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 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

Miner	Hash rate (GH/s)	Power (W)	Energy per hash (J/GH)
Bitcoin (SHA256)
CPU	0.0005	100	200,000
High end GPU	0.5	300	600
FPGA	0.8	40	50
High end ASIC	14,000	1,340	0.096
Efficiency gain	521x
Ethereum (Ethash)
High end GPU	0.032	200	6,250
Antminer E3	0.18	800	4,444
Efficiency gain	1.4x
Monero (CryptoNight)
High end GPU	0.0000001	200	2,000,000,000
ASIC	0.000022	500	22,700,000
Efficiency gain	88x

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

Chip type	Central Processing Unit (CPU)	Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)	Vector processor (VP)	Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)
Example crypto-coins	Bitcoin (BTC) – 2009 to 2011	Bitcoin (BTC) – 2012 to 2013 Ethereum (ETH), Monero (XMR)	Ethereum (ETH) – 2018 onwards	Bitcoin (BTC) – 2014 to present, Monero Original (XMO)
Manufacturers	Intel, AMD	NVIDIA, AMD	Bitmain	Bitmain, Canaan Creative, Ebang, Innosilicon
Foundry	TSMC, Samsung, Global Foundries, SMIC	TSMC, Samsung, Global Foundries, SMIC	TSMC	TSMC, Samsung, Global Foundries
Primary use	Computing	Gaming	Crypto-coin mining	Crypto-coin mining
Immune to PoW change	Yes	Yes	Potentially	No

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 Nothing at Stake problem	Stake does not add to the convergence of the system, since the same stake can be applied to multiple competing chains, which is a risk free way of stakers increasing their rewards. In contrast, in PoW based systems, energy is a real world finite resource and therefore the “same” work cannot be applied to multiple competing chains.
Defense 1	The issue can be avoided or mitigated against. The protocol can be adjusted such that if a staker uses the same stake on multiple chains, a third party can submit a proof of this to either chain, resulting in a punishment, such as the confiscation of the stake (slashing conditions). Alternatively instead of a punishment, the cheater could lose potential rewards or be excluded from the staker pool.
Response from PoS sceptic	The above defence is inappropriate and punishes what may be legitimate or necessary behavior. For example if a staker receives a block first, while the majority receives an alternative block first, it may be legitimate for that staker to change their mind and switch to follow the majority. Indeed the process of changing your mind and switching to the majority to ensure the network converges is the point of the consensus system. If this behavior is punished, how does the system converge? Either the economic value of the punishment is higher than the rewards for switching to follow the majority, or it isn’t. Therefore the nothing at stake problem means PoS systems can never make a contribution to system convergence and the idea is therefore fundamentally flawed.
Defence 2	The apparent dilemma above can potentially be  resolved in various ways. For instance: Earlier proposals from Casper used multiple rounds of staking. Changing one’s mind in the early rounds can be legitimate and perhaps the punishment is small, while in later rounds the punishment for using the same stake in multiple competing chains increases, such that eventually users have a high degree of assurance over the finality of the system. The most recent iteration of Casper aims to allow validators to change their minds, but only in “legitimate” scenarios and not when its “illegitimate”.
Response from PoS sceptic	By adding multiple rounds or criteria in which validators can change their minds one is increasing the complexity of the system. This is merely adding layers of obfuscation to conceal the inherent weaknesses illustrated by the nothing at stake problem, without solving the fundamental issue.
Defence 3	No system is perfect, indeed it’s mathematically impossible to construct a perfect system and therefore the nothing at stake problem is not solved, however the measures identified above mitigate the problem, such that these theoretical issues are unlikely to apply in the real world.

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

Weakness	Summary
Nothing at Stake	The protocol aims to prevent miners using the same coins in a coinstake transaction on multiple chains by ignoring the second conflicting chain. However this is not sufficient and can result in nodes diverging, if they receive the conflicting blocks in a different order.
Block production	Solved by using PoW to produce the blocks
Long range attack	This was a critical vulnerability for Peercoin, an attacker can simply save up coin age by not spending their coins and then launch a re-organisation attack. This was solved by centrally broadcasting checkpoints several times a day. Peercoin was therefore a centralised system.
Stake grinding	This may not have been an issue, since there was no selection from a validator pool as PoW was always required and coin stake altered the PoW target.

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.

Weakness	Summary
Nothing at Stake	The protocol aims to prevent miners using the same coins to bet on multiple chains by using a punishment mechanism, in which validators would lose their deposit. In our view, this could harm the convergence of the system, although betting formula may move the probability away from 0.5, which is designed to help mitigate the issue.
Block production	The RanDAO contract could be used to provide entropy to select the block producer. However, this only provides a time window in which blocks could be produced, it is possible there is a lack of consensus over whether the block was produced within the time window or not, after which the betting process is supposed to resolve the dispute.
Long range attack	The nodes checkpoint blocks once a certain probability threshold has been reached. The long range attack problem remains for periods in which nodes are switched off.
Stake grinding	The RanDAO contract may solve the stake grinding issue

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.

Weakness	Summary
Nothing at Stake	Validators can vote on multiple chains, but not at the same height. This is designed to allow validators to change their mind, but only for “legitimate” reasons. For the hybrid version of the model, the convergence issue may be solved by relying on PoW mining.
Block production	PoW miners produce blocks and therefore there is no issue related to selecting the block producer.
Long range attack	Once two-thirds of the stake in the validator pool has used a block as a reference for voting, nodes finalize the block and there cannot be a re-organisation. The long range attack problem remains for periods in which nodes are switched off.
Stake grinding	PoW miners produce blocks and therefore there is no stake grinding issue.

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.

Abstract: We present a graphical illustration of a Bitcoin block, including the Merkle trees and explain why the additional Merkle tree in the block, associated with the Segregated Witness upgrade, is necessary. We then take a closer look at some of the potential negatives of both overt and covert AsicBoost, following on from our September 2017 piece on the subject. After the recent announcement from the patent owner, we conclude that the new Blockchain Defensive Patent License (BDPL) scheme, if robust, could result in limited downsides to the use of overt AsicBoost on the network. On the other hand, there may still be some issues with the less efficient covert AsicBoost.

This is a simplified depiction of the structure of a Bitcoin block and the Merkle trees inside it. Other, more detailed illustrations have been produced by Jeremy Rubin and Timo Hanke. (Source: BitMEX Research) 

Components of the diagram

Block header

The header of the Bitcoin block (in grey) is around 80 bytes and includes the version, the hash of the previous block, the Merkle root, the timestamp, the bits (difficulty), and the nonce.

Block header candidate

This includes all of the above, with the exception of the nonce.

Chunks

The diagram above shows that the Merkle root is split between two chunks, which are required to conduct Bitcoin’s SHA256 proof-of-work function. An explanation of this can be found in our earlier piece on AsicBoost.

Second Merkle tree

The SegWit upgrade introduced a new Merkle tree, which has the same structure as the main Merkle tree, except that it includes the witness data and excludes the coinbase transaction. The relative position of each transaction must remain identical to that of the main Merkle tree.

Why a second Merkle tree?

The second Merkle tree increases complexity, which some may consider a disadvantage. SegWit was an upgrade to the Bitcoin network that fixed bugs, such as the quadratic scaling of sighash operations and transaction malleability. The witness data could not be added into the main Merkle tree, as otherwise old nodes would consider these transactions invalid, which would be a hardfork.

However, it is not true to say the additional Merkle tree could be avoided by making SegWit a hardfork upgrade rather than a softfork upgrade. A hardfork resulting from the inclusion of witness data in the main Merkle tree would lead existing wallets to consider the new transaction format invalid, and these wallets would not be compatible with the new transaction format whether they were fully verifying nodes or not. The effect of this would be that some users would be unable to interact with each other and funds could appear to go missing. This type of upgrade may not be possible in a live network such as Bitcoin without significant disruption. Therefore, the additional complexity of a second Merkle tree would be necessary even if the SegWit upgrade were a hardfork.

AsicBoost

As we explained in our previous piece on AsicBoost, covert AsicBoost involves finding a collision in the last 4 bytes of the Merkle root, exploiting the fact that the hashing algorithm splits the Merkle root between the two chunks. Covert AsicBoost messes with the transactions, something that overt AsicBoost avoids. The second Merkle tree can make covert AsicBoost more difficult unless the blocks are much smaller, which could be detectable. 

