Bitcoin Forum

Mind blowing

http://letstalkbitcoin.com/blockchain-2-0-let-a-thousand-chains-blossom/#.U0XUXYn8Lcd

Edit: For anyone interested in getting more details just listen to LTB episodes 77 and 99. If you don't have enough time jus read Adam Back posts on this reddit thread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/22m063/blockchain_20_let_a_thousand_chains_blossom

"This past week, Adam Levine interviewed the two gentlemen and learned that Hill and Back have created a company that includes several Bitcoin core developers working on a project momentarily dubbed “Blockchain 2.0” (the actual name and website will be released soon)."


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Here it is:
http://www.troll.me/images/jackie-chan-whut/mind-blown.jpg

what I want to know is how the lead singer for Maroon 5 got into bitcoin and if he plans to make it as bad as his music

"So in essence, while there are multiple chains, no new bitcoins are created. Protecting the digital scarcity of the finite amount of tokens (ultimately 21 million) is a core point to this project. By linking chains they have set Bitcoin up as a “transactional currency for all the innovation and all new assets so you can potentially issue shares in a sidechain, that specializes in smart contracts shares, derivatives, user assets, ultimately backed by Bitcoin pegged to Bitcoin,  explained Back."

Isn't something/someone else already doing this? (i.e. Mastercoin)

We've been working on a related concept here on the forum since yesterday.  Instead of side chains, it is a method to bootstrap altcoins using snapshots of the unspent outputs to determine the initial distribution of any pre-mine.    

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68655.msg6134782#msg6134782

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563925.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563972.0

Interesting.

So am I right in thinking that the interface between the main blockchain and a "sidechain" in effect just does the job that Cryptsy already does:

Provide an exchange interface for a free market of altcoins, albeit in a decentralised manner.

I haven't already understood all the details nor thought about all the implications, but Adam Back said that the current metacoins implementations are somewhat limited (e.g. in regard of smart contracts), whereas the one built on a 2way peg side chains will be based on tagging not watermarking in such a way to avoid those limitations.

The main aims are preserving bitcoin digital scarcity and innovating bitcoin without risking to blew  everything due to a fast pace of innovation. A decentralized "exchange" is "only" a side effect :-)

I've been thinking about a similar concept lately as a way of handling visa scale transactions.  It also relies on being a lock a coin to another merge mined chain and later unlock it with verification from the side chain.

The point being to create many transaction processing blocs.  Coins are spent into a bloc then bulk transactions are processed and at some point coins are returned to bitcoin.  Thus bitcoin acts more as a store of value and clearing house rather than a bulk transaction processor.  The side chains might even have limited lifespans i.e. every x days the chain stops operating, everyone returns coins back to bitcoin chain then a new one is started from scratch.

I really like the sound of "Let a Thousand Chains Blossom" :)

These guys r interested in their own profit. Why do u think u'll jump their train?

"these guys" who?

The guys behind Blockchain 2.0.

Agreed.

Can't recommend enough.  Check out the LTB episode.  Everyone needs to hear this.

http://letstalkbitcoin.com/e99-sidechain-innovation/#.U0bMk1c1Gn8

-B-

videos, reddit posts, crap-slaps  ... someone pleast post a link to the paper!

An unknown guy with a funny name Satoshi Nakamoto came out of the blue and launched Bitcoin.

A famous guy with a funny name Dacoinminster spent a lot of time talking to people on conferences and tried to launch Mastercoin having 4000 BTC (failed).

An unknown guy with a funny name BCNext came out of the blue and launched Nxt having 21 BTC.

Famous guys spent a lot of time talking to people on conferences and are trying to launch Ethereum having millions USD (in progress).

Famous guys will be spending a lot of time talking to people on conferences and will try to launch Blockchain 2.0 having millions USD (in progress).


Am I the only one who sees a clear pattern here?

Nope but aye! Random color patterns that tickles my OCD

CTRL+A

I see a competition to make Bitcoin 2.0.  My money is on the team with the most credibility: Bitcoin 1.0 core devs and the creator of Hashcash (also one of the original cypherpunks) and the best, most sensible idea (Blockchain 2.0)

I find the idea of 2way peg sidechains and its applications fascinating and useful.

