amanda_b_johnson
Well-known member
Let's discuss this possibility. (Here is a Discord thread if you prefer.)
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Should a Dash-PIVX merger be explored?
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qwizzie
Well-known member
I remember a proposed merger between Dash and another crypto project in the past (ShadowCash) . That did not end well.
With regards to PIVX and Dash, i do not see that work as well. Too much difference between the two projects
and too much bad blood between both communities. I seem to recall quite a few Monero fans ended up in PIVX.
With regards to PIVX and Dash, i do not see that work as well. Too much difference between the two projects
and too much bad blood between both communities. I seem to recall quite a few Monero fans ended up in PIVX.
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amanda_b_johnson
Well-known member
What are the differences between Dash and PIVX that you view as too big or numerable to overcome?
qwizzie
Well-known member
PIVX is Proof of Stake, Dash is Proof of Work. How do you propose to integrate two rather different consensus mechanisme's ?
PIVX is privacy-focused (it is basically their only use case which they heavily promote), Dash has many other use cases (including a privacy use case), so why does Dash even need PIVX ? Seems to me like PIVX need Dash a lot more (they get access to Dash Platform, InstantSend and other Dash advanced tech), then Dash need PIVX.
Maybe you can explain both the benefits and the risks of such a merger to Dash specific, because right now i am not seeing the benefits for Dash and i am pretty sure there are risks to Dash too (like it all blowing up in our face again, as with the failed Darkcoin-ShadowCash merger).
I suspect that the Darkcoin-ShadowCash merger mainly failed due to both communities being very much against it, which devs at the time (Evan / Core team & ShadowCash devs) failed to notice. And here we are discussing even a more controversial merger (Dash-PIVX).
I just don't see this working out well.
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trust_thyself
Active member
T
Thanks for kicking-off this convo. I'm weighing-in on the Discord thread you started.
amanda_b_johnson
Well-known member
Responding to @qwizzie's points:
Re: consensus mechanism
Labelling the two systems as proof-of-stake versus proof-of-work and leaving it at that is neglecting some major points of similarity from which to start.
First is that both systems employ staked masternodes to perform crucial network services.
Second is that a move to proof-of-stake has already been discussed widely in Dash over the years, with the current heads of both DCG and the Incubator publicly stating that they think it's potentially viable and at least worth exploring further.
With regard to your second point about a suspicion that the deal would be better for PIVX holders than Dash holders:
If someone came to you and said he'd give you a 400 Troy ounce gold bar, but only if he could give two of them to the man next to you... would you say no?
Isn't it always better to be better off?
Besides, if you really believed that the PIVX holder would be better off than the Dash holder after a merger, you would simply sell some Dash for PIVX ahead of time, and scoop up the very profits you say you'd envy.
Win-win all around.
Finally, as to the overall benefits, they are the reasons that mergers have taken place in every competitive environment throughout history: the merging parties both end up with more resources of every kind. We'd both have more users, more developers who know the Dash codebase, and potentially lower combined infrastructure costs.
And potentially the most powerful of all, we may well both end up with far more market attention than we had before. Because this market does not need another token or blockchain. Everyone is sick to death of them. What it needs is fewer, better blockchains.
It's time for consolidation. How else will digital cash be able to compete with digital gold?
Re: consensus mechanism
Labelling the two systems as proof-of-stake versus proof-of-work and leaving it at that is neglecting some major points of similarity from which to start.
First is that both systems employ staked masternodes to perform crucial network services.
Second is that a move to proof-of-stake has already been discussed widely in Dash over the years, with the current heads of both DCG and the Incubator publicly stating that they think it's potentially viable and at least worth exploring further.
With regard to your second point about a suspicion that the deal would be better for PIVX holders than Dash holders:
If someone came to you and said he'd give you a 400 Troy ounce gold bar, but only if he could give two of them to the man next to you... would you say no?
Isn't it always better to be better off?
Besides, if you really believed that the PIVX holder would be better off than the Dash holder after a merger, you would simply sell some Dash for PIVX ahead of time, and scoop up the very profits you say you'd envy.
Win-win all around.
Finally, as to the overall benefits, they are the reasons that mergers have taken place in every competitive environment throughout history: the merging parties both end up with more resources of every kind. We'd both have more users, more developers who know the Dash codebase, and potentially lower combined infrastructure costs.
And potentially the most powerful of all, we may well both end up with far more market attention than we had before. Because this market does not need another token or blockchain. Everyone is sick to death of them. What it needs is fewer, better blockchains.