Potential negative issues with AsicBoost

	Covert AsicBoost	Overt AsicBoost
Patent protection	This potential negative of AsicBoost applies to both the covert and overt type. AsicBoost is a patented technology and, as we explained in our previous piece on patents, these can be particularly damaging in the blockchain space. This appears to be one of the primary negatives of AsicBoost, as it could potentially give one mining company an insurmountable advantage over the competition, resulting in a gap that could not be closed due to legal restrictions. This could undermine Bitcoin’s core value proposition. It is possible that the Bitcoin community would conduct a softfork to block AsicBoost if the patent problem becomes significant. To mitigate this problem, the patent owner could open the patent — for example, by making a defensive patent pledge. It appears as if the AsicBoost patent owner may have recently made such a pledge. If the pledge proves robust enough, this issue may now be resolved, at least in the regions the patent applies.
Smaller blocks and lower capacity	Covert AsicBoost can incentivise the production of smaller or even empty blocks, which makes covert AsicBoost more efficient. This can then reduce the capacity of the network and increase transaction fees. Smaller or empty blocks have a negative impact on capacity, since they still maintain the network difficulty but do not make a significant contribution to any transaction backlog.	n/a
Unwillingness to upgrade to SegWit and potential dishonesty over the reason	Perhaps the most damaging negative of AsicBoost was that it may have caused some miners to be unwilling to upgrade to SegWit. This in itself may not be much of a negative, but the supposed dishonest and divisive misinformation campaign about SegWit may have had a large negative impact on the ecosystem. However we would like to point out that this is merely an uncertain, unsubstantiated accusation, and it is not clear if this was a motivating factor behind opposition to SegWit.	n/a
Incentive to adjust the Merkle trees or transactions	As the diagram above illustrates, covert AsicBoost relies on the ability of the miner to adjust the Merkle tree or the transactions. This could have detrimental effects on the network other than smaller blocks. Overt AsicBoost appears to be a much cleaner solution, needing only a field in the block header to be changed.	n/a
Secret advantage over competition	Covert AsicBoost may be undetectable and therefore may provide some miners a secret advantage over the competition, compared to a known advantage. Although in general we think transparency is a good thing, it’s not clear whether or not the network on which covert AsicBoost operates suffers any direct disadvantage from the secrecy, apart from what is mentioned elsewhere in this table.	n/a
Reduced ability to conduct softfork upgrades via version signalling and a warning message in Bitcoin Core	n/a	Overt AsicBoost uses the version field, seen on the top left of the illustration above. This has been used as a signal, to indicate that a miner is ready to upgrade via a softfork. Overt AsicBoost may use space in this field, which may prevent its use as an upgrade-signalling system. However: 1. Overt AsicBoost may not require all 4 bytes and therefore some bytes may be left for softfork signalling. This could reduce the number of softforks that can occur simultaneously. 2. Many regard the softfork signalling system to have been a failure anyway. Miners often provide simultaneous contradictory signals, rendering the signal methodology unreliable. Another downside of overt AsicBoost is that Bitcoin Core software may see an unusual version field and think the network is upgrading in an unknown manner, resulting in a  warning message to the user.

In our view, AsicBoost is not necessarily a negative for the network. Although covert AsicBoost has problems with an incentive to produce smaller blocks, most of the issues related to overt AsicBoost can be mitigated. In particular, if the BDPL system proves robust, there may be no significant negatives resulting from the use of overt AsicBoost — at least none which we can currently predict.

Abstract: Tether is a crypto token based on top of Bitcoin and Ethereum’s blockchains, the value of which is pegged to the US dollar by centralised USD reserves. There is scepticism about Tether, with accusations that the system is not backed by sufficient reserves. We think that this Tether scepticism is mostly focused on the wrong issue. We have found possible evidence in published financial data that the impact of Tether is visible in Puerto Rico’s banking system. Tether is likely to be, or is already, encountering problems related to regulation and we think this should be the primary long-term concern for Tether holders.

About Tether

Tether is a scheme that allows fiat currencies such as the US dollar to be used on the Bitcoin (and Ethereum) blockchain. The abstract of the Tether white paper explains:

A digital token backed by fiat currency provides individuals and organizations with a robust and decentralized method of exchanging value while using a familiar accounting unit. The innovation of blockchains is an auditable and cryptographically secured global ledger. Asset-backed token issuers and other market participants can take advantage of blockchain technology, along with embedded consensus systems, to transact in familiar, less volatile currencies and assets. In order to maintain accountability and to ensure stability in exchange price, we propose a method to maintain a one­-to-­one reserve ratio between a cryptocurrency token, called tethers, and its associated real­world asset, fiat currency. This method uses the Bitcoin blockchain, proof of reserves, and other audit methods to prove that issued tokens are fully backed and reserved at all times

The Tether token therefore exists on top of the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains, with around 97% and 3% of its tokens existing on each chain respectively. On Bitcoin, its tokens exist similarly to coloured coins and use the Omni layer, whose protocols interpret extra meaning from some surplus Bitcoin transaction data — for example, the creation or transfer of Tether.

The primary use case of Tether appears to be financial speculation, with many exchanges allowing their customers to buy and sell Tether in exchange for crypto tokens such as Bitcoin. Currently, around 2.2 billion Tether, representing US$2.2 billion, exist. As the chart below illustrates, about 85% of Tether holders are known, with the largest holders being the biggest crypto token exchanges. There is likely to be some mechanism by which these large holders can redeem Tether directly for USD, which we speculate on at a later point in this report.

Tether owners in February 2018 listed in millions of USD. (Source: Tether rich list, Tether transparency report)

The Tether hack

It appears as if the Tether treasury wallet was hacked in November 2017. US$31 million was stolen and sent to an external Bitcoin address, where it remains in quarantine. On 21 November, Tether released a forked client of OmniCore. This froze the stolen funds and was essentially a hardfork of the Omni layer. Since the Tether company backs the Tether token with real USD, Tether users had to upgrade, since Tether would obviously only back the tokens on their chosen side of the fork. As Tether put it:

We strongly urge all Tether integrators to install this software immediately.

The hacking incident demonstrated that Tether is effectively in complete control of the ledger, as they can force a hardfork at will and reverse any transaction — although there may not have been any doubt about Tether’s control beforehand. This raises the question of why Tether bothers to put the database on the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains at all — it would be far cheaper for Tether to create its own public database without needing to pay fees to the miners. Although the Tether company was and is able to freeze funds, the process is technically difficult and time consuming, as it requires new software to be written and released and for all Tether exchanges to upgrade.

Who controls Tether?

The Tether “About us” page only appeared between 5 December 2017 and 7 December 2017, and it revealed that Tether had the same management team as the Bitfinex exchange, as the table below illustrates. This is approximately when Tether is said to have received a subpoena from the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (6 December 2017). Prior to this point, Tether did not disclose its management team — on the website, at least — although it was widely believed that Bitfinex was behind Tether. The timing appears to suggest that the subpoena may have prompted the greater transparency.

Bitfinex Senior Team	Tether Team
JL van der Velde (CEO)	JL van der Velde (CEO)
Giancarlo Devasini (CFO)	Giancarlo Devasini (CFO)
Philip Potter (CSO)	Philip Potter (CSO)
Stuart Hoegner (general counsel)	Stuart Hoegner (general counsel)
Matthew Tremblay (chief compliance officer)	Matthew Tremblay (chief compliance officer)
Paolo Ardoino (CTO)
Chris Ellis (community manager)

Tether and Bitfinex have essentially the same management team. (Source: Tether, Bitfinex)

The Paradise Papers, released in November 2017, revealed that Bitfinex’s CFO and CSO are owners and directors of Tether respectively. There was already little doubt about the link between Tether and Bitfinex prior to full disclosure on Tether’s website.

Tether management and owners. (Source: Paradise Papers)

Some think that Tether may have previously implied that Bitfinex doesn’t control Tether. For example, Craig Sellars, a Tether founder and advisor — and a former CTO of Bitfinex — stated on Reddit in spring 2017:

Bitfinex is a customer of Tether. If Bitfinex wants more USD, they make a request to Tether, just like all other Tether customers. Tether waits for USD to show up, and when it does, creates the necessary tethers and credits Bitfinex.

That comment left much open to interpretation but certainly did not explicitly state that Bitfinex does not control Tether. In this comment, a month prior to the above one, Sellars specifically states that he and Bitfinex CSO Phil Potter were discussing how to improve Tether. Sellars was also open about his simultaneous involvements in Tether and Bitfinex, as his LinkedIn profile indicates:

• April 2014 to present: Tether founder and advisor
• January 2015 to May 2016: Bitfinex CTO
• April 2014 to May 2016: Tether founder and CTO

We do not think there is evidence that Tether misled the public about Bitfinex’s involvement, which some have claimed.

The Tether audit

The Tether homepage states that:

Our reserve holdings are published daily and subject to frequent professional audits.

The accounting firm Friedman LLP (FLLP) published a report in September 2017 in which  it confirmed that the USD balances that Tether was supposed to hold. The report stated that as of 15 September 2017, a bank held $382,064,782 in an account in the name of Tether.

However, the report did not disclose the names of any of the banks nor did it mention the jurisdictions in which the banks operate. The report also stated that:

FLLP did not evaluate the terms of the above bank accounts and makes no representations about the Client’s ability to access funds from the accounts or whether the funds are committed for purposes other than Tether token redemptions.

In January 2018, Tether ended its relationship with FLLP and explained with this emailed statement.

We confirm that the relationship with Friedman is dissolved.  Given the excruciatingly detailed procedures Friedman was undertaking for the relatively simple balance sheet of Tether, it became clear that an audit would be unattainable in a reasonable time frame. As Tether is the first company in the space to undergo this process and pursue this level of transparency, there is no precedent set to guide the process nor any benchmark against which to measure its success.

The statement indicates that there is a lack of transparency and the audit processes appears inadequate, or at least inconsistent with the promises made on the Tether website. This  likely contributed to the rumors in the cryptocurrency community — for example, claims that Tether is a Ponzi scheme.

Lack of transparency does not necessarily indicate fraud

Tether allows its users to send and receive USD. Transactions cannot easily be blocked and users require no permission — although one notable exception to this is Tether requiring all users to upgrade to a new client in order to block transactions, which is the cumbersome process that occurred after the $31 million hack.

Tether also potentially allows users a degree of anonymity when making or receiving transactions. Its characteristics potentially make it attractive to criminals, just like Bitcoin. While those with the ability to issue and redeem Tether, such as exchanges, are required to go through approval and KYC processes, individual users can use Tether merely by generating a public/private key pair, again just like Bitcoin.

Regulators are unlikely to be particularly happy about this and banks are likely to consider Tether with scepticism. Tether also requires the use of a bank, to hold the USD reserves required to back Tether. Many banks are likely to approach Tether cautiously, and accepting Tether as a client may violate a bank’s compliance procedures such as rules meant to prevent money laundering.

Therefore, Tether may have a problem: either the company may try to conceal aspects of how Tether operates from the reserve bank or the company may need to find a bank with compliance procedures that are not as strict as those of the most prominent financial institutions. We suspect that Tether may have struggled to find appropriate banking relationships and may have had accounts with many banks in many jurisdictions as it tried to find the right partner. We believe this is likely to be the primary reason for the apparent lack of transparency, rather than a lack of USD reserves. The transparency that some Tether stakeholders seem to expect may not be possible in the financial sector when the underlying activity is not clearly authorized or regulated by the authorities.

