I've always been more inclined to favor more of a token system for 'exchange currency' duty. Under such a 'token flavored sidechain' I would only wish to be able to verify that I am in sole control of my tokens and could induce a particular native Bitcoin retrieval on demand. For such a system I would accept a certain amount of slop since this would go a long way toward implementation efficiency, and I won't die if I lose (or gain) a few nickles in some sort of a SC failure.
none of what you're saying then makes sense compared to what Adam has been saying. SC's are blockchains except in the case of federated server SC's (but even that definition is being fuzzed over by the SC ppl calling an internal ledger a SC  ) I think it was more JorgeStolfi with the internal ledger (the sofa/couch in bitstamps office?), I would not call an internal ledger a chain - a chain has to be real-time publicly audited I think, to be called a chain. With federated peg there is a real side-chain, including mining, consensus rules etc and then the federated peg servers act as a protocol adaptor - the peg servers are full nodes on the side-chain, and pegged coins are paid to their multisig address (eg 10 of 15) and the side-chain fullnodes and miners watch the multisig address on the bitcoin network, and coins arriving there count as a peg to put coins into the side-chain; and when the side-chain hashrate majority approves a return peg to reanimate a coin, the federated pegs are watching the side-chain as they are full nodes there too, so they release the funds to the address the return peg tells them to. Now obviously the limitation is if >= 10 of the federated peg servers are hostile or compromised, they could take the coin without approval of the side-chain. But short of that it is the side-chain consensus and miners etc that arbitrate what coins move across the peg. Adam Ok, this is new info to all of here who assumed federated server implementations of SC's were just that, server based only, without blockchains. This sounds more like a Ripple type system with gateways and a blockchain. |
|
|
|
Some bizarre form of Tourette Syndrome If you have trouble understanding how businesses survive the economic reality that competition in a free market reduces the profitability of all ventures over time, then maybe you can go ask them for yourself how they manage to deal with it? There are millions of them in the world, so it shouldn't be too hard to find a few and talk with them. Let us know how your investigation goes. Don't bother with the simpleton. He's been operating under the assumption that SC's are token, not blockchains, lol. And what about his blather above that accounting doesn't need to pay attention to details, lol? |
|
|
|
|
tvbcof think SC's are tokens, not blockchains.
brg444 is confused about SC's.
Adam ruminates about manipulating the issuance curve & even deleting future block rewards.
Odalv calls a federated server internal database a SC.
JStolfi calls a SC a Bitstamp couch.
LTC looks to be dying.
BTC price plummets (to support @peak of last top)
i may be getting SC's.
the world is falling apart.
yeehaw.
|
|
|
|
I've always been more inclined to favor more of a token system for 'exchange currency' duty. Under such a 'token flavored sidechain' I would only wish to be able to verify that I am in sole control of my tokens and could induce a particular native Bitcoin retrieval on demand. For such a system I would accept a certain amount of slop since this would go a long way toward implementation efficiency, and I won't die if I lose (or gain) a few nickles in some sort of a SC failure.
I guess I didnt understand what you meant then (I was thinking privacy). Still not getting it. Adam you've been agreeing with a lunatic  |
|
|
|
One coin to rule them all:  |
|
|
|
d to explain it.
If lots of people buy the etf and its price goes up then the BTC price gets driven up through arb, so yes buying the ETF does affect BTC
That is a non-trivial "if"... What is it exactly that prevents those potential COIN buyers from buying BTC directly, or SMBIT shares? The fact that they are not traded on an exchange like NASDAQ? Or some intrinsic property of the asset? Note that COIN shares will uninsured against theft or loss, besides being backed only by a "stock" (BTCs) that itself has no backing assets. The Fortress investment group bought a bunch of BTC in 2013. Those BTC were the only red stain in their Q1/2014 report. So Fortress promptly swapped those BTC for equity in the Pantera Fund's managing company (not shares of the fund itself). If COIN existed in 2013, and Fortress had bought COIN instead of BTC, the result would probably have been pretty much the same. What I mean is that COIN may not be much more attractive to large investors than BTC itself. Large investors are not likely to be impressed by a 5-year logscale plot with a red straight line on it. In case you have not been paying attention, to people outside the bitcoin community bitcoin does not look like the financial miracle that it seemed to be 13 months ago. And it is a fact that no one who has some money to spare believes that bitcoin will be worth 3000 $ in 2015. Otherwise they would rush to buy those coins that are now being offered for sale at 290 $/BTC, and no one is buying. Permit me to quote myself from another thread..... One point that's been overlooked in this discussion: ETFs allow institutional and qualified/professional investors to purchase regulated securities, pursuant either to their own internal bylaws and product placement memoranda, or to securities laws by which they must abide. For example, a professional investment fund, such as a mutual fund or hedge fund or pension fund, is limited in how it may allocate investors' funds insofar as the fund is only permitted to purchase securities regulated under such-and-such provisions. A fund may indeed wish to purchase bitcoins right now, but it cannot due to the aforesaid regulatory provisions; however an ETF investment vehicle would allow the fund to purchase shares in the bitcoin ETF right now, shares that would presumably track the Bitcoin price, and may be bought, sold, and traded—in a regulated environment—as any other shares would be. this |
|
|
|
shouldn't the addresses and amounts that emerge onto SC be reflected/displayed/shown within its blockchain?
