Bitcoin Forum

http://www.coindesk.com/blockstream-commercial-sidechain-bitcoin-exchanges/

Whaddya think?  Kinda cool that exchanges can settle off chain but should we be concerned about centralization?

This effectively is a step toward decentralization of exchange services and better consumer protection.

A fantastic contribution to the community by Blockstream. In any other context this would have been looked at as a home run of ingenuity and technical abilities but sadly trolls with no morals persist in their foul manners and attack some of the most productive individuals in this space.

government or bankers made bitcoin nothing new.

+1

The Confidential Transactions are total utter genius..

I am curious as to whether the exchanges can operate the sidechain independently of Blockstream ? Or are they required ?

Can any group of companies/organisations set one up - and benefit from free/fast intra-company transfers ?

From TFA (http://www.coindesk.com/blockstream-commercial-sidechain-bitcoin-exchanges/):

"The startups involved will participate in the operation of the sidechain, but at the same time will be customers of Blockstream, paying an undisclosed monthly subscription fee"

I would only like to add that the title might be a little misleading because of the following:

I also do not like 1 thing about this though:
I'm not sure how to feel about this. Also, this sidechain needs transparency or a lot of things could go wrong!

Is this your final form yet?

Blockstream getting paid to keep transactions off the main chain. I can't beleive nobody saw it coming!

Fantastic and decentralised aren't the first things that spring to mind.

For those who are interested, it was thoroughly discussed  in this thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1207283.msg12673990#msg12673990

Yes, they are using Blockstream now, but do they HAVE to use them ?

Why are they paying a fee ? Is it because you need a trusted 3rd party to set the whole thing up, and over-lord it?, or can this be done between the relevant parties (without any of the parties having an advantage ) ?


I think the point is that the sidechains are COMPLETELY transparent to those that are using it..

..

As for that funny feeling in your guts, can't quite verbalise it,.. I haven't found a cure for that yet.

I was talking about the monthly fee. Also, what I wanted to say it public transparency. The blockchain that Bitcoin operates on is transparent to everyone. It doesn't matter if you're using it or not. I'm wondering if the sidechain is going to be observable by people who are not using it at the moment.

Public Transparency? It doesn't have to. A side chain can do pretty much anything.

If they want us to be able to decipher the information, we can. And in any public enterprise I'm sure they will.

But that is not a requirement.

We may not even get access to the blockchain that a sidechain operates.

These exchanges may just run a small intra-net with there own 'boxes' on it, and nothing else.

In this specific case, all the amounts are blinded anyway (confidential txns).

Yes, one can think and argue that they were against the block size rise just so they could develop their side chain where they will charge their monthly subscription fees. I am not saying this was their goal, but for the ones arguing this, you can't say nothing against.

Also will this thing only be transparent to the people involved in the side chain or we will all be witnesses of the transparency?

This will reduce the pressure on the main chain.

What is that tamper-resistant hardware used in Liquid? 21 bitcoin computer?

Oh, not you  :-\ You've turned into a brainless blockstream antagonist as well?

What exactly is so hard to understand about the main chain not being able to accommodate certain use cases?

These companies' operations were already heavily centralized and their customers funds' administered under a single database.

Blockstream proposes a solution to an industry demand for better liquidity and does so by distributing the trust amongst participants so as to eliminate single points of failure.

For very obvious reasons these transactions would've never hit the main chain anyway.

Liquid provides institutions & their customers better privacy, increased inter-operability as well as improved security & liquidity. A win/win for exchanges & users

yeah while helping those that made the chain, to milk the initial amount of coins, and be magically early adopter, to dump later

this is the real definition of quick buck scam, that was running in the alt section for year, d we really need to repeat it another time, in disguise?

There is no such thing as "initial coins"

Seeing how dumb what you just said is I'm guessing you are speaking from experience when referring to scams.

the coins that will be issued when you launch a sidechain, should be the same as any altcoin, but they are worthless

they create you a numbers of coins(tokesn), when you send bitcoin to those chains

i imagine that some chain could begin with some of those coins already ready, a sort of premining

I thought no new altcoin will be created in the side chains, only bitcoin move around there.

Exactly, so in the case of Liquid, units on the sidechains only get created if there is a BTC collateral. As such, any coin on the Liquid sidechain is worth its exact equivalent in Bitcoin.