The Bitfinex exchange may have revenues in excess of US$1 million per day during the recent crypto currency bubble (assuming 100,000 BTC volume per day, 0.1% commission, and a $10,000 BTC price). Even if Tether were experiencing problems, Bitfinex may have resources sufficient to bail out the system. This wealth may also remove some of the incentive to run a fraud or a Ponzi scheme of the type some of the Tether sceptics allege.

Financial data from Puerto Rico

Rumors have been circulating that Tether may have some link to the unincorporated American territory of Puerto Rico. We decided to analyse public financial data to look for signs of unusual activity or strong growth.

We noticed strong growth in the cash balance (and the deposit balance) in the International Financial Entities (IFE) banking category. This sharp increase in cash reserves could be related to Tether. It is also possible for this growth to be related to a non-Tether aspect of the crypto currency ecosystem — for example, plans to make Puerto Rico a crypto utopia.

The chart below compares the value of Tether issued versus the deposit balance for the IFE banking category in Puerto Rico. The match is far from perfect and we cannot draw any strong conclusion from the data. It will be interesting to see what figures the regulators in the region produce going forwards.

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

In addition to the growth of the total cash balance, we noticed that the cash balance was growing as a proportion of total assets, as the chart below illustrates.

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

This kind of balance-sheet structure is unusual. Normally, banks lend most of their assets and only keep a small balance as cash. The table below shows a simplified typical structure of bank balance sheets.

Illustrative example of the balance sheets of a typical bank and a 100% reserve bank respectively. (Source: BitMEX Research)

Full-reserve banking results in a different balance sheet, which should be detectable by financial analysts even when looking at macroeconomic data. As of the end of September 2017, the ratio of cash to total assets for this category of financial institution in Puerto Rico rapidly climbed to over 70%. This may indicate the presence of full-reserve banking in the territory and that the practice is growing.

Full-reserve banking

Full-reserve banking (also called 100% reserve banking) is when a bank does not lend deposits but keeps all deposited funds either in the form of physical cash or electronically on deposit at a custody bank or the central bank. Full-reserve banking is a fringe concept in modern finance often associated with the Austrian School of economics and libertarianism (or even a Bitcoin type of philosophy). Full-reserve banking is said to make the financial system less susceptible to credit expansion, something Bitcoin is also said to be able to achieve. The main benefit of this is that it could make the economy less likely to experience business cycles, as we explained in our earlier piece.

Noble Bank

We looked at all the financial institutions in the IFE category in Puerto Rico, and identified two banks which claim to be full-reserve banks: Euro Pacific International Bank and Noble Bank International. Full-reserve banks are rare, so while we can’t rule out the existence of any others, it may be unlikely that any others are operating.

Extract from the list of registered IFEs in Puerto Rico. Noble is highlighted in red by BitMEX Research.(Source: Commissioner of Financial Insitutions of Puerto Rico)

Euro Pacific Bank is run by Peter Schiff, a well-known Austrian economist and Bitcoin sceptic. Due to this scepticism, we think it is unlikely that Schiff would become involved in a Bitcoin-related entity like Tether.

Noble Bank, however, is involved in the crypto space and therefore could be involved in Tether. Evidence of Noble’s involvement in cryptocurrency includes the following extract from a letter to the regulator that the bank sent in 2015:

Noble intend to operate an integrated financial market network for the trading, clearing, and settlement of real currency, Bitcoin and other digital currencies

Noble is also the bank that entered into a Bitcoin-related business partnership with Nasdaq in 2015. We suspect that the growth in reserves in this section of the financial services industry in Puerto Rico is related to Noble Bank and cryptocurrency, whether or not this involves Tether.

The founder and CEO of Noble Bank, John Betts, was also behind the 2014 Sunlot Holdings move to take over and potentially rescue MtGox. Sunlot was backed by Brock Pierce, one of the founders of Tether.

Of course, a previous professional relationship between the Noble Bank CEO and one of the Tether founders proves nothing, and the blockchain ecosystem is a small space so such connections are likely. We would like to emphasize that even if Noble Bank is the primary reserve bank of Tether, none of this is evidence that Noble Bank has done anything inappropriate or illegal.

In a Medium post, Noble describes how it lets “clients to create their own pools of credit” and explains the structure of this system with the following illustration.

(Source: Medium)

It is possible that the above model could be the underlying structure behind Tether, and this could explain how it is backed by US dollars. This would indicate the USD that back Tether are inside the Puerto Rican banking system with the reserves held by BNY Mellon, Noble’s custody bank, which is the largest custody bank in the world. If true, this would imply that Tether is not a Ponzi scheme, since the USD reserves are present and being reported to the authorities, and that the reserves may be relatively safe. Although, as we explain later in this report, this should not provide complete comfort for Tether holders in the long term.

Case studies

As we mentioned above, Tether has the following characteristics:

• No permission is required to send or receive Tether.
• Transactions cannot be easily blocked.
• Tether users may be able to obtain a degree of anonymity.

These characteristics may make the system attractive for criminals and money launderers — and if criminal activity becomes too prevalent, the authorities may wish to shut the system down. This has already happened numerous times in the past, as the case studies below demonstrate. In a later report, we may dig into the history of these case studies in more detail.

Liberty Reserve (2006-2013)

Liberty reserve was a Costa Rica-based centralized digital-currency service that let users  send and receive USD-denominated payments over the Internet. Payments could be made using email addresses and there was no procedure to identify those using the system. In 2013, Costa Rican authorities closed the service, accusing the system of facilitating the laundering of US$6 billion of criminal proceeds in the indictment. The founder of the service was arrested and sentenced to prison. The BBC described the service as follows:

Cash could be put into the service using a credit card, bank wire, postal money order or other money transfer service. It was then “converted” into one of the firm’s own currencies – mirroring either the Euro or US dollar – at which point it could be transferred to another account holder who could then extract the funds.

GoldAge (1999-2006)

Prior to founding Liberty Reserve, the same founders ran GoldAge, a gold-based payment platform that was also shut down by the authorities. As the US Justice Department put it:

The defendants had transmitted at least $30 million to digital currency accounts worldwide since beginning operations in 2002. The digital currency exchanger, GoldAge, received and transmitted $4 million between January 1, 2006, and June 30, 2006, as part of the money laundering scheme.

e-Bullion (2001-2008)

e-Bullion was a centralized Internet-based gold-payment system. In 2008, the co-founder of the system was murdered. As a result, the US government confiscated the company’s assets and the system was shut down.

DigiCash (1994-1998)

Perhaps one of the most interesting of the centralised pegged-payment platforms was DigiCash. Developed by David Chaum, DigiCash had strong anonymity technology based on blind signatures built into the system. The platform resembled modern distributed anonymity-based tokens like Monero.

Although DigiCash was centralised, the operator was unable to obtain details about the transactions because everything was anonymous, and therefore the transactions themselves were, in a sense, fully censorship resistant. However, the company eventually failed and in 1998 filed for bankruptcy.

Censorship resistance has two sides: one, that transactions themselves cannot be blocked and the second being that the entire system cannot easily be shut down. The first is relatively easy to achieve though anonymity-based technology such as ring signatures, while the second is more challenging.

The US Justice Department lists other examples of shut-down Internet-based payment systems, including the following.

E-gold (1996-2007)

On April 27, 2007, a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted two companies operating a digital currency business and their owners. The indictment charges E-Gold Ltd., Gold and Silver Reserve, Inc., and their owners with one count each of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, operating an unlicensed money transmitting business under federal law, and one count of money transmission without a license under D.C. law. According to the indictment, persons seeking to use the alternative payment system E-Gold were only required to provide a valid Email address to open an E-Gold account–no other contact information was verified. The indictment is the result of a 2½-year investigation by the U.S. Secret Service with cooperation among investigators, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and other state and local law enforcement agencies. According to Jeffrey A. Taylor, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, “The defendants operated a sophisticated and widespread international money remitting business, unsupervised and unregulated by any entity in the world, which allowed for anonymous transfers of value at a click of a mouse. Not surprisingly, criminals of every stripe gravitated to E-Gold as a place to move their money with impunity.”

ShadowCrew

On June 29, 2006, Andrew [Mantovani] was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison for cofounding Shadowcrew.com, an international online discussion forum with more than 4,000 members, many of whom specialized in identity theft and fraud. Shadowcrew members sent and received payments for goods and criminal services through digital currencies. One indicted member, Omar Dhanani, operated an illegal currency exchange, providing members a money laundering service in digital gold by anonymously converting their illicit cash. Dhanani stated that Shadowcrew members used digital gold in order to avoid traditional banking systems. A yearlong investigation by the U.S. Secret Service led to the October 2004 arrest of 21 individuals in the United States, with several other arrests in foreign countries.

Western Express International Currency Exchange Company (2002-2005)

On February 22, 2006, Vadim Vassilenko, Yelena Barysheva, and Alexey Baryshev were indicted by the state of New York for operating an illegal check-cashing and money transmittal business from 2002 through 2005. Their company, Western Express International, acted as a currency exchanger, knowingly exchanging criminal proceeds for digital currencies. Through its web sites, Western Express actively solicited overseas clients in eastern Europe, Russia, and the Ukraine to operate illegally in the United States. Clients using fictitious, often multiple identities committed a variety of cyber crimes, such as reshipping, phishing, spoofing, and spamming. Items purchased with stolen credit card numbers were resold for digital gold, which was further laundered through Western Express. A total of $25 million flowed through the company’s bank accounts over the 4-year period, in violation of New York banking regulations.

Conclusion

History has shown that centralised systems with certain characteristics (censorship resistance or anonymous transactions) tend to get shut down by the authorities. Tether shares some of the same characteristics as these extinguished services so it may also attract criminals and ultimately suffer the same fate.

