【回顾】Chia 区块链 – 十年发展
本文是Chia的创始人Bram Cohen在十年前构思过程中，与比特币核心开发者的交流原始对话，从中我们可以看到Bram寻找更好解决方案的探索过程，最终找到了用存储空间和计算时间结合的方式，解决了比特币长期面临的问题，从而决定独立搞了一条公共一层区块链--Chia！】
Chia 区块链 – 十年发展
Bram Cohen 基于消费级存储空间和通过时间构建更好的比特币的想法始于大约十年前的比特币开发者 IRC 频道。随着 Chia 第一次奖励减半，同时在主网上线近 3 周年之际，让我们回顾一下过去，看看是什么最终促成了时空证明共识机制的诞生和 Chia 区块链的开始。
感谢 Chia Discord 服务器上的 Kurt86 让这段历史信息重见天日。
[目录]
Bram深入比特币（2014年）
建议不要创建新的区块链
专注于去中心化挖矿
减少能源浪费的愿望
存储证明就是答案
拓展阅读
Bram 深入研究比特币 (2014)
尽管比特币是建立在 Bram 发明的基础点对点网络协议 BitTorrent 之上（并且比特币的命名很可能也是为了向BitTorrent 致敬），但 Bram 在早期就被描述为比特币怀疑论者。直到 2014 年左右比特币发展多年后，Bram 才开始认真研究它。正是在比特币 IRC 频道，特别是现在仍然可以访问的 #bitcoin-wizards 频道（针对有兴趣讨论加密货币长期方向的比特币专家和未来学家），我们看到 Bram 分享了关于比特币缺点的早期思考以及他想修复它的想法。
建议不要创建新的区块链
在Hashcash 发明者、最终成为 Blockstream 首席执行的 Adam Back (adam3us) 和 Bram (bramc) 之间的早期对话中，Adam 质疑 Bram 研究比特币的动机——是为了帮助改进比特币，还是 Bram 只是对创建自己的区块链感兴趣。Adam 提到莱特币作为反对试图建立比特币替代品的例子。
<adam3us> so bramc is your interest to catchup with bitcoin or to start a bramcoin, just curious 🙂 if you dont mind us asking you a question in return!
<adam3us> 因此，bramc 是您有兴趣追赶比特币或创建 bramcoin 的兴趣，只是好奇 🙂 如果您不介意我们问您一个问题作为回报！<bramc>adam3us, I’m not announcing anything right now, people are drawing not unreasonable inferences though
<bramc> adam3us，我现在不会宣布任何事情，不过人们做出的推断并非不合理<adam3us> bramc can you give an example of a not unreasonable inference (i am a bit behind on wizarsd backscroll)
<adam3us> bramc 你能举一个不无道理的推论的例子吗（我在wizardsd backscroll方面有点落后）<bramc> There’s been some more off the path discussion in ##altcoin-dev where I was talking about how to mix together cuckoo and nonoutsourcable proofs of work
<bramc> 在 ##altcoin-dev 中有更多偏离路径的讨论，我在其中讨论了如何将布谷鸟和非外包工作证明混合在一起<adam3us> so you know, i went through the hmm people seem to know who I am, i could start an altcoin and probably make some pump & dump $ on it, for all of about 15seconds and then i was thinking, no thats antisocial, evil and selfish – its more sensible to work on improving bitcoin. hence arriving at encrypted values, and interest in sidechains.