So how exactly do you propose this creates an opportunity for "early adopters" to "milk the initial amount of coins"?

then they were spreading false info, because i've read about that here, from a forum member, maybe he was an heater

if this how they actually work, then i'm fine with them

Don't get me wrong, you could actually create a sidechain with pre-mined coins but that would be the equivalent of launching an alt-coin. It isn't something new that sidechains enable.

It sounds like a permissioned Couterparty for now.

I guess we will never know if its not transparent.

Unless you are suggesting a multitude of different companies collude to create a fractional reserve, which is not impossible, I think that's highly unlikely considering these schemes tend to turn ugly pretty quickly and come around to bite them in the ass. Moreover it needs to be mentioned that only the amount of Bitcoin that was moved to the sidechain can be moved back to the mainchain therefore this carries no inflationary risk for Bitcoin itself.

Exchanges are generally not transparent as it is already so Liquid certainly does not make the problem worst.

Correct. I believe the right term is "two way peg". A lost of people don't understand it or think they do but they don't. This is what is causing misconception. This does not benefit anyone unfairly when talking about "early adopters" or whatever. Actually if this properly works there should be minor disadvantages or none.

Is it so hard to understand this product is not addressed to consumers and regular users!?

You mean like the whole legacy banking system? What is biting them in the ass exactly? Creating money out of thin air is far more appealing than you might think even if it carries a lot of risks.


That's what banks said when they started their gold vaults in exchange of paper IOUs...

Look, if you don't understand sidechains I suggest you go read about them and come back once you've got the basics down.

The monetary base of Bitcoin cannot be inflated by sidechains. The difference with gold is that you can cryptographically verify Bitcoin reserves.

well, we have to assume the exchanges are using it because they choose to.  No one is forcing them.
Perhaps its easier to settle than using Bitcoin. 

Maybe they find it less cluttering and easier to manage than the main chain.

I have no problem with it as long as people have a choice and its not used to justify keeping blocksize limited.

+1

It's nice to see you take a reasonable stance for once

Indeed but it is also clearer now why the blocksize is being kept limited.

It's not clear to me why the Bitcoin blocksize would make any difference at all with respect to Liquidity.  Can you explain?

ah well here we go, it was what i was talking about, this was the problem, there won't be anything from stopping someone in doing this, and maybe even success with it like it was with some altcoin

while he can have his instamined crap sidechain coins

Again, what is the difference with any other altcoins? How do sidechains make the problem worst?

it wasn't that my point, my point was that it simply brings more garbage altcoin, even near to bitcoin, how this is a good thing?

Altcoins are usually created under the pretense of offering an important or desirable feature not possible under Bitcoin.

With sidechains it will eventually be possible to offer these features without having to bootstrap a new currency.

Different sidechains will compete on the marketplace and those that leverage Bitcoin's scarcity and liquidity will come out as obvious winners against altcoins offering the same features but using a new, inflationary currency.

Consider two sidechains that offers the same feature: privacy. Any sane person will prefer the one that recognizes the existing value of their holdings and does not require them to speculate on a new, volatile, currency.

Liquid is an alternative to the already-centralized private databases of the exchanges.  The block size has nothing to do with it at all.

If only they could do the same for fiat.

It has a lot to do when their business model is to make profits by driving transactions to their centralized services.

This is the best part of it.

They need funding to continue their important work. They won't get it from artificially making themselves necessary in the solutions themselves. They won't do any sort of premine. They won't hold developments to ransom.

From the alternatives I can see working for funding this, it's the best and the least damaging as a model.

Their business model is to create distributed environments following Bitcoin's model to accommodate use cases that are not possible on the mainchain yet leverage Bitcoin's scarcity and liquidity.

Exactly. They are making profits to drive away transactions from the main chain so they will never work to get the bitcoin blockchain more efficient and scale properly because it will threaten their business model. 5 of them are working for Core.

Instant transactions will never be possible under Bitcoin and unless Confidential Transactions is eventually merged into Bitcoin the main chain will never serve the privacy needs of certain use cases.

The solution offered by Liquid is derived from shortcomings inherent to the main chain. These sidechain essentially serve as more distributed alternatives to the array of closed source, centralized private databases currently in use and should prove to become testing grounds for features that could eventually be backported into Bitcoin once they it is demonstrated that they are compatible and functional (Confidential Transactions).

