Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Optimizing scrip systems: crashes, altruists, hoarders, sybils and collusion

Optimizing scrip systems: crashes, altruists, hoarders, sybils and collusion Scrip, or artificial currency, is a useful tool for designing systems that are robust to selfish behavior by users. However, it also introduces problems for a system designer, such as how the amount of money in the system should be set. In this paper, the effect of varying the total amount of money in a scrip system on efficiency (i.e., social welfare—the total utility of all the agents in the system) is analyzed, and it is shown that by maintaining the appropriate ratio between the total amount of money and the number of agents, efficiency is maximized. This ratio can be found by increasing the money supply to just below the point that the system would experience a “monetary crash,” where money is sufficiently devalued that no agent is willing to perform a service. The implications of the presence of altruists, hoarders, sybils, and collusion on the performance of the system are examined. Approaches are discussed to identify the strategies and types of agents. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Distributed Computing Springer Journals

Optimizing scrip systems: crashes, altruists, hoarders, sybils and collusion

Kash, Ian; Friedman, Eric; Halpern, Joseph
Distributed Computing , Volume 25 (5) – Jun 21, 2012
Download PDF
23 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/optimizing-scrip-systems-crashes-altruists-hoarders-sybils-and-CuBqzZUzDh

References (35)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by Springer-Verlag
Subject
Computer Science; Theory of Computation; Software Engineering/Programming and Operating Systems; Computer Communication Networks; Computer Systems Organization and Communication Networks; Computer Hardware
ISSN
0178-2770
eISSN
1432-0452
DOI
10.1007/s00446-012-0170-z
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Scrip, or artificial currency, is a useful tool for designing systems that are robust to selfish behavior by users. However, it also introduces problems for a system designer, such as how the amount of money in the system should be set. In this paper, the effect of varying the total amount of money in a scrip system on efficiency (i.e., social welfare—the total utility of all the agents in the system) is analyzed, and it is shown that by maintaining the appropriate ratio between the total amount of money and the number of agents, efficiency is maximized. This ratio can be found by increasing the money supply to just below the point that the system would experience a “monetary crash,” where money is sufficiently devalued that no agent is willing to perform a service. The implications of the presence of altruists, hoarders, sybils, and collusion on the performance of the system are examined. Approaches are discussed to identify the strategies and types of agents.

Journal

Distributed Computing – Springer Journals

Published: Jun 21, 2012

There are no references for this article.