<adam3us> 所以你知道，我经历了嗯，人们似乎知道我是谁，我可以启动一个山寨币，并可能在它上面做一些拉高和抛售美元，大约 15 秒，然后我在想，不，那是反社会的、邪恶和自私——致力于改进比特币更为明智。因此得出加密值以及对侧链的兴趣。
<adam3us> bramc: just trying to nudge you through the right exit to that funnel so we dont get another “silver to bitcoins gold” moment (litecoin ref if you werent around for that one). a) its unlikely to over take bitcoin whatever it is – making it an unethical pyramid; and b) you shouldnt try because if you did it would be destructive of the very concept
<adam3us> bramc：只是想引导你从正确的出口进入该漏斗，这样我们就不会再出现“白银到比特币黄金”的时刻（参考莱特币，如果你不清楚的话）。a) 无论是什么，它都不太可能取代比特币——使其成为不道德的金字塔；
b）你不应该尝试，因为如果你这样做，就会破坏这个概念
<bramc> I’m not interesting in a pump and dump of an altcoin, but I have a lot of interesting in what the problems in bitcoin really are and how they might be improved. Almost all the really interesting stuff has to do with decentralizing mining (cuckoo, nonoutsourcable proofs of work, enforced wait times)
<bramc> 我对山寨币的拉高和抛售不感兴趣，但我对比特币的真正问题是什么以及如何改进它们很感兴趣。几乎所有真正有趣的东西都与去中心化挖矿有关（布谷鸟、非外包工作证明、强制等待时间）<adam3us> bramc: so my view is if there is a problem, its very interesting to work on solutions, and then integrate with bitcoin. if the improvement is marginal however dont be surprised if its not-worth changing. something has to be a significant improvement to take the risk at core. sidechains hopefully will allow more experimentation and you could indirectly experiment with pow in a sidechain off a sidechain.
<adam3us> bramc：所以我的观点是，如果出现问题，寻找解决方案，然后与比特币集成是非常有趣的。如果改进很小，从而不值得改变，也不要感到惊讶。必须有重大改进才能承担核心风险。侧链有望允许更多的实验，您可以在侧链之外的侧链中间接进行 pow 实验。
<adam3us> bramc: frankly i am personally going to be a little less interested to help you learn about bitcoin and common blockchain fallacies if you’re going to turn around and do the #1 fallacy and make yet-another-altcoin. there are 1200 or so. the world really doesnt need another one.
<adam3us> bramc：坦白说，如果你打算转身做第一个谬论并制作另一种山寨币，那么我个人对帮助你了解比特币和常见的区块链谬论不太感兴趣。现在已经有1200个左右了。这个世界真的不需要另一个。<bramc> adam3us, Like I said I’m still investigating and not announcing anything right now
<bramc> adam3us，就像我说的，我仍在调查，现在没有宣布任何消息<adam3us> bramc: yes bram but is that code for i am working on alt coin but i’m not going to say it or people wont give me 100s of hours of free strategic advice. then i’m going to go off and do the anti-social thing.
<adam3us> bramc：是的，bram，但这就是我正在研究山寨币的代码，但我不会说出来，否则人们不会给我数百小时的免费战略建议。然后我就会去做那些反社会的事情。<bramc> I won’t make another coin unless there’s a compelling reason why the same functionality couldn’t be crammed into bitcoin. If I do start serious plans to do so I’ll give you the opportunity to convince me that I should do it on a sidechain instead
Source: #bitcoin-wizards IRC chat logs, 2014-12-17
<bramc> 我不会再制造另一种硬币，除非有令人信服的理由说明为什么相同的功能不能被塞进比特币中。如果我确实开始认真计划这样做，我会给你机会说服我，我应该在侧链上做这件事
来源：#bitcoin-wizards IRC 聊天日志，2014 年 12 月 17 日
专注于去中心化挖矿
在上面的对话中，我们看到提到了几个方面，这些方面将成为空间和时间证明设计的核心，以避免工作量证明挖矿的中心化。
布谷鸟“Cuckoo”指的是 Cuckoo Cycle（John Tromp，2024 年 2 月），它是一种内存硬算法，使用 Cuckoo 哈希作为 Hashcash 的更耐 ASIC 的替代方案。Bram 认为专用硬件是比特币挖矿的中心化因素，尽管布谷鸟本身最终并不可行，但正是这种想法导致最终选择存储硬盘作为理想的消费级硬件资源。 “非外包工作量证明”是指阻止中心化挖矿的解决方案。这是通过工作量证明方案来实现的，该方案允许矿工从矿池中窃取奖励，从而使运行矿池根本不可行。其中一种使用陷门信息的方案让人想起Chia地块是如何使用公共农民密钥生成的，并且需要私钥才能进行耕作。 “强制等待时间”就是我们现在所知的可验证延迟函数（VDF），由时间领主（TimeLord）运行，并作为时间证明的基础。Bram 在与用户 op_mul 的并行对话中解释了“等待证明”的概念。
<op_mul> ” enforced wait times” sounds impossible.