I would hope not. I see no reason for it and a bunch of reasons to not have it. I would like to see things be such that the native Bitcoin network neither knows about nor cares about nor is loaded in any way more than a sidechain being just another user. Of course Bitcoin is an open network so various kinds of analysis could probably elucidate a lot about what users (individual and group proxys like a sidechain) might be up to. so what is the point of MM'ing the SC to begin with then? isn't a blockchain (SC in this case) supposed to verify the integrity of what's going on? might as well keep a secret ledger on a central server maintained by Karpeles. I clarified a bit as an edit. I've always been more inclined to favor more of a token system for 'exchange currency' duty. Under such a 'token flavored sidechain' I would only wish to be able to verify that I am in sole control of my tokens and could induce a particular native Bitcoin retrieval on demand. For such a system I would accept a certain amount of slop since this would go a long way toward implementation efficiency, and I won't die if I lose (or gain) a few nickles in some sort of a SC failure. none of what you're saying then makes sense compared to what Adam has been saying. SC's are blockchains except in the case of federated server SC's (but even that definition is being fuzzed over by the SC ppl calling an internal ledger a SC ) |
|
|
|
shouldn't the addresses and amounts that emerge onto SC be reflected/displayed/shown within its blockchain?
I would hope not. I see no reason for it and a bunch of reasons to not have it. I would like to see things be such that the native Bitcoin network neither knows about nor cares about nor is loaded in any way more than a sidechain being just another user. Of course Bitcoin is an open network so various kinds of analysis could probably elucidate a lot about what users (individual and group proxys like a sidechain) might be up to. so what is the point of MM'ing the SC to begin with then? isn't a blockchain (SC in this case) supposed to verify the integrity of what's going on? might as well keep a secret ledger on a central server maintained by Karpeles. |
|
|
|
The point of moving transactions on-chain is that the user can then own their own coins, rather than delegating ownership to a third party like mtgox.
But each SC has its own spvp (single address) that everyone has to move through to the SC? In other words, everyone has to send their BTC to that address and then are somehow going to receive individually assigned scBTC on the other side? So the spv peg transactions (which anyone can create at any time) includes a list of addresses and amounts to emerge on the sidechain, so that could be one user, or a group of users each contributing inputs a bit like CoinJoin. However its going to be more efficient to use an arbitrageur or cross-chain atomic swap for all but large liquidity calls if the trade gets imbalanced. Adam shouldn't the addresses and amounts that emerge onto SC be reflected/displayed/shown within its blockchain? |
|
|
|
what is this bizarro world where any ledger of ownership qualifies as a blockchain *ahem* if he's confused, we're all in trouble. |
|
|
|
If mtgox had had you design a SC for them, would you have structured a single specific SPVmtgox SC to which everyone would have sent their BTC (one address), then waited 2d for confirmation, before allowing those individuals to be assigned their own specific scBTC to be traded p2p , all the while securing this SC with 100% MM?
The point of moving transactions on-chain is that the user can then own their own coins, rather than delegating ownership to a third party like mtgox. Adam But each SC has its own spvp (single address) that everyone has to move through to the SC? In other words, everyone has to send their BTC to that address and then are somehow going to receive individually assigned scBTC on the other side? |
|
|
|
|
Adam,
If mtgox had had you design a SC for them, would you have structured a single specific SPVmtgox SC to which everyone would have sent their BTC (one address), then waited 2d for confirmation, before allowing those individuals to be assigned their own specific scBTC to be traded p2p , all the while securing this SC with 100% MM?
|
|
|
|
cypherdoc: it seems you are against side-chains on an economic principle rather than a specific technical implementation
multiple reasons: economic (risks sound money function by encouraging speculative asset trading on SC's inside the Bitcoin system), technical (depends on a miner gratuity of 100% MM to be as safe as Bitcoin), fairness aka conflict of interest (5 devs in same for profit can "block" altcoin op_codes and even improvements to Bitcoin Core if a threat to SC business) Does this principle then extend to all other provably-backed (cryptographically-linked) bitcoin substitute tokens? And would you like to specify/define exactly what that principle is so that future technical improvements can be evaluated equally?
i'd like to see any improvements to Bitcoin be done on MC with testing on federated servers or on Testnet There are many new innovations to come that will achieve the same or similar results in principle to the side-chain conversion SPV 2wp, using multi-sig and time-locks, ZKP, etc ... are you going to be opposed to all these innovations also? (Hint: they will allow fast, off-chain, private settlement, or ttx bundling, with near zero-trust, i.e. blockchain level security and low costs).