In our view, Tether has two choices:

1. Reform the system to include KYC/AML procedures that allow the operator to easily block transactions or freeze funds. In order to do this, Tether may need to fundamentally change its technological architecture and perhaps leave the public blockchains. Essentially, Tether would just be turning into a traditional (or full-reserve) bank.
2. Continue as is and risk being be shut down by the authorities at some point.

If Tether is shut down, there is a risk that some users may lose access to their funds, perhaps temporarily. We do not recommend holding Tether for the long term, but not for the reasons some of the sceptics typically pronounce. We think that criminal usage of Tether is likely to be relatively low because of the use of Tether for financial speculation, which is probably the system’s dominant use case. Furthermore, we have not found any evidence of criminals using Tether to launder funds. As it stands, we think an imminent shutdown is unlikely.

The case studies above illustrate the two angles to censorship resistance (individual transactions and the system as a whole) and what distributed crypto tokens need to achieve in order to be sustainable in the long run. If a payment system cannot block transactions, doesn’t require permission for use, or offers anonymous use, it will probably eventually be shut down. This could be just as true for systems like Tether and Ripple as it was for Liberty Reserve, E-gold, and DigiCash. A potential way around this is to try to build a distributed system that cannot be shut down (i.e., censorship resistance for the system as a whole).  Whether Bitcoin or other proof-of-work-based systems can achieve this is still unproven, in our view.

Disclaimer

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

Abstract: Although the impact of patents on society is debatable, they can have negative impact on the blockchain space. Opening patents up is potentially crucial to the blockchain industry. Unfortunately, however, technology innovators may need to obtain patent protection for defensive purposes. A defensive patent licence (DPL) may be able to protect the ecosystem from the harmful restrictions of patents or mitigate some of the risks. We explain some potential deficiencies and loopholes in the current DPL and take a look at a new, improved licence, a blockchain DPL (BDPL).

(Source: Mises Institute)

Patents in the blockchain space

The issue of intellectual property (IP) is somewhat controversial in the libertarian and blockchain communities. Although patents and copyrights are generally accepted by most, many libertarians regard these systems as unethical state-granted monopolies that impede economic prosperity. This negative view of IP is articulated by Stephan Kinsella in his article “Against Intellectual Property“, in which he describes a patent as follows:

A patent is a property right in inventions, that is, in devices or processes that perform a “useful” function. A new or improved mousetrap is an example of a type of device which may be patented. A patent effectively grants the inventor a limited monopoly on the manufacture, use, or sale of the invention. However, a patent actually only grants to the patentee the right to exclude (i.e., to prevent others from practicing the patented invention); it does not actually grant to the patentee the right to use the patented invention.  Not every innovation or discovery is patentable. The U.S. Supreme Court has, for example, identified three categories of subject matter that are unpatentable, namely “laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas.” Reducing abstract ideas to some type of “practical application,” i.e., “a useful, concrete and tangible result,” is patentable, however.

Copyright, on the other hand, covers original works such as books, articles, movies, and computer programs. When it comes to the IP of blockchains or other technologies, patents seem to be more relevant than copyright, which applies more to works of art.

Whatever one thinks of the merits of patents, when it comes to assessing the efficacy of patents in the blockchain space, there are some specific considerations:

1. A key feature of blockchains is their permission-less architecture, in which nobody has the ability to censor usage of the system (a.k.a. censorship resistance). If one patents a use or function in a blockchain-based system (such as a new transaction format), the patent holder and legal authorities may be unable to prevent its usage by others, potentially making patents unsuitable or unenforceable.
2. A patent on a cryptocurrency mining technology could give the patent holder a competitive advantage over other miners. This could undermine the whole point of mining, which requires a degree of competition in order to be useful. If a miner or mining coalition achieves a significant proportion of the hashrate, they could censor some or all of the transactions, or even attempt to reverse transactions, potentially rendering the blockchain useless.

Therefore, although the efficacy of patents is debatable in general, many consider them negative with respect to blockchains and desire to avoid the usage of enforceable patents in the blockchain space altogether. Achieving this preferred outcome is not simple; it’s not sufficient for those who develop technology in this space simply to avoid patents. This approach would be vulnerable to so-called patent trolls who could patent these technologies at a later date and possibly hold hostage those blockchain businesses and users who use the patented technology. A form of protection against patent trolls is required.

The DPL

One such tool to prevent or mitigate the risks of patent trolls is the DPL. Companies already using this include the Internet Archive and Blockstream. By signing the DPL, these companies essentially allow any company or individual to use all of their patented technologies for free, as long as they also join the DPL. In order to join the DPL, one must commit to put all one’s respective patents inside the DPL and to not make an infringing patent claim against any DPL member. This effectively forms a club, which anyone may join, whose members need not worry about using the patents owned by any other member. The use of DPLs is purely defensive, and the more entities that join the DPL, the better it is for the blockchain community.

Problems with the DPL

We have spoken to some patent holders in the ecosystem as well as legal experts, and some have identified potential deficiencies within the DPL. The DPL is a first-draft attempt at this scheme and many seem to acknowledge that there is significant scope for improvement.

Potential DPL loopholes include:

1. The DPL mentions the licence can be revoked if a member transfers a patent to a separate, non-DPL entity that does not abide by the terms of the DPL. However, this restriction only applies once member has joined the DPL. It is possible, in theory, for an entity to transfer patents to an associated company before joining the DPL. In this scenario, the new DPL member who transferred the patent could collude with the company who received it to engage in aggressive patent claims against other DPL members, while still being free to use other patents in the DPL.
2. Although the DPL prevents members from enforcing their patents among other members, it does not prevent third parties from enforcing patents. A third party may restrict some DPL members from using a patent while licensing that same patent to other DPL members. If this occurs, as in the figure below, any DPL members obtaining the rights to use the patent could have an advantage over other DPL members, which is exactly what the DPL was set up to prevent.

Company H is not a member of the DPL but it licenses the use of its patented technology to DPL member company A while engaging in enforcement action against the other DPL members. This gives company A an advantage, while company A is still a valid member of the DPL. (Source: BitMEX Research)

The new BDPL

A proposed blockchain-specific DPL scheme, the BDPL, aims to improve on the DPL with amendments and additional terms that hope to correct the loopholes identified above. The BDPL still retains the core defensive properties of the original DPL, granting a licence to all members who join the BDPL.

This first loophole is fixed with an amendment to one of the terms in the licence. The original DPL merely prevents a member from making any non-defensive patent claim against another member. The new terms also prevent a member, “whether individually or in collusion with each other or with any other person”, from making a non-defensive claim. This stricter requirement may make the type of collusion mentioned above more difficult.

The second loophole is fixed by adding a new term to the licence. This is a requirement that specifies that the licence will be revoked if members use any patent licensed by a third party, when such a licence “is or is likely to be” enforced and restricted from use by another BDPL member. This should prevent a scenario such as the one illustrated above.

Conclusion

In our view, this new BDPL offers an improved, more robust alternative to the existing system. However, it is more onerous in some respects than the old scheme — for example, there are stricter requirements about making public notices. In addition, closing the circumvention loopholes requires a tradeoff: a BDPL member could be caught between a rock and a hard place if it licenses a crucial technology from a non-BDLP member who then begins enforcement action against other BDLP members without the knowledge of the licensee. Fixing this problem within the licence may not be possible, although mitigating this risk could be possible with additional licensing terms preventing aggressive action against other BDPL members.

Providing patent owners with more choices can only be beneficial and this new licence is a positive addition to the blockchain space. This scheme may be more robust and therefore more attractive to patent holders, while maintaining the defensive nature that can protect the ecosystem from the harmful effects of patents. We have spoken to patent owners who have indicated that they may prefer the BDPL to older schemes. While it would be beneficial were such defensive schemes to become popular, it is difficult to predict which, if any, will succeed.

We think the BDPL is both a significant improvement and more likely to be adopted than the DPL. If adopted, the BDPL could substantially benefit the ecosystem, mitigating one of the risks silently looming over the blockchain space.

 

Abstract: In this piece, we briefly look over the history of Ripple and examine various disputes between the founders and partner companies, typically over control of XRP tokens. We then explore elements of the technology behind Ripple. We conclude that the apparent distributed consensus mechanism doesn’t serve a clear purpose, because the default behaviour of Rippled nodes effectively hands full control over updating the ledger to the Ripple.com server. Therefore, in our view, Ripple does not appear to share many of the potentially interesting characteristics crypto tokens like Bitcoin or Ethereum may have, at least from a technical perspective.

Jed McCaleb (left) joined Ripple in 2011. Chris Larsen (right) joined the company in 2012. (Source: BitMEX Research)

Introduction

On 4 January 2018, the Ripple (XRP) price reached a high of $3.31, an incredible gain of  51,709% since the start of 2017. This represented a market capitalization of $331 billion, putting Ripple’s valuation in the same league as Google, Apple, Facebook, Alibaba, and Amazon — the largest tech giants in the world. According to Forbes, Chris Larsen, the executive chairman of Ripple, owns 17% of the company and controls 5.19 billion XRP, worth around $50 billion at the time of the peak, making him one of the richest people in the world. Despite this incredible valuation, many of the market participants do not appear to know much about Ripple’s history or the technology behind it. In this piece, we provide an overview of the history of Ripple and look at some of its technical underpinnings.

History of Ripple

RipplePay: 2004 to 2012

Ryan Fugger founded a company he called RipplePay in 2004. The core idea behind the protocol was a peer-to-peer trust network of financial relations that would replace banks.

The RipplePay logo during that period of the company’s existence. (Source: Ripplepay.com)

RipplePay’s basic theory was as follows:

• All banks do is make and receive loans. A bank deposit is a loan to the bank from the customer.
• A payment from Bob to Alice in the traditional banking system is simply an update to their respective loan balances to the bank, with Bob’s loan to the bank declining slightly and Alice’s increasing slightly.
• RipplePay held that one could replace banks by creating a peer-to-peer trust network in which individuals could directly loan each other, and alterations to these loan balances enable payments.
• Payments, then, are simply updates to these loan balances, provided the system can find a path of relationships from the payer to the recipient.

