DEPRECATED: Proof of Claim Explained: Part 2 — An Analogy for the Election Algorithm
This article is deprecated and no longer accurate. Visit https://versatus.io/blog for Versatus updates and news.
In the previous post in this series, we discussed the first of four components in the Versatus Consensus mechanism, Proof of Claim Elections. We provided a walk through on how precisely it works, along with some code snippets showing how it is implemented. We discussed why it is efficient, in semi-technical terms. For some, it may help to understand with an analogous thought experiment. One of the ways we have described Proof of Claim elections in the past to help people wrap their heads around how it works and, arguably more important, why it works.
The simplest analogy is a verifiable lottery system, one in which the winning numbers are known to all participants (which is the case with all lotteries), but also all of the outstanding lottery tickets are known. To take this analogy further, we can assume that the first lottery ticket is virtually free, while each additional ticket has an incrementally increasing cost, such that the cost of 100 tickets is 1000 or more times the cost of a single ticket.
With this analogy its clear how/why Proof of Claim elections are fully decentralized, but doesn’t necessarily paint the full picture as to why it is collision proof and fast. In lottery games, it is possible for there to be more than one winner. Each participant picks their own numbers, or in some cases, are assigned at random, but could, theoretically and practically, randomly assign the same numbers. Claim objects in Proof of Claim, and the resulting claim hash (the lottery ticket) are each completely unique.
A better example, which we have used in the past, is a location based lottery. So let’s go through this and think through the implications:
Imagine you live in a town which runs a location based lottery. Every day, a random, unique location is picked and the location is broadcasted to all the individual households in the town.
The front door of each house is the “ticket” in this lottery system, and the front door with the shortest distance to the precise GPS coordinate of the “winning” location is the winner of a given “draw”.
Every household has an interactive map, which shows the precise distance of every other household to the winning location. Very quickly, just from a glance at the map, you can eliminate many households in a given draw. Since every household knows the location and distance from the winning location of every other household, it is impossible to cheat.
Unlike a typical lottery, however, in Proof of Claim elections there always must be a winner. So what happens if the “winning” household in our above example has decided to drop out of the lottery, or recently moved, or is out of town for an extended period, i.e. they are unresponsive?
In that case, the next closest household becomes the winner, simple.
But what about it there are two locations that are virtually exactly the same, i.e. 2.65 miles from the winning location. This is possible, but if we extend the distance measure to 60+ decimal points, the probability of them being precisely the same becomes increasingly smaller and virtually impossible for there to be two locations equi-distance from the winning location with that degree of precision.
Whats even better is, this is a fair system, the size of your house doesn’t matter, the price you paid for it doesn’t matter. Just by living in a house in this town, you gain access to the lottery. Buying a second home becomes significantly more expensive, and yes, it gives you another chance to win, but at a much higher cost.
This example is our best attempt to paint the picture, and hits all of the key highlights as to how and why Proof of Claim works.
Let us know what you think. If you have read the whitepaper, and feel you have a better or stronger analogy for Proof of Claim, reach out to us on the website, or via our Telegram group.
To be continued
About the Author
Andrew N. Smith, CAIA is the founder of Versatus Labs, Inc. and is a two-time founder, a strong motivator and leader. At his first startup, Andrew spent 5 years as the sole engineer and data scientist building out the full stack of Machine Learning and Deep Learning models. Andrew began working on Versatus, invented Proof of Claim and single-handedly built the Versatus prototype. Andrew’s vision for Versatus is to not only provide a better, more decentralized, secure and stable blockchain, cryptocurrency and smart contracts platform, but to also actively bridge the gap between the “real economy” and the “crypto economy” by providing developers the most flexible, extensible and composable smart contract platform in the world.
About Versatus Labs, Inc.
Versatus Labs is the development company building Versatus, an innovative blockchain protocol. Versatus is a fast, scalable Layer 1 built on top of a novel consensus mechanism called Proof of Claim. Versatus aims to make the developer experience frictionless by bringing ‘Build, Ship, Run’ DevOps to Web3 with its isolated, composable smart contracts containers, complete with a unikernel VM enabling developers to build in the language of their choice.