Having said that I don't need anyone granting me the permission  to jump to anyone train. As long as my own interest has a not null interceptions with the one of "these guys" there's no need to jump whatsoever :)

This is an intriguing idea (emphasis mine):


The versatility of Bitcoin is truly amazing...

Umm.. profit from what exactly? Care to expand on your stupid ass comment?

never admit you have OCD, or this will happen

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ayxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

If u didn't get it then ask ur mom.

Another stupid ass comment with no actual facts. Cheers mate, you're just making yourself look worse. Might as well stop while you're ahead.

Instead of building Bitcoin 2.0 lets just put all resources to making bitcoin succeed we haven't yet and there's still a lot of work to do. Until then all bitcoin/blockchain base currencies are a waste of time.

Look worse? Pity that my bright orange ignore button is not visible now. U wouldn't waste time on posting ur opinion in this case. Better find a girl, maybe she will be interested in what u saying.

IMO the best news I've heard in months.  I hope it succeeds.

The more competition, the better.
Market will decide the winner and losers.

Agreed that Bitcoin needs to succeed and resources are required to make that happen.

Sure.

As I see it that they're working to improve bitcoin, the actual bitcoin not a alter-ego 2.0.

It seems to me that they're not building a new cryptocurr from scratch, they're leveraging the value of the blockchain to remove potential risks for the bitcoin survival.

Among all the things they talk about the more important to me are:

- preserve bitcoin scarcity,
- increase the pace of innovation without risking to make everything collaps
- increase/preserve fungibility

Anyway I'm eagerly waiting for official material/whitepaper, as of now the words of Adam Back should suffice as guarantee of the value of the proposal.

The risk is that the proposal could create gatekeepers to innovation via the big bitcoin mining pools, because only the "2.0" chains the big pools agree to merge mine (that may not quite be the right phrase) will get to participate in this two-way peg.

If I had to guess I'd say that is somehow part of their business model, but we'll have to wait and see.

Nakomoto is a genius with an innovative idea.

Everyone else is just trying to copy - to see if they can cash in big if their altcoin or "2.0" coin flies.

Strength in Bitcoin would be if we stick to making the original Bitcoin better.

It is an interesting concept, but from where I currently stand (there's no white paper), it seems to me this adds risk to the very core of bitcoin for the purpose of allowing side chains of questionable utility.  Let's work together to first make bitcoin succeed as is.  

I'd rather keep experimental alt coins on their own independent networks.  We can still bootstrap them in a non-inflationary manner from a snapshot of the blockchain using the concept of "spin-offs":  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563972.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563972.0)

this is definitely a valid point.

mining concentration is a major concern that has to be "solved" someway, and 2-way peg sidechains do not have any cure for it  IMHO.   

it's all a matter of incentive. e.g. a way to make p2pool less cumbersome and as efficent as possible has to be found.

or maybe we need to find a way for the people to partecipate to a pool without being a mere hasher but a real miner, if memory serves Adam Back in LTB E77 briefly talk about this.   

 

Blockchain2.0, i'll keep an eye out for it.

I like the idea, so the main chain would have some of it's original coins migrating to the new chains thus keeping constant token scarcity.

Q)
Would heirachy exist, or could a new chain bud potentially outgrow the "main chain" and thus be seen as the new "main chain"?

Blockchain 2.0 is based upon an economic fallacy of a 'scarcity race', the security fallacy of hash power, and has a giant security hole that would compromise entire side chains.  It has embraced a concept of centralization in a one-world currency, one block chain, etc.  It has embraced barriers to entry by not enabling support for cross-chain-trading.



Based on this description it works just like a system I designed last fall in my effort to create parallel chains with shared supply.  The problem is that when using pow the side chain funds can be completely robbed because the main chain cannot validate anything but the existence of the trx on the side chain.  So to do this the btc miners still have to do full validation on all side chains. 

This major security risk has not been mitigated.

In other words 51% attack on side chain allows attacker to steal full balance of side chain by transferring 100 % of it back to btc chain under their control.   Btc miners would see the transaction exists on the side chain but have no way of knowing it was invalid because they blindly trust the hash power. 