They are not driving any transaction away from the main chain but actually bringing financial activity already occurring inside walled gardens closer to the Bitcoin ecosystem in order to improve its liquidity and value.

Every Core developers working at Blockstream have made considerable contributions to the progress of Bitcoin scaling and efficiency and continue to do so. You're just so full of shit that you choose to fixate on one parameter of scalability and ignore the tremendous amount of work that has been put into the code so that Bitcoin actually functions properly under existing 1 MB limit.

I wouldn't mind about Blockstream if they worked as an independent company but the fact that they are also responsible of decision making of Core development is the worst thing that could happened to bitcoin.

They will never work to scale the bitcoin blockchain properly no matter what solution there is.

Too bad you're too much of an idiot to see the conflict of interest here.

Blockstream is not solely responsible for decision making in Core development. Here is a non-exhaustive list of current Core contributors pulled from most recent release notes, Blockstreams employees in bold:

- - Adam Weiss
- - Alex Morcos
- - Casey Rodarmor
- - Cory Fields
- - fanquake
- - Gregory Maxwell
- - Jonas Schnelli
- - J Ross Nicoll
- - Pavel Janík
- - Pavel Vasin
- - Peter Todd
- - Pieter Wuille
- - randy-waterhouse
- - Ross Nicoll
- - Suhas Daftuar
- - tailsjoin
- - ฿tcDrak
- - Tom Harding
- - Veres Lajos
- - Wladimir J. van der Laan


As I've previously stated they have already worked tirelessly to scale Bitcoin blockchain properly.

You're just too dumb to realize that there's more to scaling Bitcoin than raising the block size.

Talk is cheap. Wake me up when something happen for the bitcoin blockchain.

BTW contributors are not responsible for decision making you dumb kid.

Well, as long as it's not forced onto people and still cheap to use for the people who wants to use it... it's cool with me. Looks like it's a attractive option for the exchanges who

wants to keep the transaction volumes private for some reason. I cannot see why people have so much hangups with side chains anyway... I guess if you used to services like

Xapo, this is not something new. Let's move on.. ::)

Look at the right places, retard.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls

GMaxwell:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Agmaxwell+

Peter Wuille:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Asipa

Matt Corallo:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Athebluematt+

Jorge Timon:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Ajtimon

Mark Friedenbach:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Amaaku

Who makes decision in the core development? We have to consensus from our community all the time?

Doesn't change anything about the conflict of interest. Sorry.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2rrxq7/on_why_010s_release_notes_say_we_have_reason_to

Scaling: check

Bitcoin blockchain: check

Blockstream originated: check

Wake me up when it is implemented.

Conflict of interest? still check

It is implemented as of Bitcoin Core 0.10.

Are you not tired of moving the goal posts? Must be pretty heavy.

Are you still shadowbanned in reddit, knight22? Aww isn't it a shame that admins shadowban brigadiers like you? But your opinions are so important, it's just not fair that you wouldn't be allowed to brigade.

Oh yes you are.
https://www.reddit.com/user/knight222


It's a good job there's no brigading here, although you XTards can of course try to appear to dominate the discussion by bringing over your motley crew.
https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinxt/comments/3opees/trying_to_talk_some_sense/

Oh well. We are still aware. You guys need to resort to these dirty tricks all the time, ain't that a shame?

lol rekt

Hmm..

I'm sorry - but can someone give me a definition of 'CONFLICT OF INTEREST' that would not apply to a decentralised open source project where the lead devs also work for a private company ?

I am not saying that the Blockstream boys are not passionate about bitcoin.

I am not saying that they have not done wonderful work and continue to do so.

I am not saying Sidechains are not an amazing achievement.

BUT - when the honeymoon is over.. and a choice needs to be made, will they go for blockstream's wishes, or the bitcoin community ?

because that day WILL come.

When the honeymoon is over.. and a choice needs to be made, will Gavin go for MIT's (USG) wishes, or the bitcoin community ?

When the honeymoon is over.. and a choice needs to be made, will Mike go for Google's/NSA/Circle (USG) wishes, or the bitcoin community ?

