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You bring up so really good and fair points, specifically around the double-spend problem. BitTorrent doesn't need to solve the double-spend problem. Yes, it wasn't the cryptographic signatures that solved that in Bitcoin, BUT at the same time, they could have used PAXOS/RAFT to "elect" a random leader to prevent double-spend AND you'd still have consensus. But it isn't the "consensus" alone, as you note, that makes Bitcoin special - but this is exactly my point in the previous post about why "blockchain" should mean something other than just consensus. It was the ability, as you say, to get consensus without using leader-election algorithms (that would ultimately depend upon trusting that random leader). Now, if you suggest, instead, that "blockchain" should mean specifically that, a trustless non-leader double-spend solution, I think I can buy that. However, immediately PoS and similar algorithms have to be thrown out as not blockchains then (which hey, I'm okay with that). This is exactly where, according to what I think you are saying, then things like CRDTs/DAGs could still match your definition, despite being commutative. Sybil-attacks become irrelevant (because the CRDT/DAG approach only cares about the validity of signatures, not who is trading/mining/elected the most, which might be vulnerable to Sybil-attacks), because if a 1000 extra peers/bots commute the same operation, it doesn't change its significance compared to a single peer that commutes the operation. So wouldn't that match even your own "blockchain" definition? Oh, I'm glad you found that explainer! I'm glad you enjoyed it :). |