain of their choice. The system could therefore be less resilient to being shut down.

Exclusive BitMEX Research Interview with Vitalik Buterin on the latest Casper proposal

Question 1 – Even though the PoS system may provide more assurance than before, prior to the 34% voting threshold being reached, re-organisation risk may be higher, since a re-organisation can occur in more ways, both via PoS and via PoW. Are you concerned about the negatives of this?

I would say no. There are plenty of reasons to believe that it should not negatively impact stability. The pre-finalization chain scoring rule is “highest finalized epoch + total difficulty * epsilon”. There is a paper here that points out that any “monotonic” chain scoring rule is a Nash equilibrium; our scoring rule is clearly monotonic so it’s a Nash equilibrium. Both miners and validators use the chain scoring rule, so miners and validators would both naturally help the chain grow, not try to revert it. Casper FFG was deliberately designed in this way, to “play nice” both with “chain-based” intuitions of consensus as well as BFT-theoretic concepts of finality.

 

The only way in which “re-organisation risk may be higher” is either:

 

• If validators are more likely than miners to be majority-dishonest
• If the Casper-specific code has bugs

We accept that if either of these are true then Casper FFG can add risks.

Question 2 – How do you expect users and exchanges to behave? Should exchanges modify their behavior before crediting deposits, for example 2 confirmations plus 34% of validator votes?

If I ran an exchange I would do something like “wait 12 confirmations for deposits up to $10k, and finality for anything higher”

Question 3 – Will there be an overall confirmation score metric, combining both the impact of PoW and PoS, which exchanges can use?

I suppose it’s possible to create one. Here are a few distinct stages of confirmation that I can think of:

• A transaction has been included into a block, which is the head
  • which is the Nth ancestor of the head
  • which is an ancestor of a checkpoint C which is an ancestor of the head. Validators have started voting on C.
• Validators have justified C.
• A child of C, C’, exists, and validators have started voting on C’ to finalize C
• The child of C’ has >1/3 votes. At this point, at least one validator needs to actually be slashed for the transaction to be revertedC is finalized.

Conclusion

This latest PoS proposal is the best proposal so far, in our view. We think it may be adopted by Ethereum and it could make a net positive contribution to the security of the system. However, the system remains reliant on PoW mining, at least at the interim stage. PoW is relied on to resolve any Byzantine faults first, before the PoS process occurs. Therefore the system relies on PoW for both block production and for the crucial property of ensuring the system converges on one chain. Although PoS mining may mitigate some risks (hostile PoW miners), it is unclear if it makes a net contribution to convergence or security. Critics of PoS could therefore argue that any rewards redistributed from PoW miners to stakers unnecessarily dilutes system convergence and security.

Although we think the current proposal could work, the nothing at stake problem could still be a significant challenge. The jury is still out on whether this new mechanism solves this problem. Therefore despite the plan to use this proposal as a stepping stone, as part of a gradual shift towards a full PoS system, this could be more difficult to achieve than some in the Ethereum community think.

Disclaimer

Whilst many claims made in this note are cited, we do not guarantee accuracy. We welcome corrections.

Abstract: We look at the price correlation between Bitcoin and some traditional financial assets since 2012 and notice that the correlation with stocks in the last few months has reached record high levels, although it remains reasonably low in absolute terms. We conclude that a crypto-coin investment thesis of a “new non-correlated asset class” may therefore have some merit, although correlations may increase if the ecosystem expands. Due to the current correlation with stocks, Bitcoin may no longer offer downside protection in the event of a financial crisis, which some people may expect.

Overview

We calculated the 180-day rolling daily percentage price-change correlation between Bitcoin and a variety of traditional financial assets since 2012. As the chart below demonstrates, the correlation never really significantly escaped the -0.2 to +0.2 range, which is a reasonably low level.

Bitcoin price correlation versus various traditional assets – daily price percentage change over a rolling 180-day period. (Source: BitMEX Research, Bloomberg, Bitstamp)

Bitcoin vs. the S&P 500 and gold

Focusing on just the S&P 500 index and gold, it appears as if Bitcoin has experienced several periods of correlation.

• During the Bitcoin price rally in March 2013, which commentators at the time suggested was partially caused by the Cypriot financial crisis, the Bitcoin price correlation with gold increased and remained somewhat elevated until the January 2014 Bitcoin price crash.
• During the 2016 Bitcoin price rally, a moderately strong gold-price correlation returned again and gold and Bitcoin both had a strong year. This indicates that the same underlying economic factors and political uncertainty (the economic slowdown in China, Brexit, and the election of President Trump) may have contributed to price movements of both assets during this period.
• During the recent Bitcoin price rally, things appeared somewhat different, with the price correlation between Bitcoin and stocks reaching record levels (almost 0.25). In our view, Bitcoin appears to have obtained some “risk-on” characteristics in this rally. Increased levels of liquidity available to investors and the amount of enthusiasm for new technology, may be driving price movements in both stocks and Bitcoin, to some extent. Therefore Bitcoin may be less likely to provide protection in the event of a financial collapse or fall in equity markets, something traditionally considered one of Bitcoin’s potential strengths. In addition to this, the price correlation with gold recently became slightly negative.