In this example, the person on the far right side of the lineup makes a payment of $20 to the person on the far left. Although the payer and recipient do not directly trust each other, the payment transfers through a chain of IOUs forged of seven people who are linked by six trusted relationships. (Source: Ripple.com)

The network architecture is not dissimilar to the idea behind the Lightning Network, except with counterparty risk, something which Lightning avoids. In our view, this model is likely to be unstable and the trust networks are unlikely to be regarded as reliable — and therefore we are unsure of its efficacy. Either the system would centralise towards a few large banks and fail to be sufficiently different to the existing financial system or it would be liable to regular defaults. However, the current Ripple system is very different to this original idea.

At the start of 2011, Bitcoin was gaining some significant traction and began to capture the attention of Ripple’s target demographic. To some extent, Bitcoin had succeeded where Ripple had failed, building a peer-to-peer payment network with what appeared to be a superior architecture to Ripple. In May 2011, Jed McCaleb, an early Bitcoin pioneer, joined Ripple, perhaps to address some of these concerns.

McCaleb had founded the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange in 2010, which he sold to Mark Karpeles in March 2011. According to an analysis of the failure of Mt. Gox by WizSec’s Kim Nilsson, the platform was already insolvent, to the tune of 80,000 BTC and $50,000, in March 2011 when McCaleb sold it. Shortly after this, Ryan Fugger handed the reins of the Ripple project to McCaleb.

This video from June 2011 describes some of the philosophy and architecture of Ripple after McCaleb had joined the project:

OpenCoin: September 2012 to September 2014

The Ripple logo during the OpenCoin period. (Source: Ripple.com)

In 2012, McCaleb hired Chris Larsen, who remains on the board today as the executive chairman and whom the current website describes as a co-founder of Ripple. This marked the start of the OpenCoin era, the first of three name changes between 2012 and 2015. Larsen is the former chairman and CEO of E-Loan, a company he co-founded in 1996, took public in 1999 at the height of the tech bubble, and then sold to Banco Popular in 2005. Larsen then founded Prosper Marketplace, a peer-to-peer lending platform, which he left to join Ripple in 2012.

Larsen is not new to volatile prices and price bubbles. E-Loan experienced a peak-to-trough fall of 99.1% between 1999 and 2001. E-Loan’s IPO share price stood at $14 on 28 June 1999 before selling for $4.25 per share in 2005. (Source: Bloomberg)

To address the success of Bitcoin, Ripple now planned to allow Bitcoin payments on its network, potentially as a base currency for settlement. This period also marked the launch of the Ripple Gateway structure. The community realized that the peer-to-peer structure did not seem to work, with ordinary users unwilling to trust counterparties sufficiently to make the network usable for payments. To address this, Ripple decided to form gateways, large businesses that many users would be able to trust. This was said to be a  compromise, a hybrid system between traditional banking and a peer-to-peer network.

How Ripple gateways work. (Source: Ripple.com)

In late 2012, OpenCoin opposed the usage of the name “Ripple Card” by Ripple Communications, a telecom company that predated the launch of the Ripple payment network. This may illustrate the start of a change in culture of the company, with a willingness to use the law to protect the company, and a change in strategy to focus more on the Ripple brand.

Ripple Communications is an unrelated telecom company based in Nevada that held the Ripple.com domain and used the Ripple name before the Ripple payment network came into being. (Source: Internet Archive)

In October 2012, Jesse Powell, the founder and CEO of the Kraken exchange (which launched in 2011) and close friend of McCaleb, participated in Ripple’s first seed round with an investment believed to total around $200,000. Roger Ver is also said to have been an early investor in Ripple, apparently investing “before even the creators knew what it was going to be”.

XRP token launch: January 2013

Ripple released its XRP coin in January 2013. Like Bitcoin, XRP is based on a public chain of cryptographic signatures, and therefore did not require the initial web of trust or gateway design. XRP could be sent directly from user to user, without the gateways or counterparty risk, which was the method used for all currencies on Ripple, including USD. Ripple perhaps intended XRP to be used in conjunction with the web of trust structure for USD payments — for example, to pay transaction fees. The company set the supply of XRP at a high level of 100 billion, with some claiming this would help Ripple prevent sharp price appreciation. Critics argued that the XRP token may not have been a necessary component of the network.

In April 2013, OpenCoin received $1.5 million in funding from Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, IDG Capital Partners, FF Angel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, and Vast Ventures. This was the first in many rounds of venture funding and it included some of the most respected venture-capital companies in the world.

McCaleb left the project sometime between June 2013 and May 2014. Although his departure appears to have only been widely discussed within the Ripple community starting in May 2014, later statements from the company indicates he ended his involvement in June 2013 when Stefan Thomas took over as CTO. Thomas had created the We Use Coins website in March 2011 and the 2011 “What is Bitcoin?” YouTube video.

McCaleb appears to have disagreed with Larsen on strategy and then was seemingly forced out of the project, based on support Larsen received from the new venture-capital investors. After leaving Ripple, McCaleb went on to found Stellar in 2014, a project said to be based on some of the original principles behind Ripple.

Ripple Labs: September 2013 to October 2015

In September 2013, OpenCoin became Ripple Labs.

In February 2014, Ripple implemented the “balance freeze” feature, which it activated in August 2014. This allowed Ripple gateways to freeze or even confiscate coins from any user of its gateway, even without a valid signature for the transaction. The motivation of this was said to be to enable gateways to comply with regulatory requirements, for example, a court order demanding the confiscation of funds. The default setting for a gateway was to have the freeze feature enabled, but it was possible for a gateway to disable this option by using a “NoFreeze” flag, such that tokens a gateway owed could not be frozen or confiscated using this feature. The largest gateway at the time, Bitstamp, did not opt out of the freeze feature.

In May 2015, regulatory authorities in the United States fined Ripple Labs $700,000 for violating the Bank Secrecy Act by selling XRP without obtaining the required authorisation. Ripple additionally agreed to remedial measures, the most onerous of which are summarised below:

• Ripple Labs must register with FinCEN.
• If Ripple gives away any more XRP, those recipients must register their account information and provide identification details to Ripple.
• Ripple must comply with AML regulations and appoint a compliance officer.
• Ripple must be subject to an external audit.
• Ripple must provide data or tools to the regulators that allows them to analyse Ripple transactions and the flow of funds.

Abstract: In this article, following on from our piece on the history of consensus forks, guest writer Dr. Johnson Lau explains the distinction between policy rules and consensus forks. He explains why it may be safer to introduce new softforks when the proposed rule is already covered by policy rules (non-standard behaviour), as this may mitigate or reduce some of the risks normally associated with changing the consensus rules.

(Source: gryb25)

Softforks are the primary way to fix and introduce new Bitcoin consensus rules. The following series of articles will describe how Bitcoin softforks are engineered.

Consensus rules and softforks

Consensus rules determine whether a transaction or a block is valid or not. Every user and miner on the Bitcoin network is expected to adhere to the same set of consensus rules, so they will all agree to a single ledger.

A softfork is an event when the majority of users and/or miners decide to adopt a stricter set of consensus rules, which makes some previously valid transactions/blocks invalid, but not the opposite. If the majority enforces the new rule set, any violating fork would (statistically) never catch up to the stricter fork in terms of total proof of work. The minority with the old rules set will always follow the longer and stricter fork, so everyone on the network would still agree to a single ledger.

Policy rules and consensus rules

While consensus rules are the only criteria for determining transaction validity, relaying or mining nodes may prefer some kinds of transactions over others. For example:

• As spam control, transactions with very low fees or “sand outputs” (outputs with very low value) are rejected.
• Some miners refused to include “on-chain casino” transactions, considering them spammy.
• Transactions with an unknown version are rejected (currently only version 1 and 2 are “known”).
• Transactions with exotic scripts (i.e., not P2PKH, P2SH, v0 segwit, or a few other cases) and unknown NOPx codes (currently only OP_NOP2 and OP_NOP3 are known) are rejected.
• “Replace by fee” and “child pay for parent” are also policy rules, as they determine which transactions are preferred by miners.

By definition, policy rules MUST be at least as strict as consensus rules. Obviously, no miners would like to include invalid transactions in a block (which will lead to a loss of mining reward) or to relay them (which will get them banned by peers).

While policy rules could be stricter than consensus rules, it is important to note that policy rules do not determine the validity of transactions. Once a transaction is included in a valid block, all network nodes will accept it even if it violates some policy rules.

It is also important to note that policy rules are local, while consensus rules are universal. That means different network nodes might have different policy rules but they will still agree to the same blockchain ledger as long as they are running the same consensus rules.

Transactions that violate a policy rule are sometimes called “non-standard transactions”, distinguishing them from “invalid transactions”.

Policy rules and softforks

Ideally, all miners should have upgraded to the new, stricter rule sets on or before the activation of a softfork. Financially, they have a strong incentive to do this, as mining an invalid block (in terms of the new rules) would lead to significant monetary loss. However, in a decentralized system like Bitcoin, this is not guaranteed.

Although miners are expected to pay attention to any proposed rule changes and take timely action, miners who build invalid blockchain might lead to market disruption and monetary loss for ordinary users. Therefore, any well-planned softforks should bear this in mind and minimize the risks.

The trick is to make a softfork only if it is covered by existing, widely adopted policy rules. Miners with the policy rules who are unaware of the new consensus rules would refuse to include such transactions by default, so they would never include transactions that are invalid in terms of the new consensus rules. Some cases in Bitcoin history illustrate this.

