Proof-of-Work: the Novel

Understanding BlockDAGs and GHOSTDAG is an open book written by @DesheShai and supported by the community. It is intended to provide both a documentation of the many features of $kas, and an approachable but challenging introduction to the theory and mechanics of PoW.

6. As usual, my huge gratitude to @kasmediadotcom and @Kaspa_KEF for funding and supporting this important project, and for the beta testers who volunteer their time to infinitely improve the final result.

5. Before writing part II I will take a hiatus from the book to dip dive into the currently ongoing SC endeavors and especially the barrage of fascinating posts by @MichaelSuttonIL et al. in the research forum. This will act as a precursor to a future part of the book.

Updates: 1. Part I is nearing completion and I'm very excited. It is shaping to be a self contained unit that will provide a great resource for Kaspa learning 2. Once it is done, we will work to create a new website fitting of a book. I know the current website is uncomfortable,

@100xyapacak @KaspaCurrency Yeah but this includes exchange wallets so that's not really fair

Claims that Kaspa $KAS is "unlocking tokens" are rooted in misinformation or misunderstandings about its fair launch and Proof-of-Work (PoW) design. It's a good opportunity for a DYK? educational moment. ⚖️Fair Launch Kaspa was launched without pre-mining, no ICO, and no developer or investor allocation. All tokens (Kaspa always calls them “coins”) are distributed through PoW mining, making it one of the most transparent and decentralized blockchain projects. Kaspa is an L1 Crypto Project, not a Crypto Company. 🤑"Token Unlocks" in Context In some projects, “token unlocks” refer to pre-mined or reserved tokens being released over time to investors, founders, or teams. This does not apply to Kaspa, as it uses mining to generate its supply fairly. There are no hidden reserves or scheduled unlocks. Source of Misinformation? 🤷🏽Misinterpretation of Emission Schedule Kaspa has a clear, transparent emission schedule that dictates how $KAS is mined and this is “distributed” over time. Some might confuse this as "unlocking tokens," which is inaccurate. The only way to gain coins is to buy them or mine them. 🤨Competitor FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) Competing projects or individuals may spread misinformation to create doubt or suppress Kaspa’s adoption. 📝Lack of Education Some users may not understand Kaspa’s PoW mechanics or the concept of a fair launch or Proof of Work (mineable) project. See Links in the thread to the Protocol White Paper and the emission schedule.

@MichaelSuttonIL As part of the upcoming GHOSTDAG portion of the book, I am writing a detailed explanation of how this crucial component works. The starting point is the reachability workshop from a few weeks ago (is the video coming up any time soon?), but it fills in *many* details.

Finally got around to studying the fine details of @MichaelSuttonIL's brilliant reachability algorithm. For an average $kas enthusiast, this is the most important algorithm you never heard of. It is a cornerstone of the ability to *efficiently* implement GHOSTDAG. Without it:

- tracking blue anticone sizes - efficient reachability queries - implementing the UTXO model over DAGs (UTXO algebras etc.) - Incentive alignment - and more In the picture: a single example that took me bloody 90 minutes to figure out

2/n detailed companion for anyone seeking to understand how GHOSTDAG is implemented in practice packed with illustrations, pseudo-code, examples and exercises. It covers the following: - PHANTOM vs. GHOSTDAG - The recursive structure of GHOSTDAG - Computing blue anticones

1/n Update: $kas I am now working fervently at writing the portion of the book that actually describes GHOSTDAG. This is the culmination of what I've written so far. This is taking a bit of time because I want to do it *right* but once its done, its going to be the first

@JakeOnWEB3 @DesheShai @Kaspa_KEF @kasmediadotcom @KaspaCurrency @CryptoJon__ I'm sure you read every word

@UGhostdag @DesheShai @Kaspa_KEF @kasmediadotcom @KaspaCurrency This book is garbage. @DesheShai you need to be fired from the kaspa dev team ASAP. Causing mass FUD in the kaspa community arguing with another youtuber @CryptoJon__ for nonsense. You look like an immature little cry baby with your responses. And the community reflects on it.

Understanding GHOSTDAG is an open book written by @DesheShai and funded by @Kaspa_KEF and @kasmediadotcom. It is written to be a friendly entry point for researches, devs, and passionate amateurs into the exciting world of DAG consensus, and $kas @KaspaCurrency in particular.

SPECTRE, Hathor, and Iota's Tangle 1.0. This will set the ground for the fifth and final chapter of the first part of the book, where we finally deep dive into GHOSTDAG and unprecedently excruciating detail.

$kas, I'm glad to announce that chapter 1D has been published! In this chapter, we deep dive into the blockDAG paradigm and explain how security, liveness and confirmation times translate to this setting. We then review a whole bunch of DAG algorithms including

@soullshoping @tkalakaspa @CryptoAspect @MichaelSuttonIL >>to be a sampling window during which 6 blocks arrived. I think it would be better if instead of updating every seconds they would average over windows of at least 15 seconds, this would smooth this noise out.

@soullshoping @tkalakaspa @CryptoAspect @MichaelSuttonIL Kas.fyi samples way too often. It updates the BPS and TPS every second. However, the data does not represents block as they emerge, but as they arrive at the node kas.fyi is monitoring. This introduces a lot of noise. In this case, there happened>>

Can someone explain what is happening? #KASPA $KAS 1717.5 TPS 😳

>> has no incentives whatsoever. We will apply the ideas of the discussion by analyzing the consequences of Pico's poorly aligned incentives on its equilibria, and its sustainability as a whole.

>>responsibility to make sure the incentives aligns with the honest behavior they are open for. In this post, we discuss the interplay between honestly and rationality. We drive the point home by inspecting an extreme edge-case: a hypothetical protocol called Pico, which >>

New post! kasmedia.com/article/unders… We often talk about "honest majority", but what allows us to make this assumption? In reality, we can't. We can only assume that a majority of participants are "rational", and act to maximize their own profit. It is the protocol designer's>>