<op_mul>“强制等待时间”听起来不可能。<bramc> op_mul, Oh but it isn’t
<bramc> op_mul，哦，但事实并非如此<bramc> op_mul, https://eprint.iacr.org/2011/553.pdf
<bramc> op_mul，https://eprint.iacr.org/2011/553.pdf<op_mul> unless you have proof of wait up your sleeve
<op_mul> 除非你有证据证明你可以等待<bramc>op_mul, that link gives a way of making a proof of wait, and it can be improved on
<bramc> op_mul，该链接提供了一种进行等待证明的方法，并且可以对其进行改进<op_mul> bramc: without having to deal with 28 pages of dense math. how does it get around the sybil problem?
<op_mul> bramc：如果不去处理 28 页的密集数学计算的话，它是如何解决 sybil（女巫攻击） 问题的？<bramc> op_mul, It has to do with its overall API, it’s completely non-interactive. Given hash X, I can generate a proof that I performed a series of sequential operations after X was generated, and have a proof of that which you can verify quickly
<bramc> op_mul，这和它的整体API有关，它是完全非交互的。给定哈希 X，我可以生成一个证明，证明我在生成 X 后执行了一系列顺序操作，并且有一个可以快速验证的证明<op_mul> bramc: not really proof that you’re doing nothing though, isn’t that just like peter todds timelock, forcing highly non-concurrent computation?
<op_mul> bramc：但这并不能真正证明你什么也没做，这不是就像 peter todds timelock 一样，强制高度非并发计算吗？<bramc> op_mul, If the block chain requires proofs of sequential work between blocks, that’s time when everybody just has to sit around and wait
<bramc> op_mul，如果区块链需要区块之间顺序工作的证明，那么每个人都只能坐下来等待<op_mul> bramc: sounds like a reason for me to get into liquid nitrogen CPU cooling.
<op_mul> bramc：在我听起来像是用液氮冷却 CPU的一个原因。<bramc>op_mul, feel free, it’s an interesting experiment to see how well it works. There’s no direct payoff to running an honesty server beyond possibly getting more mining time for yourself if you get to it first. Having multiple people who do that just results in the overall work factor going up and they cancel each other out
<bramc> op_mul，随意，这是一个有趣的实验，看看它的效果如何。运行诚实服务器没有直接的回报，除了可能为自己获得更多的挖掘时间（如果您首先使用它）。让多个人这样做只会导致整体工作因素上升，并且相互抵消<op_mul> quite <op_mul> 差不多
<op_mul> I’m used to working with things in tens of megahertz, not trying to get gigahertz out of a CPU with extreme cooling.
<op_mul> 我习惯于处理数十兆赫兹的事物，而不是试图通过极端冷却从 CPU 中获得千兆赫兹。<bramc>Nobody’s asked about how to fix the problem that you only have one measure of whether things are too easy or too hard, time, and there are now two different work factors to adjust for
<bramc> 没有人问过如何解决这个问题，即你只有一种衡量事情是否太容易或太难的方法，即时间，而且现在有两种不同的工作因素需要调整<bramc> Trying to combine nonoutsourcability and time gaps is proving to make quite the frankensteinian monster, I’m not entirely sure it can be done well
Source: #bitcoin-wizards IRC chat logs, 2014-12-17
<bramc> 事实证明，尝试将非外包性和时间间隔结合起来可以制造出弗兰肯斯坦式的怪物，我不完全确定它可以做得很好
来源：#bitcoin-wizards IRC 聊天日志，2014 年 12 月 17 日
Bram 的最后几条信息预示着他发明新数学的多年旅程，将空间证明和时间证明结合成时空证明，这是自比特币以来第一个新的中本聪共识。它还暗示了时间领主如何在 Chia 区块链上工作，其中最快的时间领主就是推动链前进所需要的一切。
（编者注：如果你不是最快的时间领主，你也可能是最慢的时间领主。）
减少能源浪费的愿望
在 Bram 和 Adam 之间的交流中，我们可以看到 Bram 追求一种抗 ASIC 算法的愿望——一种可以利用未使用的硬件的算法，而不是集中在 ASIC 制造商和低成本能源地点的专门定制硬件。
争论的焦点是资本支出与运营支出以及支持比特币价值的能源概念是否正确的讨论。
<bramc>adam3us, I view limiting the amount of senseless destruction which goes into mining as a good thing
<bramc> adam3us，我认为限制采矿中无意义的破坏是一件好事<adam3us> bramc: its not senseless. its an economic necessity. thats an economic fallacy.