A worker is adding a “Road Closed” sign to a route that is not being used due to an obstruction that existed before the sign was placed. The new traffic rules only prevent behaviour that was already “non-standard” and disruption is therefore minimal.

Case Study	Description
BIP65: Check lock-time verify	OP_NOP1 to OP_NOP10 originally had no meaning in the Bitcoin script language. While they are counted as one operation (there is a limitation of 201 operations in a script), practically, they are skipped during transaction validation. However, a policy rule has been included in Bitcoin Core since version 0.10 to reject OP_NOPx by default. BIP65 is a softfork introduced in Bitcoin Core 0.12 to redefine OP_NOP2 as OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY (OP_CLTV). OP_CLTV checks if the top stack value is greater than the transaction’s nLockTime field (along with a few more conditions). If any of the conditions are matched, the transaction is considered as invalid. Otherwise, OP_CLTV is skipped like OP_NOP2. New nodes would always enforce the new consensus rules after softfork activation. Yet even before the softfork was activated, the original OP_NOP2 policy rule was replaced by the OP_CLTV rules (which is okay, since OP_CLTV rules are stricter than the original OP_NOP2 consensus rules). Legacy mining nodes would not perform the nLockTime check. However, as long as they were running version 0.10 or above, the default OP_NOP2 policy rule would prevent them from including ANY transactions with OP_CLTV, valid or not. As a result, legacy mining nodes of 0.10 or above would never actively produce an invalid block with respect to the new OP_CLTV consensus rules.
BIP68: Relative lock-time using sequence numbers	nSequence is a field in Bitcoin transactions, which was essentially unused. The idea of BIP68 was to use the nSequence field for the purpose of relative lock-time, which is a very important building block of advanced transactions such as payment channels and the Lightning Network. However, the nSequence field has been ignored since the very first version of Bitcoin, and miners would accept any transaction with any nSequence value. There was no policy rule governing nSequence value, therefore a safe softfork could not be done as simply as OP_CLTV. The trick was to use the transaction-version field (nVersion). Since version 0.7, non-version-1 transactions are rejected by a policy rule. To leverage this, BIP68 requires that the new rules for nSequence are enforced ONLY if the transaction version is 2 or above (or below 0, to be precise). Therefore, legacy mining nodes would not produce any BIP68-violating block, since they won’t include any non-version-1 transactions by default. An attacker could not “turn off” BIP68 by simply changing the transaction version, since the version is covered by signature. This is also the only instance in which the transaction version is associated with consensus rules.
BIP141: Segregated witness	Segregated witness (segwit) is a softfork to fix transaction malleability by redefining a certain script pattern. In BIP141, the pattern is an output script (or P2SH redeemscript) which starts with a single OP_x (x = 0 to 16), followed by a canonical data push between 2 and 40 bytes. However, this is not what it was originally proposed. In the first draft, the witness-program pattern was a single push between 2 and 41 bytes. A policy has been implemented since v0.6 to reject transactions that spend exotic scripts (i.e. not P2PKH, P2SH, and a few more types). The first draft of the witness program was indeed non-standard in this regards. The problem is with the witness program when wrapped in P2SH. Before v0.10, the policy rules would also reject any exotic P2SH scripts. This rule was greatly relaxed in v0.10, and the original witness-program design was not covered. A few alternative proposals were considered: A new transaction nVersion (like BIP68) does not work. If the new consensus rule is “segwit rules are enforced only if nVersion is larger than 2”, an attacker could steal all money stored in segwit outputs by changing the nVersion (since the nVersion is covered only by the segwit signature, which is not checked when nVersion is 2 or below). An OP_NOPx might be used to label a witness program. However, this would make all witness programs 1 byte bigger, and also occupy the limited OP_NOPx space. The final version made use of the so-called “clean stack” policy rule from BIP62. Although BIP62 is now withdrawn, its rules are still enforced as policy. “Clean stack” requires that script evaluation must end with one and only one stack item. The final witness-program design, however, leaves two item on the stack. This is valid by consensus but violates “clean stack” policy.
Failing example: BIP16 and pay-to-script hash (P2SH)	BIP16 was the first planned softfork on Bitcoin. It was activated when 55% of hash power signalled readiness (compared with the 80% to 95% currently in use). Before P2SH was introduced, there was no policy rule for checking the form of spending output. As a result, a significant number of miners kept creating invalid blocks, occasionally long chains, months after softfork activation.
Failing example: Segregated witness on Litecoin	Not long after the Bitcoin segwit implementation was finalized, Litecoin started to integrate the segwit code. However, while segwit was released in Bitcoin Core 0.13.1, the last Litecoin version at that time was 0.10.4, which did not include the “clean stack” rule. Litecoin developers tried to fix the problem by adding an extra consensus rule to segwit that required the block version to be at least 0x20000000, hoping that would force miners to upgrade. It turned out that all miners upgraded right before the activation (with the last large miner upgrading a few hours before), and no fork was created due to the lack of “clean stack” in the last release. Should a large mining pool have failed to upgrade at the last minute, the extra-block version rule would have provided little or no protection. This will be discussed in a future article.

Policy protection is not a panacea

At this point, a reader might find that the policy-protection trick described above would only prevent un-upgraded miners from actively making the first invalid block after softfork activation. However, should such an invalid block be somehow created, un-upgraded miners would still accept it and extend such a blockchain if it had more proof of work. So this is a way to only reduce but not eliminate the chance of an accidental chain split at softfork activation. This issue is also particularly problematic if a significant number of miners are using different full-node implementations, which might not have the same policy rules.

Dr. Johnson Lau, Bitcoin Protocol Developer

CC BY-SA 4.0

Abstract: In this piece, we explain the motivation behind the creation of the Lightning Network and why its scaling characteristics are superior to what we have today, potentially resulting in a transformational improvement. We describe some of the basic technical building blocks that make Lightning possible. We then examine some of its limitations, including the downsides of inferior security compared to transacting on-chain and why this makes Lightning potentially unsuitable for larger-value payments.

(Source: flickr.com)

The motivation behind the Lightning Network

Blockchain-based payment systems typically work in a “broadcast to everyone” mode, in that when one makes a payment, one needs to broadcast the transaction to all participants in the network.

Nodes in such a system must:

• store the transaction indefinitely,
• verify the transaction, and
• relay the transaction.

Miners, meanwhile, are required to engage in an energy-intensive competitive process to determine if the transaction makes it into the ledger, just in case a conflicting transaction occurs.

There isn’t even special treatment for the recipient of the payment. For example, if one buys a coffee using Bitcoin, the transaction is broadcast to the entire Bitcoin network without prioritising propagation of the transaction data to the coffee shop or the coffee shop’s payment processor. Many consider this process to be inefficient. If the objective is to build a payment system used by millions of people across the globe, this method does not seem logical.

The old “broadcast to everyone” announcement method at sporting events, during Arsenal’s 3-3 draw at home to Sheffield Wednesday in May 2000. Prior to the widespread adoption of mobile phones, stadium announcers broadcast messages for individuals over the public-address system to all those in attendance. Mobile phones have made this process faster and more efficient, as messages can be sent directly to the intended recipient.

The Lightning Network represents an improvement in efficiency and uses a more logical payment-network structure. Instead of broadcasting a transaction to everyone, the transaction can be sent more directly to the payment recipient. Only when parties to the transaction are dishonest does one need to resort to the cumbersome process, which distributed censorship-resistant systems require to maintain consensus. In this way, one can achieve performance and efficiency almost equivalent to that of direct communication between the parties over the Internet, while retaining some of the security characteristics of Bitcoin’s blockchain.

However, building such a payment system, in which all parties can always revert to the blockchain and reclaim their funds if there is a problem, is complex and has some significant risks and limitations.

Lightning’s basic technical building blocks

Unidirectional micropayment channel. (Source: BitMEX Research)

The diagram above depicts the traditional way to set up a basic unidirectional payment channel. Although setting up the channel involves broadcasting a transaction to everyone, once the channel is set up, multiple payments from Bob to Alice can occur by simply sending data from Bob to Alice, avoiding a broadcast to the entire network. The payment process can be repeated again and again until the funds in the channel, in this case 1 BTC, have been exhausted.

In theory, the above channel is secure for the following reasons:

• If Bob tries to renege on his payment, all Alice needs to do is sign and broadcast to the network transaction P1, which Bob signed when he initially made the payment. As long as this gets confirmed before the one-week locktime in transaction B, Alice safely receives her 0.1 BTC regardless of what Bob does.
• If Alice refuses to sign anything in order to frustrate Bob, all Bob needs to do is wait one week for transaction B to become valid, and he is then able to move the money from the channel to himself by broadcasting transaction B, which Alice has already signed.

This process is more secure if transaction A cannot be malleated by a third party (the TXID changing), otherwise Bob could have created transaction B only for it to become invalid as transaction A changes, thereby enabling Alice to hold the funds hostage indefinitely.

According to an e-mail that Satoshi sent to Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn, this basic structure was Satoshi’s idea:

One use of nLockTime is high frequency trades between a set of parties. They can keep updating a tx by unanimous agreement.  The party giving money would be the first to sign the next version.  If one party stops agreeing to changes, then the last state will be recorded at nLockTime.  If desired, a default transaction can be prepared after each version so n-1 parties can push an unresponsive party out.  Intermediate transactions do not need to be broadcast.  Only the final outcome gets recorded by the network.  Just before nLockTime, the parties and a few witness nodes broadcast the highest sequence tx they saw.

(Source: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2013-April/002417.html)

How the Lightning Network actually works

This micropayment construction can be considered the core building block for the Lightning Network, which is essentially a network of these payment-channel-like constructions. Payments find a path along channels which are already directly connected to each other until they reach the final recipient.

