Hello ZmnSCPxj,

> This can be made "the same" by any of the following methods:
> 
> * Burning the up-front fees.

This would impose a hard maximum of 21 * 10^6 * 10^8 global lifetime hops, and 
a much lower practical one. PoW OTOH doesn't impose such limits. Hence 
different dynamics.

> * Locking the up-front fees for a time, then reverting them to the original 
> sender.

This means that I can burst-spam today, wait until unlock, repeat. If the PoW 
scheme somehow enforces fresh PoWs (e.g. by needing (nonce || recent block 
hash) as proof), I can't do this attack.

> Fees and PoW are equivalent.

If by "equivalent" you mean "a drop-in replacement", then I hope the subtle 
differences above and the previous discussion show that this is not the case. 
If by "equivalent" you mean (a formal version of) "for any scheme that uses 
PoWs, there exists a fee-based scheme with the same incentives and large-scale 
dynamics", then that's a very strong claim of which I would love to see a proof 
(and a formal statement).

This is not to say that I believe PoWs are the solution to spam, just that they 
warrant separate investigation from fees.

Best,
Orfeas

-- 
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

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