Ok, and which parties have expressed the most "interest" in the main-chain-only, SPV-for-all centralised alternative? They've got a bit of a conflict of interest also, being as they're funded and backed by big banking incumbents.

I'm happy with this particular crossover; Wuille, Maxwell, Friednbach, Russell, Back et al are biased, just like anyone. I like their bias. Choose your bias wisely.

Since there are clearly a lot more people doing Bitcoin development who DON'T work for Blockstream than there are that DO work for Blockstream, why is it that so many people seem to presume that Blockstream will somehow dominate Bitcoin development and pervert it into their own personal corporate tool?

True, the main point is, there is always going to be people complaining, no matter what. Until an AI of robots can develop code by itself, then they will say whoever is under the project is biased. Well, I choose to support the Core devs and choose to believe Gavin and Hearn are biased and have an agenda to centralize Bitcoin's nodes.

Because there is nothing that guarantees they won't and everything already points that they already are.

But HOW will they do that?  Since they are greatly outnumbered by non-Blockstream devs, how will they force changes that are self-serving on the rest of the development team?

Don't bother with him, he's just another disingenuous troll.

Simply by not allowing consensus on any change on the bitcoin protocol. Wladimir already requires consensus among Core devs to do any changes. You only need 1 Blockstream dev that also work for Core to disagree with a change that threaten their business model and that change won't happen. That's why Blockstream and Core dev should be completely disassociated or otherwise Core development is being perverted by a for profit company.

This lie has repeatedly been debunked.

Core is not the only independent implementation. There's for instance libbitcoin, which is pretty solid.

Life goes on despite the quiet, muzzled sobbing from the XTards.

The only liar here is you. I'm sorry if you don't handle people criticizing your holy religion in any ways. Not my problem.

Straight from the mouth of your god

https://i.imgur.com/HW7adaQ.png

Right, multiple implementations is a key aspect that will strengthen bitcoin development. XT has lead the way. Hopefully more implementation will emerge.

I don't trust Gavin as much as you do. What's your point?

Even if the tech will be able to achieve new features, you will never see bigger and/or faster blocks from Blockstream ::) (this until they are required for a something that only they will be able to provide)  

How much can be the usefulness of Liquid if blocks are bigger and/or faster?

I don't trust Gavin either.

The point is it is absolutely false to pretend that any developer can veto a proposal that is approved by a super majority of other devs, unless they have cogent objections on scientific & technical grounds. If it happens that their objections are valid then it is more likely that they succeed in convincing a certain number of other developers to reconsider the way forward.

that day's already here.  The community wants bigger blocks.  they are stonewalling.  old news.

Indeed, you won't see larger blocks from Blockstream Core until the economic majority agrees to it.

Meanwhile you can shout and run in circles as long as you wish it won't change anything.

Oh please... you people are straight up delusional  ::)

https://i.imgur.com/Nd8U2Ll.png

Looks to me like it is the community of nodes who's stonewalling bigger blocks

Most people who disagree with XT or BIP101 doesn't necessary disagree with bigger blocks.

How about this..

The CORE / Blockstream boys have an UNFAIR advantage, as when they speak, many listen, regardless of what comes out.

They should start their own FORK. Like BitcoinXT, but call it.. err.. BitcoinBS !?  :P

Then they should try and push that version on the community. 

Let's see if everyone follows them now.

This would be a MUCH FAIRER way of seeing 'Who is Right, and Who is Dead.'

..

As for CORE, I think it's days are (should be) over / numbered..

The idea of a CORE in a decentralised arena, always seemed a little.. funny. Frankly.

But not for it's own sake (as your ceaseless bleating about bigger blocks implies). What people actually want is a higher transaction rate, the best way to do that.

Changing bitcoin so that even 1 satoshi amounts can be an on-chain transaction has been dismissed; it doesn't work now, and it never will.

I imagine that many, if not most, core devs are employed by various Bitcoin-related businesses, ALL of which, presumably, are capable of having a conflict of interest - indeed, I would imagine that such conflicts are absolutely unavoidable, given a long enough time-frame.

Why single-out Blockstream?  Just because they disagree with a change that you want?

It is the nature of all critical systems that one has to be very, very conservative about making changes to vital components, and Bitcoin is no exception.  That necessity for conservatism is advantageous to anyone whose interest is served by maintaining the status quo, and I think that is unavoidable.

