Goals
There are three main goals:
Goal 1: New Proof of Space for Filecoin as a plan B for SDR
WindowPoSt is soon to be broken in the cost model (see ‣), which means Filecoin will only rely on the latency model of SDR which we deem to be a strong assumption.
The goal is to have a plan B for the current proof of space that we deem to increase the security of Filecoin (e.g. better cost model, better latency assumption,..)
Goal 2: New Proof of Space for Filecoin that improves on the items in the Feature Prioritization
Unsealing is slow and expensive, sealing takes a long time and special hardware.. We want re-design (or reassess parameters) of the current proof of space to enable new important features.
Goal 3: Enable other teams to work on Proof of Space by publishing a Proof of Space primer (theory, definitions and frameworks)
Starting Proof of Space research is very difficult due to the lack of formalization of the problem. The published papers contain errors, have unclear requirements or are old. We want to decrease the difficulty into researching Proof of Space.
Feature Prioritization
Features that the next Filecoin proof should have (especially when compared with SDR). This is the list we discussed:
- Retrieval:
- On-demand fast retrieval (P0: 10s for retrieving 1MB is okay for the first time)
- Better costs for retrieval (P1)
- Mining and Storage Maintenance :
- Cheaper total mining costs: sealing, proving and maintaining (P2, it is okay to be a bit more expensive than today!)
- Energy-efficient mining: Less energy spent in mining ops (P1)
- Relaxed miner’s schedule for submission: (1) Avoid the miner posting every 30 mins and (2) avoid the miner to only have 30 mins to submit a proof (both provecommit and windowpost) (P2)
- Constant sectors checking: Avoid checking all of their sectors once a day (P2)
- Reduce PreCommit deposit: faults fees (P2)
- New features:
- Sector Data Update (low cost for going from CCSector to DealSector) (P1) → DONE!!!! (SnapDeals)
- (!) Longevity: Proofs with longer sector max lifetime than today (P1)
- Non-interactive: Non-interactive sealing phase to avoid the pre-commit step (P2)
- Reduce on-chain posting: one on-chain proof counts for more than 1 post on the same sector (P2)
- (!) Incremental cost for Sector Max Lifetime Extension: Sector max lifetime can be incrementally extended without a complete resealing (only a partial reseal is needed) (P0 if we do not have longevity, otherwise P1)
TODO:
Scope of work and ongoing work
- Project: Proof of Space primer (P0)
- Systematizing notions of (useful) PoS and literature review ✅
- Accessible rewriting of existing proofs
- Project: Pebbling PoS: SDR and NSE improvements and tighter analysis (P0)
- Re-evaluate the feature prioritization for the Proof of Space (P0)
- Re-evaluate security of SDR and NSE (P1)
- Improvements to NSE by Leonid Reyzin
- Project: Radical New PoS (P4)
- Project: Find new assumptions for cost and latency (P4)
Misc
Past Efforts
- 2021Q1 Request for community feedback on proof of space design
- 2021Q1 PoRep Effort Design constraints