HARD PROBLEMS: Inside Bram Cohen's Proof-of-Work Reinvention
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 16 May 2021
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bitcoin's 'Nakamoto Consensus' changed the world. For the first time ever, strangers on the internet were empowered by a system that allowed them to individually and jointly track who owned which internet-native items... First money, then early stage (and often illegal) investments, followed by digital cats, multi-million dollar art, viral memes and soon enough, well, everything.
This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io and Bitstamp.
If there's one complaint (whether right or wrong) about Satoshi's breakthrough, it's the energy cost it comes at.
Whether you're talking about Bitcoin or the myriad other proof of work systems, 'Nakamoto Consensus' is a "competitive money burning process." Each time transactions are added to the permanent history it's a race to see who can prove their commitment to the network by finding the winning raffle ticket the fastest. Everyone races but only one wins and when each block is found, the process starts over. It's not a perfect system, but it works and it's the best one we've found... So far.
In this premiere episode of "Hard Problems", join BitTorrent inventor and Chia CEO Bram Cohen, CoinDesk's Adam B. Levine, community members JMHands and Michel Erb for a lively discussion of Bram's newly launched reinvention of distributed, proof of work consensus known as Proofs of Space and Time.
In it, we discuss
- The challenges Bram believes his new system resolves
- How 'Proofs of Space and Time' works compared to traditional 'Nakamoto Consensus'
- The differences between Bitcoin mining and Chia farming
- Why improving proof-of-work is the better choice than proof-of-stake or other consensus systems
- Plus many questions from the live Clubhouse audience, with a special line of questioning from Tuur Demeester
If you'd like to join the live audience for our next Clubhouse recording where Jeffrey "Sneak" Paul joins Bram to dig into the hard and growing problems behind Ransomware, follow 'bramcohen' and 'adamblevine' on Clubhouse.
-
Nexo.io lets you borrow against your crypto at 5.9% APR, earn up to 12% on your idle assets, and exchange instantly between 75+ market pairs with the tap of a button. Get started at nexo.io.
-
Bitstamp is the world’s longest-running cryptocurrency exchange, supporting investors, traders and leading financial institutions since 2011. With a proven track record and dedication to personal customer service with a human touch, Bitstamp’s fast, secure and reliable crypto investing platform is trusted by over four million people worldwide. To learn more, visit www.bitstamp.net.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The world is a complex place. |
| 0:03.0 | Few know this better than BitTorren inventor and Chia CEO Bram Cohen. |
| 0:06.9 | He spent the last 30 years digging into some of the most intriguing quandaries and toughest challenges out there. |
| 0:11.8 | From technology and tokens to interpersonal relationships and AI, these days Bram is leading the live conversation on the audio-only social network known as Clubhouse. |
| 0:20.6 | So put on your thinking |
| 0:21.7 | cap, top off that drink, and strap in as CoinDesk presents this episode of hard problems with |
| 0:27.2 | Bram Cohen. There's huge amounts of over-provisioned storage capacity in the world. Once the |
| 0:33.6 | data is created in the final capacity, it doesn't matter what storage medium your data is on as long as it can respond to the channel it is fast enough. |
| 0:40.3 | There are some very deep issues with what are called helmet attacks. |
| 0:46.3 | But once you have final capacity, you put it on the cheapest thing you can possibly find, which today is hard-guised. |
| 0:52.3 | What I believe is going to happen long term is rather |
| 0:55.5 | different from what you see happening today. This episode is brought to you by nexo.io and BitStamp. |
| 1:01.6 | It was recorded with a live clubhouse audience on April 5th, 2021. In this episode, we'll be discussing |
| 1:07.9 | BitToran inventor Bram Cohen's newly launched Chia network, |
| 1:10.9 | and specifically how and why it does distributed consensus differently than the proof of work and proof of stake systems we're used to. |
| 1:17.6 | To round out the discussion, we're joined by two Chia community members, J.M. Hans and Michelle Irb, |
| 1:22.2 | who have been spending a lot of time plotting and farming in Chia's proof of space and time system. |
| 1:26.7 | That's proofs of space and time system. That's proofs of space and time system. |
| 1:28.6 | Later we'll open up the discussion for your question. So go ahead and raise your hands if you're in |
| 1:32.6 | our live clubhouse audience as you think of them or need a little more clarity. But before that, |
| 1:37.0 | Bram, let's quickly cover the basics. So what I want to kind of start with is what's the most |
| 1:43.1 | important hard problem that you are trying to solve with Chia? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from CoinDesk, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of CoinDesk and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.