It seems to me that your argument assumes a priori that increasing block size is the correct and proper solution to the scaling problem (and a superior solution to the Blockstream/LN solution), and also assumes that the only reason many devs (Blockstream employees AND others) might oppose that solution is because it serves their business interests to oppose it - even though I have not seen you present much in the way of actual facts to support either of those suppositions.

It does not seem fair to me to just say "the possibility of a conflict of interest exists, so therefore they are wrong".

It seems to me possible that the Blockstream solution does a better job of maintaining decentralization while still allowing scaling of Bitcoin performance.

We should always be wary of conflicts of interest; however, as I point out in the first paragraph above, those possibilities will ALWAYS exist - and we shouldn't presume that just because a potential conflict of interest exists that any solution proposed by the possibly conflicted party are immediately wrong.

If you really want to change people's minds, then you should make it clear why increasing block size is a technically superior solution to the problem at hand, rather than just screaming "conflict of interest!" ad infinitum.

The conflict of interest has nothing to do with the block size itself but any other potential solutions that threaten Blockstream profits. Good to know that you are fine with that situation.

I am not and never will.

Oh, another shadow-banned brigadier. What's up, Franco? apt name.

Isn't it great how it really goes like the saying, "birds of a feather flock together".

Of course you wouldn't adress this question:

There do seem to be a bunch.  There are a few small blockers who make an amazing number of posts.  Now, perhaps, it is becoming apparent why.

Because the Blockstream one is the most obvious at the moment. If you know any other conflict of interests I would like you to expose them.

Well there is Gavin getting paid by MIT, a known NSA farm. Who knows what their handlers interest toward Bitcoin are? Did you know he is also sitting on the board of Coinbase who themselves have several traditional banking ties?

Mike Hearn himself sits on the advisory board of Circle. Who can tell what their interest are? What about those of their banking investors (Goldman Sachs)?

All true but I still fail so see other conflict of interests directly related to Core development. It doesn't mean they don't worth keeping an eye on them though.

side chains should be thought of as 3rd party services and moved to the services area on this forum.

As a business yeah, as a tech nope.

It is no problem if someone comes from MIT and someone from Blockstream. It is a problem, if many of the core devs represent MIT or Blockstream.
But the trolls know it very well. There is no reason to ask silly questions.

You're both deluded and biased (I'm not attacking you; I could be biased as well but this is not a Core vs XT discussion) that you don't even see the obvious. Note: this is just a example, do not take it that seriously. Let's say that Gavin is directly or indirectly influenced by the NSA. You would rather support the influence of NSA than blockstream profiting (in addition to providing a solution to scaling; not talking about sidechains)? Supporting XT made you blind.

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Please don't turn this into XT vs. Core. Sidechains are not the proposed solution to scaling. Also, stop with the huge quotes.

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It's mainly about blockstream. Does fit both sections though.

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Update: Several corrections (was on my phone).

+1

makes it more unreadable when you guys don't edit your long exchanges.

Gotcha.

I suppose in a way it's healthy that not everyone is rushing out to embrace blockstream in loving arms as there are obviously some concerns, but at the same time, there's no need to take it to extremes.  It's an interesting development and I'm sure we'll all be keeping a close eye on proceedings.  Let's keep an open mind and see how it plays out.



Agreed.  Although there are certainly parallels to be drawn between the manner of the two discussions, which is disappointing.  I thought by now we might have all realised that this type of hostile discourse isn't particularly fruitful:


Anyone else notice history repeating itself?  Let's not do it again with this.

+1 for higher transaction rate.

Its wrong to say sidechain/LN is the solution.
Its wrong to say increased blocksize limit is the solution.

Its equally wrong to argue that either one of those things won't help. Equating either solution to some absurd extrapolation is bad form on both sides.

+1 also

Furthermore, the two are related. Rusty Russell has said that even though Lightning is super thrifty with block space, all that will do is make it popular to run and use. Massive pressure on blockspace will inevitably ensue (but much more space efficient than doing every individual latte on-chain), so it's blocksize increase whichever way you look at it. Unless someone devises something more cunning (which I wouldn't rule out; doubling the rate of blocks was one proposal in the blocksize debate that didn't attract much discussion, but it has merit if it didn't impact orphan rates too badly)

i think exactly the same, maybe this is just his first step to try to take control on everything possible?

i don't know if this is a good news or not...