<adam3us> bramc：这并非毫无意义。这是经济上的需要。这是一个经济谬误。<bramc> adam3us, There’s plenty of hardware sitting around depreciating all the time. If the costs of mining were adjusted to be primarily hardware depreciation then the amount of new investment in mining would go down, and it would be relying primarily on sunk costs
<bramc> adam3us，有大量硬件一直在贬值。如果挖矿成本调整为主要是硬件折旧，那么新增挖矿投资额就会下降，主要依靠沉没成本<adam3us> bramc: if coins have a production cost below their value, rational economic actors will spend up to the market value chasing it. if thats via politics, buying or bribing stake holders (pos) etc
<adam3us> bramc：如果硬币的生产成本低于其价值，理性的经济参与者将花费高达市场价值的资金来追逐它。如果是通过政治、购买或贿赂利益相关者（pos）等
<adam3us> bramc: i dont think my arguments change. its economic fundamental of commodity pricing.
<adam3us> bramc：我认为我的论点没有改变。这是商品定价的经济基础。
<adam3us> szabo wrote about it, and paul sztorc.
<adam3us> szabo 写了相关内容，paul sztorc 也写了相关内容。<bramc>adam3us, I have in fact worked through this. If actors are basically proving that they already wasted some money on depreciating hardware, then they aren’t going to incur much new costs because the depreciating hardware has already happened
<bramc> adam3us，事实上我已经解决了这个问题。如果参与者基本上证明他们已经在贬值的硬件上浪费了一些钱，那么他们就不会产生太多新的成本，因为贬值的硬件已经发生了<op_mul> proof of work is more about the power cost than the hardware cost.
<op_mul> 工作证明更多的是关于电力成本而不是硬件成本。
<adam3us> bramc: so then their depreciating hardware isnt costing them anything new. there has to be a separable mining dedicated cost on either hardware or power. obviously something will shift. eg price of used hardware will rise, or people will make asics for whatever it is. to think hardware cant win over software is pure fallacy.
<adam3us> bramc：那么他们不断贬值的硬件并没有让他们付出任何新的代价。硬件或电力上必须有可分离的挖矿专用成本。显然有些事情会发生变化。例如，二手硬件的价格将会上涨，或者人们会不惜一切代价制造asics。认为硬件无法战胜软件的想法纯粹是谬论。
<op_mul> any ASIC you can buy today will use more power than it’s own outright cost in a matter of days.
<op_mul> 您今天可以购买的任何 ASIC 在几天之内所消耗的电量将超过其本身的直接成本。<bramc> op_mul, the interesting question is how to change that. Cuckoo and proofs of time shift things quite a bit
<bramc> op_mul，有趣的问题是如何改变它。布谷鸟和时间证明使事情发生了很大的变化<bramc> I don’t think that the power thing happens in a matter of days, last numbers I saw the power and hardware costs of miners are roughly on par with each other
<bramc> 我认为电力问题不会在几天之内发生，我看到的最新数据显示矿工的电力和硬件成本大致相当<adam3us> bramc: if the cost is the same, and necessarily so, and already work just fine, why is it interesting to engage in creating something different. different isnt better its just different. unless you can persuade bitcoin to change, via rational argument its a dead duck. you could maybe do it on a sidechain via a pow-adaptor sidechain, but still if its no advantage why bother.
<adam3us> bramc：如果成本是相同的，并且必然如此，并且已经工作得很好，为什么参与创造不同的东西会很有趣？不同并不是更好，只是不同。除非你能通过理性论证说服比特币改变，否则它就是死鸭子。你也许可以通过 pow-adaptor 侧链在侧链上做到这一点，但如果它没有优势，为什么还要麻烦呢。<bramc>adam3us, There’s a *lot* of depreciating hardware out there, far more than the amount of bitcoin specific hardware
<bramc> adam3us，有很多正在贬值的硬件，远远超过了比特币专用硬件的数量<op_mul> the value of the hardware is next to meaningless though
<op_mul> 硬件的价值几乎毫无意义
<op_mul> it’s all about the running costs.