This makes new side chains very vulnerable unless all btc miners merge mine it.

If you eliminate the contrived idea of a scarcity race and the false security of hash power there is nothing to this Blockchain 2.0.   

Integrating a technology like BTS X into a side chain would require significant R&D... the ideas behind BTS X are easy, implementing them is much harder.  Assuming BitBTC works then we have achieved a peg with BTC already without needing their system.  Cross-chain-trading is all that Bitcoin needs to support, could be implemented today without any modifications.  You do not see Bitcoin developers / mining pool operators working to enable this support which would literally be a few lines of code to add it to the standard transaction type.

The bitcoin elite (pool operators and miners) *own* the sha256 space and thus want to expand their monopoly.  Bitcoin has a network effect, but with cross-chain-trading that network effect can quickly and easily benefit all alt-chains... but their behavior demonstrates that they have been corrupted by the ring of power.  Like the elite before them they are inventing economic concepts (scarcity race) just like the fed invents terms (QE, disinflation, paradox of thrift, etc) to justify their moves.  They are working with regulators already which means they will likely support moves to freeze accounts so that they can continue the gravy train.

http://www.astrologybylauren.com/gollum-n-the-ring.jpg

These factors demonstrate to me that regardless of how large the BTC network effect is, they will not be able to out compete everyone because there will always be a market for a more decentralized system than bitcoin offers.

Can you explain why it is a fallacy.

That's stupid, but if it's stupid and it works it ain't stupid  :)

It implies that only one 'coin' can be supported by the market and perpetuates the myth that bitcoin is money instead of realizing the bitcoins are shares in a company called Bitcoin and that these shares are being used as money.   Gold does not stop being a metal just because it was used as money, and bitcoins don't stop being digital bearer shares just because they are being used as money.   There can be many companies in the market and new startups will almost always demand fresh equity distribution based upon actual investment.  Somehow I don't see Bitcoin shareholders investing in revolutionary ideas, instead I see them attempting to assert ownership over all ideas in this space forever with the same kind of threat that Microsoft makes which is to copy innovation and steal the rewards from the innovators.

The only thing I can understand the term 'scarcity race' to mean is the 'race to be most highly in demand'.... but the fallacy with the term is the assumption that it is a 'race' and 'winner take all' and this assumption is more revealing about the mindset and intent of the creators to monopolize the industry rather than support free market competition.

If I had to describe the BLockchain 2.0 proposal in terms of the DAC metaphor, then it represents the Core Developers & Miners intent to become the Microsoft of DACs promoting an inferior product built on top of an existing "monopoly" and threatening to copy the innovation of competitors and bundle it with Bitcoin.    

Perhaps they should focus on cross-chain-trading and interoperability with others in the industry rather than attempting to build vendor lock-in and introduce barriers to entry.

+1 +1 +1 Exactly what I was thinking.

The analogy fails. You can't compare a major established company to an experimental "crypto-corporation". There can't be such thing as vendor lock-in just yet. We'll see about that in 10 years or so.

The purported lack of innovation is irrelevant at this point. What's more important is to first fix the existing problems in the infrastructure like the lack of properly working exchanges. This proposal promises to fix at least some of the problems while still leveraging the existing infrastructure. I think this a great way to move forward. At least this is far better than creating yet another altcoin with questionable real-world advantages over bitcoin.

he wants to make a altcoin, thus call it something else and stop stealing bitcoins thunder. if its truly any good people will move over to it naturally no matter what you call it. just dont use a brand thats already in existance

bitcoin2.0 is NOT bitcoin. but it COULD be the next generation of CRYPTO

EG
imagine the word cryptocurrency was replaced with transportation
cars are not horse2.0, they were the next generation of transportation. although they use terms like horsepower, they are completely different things. and as such the cars have succeeded where horses have failed and people have moved away from horses as the mode of transport.