It's time for consolidation. How else will digital cash be able to compete with digital gold?
qwizzie
Well-known member
So you want Dash to abandon its Proof of Work consensus mechanisme for Proof of Stake, which is inherently less secure then Proof of Work ?
Just for a merger with PIVX ?
For Dash this will mean BLS-based proof-of-stake, where PoW will be fully replaced by BLS. I am not sure if BLS actually reached the level as a possible source of entropy, where it can both provide the same level of security (through BLS signatures) and same level of randomness compared to PoW.
See : https://www.dash.org/forum/index.php?threads/source-of-entropy.49136/#post-218560
So far i know BLS signatures can still fail and therefore BLS-based proof-of-stake can not fully replace PoW, not without some backup system in place. Or we get into a stalled Dash chain situation (May 2023) all over again. Which by the way was caused by a BLS upgrade, if i remember correctly.
If nothing else the stalled Dash chain situation showed us that BLS can not fully replace PoW without adding risk to our system, something we should not want from a security point of view.
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How could a merger be achieved without refactoring Dash supply?
cryptosi
Member
Perhaps you're overstating the security difference between POS and POW. PIVX has been quite secure for some time. Your BLS comments are pretty valid though as far as im aware.
amanda_b_johnson
Well-known member
@qwizzie No, I'm not convinced that switching to pure proof-of-stake is necessarily the better option. If sufficient research and debate leads to the conclusion that Dash's current consensus mechanism is more secure than pure PoS, perhaps the PIVX people would be willing to take that as part of the deal, provided that get enough of what they want in order to offset it.
And @AgnewPickens , yes, a refactoring of coin supply would be necessary on the part of both networks. Let me copy-paste this comment I just left in the #brainstorm Discord thread:
"My ideal is that the two DAOs agree on specifically what a 'merged' version of themselves would look like. Meaning, what exact features a single chain would and wouldn't have.
Secondly, we'd agree on an exchange rate for the coins. Currently, one Dash trades for about 85 PIVX.
So on the new chain that both networks agree to upgrade to, Dash UTXOs remain the same (as in, one Dash before is still one Dash), and PIVX UTXOs become one Dash per 85 PIVX.
That would leave an end coin supply of about 13 million coins, or about 1 million more than Dash currently has.
In other words, if we offered PIVX a deal that they're genuinely happy with from a tech and branding standpoint -- privacy being paramount -- we could 'acquire' them, so to speak, by creating 1 million new Dash.
These are rough numbers, and my guess is that we'd need to offer them a premium to offset the risk of price fluctuations en route to the end product."
And @AgnewPickens , yes, a refactoring of coin supply would be necessary on the part of both networks. Let me copy-paste this comment I just left in the #brainstorm Discord thread:
"My ideal is that the two DAOs agree on specifically what a 'merged' version of themselves would look like. Meaning, what exact features a single chain would and wouldn't have.
Secondly, we'd agree on an exchange rate for the coins. Currently, one Dash trades for about 85 PIVX.
So on the new chain that both networks agree to upgrade to, Dash UTXOs remain the same (as in, one Dash before is still one Dash), and PIVX UTXOs become one Dash per 85 PIVX.
That would leave an end coin supply of about 13 million coins, or about 1 million more than Dash currently has.
In other words, if we offered PIVX a deal that they're genuinely happy with from a tech and branding standpoint -- privacy being paramount -- we could 'acquire' them, so to speak, by creating 1 million new Dash.
These are rough numbers, and my guess is that we'd need to offer them a premium to offset the risk of price fluctuations en route to the end product."
vazaki3
Well-known member
What a lovely conversation!!!
But unfortunately the old generation cannot evolve when merging each other.
DASH SHOULD MERGE WITH NEW GENERATION COINS, NOT WITH THE OLD BASTARDS!!!!
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qwizzie
Well-known member
Why don't you start a public discussion with the PIVX community about this. I would be very surprised if they are open for this merger and if they are not open for this, then this whole discussion / debate has become pointless.
Why do i have the feeling that so far Rion only spoke to a few PIVX devs and the PIVX community at large is unaware about this Dash-PIVX merger discussion taking place here ? If you and Rion are really serious about this, then this merger discussion needs to be held in both communities at the same time. To measure support for this merger in both communities. No amount of research or debate will make a merger possible, if one or both communities are principally against such a merger (the failed Darkcoin-ShadowCash merger tought us that). Keeping the PIVX community out of the loop will surely alienate them, which is not good for this debate / these discussions.