The channel construction used in Lightning builds on this basic structure with more advanced and complex technologies. The above construction is unidirectional, while in order to be useful, payments need to be made in both directions. For example, one can think of making payment channels bidirectional by constructing two channels between Alice and Bob, each in the opposite direction. More precisely, Lightning uses Poon-Dryja channel construction. This has lower liquidity requirements than simply setting up a network of unidirectional payment channels in opposite directions, which would require twice the amount of funds to be locked up inside the channel. However, Poon-Dryja channel construction has significant weaknesses compared to the other approach. Poon-Dryja channels require each party to sign a new transaction every time the channel is updated (a payment is made) while a unidirectional channel only requires the sender to sign when the channel is updated.

The old locktime feature can be replaced with more advanced functions:

• Check locktime verify (BIP65) can prove that the output cannot be spent until a certain date rather than ensuring a particular spend of the output is invalid until a certain date, which is what locktime does.
• Relative locktime (BIP68) can replace a specific end date with a date relative to the corresponding output. This can allow payment channels to remain open for indefinite periods, with a closure transaction triggering a time window during which the other party has a finite period of time (e.g., two weeks) to broadcast their reclaim transaction and recover the funds.
• Hashed timelock contracts (HTLC) can require the receiver of a payment to provide a string that hashes to a certain value by a certain date or returns the funds to the payer. This same hash can be used to trigger other payments in the channel network, enabling payments to be made across a chain of channels.

The resulting Lightning Network and its advantages

The Lightning Network should then, in theory, allow all participants in the network to make near instant and cheap transactions in all directions by finding a path among the nodes. This therefore avoids broadcasts to the Bitcoin network, as long as there are no problems, and results in a scalable network. The architecture even allows microtransactions and improves the privacy of payments.

Channels can stay open indefinitely due to the relative-locktime feature and there should be no counterparty risk; if anyone tries to steal funds through a hostile channel closure, the other participants to the transaction will have a significant time window in which to issue their own redemption transaction and get their money back.

Network functionality and user experience

A big unknown is how people and businesses will actually use the network, and commentators have different visions. Some see the Lightning Network as eventually being ubiquitous for small payments, with complexities handled in an automated way. Others more sceptical of Lightning typically envision the various components of the network requiring more of a manual construction when the system is used and a poor user experience plagued by unexpected channel closures and periods of Lightning Network downtime.

	Sceptical view of Lightning	Ambitious view of Lightning
Channel setup	In order to set up a Lightning channel, a user must manually create a new expensive on-chain transaction.	Setting up a Lightning channel will be a seamless process built into existing wallets and systems. When receiving a payment or purchasing Bitcoin, the funds need to go somewhere. Funds could immediately go into a Lightning channel as they are received and therefore setting up the channel requires no additional steps or costs.
Channel closure	Once the payment is complete, one needs to close the channel, with a manually created, expensive on-chain transaction.	There may be no need to close the channel and users can keep their wallet funds in channels indefinitely or for long periods of time.
Network routing	Routing is likely to be a significant problem, since finding a short path between parties is a difficult problem to solve algorithmically. If no route is found, the user and merchant will have to engage in the cumbersome process of selecting an on-chain transaction by manually changing the payment process.	1. The existing P2P network already requires a network topology and the relaying of messages, with nodes typically having eight connections. The Lightning Network topology is simply an extension of that. 2. Routing is not a significant problem, since even in massive networks the average number of steps in a path between users is small. 3. Even if there is a problem with routing, a payment could simply be made on-chain without the user even noticing the difference. 4. A small number of large channel operators can prevent routing problems.
Centralisation of payment channels	The network will centralise around a few large hubs as this is the most efficient model. This centralisation increases the risk of systemic channel failure, which is when a few large channels fail, resulting in a simultaneous mass exodus from payment channels and on-chain congestion, ensuring that some are unable to exit the channels before expiry.	Economic incentives act against centralisation; anyone can set up a node as there are low barriers of entry. In addition, there is an incentive to undercut other nodes by charging lower fees. Even if the network does centralise around a few large hubs, the Lightning Network still provides a useful and interesting system. Bitcoin already has a few large entities such as Coinbase that take custody of a large amount of funds. Under Lightning, the entities do not have custody of funds and merely act to relay data used for payments.
Liquidity	Payment channels will have insufficient liquidity and therefore the scope of payments will be limited. Payments of any reasonable size can almost instantly drain the liquidity of an entire channel, such that Lightning payments will need to be suspended.	Users will be incentivised to run Lightning nodes and provide liquidity in order to receive fees. The network will be used for small payments, far smaller in value than the maximum channel capacity, ensuring sufficient liquidity.
Requirement to be online when receiving a payment	With an on-chain transaction, all a sender needs is a payment address to make a payment; the recipient does not need to be online. In contrast to this, as explained above, a recipient in Lightning will need to sign a reclaim transaction before receiving a payment. This significant limitation means that recipients are required to keep their private keys exposed in a hot wallet. This makes Lightning impractical in many scenarios, such as making high-value payments, at ATMs, at in store PoS systems, or paying those with limited Internet connectivity.	Although a recipient is required to be online to receive a payment, this does not result in significantly different dynamics to most on-chain payments, since if the recipient is not online, they don’t know about or cannot verify the payment anyway. It is also not necessary that the user or device directly receiving the payment needs to store the private keys. For example, an in-store PoS terminal or a crypto ATM machine could receive the signed redemption transaction over the Internet from the firm’s HQ prior to receiving payments, communication that is necessary when making payments anyway.
Potential requirement to monitor the channel	Lightning Network participants may be required to monitor payment channels and then take action by a certain deadline in order to safeguard their funds. For example, a hostile reclaim transaction could trigger the start of a period in which the other party must also issue a reclaim transaction to protect their funds, before a certain deadline. This is a significant burden on users.	Channels do not need to be monitored at all times, as this depends on the window provided by the relative locktime. Channel-monitoring services (watchtowers) could mitigate this risk by monitoring channels on behalf of users: these services could either warn users in the event of a hostile reclaim transaction or could issue reclaim transactions themselves, if they were pre-signed and supplied beforehand by the users.

In reality, the truth may lie somewhere between these two visions, with the network potentially moving to the more ambitious vision over time. What this disagreement appears to come down to is that Lightning sceptics see it as a complex, incomplete, and impractical payment system based on the channel-construction system alone. Proponents see Lightning more as a scalable building block for a second layer on top of Bitcoin’s blockchain, which will eventually be supplemented by wallets, payment protocol systems and channel-servicing companies, resulting in a simple and seamless user experience. Ultimately, wallets may be able to communicate with each other and then automatically, dynamically decide which payment methodology is best, on-chain or the most practical method via Lightning, without the user even knowing or caring.

The increased security risks of Lightning

• Requirement to be online when receiving a payment: As explained above, before receiving a payment, the recipient needs to sign a reclaim transaction so that the sender knows they can reclaim their funds in the event of hostile channel closure or a refusal to sign. Therefore, to receive money requires a hot wallet, meaning that private keys are potentially exposed if a security incident occurs.
• Requirement to monitor the channel: Lightning Network participants or watchtowers may be required to actively monitor the payment channels. This could place a burden on users or watchtowers and potentially reduces the security of funds inside a channel relative to Bitcoin stored on-chain. There is a risk of missing a reclaim-transaction deadline, either due to a failure to appropriately monitor the channel or perhaps because of on-chain network congestion.
• Miners could censor channel-closing transactions: 51% of the hashrate may have the ability to steal funds from Lightning users by censoring a channel-closure transaction, in which the miner is the other party. Although the potential consequences of this type of attack are already devastating without Lightning, the Lightning Network potentially offers hostile miners a slightly larger attack surface.

While each of these three factors alone may not be significant, the need to potentially expose one’s private keys to the Internet when receiving payments, the risk of a hostile channel closure, and the risk of miners censoring channel-redemption transactions combined result in significantly inferior security — although all these risks can be managed to some extent.

There is a risk that lazy or poorly informed users keep too much money in a channel and funds are lost or stolen due to one of these failure scenarios. There is also the risk that price volatility results in users keeping more funds in payment channels than they would otherwise have intended.

Conclusion

The Lightning Network does appear to potentially offer significant and transformational improvements with respect to scalability. As a result, transaction speeds and transaction fee rates should dramatically improve, without impacting the underlying security of the core protocol. Crucially, however, the inferior security properties of Lightning payments may make the Lightning Network unsuitable for larger payments (or, at least, it may be irresponsible to use it for larger payments). Speculation and investment flows, which require these larger payments, currently appear to be the major driving force in the cryptocurrency space, with the volume of retail payments being relatively small in comparison. Because of that, Lightning may not be as big a game changer as some imagine, at least in the medium term. While enthusiasts appear likely to adopt this technology quickly, widespread adoption may take considerable time.

Abstract: In this third piece on crypto mining incentives, we look at the different time periods miners may choose to maximise profits: in the short term or long term. We draw analogies with related concepts in traditional mining, such as high-grading. In corporate finance circles, there are rumours of potential IPOs for crypto miners, which could mean management focus shifts to the short term, as these groups may unfortunately need to justify quarterly earnings to investment analysts. We then look at the implications of this on potential network issues, such as replace by fee (RBF), AsicBoost, and the blocksize limit.  Whether one likes it or not, we think full RBF is coming.

Bitmain crypto-mining farm in Inner Mongolia: photograph (above) and satellite image (below). Bitcoin mining is no longer for only for  hobbyists. (Source: Google Maps satellite image)

Overview

In September 2017, we wrote two pieces on mining incentives. Part 1 focused on the mining cost curve and compared it to the dynamics of the cost curve in traditional mining while part 2 looked at circumstances in the energy industry that could result in attractive opportunities for crypto miners, concluding that failed or otherwise uneconomic energy projects may be best suited for Bitcoin mining.  In November 2017, we wrote about miners chasing short-term profits in the Litecoin vs. Dogecoin hashrate wars of 2014 and how this was repeated again with Bitcoin Cash, as the hashrate oscillated between coins due to miners attempting to maximise short-term profits rather than make decisions based on ideological support for their favoured coins.