<op_mul> 这都是关于运行成本的。
<adam3us> bramc: so what. it still uses power, and economic systems are dynamic. the price of used hardware will rise. and anyway within 6-12mo of it being relevant an asic will arise which will decimate it.
<adam3us> bramc：那又怎样。它仍然使用电力，经济体系是动态的。二手硬件的价格将会上涨。无论如何，在与它相关的 6-12 个月内，asic 将会出现，这将摧毁它。<bramc> adam3us, the political reason is to shift power away from the miners is that they’re highly centralized, while people who already have depreciating hardware are highly decentralized
<bramc> adam3us，将权力从矿工手中转移出去的政治原因是他们高度中心化，而那些已经拥有折旧硬件的人则高度去中心化<bramc> I’m not so sure that an asic can decimate cuckoo. And putting in time gaps hurts it via depreciation quite a lot.
<bramc> 我不太确定 ASIC 能否消灭布谷鸟。加上时间间隔，贬值会对其造成很大损害。<adam3us> bramc: decentralisation is something that is interesting, yes. but i dont think you can imagine depreciating hardware can compete against asics.
Source: #bitcoin-wizards IRC chat logs, 2014-12-17
<adam3us> bramc：去中心化是很有趣的事情，是的。但我认为你无法想象贬值的硬件可以与asic竞争。
来源：#bitcoin-wizards IRC 聊天日志，2014 年 12 月 17 日
存储证明就是答案
几周后的元旦期间，Bram 回来分享了这样的见解：存储（而不是计算）是保护链安全的理想资源，但前提是与前面提到的时间证明或“等待证明”相结合。
<bramc>It turns out there’s an interesting approach to tackling the electricity problem
<bramc> 事实证明，有一种有趣的方法可以解决电力问题<maaku> bramc: the electricity problem?
<maaku>bramc：电力问题？<bramc> maaku, the problem that mining inevitably winds up producing economic waste equal to the value of the rewards because it gets spent on electricity
<bramc> maaku，采矿不可避免地会产生与奖励价值相等的经济浪费，因为它被花费在电力上<op_mul> I’d call that a core function rather than a problem
<op_mul> 我认为这是一个核心功能而不是一个问题<bramc> The potential loophole is to use a calculation which uses no electricity and no time
<bramc> 潜在的漏洞是使用不使用电力和时间的计算<bramc>op_mul, The use of resources is a core function, but ideally the calculation would demonstrate depreciation of already extant resources rather than require the sinking of new resources
<bramc> op_mul，资源的使用是核心功能，但理想情况下，计算将显示现有资源的折旧，而不是要求沉没新资源…
<gwillen> (I’m curious but skeptical of the idea of demonstrating consumption of an existing resource, in a way where that demonstration can’t be reused, without wasting any new resources.)
<gwillen>（我很好奇，但对展示消耗现有资源的想法持怀疑态度，在不浪费任何新资源的情况下，这种展示无法重现。）<bramc> The various attempts at asic resistance have focused on making the calculation use memory, which makes a fair amount of sense: If you spend time waiting for memory you aren’t using electricity during that time, and memory is much more commodity than CPU calculations are
<bramc> 针对 抵抗 asic的各种尝试都集中在使计算使用存储空间，这很有意义：如果您花时间等待存储空间，那么您在这段时间内就不会使用电，并且存储空间比CPU计算更商品化。<maaku> i’ve gotten enough use out of bittorrent to allow bramc a few cycles of my time in good faith
<maaku> 我已经充分利用了 BitTorrent，可以善意地让 bramc 占用我几个周期的时间<bramc> The other idea I suggested before is to use proofs of sequential work, aka proofs of time, as essentially placeholders where everybody sits around doing nothing until the proof of time is done
<bramc> 我之前建议的另一个想法是使用顺序工作证明，又名时间证明，作为本质上的占位符，每个人都坐在周围什么都不做，直到时间证明完成<bramc> These both can do a probably pretty good job of asic resistance, but I think they don’t go far enough
<bramc> 这两个都可以很好地抵抗 asic，但我认为它们还不够<kanzure> what were your prior objections to the objections to asic resistance?
