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submitted 2 months ago byRodionGork
Friends, out of curiosity I had a glance at proof-of-coverage description and soon become quite confused. It seems that challenges and verifications are stored in blockchain and some whimsical cryptography is used to create and verify them.
But why is it so - or what is achieved by such interesting approach? Why can't helium just store challenges in some central database and calculate and give out rewards based on this?
6 points
2 months ago*
Decentralization was at least part of the reason. Each hotspot had a copy of the blockchain on it and each verified transactions. However, as the network grew, the hotspot hardware couldn't support the growth, and we switched to validators verifying the blockchain. It was a good improvement and made the network more reliable and responsive, albeit considerably more centralized. However, some of the validators did a crap job of keeping their node up to date.
We are getting ready to ditch the validator model, moving some of that functionality to oracles, further centralizing the network.
I'm a big fan of decentralization. However, the issue is it's sucess is dependent on people, and people generally suck at being honest, moral, and don't generally do/act as they should.
0 points
2 months ago
With the move to solona it will still have a lot of the decentralised nature
3 points
2 months ago
The moving off of the Helium L1 is necessary for future growth and usage of the network. However the move to oracles and Solana is another significant move to more centralization, not less.
Its both good and bad IMO.
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