Truthcoin Talk 2.0

General Category => Design / Incentives / Game Theory => Topic started by: Thortalp on April 24, 2016, 09:15:40 PM

Title: Trusting Pools vs Oracles
Post by: Thortalp on April 24, 2016, 09:15:40 PM
What effectively is the difference between trusting third party oracles and pool operators? There is a difference in what you trust them with / what they can do if they collude.... But no one can say that Bitcoin is trustless...
Title: Re: Trusting Pools vs Oracles
Post by: psztorc on April 27, 2016, 04:45:00 PM
There are several differences:

1. Mining pool operators can not steal your money, unless they are re-spending money which they owned pre-attack. Oracles can screw up your bet, and steal the money you've wagered.
2. Mining pool operators do not necessarily own mining hardware.
3. The act of mining is expensive, whereas voting is compulsory (ie, "failing to vote" is expensive).