If you and Rion are indeed serious about this, then support for this merger will ultimately need to be confirmed through Dash and PIVX governance system, which means launching governance proposals to discuss and debate this on both networks. I don't think there is support for this merger in either Dash governance system or PIVX governance system, but there is nothing stopping you from giving it a try. Thereby bringing the discussions / debate to a higher level, then the current talk-talk level.
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PIVX PoS is ECDSA based, not BLS based so you are probably talking about ETH PoS I guess?
In the case of ETH, someone would have to control the majority of individual keys for signing, which in ETHs case, around 300k validators sign each block each epoch about every 6 minutes, goodluck owning that majority.
Further, (afaik, lol), PIVX will likely use BLS keys only for deterministic masternodes (same as Dash). Sapling is not based on BLS and PIVX designed shield staking to sign blocks with RedDSA.
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As a member of both communities, I can assure you it is being talked about on both sides. Both teams probably agreed to make it public at the same time.
I would say yes, but not with PIVX, as @vazaki3 says, PIVX is the old generation,
This idea will never materialize unless you can get Sam Westrich onboard, which I highly doubt. And I can point to the dash wallet as proof because it's always been so complacent, it never had the balls to add bitcoin, even though dash uses the bitcoin code base. Many here still live in a bubble and continue to believe that dash can do everything alone. Not least that many here still sing the praises of Instant Send when everyone and their dog is doing fast transactions.
Look, as I said elsewhere, dash is not digital cash, it is web3. If it is not web3, then WTF was all this time and money dedicated to? Evolution / Platform was going to be the thing that saved dash? I agree that PIVX would help with fungibility but right now the only thing that can save dash is like minded web3 projects that would compliment Platform.
There is an org called Private Finance Syndicate (PFS) and this might be a good starting point as we already know they see the power of joining forces. But I am open to other options, especially those building Layer 0 and those with real world applications with very high volume daily users.
This idea will never materialize unless you can get Sam Westrich onboard, which I highly doubt. And I can point to the dash wallet as proof because it's always been so complacent, it never had the balls to add bitcoin, even though dash uses the bitcoin code base. Many here still live in a bubble and continue to believe that dash can do everything alone. Not least that many here still sing the praises of Instant Send when everyone and their dog is doing fast transactions.
Look, as I said elsewhere, dash is not digital cash, it is web3. If it is not web3, then WTF was all this time and money dedicated to? Evolution / Platform was going to be the thing that saved dash? I agree that PIVX would help with fungibility but right now the only thing that can save dash is like minded web3 projects that would compliment Platform.
There is an org called Private Finance Syndicate (PFS) and this might be a good starting point as we already know they see the power of joining forces. But I am open to other options, especially those building Layer 0 and those with real world applications with very high volume daily users.
qwizzie
Well-known member
No, i was talking about a possible switch from PoW to PoS for Dash specifically. With a reference to a Dash thread where this was last discussed by Dash Core Group with the Dash community end of 2019 --> https://www.dash.org/forum/index.php?threads/source-of-entropy.49136/#post-218560 and where this BLS based proof of stake for Dash has some technical problems (BLS signatures can fail) that need to be solved first.
So how does the PIVX community feel about possibly switching to Dash Proof of Work consensus mechanism ?
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I don't think that would fly!
Stakers (the PIVX community) would lose rewards and no longer be able to participate in securing the blockchain. That feeling of helping secure the network would go out the window. I hold Dash, but can't contribute to the network, I hold PIVX and can contribute.
Instead, rewards would go to the miners (and mno) basically leaving the average user out in the cold as most would not be able to run ASIC miners.
PIVX is more inclusive (and decentralized) in this regard as the barrier to entry for staking/cold-staking is so low that it can be accomplished by almost anyone in the world regardless of wealth, available electricity, internet bandwidth, etc.
qwizzie
Well-known member
I suspected that would be the case.
Which means this merger is very difficult to achieve, because PIVX stakers would be against moving to Dash PoW consensus mechanism and Dash (which is using BLS extensively for Dash Platform) can not solely rely on BLS yet (so far i know) to switch to a full PoS consensus mechanism. And i don't think that Dash can switch to ECDSA that easily either (?). So i am not sure how this merger would even work. Unless there is some kind of hybrid BLS/ECDSA PoS consensus mechanism possible, which is as efficient and secure for Dash as PoW. But even then you have to take into account the resistance within the Dash community towards moving to PoS. It is just a highly controversial topic.
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Eric_Stanek
New member
Sorry. I have not kept up with Dash. What is the difference between Evolution and Platform? What is their status? What features and functionality do they provide?
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