Sidechian is based on the main chain. So it will strengthen the bitcoin and make bitcoin transaction instant.

Tired of seeing anti-blockstreamers that never propose a better solution to achieve VISA tier levels of transactions per second in the future and scale it into a global payments systems.

Again, what are you doing to do about the centralization of the nodes when the nodes are so big than the average joe who wants to contribute by running his own node can't?

What they usually do is deny this is a problem and talk about "decentralised datacentres" - I wish I was joking.

There's no two sides to that, much as some love to pretend that's the case. One side wants to force XT, the others don't. There is no "middle ground moderate position" to speak of. Opposing a radical change is not radical.

Everybody wants scalability. Some have decided exactly how.

In order to engineer that opposition to XT is radical, they fabricated an impending capacity crisis doom scenario, such that "opposing immediate action is radical". It's absolutely bogus and it's also classic populist politics.

That's the 'language' of a core moderator.

From a computer science point of view mining is the act of negotiating contention of a shared resource, the block chain.  Sidechains divides the contention down by a constant factor but creates a coherence issue between the separate chains because the protocol wasn't designed to communicate between them directly.

A project I'm working on RaiBlocks https://raiblocks.net/ (https://raiblocks.net/) eliminates the contention issue by having 1 sidechain per address and is designed to communicate transfers between chains.  This means consensus is only needed for double-spending attacks rather than for every transaction always.

Is it? I'm not a moderator and I'm only contributing occasionally to Core under a different pseudonym, but thanks for the heads up.

EDIT: by the way he got his shadowban lifted now, it was around a week. Must keep an eye on him and remember to report the admins  ;)

The latest 'contributions' to the community by muyuu, an /r/Bitcoin_Core 'moderator' exposing himself in another thread:


Reddittards are mostly statist socialists

Looks like the ban on aquentin expired and he's back on his usual moron mode, since minute zero.

Loud XTard and renown fraudster Marc A. Lowe is incredibly butthurt about the release of sidechains in production

Today of all days, this is the top post in XTard land

To be expected from small men like Hearndresen

Peter_tRoll is increasingly pathetic

Oh you mean that sub. I created this sub and it's closed to contributions, so it cannot grow until I open it.

It's in no way affiliated to actual Bitcoin Core.

I think that the implementation of side chains should have been decided through consensus, which is why Mike Hearn was so vocal about this change needing to be implemented in a hard fork instead, so that the economic majority can decide whether they want this feature implemented or not. This is in part why he was banned from the developer chat.

My criticism of side chains is based on them being to complex, and on the possibility of bitcoins being lost on side chains which would then in turn reflect badly on Bitcoin.

Exchanges being able to use such a side chain is also not an improvement if our goal was to have more transparent exchanges. I also do not think that anonymity should be implemented in Bitcoin either, because of the advantageous that transparency can bring.

The idea of paying a monthly subscription fee to a centralized company in order to transact in Bitcoin to me seems completely antithetical to the principles of Bitcoin. This should not be considered as a way to scale the Bitcoin blockchain directly, since this is quite obviously not the case.

Thank you for making it clear from the first sentence on that you have no idea what it is you are talking about.

I could have already guessed, that you would have been opposed to people having the freedom of choice. At least you are consistent. :)

Maybe my post should have given you a hint to double check some of your assumptions? Here goes:

Sidechains as they are currently implemented in Liquid make use of Bitcoin script features and some fancy programming that required absolutely zero change to Bitcoin.

Saying that the implementation of Liquid should have been decided through consensus is the equivalent of suggesting the economic majority should approve of every Bitcoin companies out there who make use of the code in the protocol to fit their product. It's pure, unadulterated nonsense.

Moreover the issue you refer to in regards to Mike's stubborn stonewalling of BIP65 is completely irrelevant to sidechains.

Mike was banned from the IRC chat room for being a dick and distracting the development process with his political bullshit.

Sidechains are indeed a complex matter as it stands and that is why they are not open yet to the public and general user. When they are this complexity will have been abstracted considerably and their security vetted by peer-review. The lost bitcoin concern is not reserved to sidechains but mostly every service that does not involve purely peer-to-peer use of Bitcoin (web wallets, exchanges, etc.)