Bitcoin price correlation between the S&P 500 index and gold – daily price percentage change over a rolling 180-day period. (Source: BitMEX Research, Bloomberg, Bitstamp)

Statistical significance

The R-squared between Bitcoin and other assets in the chart below is low, peaking at only 6.1% with the S&P 500 during the recent price rally. In addition to this, we have not been able to prove the statistical significance of any daily price-change correlation between Bitcoin and any traditional asset using any robust methodology. Scientifically speaking therefore, this article is speculative.

Bitcoin price R-Squared between the S&P 500 index and gold – daily price percentage change over a rolling 180-day period. (Source: BitMEX Research, Bloomberg, Bitstamp)

Recent price movements

Although it’s difficult to make any conclusions based on robust statistical methodology, due in part to the limited number of data points, a chart of the Bitcoin price versus the S&P 500 in the last few months shows a strong positive relationship, which is difficult to totally ignore.

Bitcoin price compared to the S&P 500 index. (Source: BitMEX Research, Bloomberg)

Indeed, as Bloomberg pointed out with the graph below, the peak of the Bitcoin price actually coincided with the peak forward earnings valuation ratio in the S&P 500. This comparison may be somewhat spurious, since the stock market actually peaked at the end of January (while Bitcoin peaked in December) and earnings estimates reset to higher levels for the year ending December 2018 at the end of 2017.

Bitcoin price compared to the S&P 500 index’s forward P/E ratio. (Source: Bloomberg)

Ethereum and Litecoin

We also looked at the rolling Bitcoin daily price-change correlation between Ethereum and Litecoin. The price correlation between these coins and Bitcoin is obviously far higher than for traditional assets and it is statistically significant. During the massive crypto-coin rally in 2017, the price correlation to Bitcoin fell dramatically to the 0.1 level, as altcoins traded against Bitcoin and moved more independently. After the price correction started in 2018, price correlations have began to climb as the coins seem to move together again.

• Litecoin — The correlation normally tends to be high, at around the 0.5 level. The price correlation dipped to around 0.2 in 2015, when there was not much Litecoin price action.
• Ethereum — After Ethereum launched, the system was reasonably small and exposed to some unique risks, such as uncertainty surrounding its launch and the model of giving funds to the founding team. Therefore its price correlation with Bitcoin started low before eventually reaching levels similar to Litecoin.

Bitcoin price correlation between Ethereum and Litecoin – daily price percentage change over a rolling 180-day period. (Source: BitMEX Research, Bloomberg, Bitstamp)

Conclusion

Crypto-coin proponents sometimes mention that crypto coins are a “new non-correlated asset class” that can provide a hedge for traditional portfolio managers. These traditional portfolio managers are then expected to allocate a weighting in their portfolios for crypto-coins, which may cause further price appreciation.

It appears that Bitcoin has been a reasonably non-correlated asset class throughout its history. During the recent rally to a valuation of hundreds of billions of dollars, however, correlations — and, crucially, correlations to risk-on assets — started to increase.

Although there is some merit to the hypothesis of crypto-coins not correlating with traditional assets, if crypto-coin prices remain elevated or increase further and become a significant part of the global financial system, higher correlation with traditional assets may become inevitable.

Whether crypto coins are a “new” asset class and whether this matters is another topic. It’s not clear if there is significant merit merely to being new; more importantly, perhaps, is if crypto-coins offer anything unique.

Abstract: In September 2017, we wrote a piece on the SegWit capacity increase. Here, we provide an update on SegWit adoption with six more months of transaction data. We also compare the transaction throughput to that of Bitcoin Cash, an alternative capacity-increase mechanism.

SegWit vs. Bitcoin Cash

The SegWit upgrade to the Bitcoin protocol occurred in August 2017. After this, users had the option of upgrading their wallets and using SegWit, which provides the benefits of about 41% more scale (assuming no other users also upgrade).

Around the same time, Bitcoin Cash provided an alternative mechanism for increasing capacity, in which one also needs to upgrade to a new wallet and adopt a new transaction format to get the benefit of more transaction throughput, although a main difference between this and SegWit’s approach is that Bitcoin Cash resulted in a new coin.