This piece looks at the possibility that miners will focus on short-term profit maximisation (perhaps even next-block profit maximisation) or on promoting the long-term viability of the system by enacting policies designed to improve the end-user experience, thereby potentially increasing long-term profits. The level of competition in the industry, as well as the level of profitability, can alter decisions to pursue short-term and long-term profit maximisation. Higher levels of competition and lower profit margins may result in a more short-term outlook. Each strategy could have implications for Bitcoin, replace-by-fee transactions, AsicBoost, or the blocksize-limit policy.

Mining is becoming less ideological and more commercial. At the same time, the intensity of competition may increase in the coming months and years. We predict full RBF will become prevalent in Bitcoin mining, as miners seek to maximise short-term profits.

Long term vs. short run

Most businesses want to maximise profits and Bitcoin mining is likely to be no exception.  In the past, perhaps, some miners were hobbyists or idealists, but this era appears to have ended — profits are now seen as a main driver as the industry grows and becomes more commercial. However, profit maximisation can be more complex than one may think. Strictly speaking, investors should select projects which maximise discounted returns, and evaluating the difference between profits today and profits tomorrow — the discount rate — is often a challenge.

Analogy with traditional mining: High-grading

In traditional mining, high-grading is the practice of harvesting a higher grade of ore in a way that wastes or destroys lower grade ore, reducing the overall return of the mine. This destructive process reduces the total value of the ore body by making some ore inaccessible or literally destroying it in favour of access to higher grade ore. Mining management teams may engage in this process due to short-term pressure — for example, to boost short-term profit margins to satisfy shareholders, to generate cash flow to satisfy debt holders, or to achieve their own performance-linked bonuses. Management teams might conceal this  conduct from the public or from investors.

High-grading often occurs during prolonged periods of price weakness of the relevant commodity, when profit margins are low, debt levels are high, and there is considerable pressure on management teams. Randgold CEO Mark Bristow has said:

The question is, are the companies going to re-cut their business long-term at a lower gold price, or are they going to re-cut their short-term business hoping they’ll be rescued in the long term by the gold price? That second one is called high-grading and it’s a disaster.

The diagram below depicts the plan for a high-grading open-pit mine. An initial plan for a larger mine (scenario A) captures more of the total ore but the alternative plan (scenario B) increases the grade of the ore mined, while permanently destroying or removing access to some high-grade ore, which is potentially detrimental to the long-term interest of mine owners.

(Source: Exploration Alliance)

Revising a mining plan due to changes in discount rates, costs, or commodity prices can of course be entirely legitimate in some circumstances, but high-grading has negative connotations and is normally associated with reducing the value of assets in an inappropriate manner.

Although there is no direct link between high-grading and crypto mining, the concept demonstrates that when mining teams are under pressure, they can make short-term decisions that destroy long-term shareholder value. This is particularly relevant in the listed space, where shareholders may have less control, less information, or more of a short-term focus.

Mining profitability

Whether miners make these destructive short-term-focused decisions or not often depends on the level of profitability, which can be determined by the price of the underlying commodity. If the price of the commodity or crypto asset falls, a miner who is no longer profitable may be faced with three options:

• Operate at a loss — This could make a contribution to fixed costs.
• Suspend operations — In traditional mining, this could reduce the supply of the commodity and thus increase its price. In crypto mining, on the other hand, this could lower the difficulty, increasing profit margins for the remaining miners.
• Modify mining policies — In traditional mining, this could be a modification to the mining plan such as, for example, a switch to high-grading. In the case of crypto, it could be engaging in full RBF, overt AsicBoost, or, in the event of an unlimited blocksize limit, clearing the memory pool to scoop up all the fees, despite the negative impact this could have on pricing in the transaction fee market, destroying industry prospects.

In general, lower profitability can increase the pressure on management teams and lead them to make more short-term decisions — for example, to pay down debt if they are under pressure from banks or to return to profitability if they are under pressure from shareholders. Higher-margin companies may have more freedom to focus on the long term and may be able to invest for the future.

Industry concentration

In addition to profitability, another factor to consider in crypto mining is the level of concentration in the industry.

Mining pool concentration over the last six months. (Source: BitMEX Research, Blockchain.info)

The above chart illustrates the level of concentration among mining pools, but one could also analyse the level of concentration in the industry by looking at chip production or the control of mining farms. With respect to chip production, we estimate that Bitmain may have a 75% market share in Bitcoin.

The policies of a miner with a large market share may have a significant impact on Bitcoin, which could impact the value of the entire system. In contrast, the policies of each small miner with a low market share may not have much impact on the system as a whole. Among the small miners, this threatens to become a tragedy of the commons if policies that are best for the system as a whole are not those that are most beneficial for each small individual miner. For instance, a small miner with a 1% market share can opt to engage in action that increases profits but damage the prospects of the whole system if all miners were to engage in the same action. Why would the small miner choose not to conduct the activity, since that miner’s 1% market share will not make much difference on its own.

In addition, the level of competitive intensity may also matter. If miners are ruthlessly competing for market share, they may be more focused on doing whatever it takes to improve profit margins to win business.

Replace by fee

Replace by fee (RBF) is a system that enables the replacement of a transaction in a miner’s memory pool with a different transaction that spends some or all of the same inputs, due to higher transaction fees. A variant of this feature was first added by Satoshi, who later removed it. Bitcoin Core then added in an opt-in version of the technology, where users must specify that the transaction can be replaced when making the transaction.

RBF has always been controversial, both the full version and the opt-in version, with detractors claiming that it reduces the usability of Bitcoin by undermining zero-confirmation transactions. Supporters of RBF claim, among other things, that miners will eventually adopt full RBF anyway, as it boosts short-term profits by selecting transactions with larger fees, even though it may harm long-term profitability by reducing the utility of the system, which could lower the Bitcoin price. Again, it’s sometimes seen as a “tragedy of the commons” problem. Opponents of RBF may counter this by saying miners have more of a long-term focus, and therefore RBF advocates are solving a theoretical game-theory problem that may not apply.

Certain industry characteristics encourage short-term profit-driven motives and therefore full RBF:

Short-term profit: Full RBF more likely	Long-term profit:  Full RBF less likely
A period of falling Bitcoin prices	A period of rising Bitcoin prices
Lower profit margins	Higher profit margins
Lower levels of industry concentration	Higher levels of industry concentration
More intense competition and rivalry among miners	A less intense competitive environment and collaboration among miners
Publicly owned mining companies	Privately owned mining companies
Profit-driven miners	Ideologically driven miners

Unlimited blocksize limit

As anyone following Bitcoin knows, the blocksize debate is a complex issue. One angle is the interrelationship between the fee market and mining incentivisation. Supporters of larger blocks sometimes argue that a fee market would still work with an unlimited blocksize, while “smaller-blockers” often dispute this point.

An element of this argument is related to whether miners focus on the long term or the short term, just like for RBF. Supporters of an economically relevant blocksize limit claim that without a limit, miners may focus on maximising short-term profits and scoop up all the fees, resulting in low fees and insufficient mining incentives. “Larger-blockers” retort that miners will have more of a long-term focus and would not take such action, as it would damage the long-term viability of the system, and therefore their businesses.

History of the “death spiral” argument

In some ways, this short-term versus long-term incentive discussion, or the “death spiral” argument, goes right to the genesis of the blocksize debate, back in in April 2011, which is when Mike Hearn wrote this at Bitcointalk:

The death spiral argument assumes that I would include all transactions no matter how low their fee/priority, because it costs me nothing to do so and why would I not take the free money? Yet real life is full of companies that could do this but don’t, because they understand it would undermine their own business.

One day earlier, Hearn had written that “the death spiral failure mode seems plausible” but he apparently changed his mind after thinking about the issue further.

Some larger-blockers have somewhat shifted views in recent years to a pro-mining philosophy of chasing short-term profits, perhaps because a large miner, Bitmain, ironically has been one of the most prominent advocates of larger blocks. Most larger-blockers appear have shifted the narrative to other valid points, although, as explained above, this “short term versus long term” line of thought can be considered the genesis of the blocksize debate and part of the reason for the initial division in the community.

There is no right or wrong answer to these questions. Whether miners have a short-term focus or long-term focus depends on many factors, including profitability and market share. The industry may go through cycles of shifts between long-term and short-term focus depending on conditions in the industry. This phenomenon is visible in traditional mining, driven by commodity price cycles that impact industry conditions.

Changing times: Short-term profit focus will be king

The Bitcoin community is rapidly transforming from a cohesive group of people with a shared vision working together to build a revolutionary technology to a larger community of competing profit-driven factions, and the change is almost complete. It may have seemed unrealistic a few years ago to assume that miners would be primarily driven by short-term profit maximisation, but this has increasingly become accepted as the norm, certainly after the hashrate swings caused by Bitcoin Cash’s EDA.

Mining is a business: TSMC has reported that one crypto-mining business may be spending US$1.5 billion per annum on chips, and growing. In some corporate-finance circles, rumours are circulating that large mining pools or chip producers could shortly conduct an IPO, something almost unimaginable a few years ago. This could put management of the mining pool in the unfortunate position of needing to justify operating profit margins to investment analysts and shareholders each quarter.  At the same time, many expect the mining industry to become more competitive this year, with new companies launching competitive products.

In this new world, RBF behaviour and the fee market “death spiral” failure mode seem more and more inevitable. Perhaps early fee market and RBF advocates were too obsessed with unrealistic and complex game theory, and maybe were too early, when a better tactical decision could have been to focus on the user experience before adopting RBF and full blocks. Bitcoin has changed, and short-term profit maximisation is the new mantra.

We predict that many miners will engage in full RBF and even overt AsicBoost (which can also boost profits) in the coming years as they do all they can to maximise short-term profits. Whether one likes it or not, it’s coming….