From an exchange stand point it might not be an improvement on transparency yet it definitely does not make anything worse. As for your inability to understand the importance of privacy in these scenarios it just reflects on your poor imagination.

No one has suggested Liquid, or sidechains for that matter, were scaling solutions so your are just attacking a straw man here.

IMHO not true
nobody can force you to use a sidechain. if you do you should be aware of the risks (and you cant blame bitcoin for your own mistakes)

i very much welcome sidechains and i think its wonderful that they are possible without changing bitcoin.

if bitcoin would need to change to support them it could be that i am against them (depends on the specific implementation). bitcoin needs to stay strong. any change has risks which needs to be weight against the benefits.

As far as I understood it, it is a small change that needed to be made to Bitcoin in order to allow the side chains to function. As far as I understand furthermore this change within BIP65 deals with nLockTime which is the variable that deals with and is very important for side chains. I might not be a coder myself however my friends who are coders have explained this to me very thoroughly.

I am indeed saying that the implementation of side chains should have been decided by consensus, even though it represents a minor technical change, from an economics perspective however among others it is a huge change, which should have been decided by and through consensus.

The same criticism holds for web wallets and exchanges however some people might see side chains as being a part of bitcoin and might falsely equate the two more then they would with web wallets and exchanges.

I think that Bitcoin should be simple, in its basic fundamentals, I can explain Bitcoin in its basic form to a eight year old, I can no longer do that if side chains become an intrinsic part of the Bitcoin ecosystem. So yes I am skeptical in part purely because I think there is to much complexion.

It is true that from an exchange point of view it does not make it any worse, which in a way is similar to the debate we have been having about mining centralization in relation to the block size. So what you say here is accurate.

I do oppose implementing increased anonymity in Bitcoin, you can say this is because of my poor imagination, however I have good reasons to stand on this believe. I do think there is a need for anonymous cryptocurrency in the world and I even support projects like XMR, Dash and SDC. I think that Bitcoin however should serve a different purpose and arguably a more important purpose by staying transparent and allowing the advantages that this brings to be maximized.

It did require a change to Bitcoin in order to support side chains, I just think that this change should have been implemented through consensus. This is setting a bad precedent for making changes to Bitcoin, which should be discussed and evaluated by the larger community as opposed to just being implemented by a small group of Core developers. Especially important changes like the implementation of side chains.

Wrong, the Liquid sidechain, as implemented, required no change to Bitcoin. As for BIP65 and nLockTime (which is not yet implemented) it helps with a host of use cases (sidechains & Lightning being one of them). This is certainly not a function that is being pulled into Bitcoin Core only to serve sidechains.


You are working from an assumption that is wrong: implementing BIP65 is a whole different debate than sidechains. Moreover sidechains are not implemented into Bitcoin, they are created out of existing Bitcoin features and script language. They are a voluntary service that is not being force onto Bitcoin users therefore it makes absolutely no sense to propose that we need consensus to allow them to exist. What you propose works precisely against the permissionless aspect of Bitcoin.


So creation of web wallets and exchange require consensus?


So multi-signature should not exist because it is a complex use of Bitcoin's scripting language that has become an intrinsic part of Bitcoin?


No one is proposing to implement anonymity into Bitcoin, at least not yet, so you are again attempting to fight a straw man.

Please accept that you are just utterly confused.

Once again: side chains are not implemented into Bitcoin they are a superficial layer making use of Bitcoin's existing scripting language.

If sidechains do not require nLockTime and BIP65 then I was wrong and I can accept that, it is wisdom to recognize when we are wrong.

In regards to web wallets and exchanges I was referring to how people wrongly equate them with Bitcoin and how this hurts the perception of Bitcoin, and how people might also falsely make the same mistakes in relation to side chains.

I can still explain the basic fundamentals of multi signatures to an eight year old. Having multiple keys to a lock for instance is not hard to explain.

I never said that anyone is claiming we should implement anonymity and I also never said that anyone considers side chains to be a complete solution to scalability, I was just stating my opinion on these subjects, so please stop accusing me of straw man arguments since I was not putting these words in the mouths of anyone else, only myself.

Some might do, not all of them. Are you aware that BIP65 is not yet implemented ?