The transaction volumes of Bitcoin Cash and the new SegWit Bitcoin transaction format have been reasonably similar. Since the launch of Bitcoin Cash, 6.1 million SegWit transactions have taken place, only 20.1% more than the cumulative number of Bitcoin Cash transactions. These figures are remarkably close — although supporters of the SegWit capacity-increase methodology could claim that Bitcoin Cash had a one-month head start and that the Bitcoin Cash chain has lower transaction fees so that a comparison is not appropriate. Adjusting for the one-month head start, SegWit has 31.5% more cumulative transaction volume than Bitcoin Cash, larger than 20.1% but still reasonably close. Of course, its possible that at some point either or both of these figures could be manipulated.

Although the data suggests that SegWit transaction have been adopted slightly faster than Bitcoin Cash, resulting in more transaction volume, Bitcoin Cash advocates could argue that the Bitcoin Cash token is more about a philosophy of larger capacity in the long term, rather than the speed of the actual increase in transaction volume in the short term. Therefore Bitcoin Cash supporters can still claim that Bitcoin Cash will eventually have more transaction volume than Bitcoin, once adoption of the coin increases.

Cumulative transaction volume since the launch of Bitcoin Cash. (Source: BitMEX Research, Bitcoin blockchain, Blockchair for Bitcoin Cash data)

As these charts indicate, there was a sharp spike in Bitcoin Cash transaction volume when it launched; in contrast the SegWit upgrade was more gradually adopted. This is likely to be related to the investment flows and excitement of the new Bitcoin Cash coin, which may have driven short term adoption, as some of the spikes in the chart illustrate. Three months after the launch of Bitcoin Cash, on 31 October 2017, SegWit transaction volume overtook Bitcoin Cash and has remained in the lead ever since.

Daily transaction volume. (Source: BitMEX Research, Bitcoin blockchain, Blockchair)

The chart below shows that the adoption of SegWit has continued to grow since August 2017, perhaps increasing in steps as large corporate entities switch to SegWit. Adoption currently hovers around 30% as a proportion of the number of transactions, although the adoption rate only measures around 22% as a proportion of block space, which is possibly a more important metric.

Percentage of transactions that use SegWit. (Source: BitMEX Research, Bitcoin blockchain, Blockchair)

SegWit has begun to meaningfully impact system-wide capacity, potentially reducing fees and benefitting even users who choose not to upgrade to the new transaction format. However, the transaction fee market is still immature and, in our view, transaction prices are likely to remain volatile going forward.

Conclusion

Adoption of both the new transaction format for SegWit and Bitcoin Cash has been reasonably slow. At the same time, as our earlier piece shows, adoption of new consensus rules can also be gradual. This illustrates why it may be important to construct network upgrades in the least disruptive way possible, perhaps an upgrade mechanism which is safe even if users and miners do not upgrade at all.

Disclaimer

Whilst many claims made in this note are cited, we do not guarantee accuracy. We welcome corrections.

Abstract: Following our earlier research piece on Tether a few weeks ago, further financial information has just been released by Puerto Rico. The new data supports our speculation that Noble Bank could be Tether’s primary reserve bank and that the region may be a major cryptocurrency centre.

Over the weekend, the Commissioner of Financial Institutions of Puerto Rico released aggregate financial-system data for the calendar year ended 2017. Bank deposits in the International Financial Entities (IFE) category, which includes Noble Bank, were $3.3 billion, up 248% in the quarter ended December 2017. Total assets in the category were $3.8 billion, up 161% in the quarter. This extraordinary growth coincides with a large increase in value of cryptocurrency assets, which has likely resulted in large cash inflows into cryptocurrency-related banks.

Over the same period, the value of Tether in issue has increased by 215% to $1.4 billion. This new data supports the thesis in our recent piece on Tether, in which we speculated that Noble Bank is Tether’s primary reserve bank.

We have updated the chart below from the version in our earlier piece, with an initial data point for the end of 2017. It illustrates the sharp growth in bank deposits in the IFE category in Puerto Rico, coinciding with the recent cryptocurrency boom.

Puerto Rico’s IFE aggregate deposits versus the Tether balance in millions of USD. (Source: IFE Accounts, BitMEX Research, Coinmarketcap)

Cash as a percentage of total assets (an indication of full-reserve banking) also increased in the quarter, from 72.2% to 85.8%. This also indicates cryptocurrency or Tether-related activity, as we explained in the previous piece.

Puerto Rico’s IFE aggregate cash balance as a percentage of total assets. (Source: IFE Accounts, BitMEX Research)

Disclaimer

Whilst many claims made in this note are cited, we do not guarantee accuracy. We welcome corrections.