<kanzure>您之前对抵抗asic的反对意见是什么？<bramc> What you need is a proof of *storage*, because storage is vastly more commodity than even memory is: there’s basically no way to optimize it more than is already done. and there’s lots of it always sitting out there depreciating. And there’s a simple proof of storage calculation which can be done. Embarassingly trivial, really.
<bramc> 您需要的是*存储*的证明，因为存储甚至比内存还要商品化：基本上没有办法对已经是成品的存储空间更优化。而且现实中，有很多存储空间存量并总是在贬值。有一个简单的存储计算证明可以完成。实在是太微不足道了。<bramc> kanzure, I have nothing against asic resistance, it’s a worthy thing, the problem is that it doesn’t fix the problem that electricity will be essentially wasted on mining, exactly in accordance with what the mining rewards are
<bramc> kanzure，我不反对抵抗asic，这是一件值得的事情，问题是它没有解决电力基本上浪费在采矿上的问题，这与采矿奖励完全一致…
<bramc>Now this gets into the part which is really weird. Absolutely central to my idea is alternation between proofs of storage and proofs of time, with essentially no time at all being used in the proofs of storage and all of it spent in the proofs of time, but the two interacting
<bramc> 现在进入了非常奇怪的部分。我的想法的绝对核心是存储证明和时间证明之间的交替，基本上没有时间用于存储证明，所有时间都花在时间证明上，但是两者相互作用<bramc> Here’s the proof of storage, which might help clarify or make what I’m saying even more mysterious: The proof of storage is a public key whose hash when xored to the hash of the previous proof of time is as small as possible
<bramc> 这是存储证明，这可能有助于澄清或使我所说的更加神秘：存储证明是一个公钥，当与前一个时间证明的哈希值异或时，其哈希值尽可能小<bramc> To initialize everything, you fill up all available storage with a list of public keys sorted by their secure hash, the more the better
<bramc> 要初始化所有内容，您需要使用按安全哈希排序的公钥列表填充所有可用存储，越多越好<bramc>(there are some constant factor improvements on that, but I’ll skip over them for now because they don’t change anything fundamentally)
<bramc> （对此有一些常数因素的改进，但我现在会跳过它们，因为它们不会从根本上改变任何东西）<bramc>After you find out the output of the previous proof of time, you go look up the best proof of storage you have locally, use it to sign a new set of transactions, and start giving these to your peers. You re-transmit any record breaking one which peers might send you
Source: #bitcoin-wizards IRC chat logs, 2015-01-01
<bramc> 在找到之前的时间证明的输出后，您可以查找本地拥有的最佳存储证明，用它来签署一组新的交易，然后开始将这些交易提供给您的节点。您重新传输节点可能发送给您的任何打破纪录的消息
来源：#bitcoin-wizards IRC 聊天日志，2015-01-01
Bram 描述了当今的绘图和耕种过程，以及农民与存储和生成标牌点的时间领主之间的互动。
存储证明和时间证明之间交替的关键创新是一项突破，它使得存储能够作为保护区块链的一种手段，而之前的存储证明尝试都失败了。进一步深入研究后，众所周知的结果是时空证明共识机制，它保证了当今高度去中心化的 Chia 区块链的安全。
拓展阅读
我们在这里只介绍了一些亮点，但完整的聊天日志本身提供了更多关于 Chia 背后的早期思维以及 Bram 在改进比特币时面临的挑战的见解，最终激励他建立一个单独的区块链。
#bitcoin-wizards IRC 频道的完整聊天日志可在此处查看：
[gnusha.org] #bitcoin-wizards chat logs
(https://gnusha.org/bitcoin-wizards/)
[wpsoftware.net] #bitcoin-wizards chat logs
(https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/wizards/)
希望您喜欢这个回顾过去的小故事！
关注Chia新闻：XCH.today
Tangem旗舰店
微信号：Chia_HemaDAO
Chia线上店：https://www.xchstore.com/
扫码获得你的资产保护神👉