I suppose that is where some of the confusion might lie then, since when I learned about sidechains I thought that nLockTime was required. Interesting to learn that they do not all require this. If there is no change to the Bitcoin code then it does not require consensus indeed.

The lighting network does require nLocktime or BIP65 however. I am not as skeptical of the lighting network actually, as long as the main bitcoin blockchain still remains viable for most people, I do not have any issues with the lightening network, I rather like it in fact.

I do agree with this however, and I think that anyone who disagrees with this is being overly polarizing. Thankfully I think that most people can agree with what sgbett said here at least.

This gives me hope that we will be able to reach consensus, we need a third alternative implementation, unless either Core or XT compromises their current position. Decentralization and financial freedom is what most of us here want after all. :)

Will the token used by side chain dilute the value of bitcoin?

What are you talking about? Of course not. This is not going to harm the value of Bitcoin.

No. There is no new token, their "token" is Bitcoin.

And if you had doubts about that, it's good that you asked because maybe some people are against this for that reason. It's an important feature of this that they won't be diluting anything with their own tokens that they'd sell. Their financing is not tied to the system in any way, which is very important IMO - they have a separate consultancy contract.

As long as they do not use own token, it is good. They will earn money by subscription such as Mastercard does.

My criticism of sidechains is based purely on them being to convoluted and complex, and also there's the fact that the door is left open for bitcoins to be lost on sidechains which of course would reflect badly on Bitcoin, and be used by the media to launch another tirade of negative propaganda

Also, if the overall goal is for exchanges to become more transparent, then these same exchanges being able to use such a sidechain achieves the opposite. Transparency will bring many obvious advantages for bitcoin

VeritasSapere

I think you logged into the wrong account.

sounds like bitinstant 2.0

Sidechains are described in this way:

"The sidechains ideas is this.. Send your Bitcoins to a specially formed Bitcoin address. The address is specially designed so that the coins will now be out of your control… and out of the control of anybody else either."

further on, they are described like this:

"If the second blockchain has agreed to be a Bitcoin sidechain, it now does something really special… it creates the exact same number of tokens on its own network and gives you control of them."

After sending your bitcoin to a "specially formed Bitcoin address", what do you own? A bitcoin? A token?

To be fair you own a token whose value is cryptographically pegged to its equivalent in Bitcoin.

While it isn't factually true to say that the units being moved around sidechains are bitcoins the arrangement makes it so that the scarcity of the ledger is preserved and the amount of tradeable units within the ecosystem remains the same.

So one token = one bitcoin?

this can be tweaked based on the token and sidechain itself, but what i'm seeing that it would be bad, is the time you waste by doing an addditional step

i mean you need first to send the bitcoin to the other chain, then from that other chain you need to spend those token that match those bitcoin...

100% reserve tokens.

I said the tokens are bitcoins because effectively they are in value. It's like saying 100% reserve silver dollars are only dollars when they are physical.

It would fulfill my prediction that when Bitcoin achieves a realistic scaling solution (in this case, subordinate chains) that the price would rise.  Of course I cannot know with certainty that the good price performance over the last month is attributable to this first-cut proof of concept, but I had expected such a rise in conjunction with it.  Hopefully it will be the start of a new leg up, and hopefully the next leg up will take us into the $5000-$10,000/btc range.  If so, it would be worth the wait for me.

Yet it's much better than 100% reserve dollars which have clear trust & legal implications.

I sort of trust the pegging system but I am still loosing control of my bitcoin for control of some sidechain alt. Traders will like blockstream because they can send coins to exchanges much quicker. There is still not much use for normal bitcoin users.

I don't understand your critique. How is your Bitcoin going to get lost exactly?
I guess it's a bit like putting your Bitcoin in an altcoin. If you put your Bitcoin in an altcoin, you are basically making an investing, and investment means risk. Maybe the altcoin is a failure, and there are no nodes to move your money back to Bitcoin. This can happen to with a sidechain that ends up a failure. I don't see this being a technical mistake, but a financial one on one's part.

I understand that, but as far as analogies go it's not bad. Maybe the most realistic way to introduce it so people don't fall for the hurr durrr permissioned chains nonsense.

+1

I've long said sidechains will be Bitcoin's equivalent paper money