If you follow the work I have been doing you will see that I have gone so far beyond 'questionable real-world advantages' and instead have identified the core of what Bitcoin is.  For starters  if you use the analogy of a company Bitcoin has a meager revenue from transaction fees and large expenses by issuing new shares to pay for security.  Thus, the company is in the red to the tune of $500M per year.   It has 2 classes of stock (voting (hashpower) and capital (coins)) and thus separates the interest of these two parties, and it is slow.

I fix these problems by actually making crypto-companies that are profitable (they produce more value than they consume) and thus can pay dividends to the shareholders.  I return power to the shareholders and the result is that the we have transactions that are as fast as Ripple, irreversibly secured by 51% shareholder vote before Bitcoin can produce 2 blocks.   You see the analogy is critical to understand the benefits.   These are tangible, real-world, advantages.   

Nothing says Bitcoin cannot upgrade to Delegated Proof of Stake (DPOS) http://bitshares.org/security/delegated-proof-of-stake.php and become profitable however.   It seems to me that this should be a higher priority than side-chains.

Q: if this side-chain idea, two-way-peg, and merge-mining gets rolling...
Would it be possible for "metacoins" like: Mastercoin and Counterparty, which currently run on Bitcoin Blockchain be able to migrate and become a side-chain as depicted?  Thus continue to provide their utility as before?

Unlikely.

Upgrade Bitcoin to DPoS and you get Nxt.

Nxt is very close but has the following downsides:

1) more missed blocks
2) no dividends to share holders
3) slower block production
4) random individuals can manipulate the transactions with ease... nothing on the line when their turn comes up. 
5) more centralized, only those who choose to participate can exercise their shareholder influence
       - you must risk your public keys by having your wallet unlocked
       - gaining 51% of the active stake is much easier with Nxt because so much is inactive.

This info is a little bit outdated. For example, u don't have to risk ur private keys coz u can delegate ur mining power to an empty account - https://nxtforum.org/news-and-announcements/nrs-releases/msg8982/#msg8982. The last point about gaining 51% will become irrelevant after people run pools and small fish delegate their power to professional miners.

Also, what does "more missed blocks" mean? If it's about the bug that didn't allow to sign blocks then it's already fixed. Slower block production - 1 min between blocks doesn't look slow. Transaction manipulation - I don't get it, do u mean that miners may refuse to include some transactions? If yes, then it's not a problem IMO, Bitcoin miners include even non-prioritized transactions with 0 fee, why Nxt miners will do opposite?

I have had small bitcoin transfers take half a day before, but all of the NXT transfers I have ever sent took less than a few minutes every time. 

for 3 years all bitcoin tx's took 10 minutes. but now due to mining greed, pool owners have added so many limits, rules and discouraged accepting tx's. that bitcoins are now taking longer just to be accepted.

give NXT 3 years and the NXT dev's will start charging premiums and adding minimum spend limts too..

Thanks for the update... looks like Nxt has solved the major issues by using a variation on delegated proof of stake.   I have a lot of respect for what Nxt is doing and for getting there faster than everyone else.

1 minute vs 15 or 30 second blocks... is slower, but I suspect Nxt could accelerate that too if they felt it would be helpful. 

So from where I sit the primary difference between Nxt and DPOS is that with DPOS you can vote against block producers rather than just delegate to block producers.  Is there any place I can go to read in detail about Nxts current implementation?

100% agree!

Unfortunatelly, no. No a whitepaper, no comments in the code. Reading the code is the only way to get the details.

Has DPoS been implemented somewhere? How fast is it?

If thousand chains blossom, how do i know which is the longest and honest one ?

you don't.. you simply realise that blockchain 2.0 is nothing more then another bunch of pump and dumps. instead of trying to build businesses layers ontop of bitcoin. all these guys care about is being the early adopters of a premine. and sell you a story that it is the future. purely by having another crap alt.. but calling it a 2.0

Different chains, not forks of the same chain.

Is it correct that Bitcoin would have to do a "hard fork" in order to enable this?

Is that a big deal, or not really?

-B-

No, soft fork.

Can someone please clarify something for me:

If sidechains are introduced to the existing core bitcoin chain responsible for the transactions in order to bring more applications to the network, how would this effect the miners and the network itself? Also, will the miners need to go verify all the chains and their respective data?


Thank you in advance :)