Bitcoin Forum

When is this happening? 

Last I heard was a LTB Pocast nearly a year ago, and the white paper wasn't done yet.

Since then I've heard the white paper got released, but there are people saying it can't be done due to security risks.

And then there needs to be a Fork.

Is Gavin on board with the fork?  Are all core devs on board?

Whats the date of the fork?

Frustrating having a decentralized system when there's nobody managing timelines, milestones, and delivery dates.....

-B-

www.blockstream.com

as far as i know, it is not certain yet that there will be a fork. probably there will be, but it not certain yet.

Sidechains use a concept called a "peg" which is for moving the same token between different independent blockchains.
There are (at least?) 3 different ways to implement a peg:

• SNARK peg: Uses a cryptographic proof of the other blockchain's rules being followed.
• SPV peg: Uses a "lightweight" proof that a transaction was mined, relying on trust in the miner collective for the other blockchain.
• Federated peg: Uses a set of trusted functionaries who all* must sign off on valid transactions between blockchains.

SNARK pegs and SPV pegs require a "softfork" (miner-only upgrade).
Federated pegs can be done with up to 15 functionaries using Bitcoin's multisig today.

The plan is to use SPV pegs for transfers out of the Bitcoin blockchain to a "SPV peg test sidechain", with return transactions (back to Bitcoin) using a federated peg.
Once the SPV peg test sidechain is mature/stable/well-tested to everyone's satisfaction, at that point there can be a softfork to make it the "main" blockchain (at which point the federated peg becomes unnecessary and goes away).

SNARK pegs are more complicated than SPV pegs, but can follow a similar process when the time comes.

* You can have fewer than all functionaries necessary to sign off, in case of lost keys or some going rogue.

I see.


This is what was mentioned as an ad hoc side chain? It would work in a community where people know each other. It would be too easy to abuse by holding keys for ransom. OTOH you can mitigate the risk by weighting votes by size and reputation of the functionaries. You would pretty much have to use them on a planned timeline to on/off ramp the bitcoins. It probably wouldn't be economical to have it ongoing. Still it seems like an interesting experiment... for testnet.

I dont see sidechains working out. Its one of those projects which look exciting but have too many issues to work out to be worthwhile. There is also not enough incentive for devs to spend time on it.

That's why we started a company, so we can work full time on Bitcoin.

Have you ever worked for a living? Isn't it incentive enough to do the work you're paid to do, or are you a perennial slacker who always finds plenty of time to fuck the dog?

No fork is currently proposed.

Plenty of people are. but you choose to ignore and insult the people working on the project, for which you don't pay... don't expect them to go out of their way to draw your attention to it.

But I assume this is subject to change if some "mayor" breakthroughs are to happen? Do you happen to have more info on where the most active sidechain development is happening? For myself this is quite important, as we as a company need to follow the Bitcoin core dev and related possible future core dev closely, in order to prepare the third party services on top of things.

I think the world is not ready for sidechains yet, most people still didn't even understand bitcoin itself. No fork is currently proposed because there's a lot to do making bitcoin user-friendly and more used.

The reference client is not ment to be user friendly. Remember, this is a protocol, not a mom and pop application. It is being developed for developers in my point of view.

I'm not familiar with the concept of choosing to ignore something.  Why would I choose to ignore something I am a fan of?  I dont even know if these processes exist.  If they do, then awesome!  Why would I ignore that?  I'd feel happy.

I haven't intended to insult anyone.  Dev team members have publicly stated that there has been a lack of progress, direction, and organization partially in part due to ongoing arguing, and other issues. I admit I have been a little grumpy publicly about the seeming lack of progress and delivery dates, but I promise you - it has been 1,000% based on the comments I heard Gavin make at the Amsterdam conference, and other insinuations that there is a lack of direction.  Honestly its none of my business.  So I apologize if it ever seemed like I was insulting anyone individually.  You're quite right that I am not in the trenches and therefore should not comment.

As for not paying - I planned to put quite a bit of money into the Lighthouse project - assuming I understand what it is (paying for core Devs).  I have donated anonymously to Gavin, Andreas, LTB/Adam Levine and others I feel should be downright wealthy because of all their hard work.  I invested/donated $10,000 to the Ethereum project as well.  Nevertheless, paying for things wouldn't warrant insulting the dev team.  But I have "paid".

