BitTorrent Creator’s Chia Could ‘Fix’ Bitcoin With Own Altcoin By Late 2018

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BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen has debuted his “solution” to Bitcoin which he says resolves “centralization problems” with the virtual currency.

Speaking to TechCrunch Wednesday, Cohen explained his Chia Network would offer more reliable, eco-friendly mining and security measures.

The developer has been famously critical of Bitcoin this year as the network suffers slow and expensive transaction processing.

“The idea is to make a better Bitcoin, to fix the centralization problems,” Cohen told the publication.

Employing a concept called proof-of-time, as opposed to proof-of-work, Chia relies on a two-step block authentication method.

The three “weightiest histories” found by full nodes are relayed to “farmers,” not miners. These find “the best proof of space they have,” after which proof-of-time servers begin validation and publish a verified block to the network.

This procedure should take away mining power from a select few miners, as occurs with Bitcoin, Cohen says.

“It’s technically ambitious and there’s a big meaty chunk of work to do. I’ve done enough raising money and recruiting. Now for the real work,” he added.

While Bitcoin continues to find stability after its latest hard fork was canceled by developers this week, Cohen maintains a late-2018 or later release for his altcoin will still be timely.

He is not alone in his plans, with MegaUpload creator Kim Dotcom likely to beat him to issuing a cryptocurrency, this time for his own decentralized file sharing network. Dotcom’s Bitcache will be 100 percent Bitcoin-supportive, however, having an integrated wallet for users.