Could you expound on this?  I opened this thread to get more information.

My original question was whether Sidechains are coming, and if so when.

To further explain:  The only reason I even made this thread is because I repeatedly see people talking about Sidechains as the coming savior in Reddit and elsewhere.  A lot of people are under the impression that it's the next item up for release.  And a lot of discussions / arguments / conversations are being based on the upcoming availability of them.  It finally struck me that I've seen zero mention of them from anyone "official" and I wondered if people are making wrong assumptions.  I don't see any direct responses above - GMaxwell you would've been the one guy who probably could've provided some direct info.  So Im still somewhat in the dark.  But its important for the community to know that this thing they hope for, isn't even slated for development or release....

-B-

No they haven't.

Mike Hearn has made some comments like that, but he's not a member of the development team of Bitcoin core, and I believe everyone who is actually involved in the development was more or less mystified by his comments. I certainly was. They certainly don't reflect the actual enormous amount of ongoing activity.

Thanks for making the agenda in your post clear, I guess :)  But it's not so, things are actively being developed, but the design we came up with was one where much of the development could happen without any additions to Bitcoin at all (via the federated peg, described in the appendix of the sidechains whitepaper). It would be improper to take things out of order and suggest softforking additions to Bitcoin without making the use-case for it.

Thanks Greg.  I edited my post above to include more information.  I got a little feisty at first, but then felt like my response was a bit too argumentative.

-B-

Well I'm not sure what you're expecting: releases are planned; and proceeding more or less on schedule: http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/32971508/

Some features have had to slip here and there, mostly due to a lack of testing interest from the community; e.g. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2krlob/wladimir_tweets_call_for_testing_and_review_help/

Please don't confuse Bitcoin with a product that is owned by someone who can just set out and tell you how you're going to be able to use Bitcoin in the future. Bitcoin's future is defined by what people make of it; not some schedule anyone imposes on it top down.

That makes a very limited number, usually those with a lot of stake directly in Bitcoin. Since sidechains dont let the new devs get a bigger stake, they would preferably work to create their own chain.

You do not need a large number, but those involved (see http://www.blockstream.com/sidechains.pdf ) are talented developers and generally well respected.  A small group will probably be quite successful.  In general, alt-chains/alt-coins have much less to offer than sidechains on the bitcoin mainchain, imo.

I do not believe this is about "getting a bigger stake" by having, for example, an inflationary chain but about doing something that will be hugely beneficial to bitcoin and, consequently, to their own work etc. 

:-)

Would you share some technical goals for that new main candidate?

As gmaxwell said, it's far too premature to be talking about any concrete plans for this.

Aren't side chains going to need their own infrastructure for processing transactions?

I am not talking about the reference client.
Or any client.
Or any piece of software.
I am talking about the whole idea of bitcoin and protocol, it needs to be improved/polish in ways that facilitate understanding and adoption, and sidechains are the opposite of that.

Aren't side chains literally a infrastructure for processing transactions?

Most people will never understand the protocol. Nor do they need to, in order to use/adopt Bitcoin.
Sidechains are practically necessary to make most other changes.

Sure.

But for now, more people understanding and using bitcoin is more important.

These things need to happen in parallel and Bitcoin core needs to continue to evolve (Sidechains being part of that as it opens many over avenues) ...
We all need to play our part; if you have something to offer then reach out.

Bitcoin is still very young; give it another few years and the landscape will be different.

I don't understand why this has all been announced (with fundraising) without even a proof of concept? So far it's just academics. Can't there just be an example of a two-way peg with existing test coin forks? For example: between a forked bitcoin testnet and a forked litecoin testnet?

People dont care how things work, as long as they work. Nobody has time to specialize in each and every field the world has to offer. Heck, people in general dont specialize in anything anyway. The payment industry, and the Bitcoin industry is what is going to bring Bitcoin to the masses, not the other way around. Bitcoin should not be more than "yet another number on my screen" for the avarage user. Just forget the silly dream of teaching everyone about it.

That's not what I'm saying.

I agree with this, I read the whitepaper on sidechains and it looks interesting. If someone can start a prototype running on a testnet people can start contributing

We're working on it.  Some test stuff running internally.  Watch this space.

Adam