I think that the economic principle of operation you seem to be vehemently opposed to is inevitable in some form or another. There will be token money substitutes that really will be cryptographically "as good as bitcoin", in a way that paper money substitutes were never "as good as gold".
hard to evaluate what ifs. i'm not opposed to innovation, just do it on MC. one thing these guys haven't explained is how does one evaluate success of a SC innovation when the conditions can never be exactly those that exist on MC? price? lack of attacks? #users? market cap? |
|
|
|
weekly all time LTC/USD chart. really does not look good:  |
|
|
|
this can't be good. there's a higher purpose:  |
|
|
|
However, there are no details in the paper to even tell what applications could be "sidechains", how the integration would work, what concrete benefits they would derive from that, why other projects could not obtain the same benefits without being "sidechains of bitcoin" -- and why would bitcoin be saved as a result. Needless to say, there is also no analysis of possible failure modes.
So I take it you didn't read the paper  I did read it, and also the "sidechains for dummies" blogpost that people recommended, and some more posts. So what you are saying is that I did not understand it at all. Perhaps. But then I ask, for example, why Bitstamp is not already a "sidechain". OK, it is not decentralized nor merge-mined, but does the whitepaper say that a sidechain must be those things? My impression is that the paper did not want to rule out anything, for fear that it might prevent co-opting a possible "bitcoin killer". For a thing to be a sidechain I guess it would need to first be a chain. Can you point me to Bitstamp's blockchain? They have a ledger but it isn't a block chain. so why does the WP, Odalv, and Adam refer to these federated server models as an implementation of SC's? which by my definition means involving a blockchain? |
|
|
|
About cypherdoc particularly he said this: I am not sure if you are aware sidechains are nearly possible with zero changes to bitcoin. Its already programable via the script language. It may even be doable with zero changes with some chained contorted big script to validate compact SPV proofs.
great, then do it if it doesn't involve a source code change. i have no problem with that. So that seems a little inconsistent to me. ie if this is really a bad idea why would cypherdoc not have a problem with it regardless of whether it required changes or not. I mean if its a principle you'd be arguing to please not do it even though its possible. Or to remove something from the language to prevent it, or put a technical defense preventing it if such a thing existed (seems unlikely but I havent explored it much). Not saying "I have no problem with that." if you can implement spvp based SC's w/o a source code change, then i can't stop that. i might not like it or agree with the principle but that's where the "I have no problem with that" comes from. tho from everyone's understanding and the WP, you need the spvp obtained via a source code change. what's important to protect, for me, is the mining and investment assumptions that are based on the current code as it stands. if what you say is true about you being able to implement SC's w/o any source code changes, presumably the market has already factored that into the price and i wasn't aware of that and can't argue with that. but if you do have to change source code specifically to accomplish what you want, then i do know for sure the market will have to adjust to that new information. the effects of that will be unpredictable in my mind and upset certainly my assumption of how the source code was never supposed to change to allow a for-profit company to benefit. i know you say it's generic but you do have a head start in this area along with 5 devs and should establish a monopoly quickly by my estimation. that is, if the idea and concept works. which as you already know, i have my doubts. fundamentally, none of the technical enhancements to Bitcoins money function couldn't be done on the MC. not easy to gain consensus but it CAN be done. i'm all for that. this is what we have testnet and federated server SC's for. experimentation. esp when we're only at the $4B market cap.
While its possible, its very much harder, and when changes are made its very much riskier and less secure. If you care about the security of your coins you should be for having a firewalled live beta and firewalled extension mechanism (if you support improvements "i'm all for that." you said). it's not the improvements proposed for SC's that i worry about. it's about speculators like Truthcoin who not only proposes all sorts of assets but also a altcoin (TC) which will ride on the SC. it also looks like CP and colored coins will bring us other assets to MC. that's good too.
CP = CounterParty. That doesnt bring anything to the chain, other than bloat, its a layered consensus system with its own alt-coin. If you valued the price of bitcoin, probably you'd be better pushing for sidechains than CP because its bitcoin denominated and increases demand and features for bitcoin. as i understand CP, it's just an embedded hash into a 40 byte op_return that originally was 80 bytes. they were able to compensate so how is that a problem? who knows how much further MC achievements might have been accomplished if BS core devs were spending all that time working on Bitcoin Core that they undoubtedly have been dedicating to the spvp for the last year and a half. forget that shit and get behind Gavin and increase blocksize. now is the time to do this.
No they spent more time on core than before, because they quit their full time jobs/occupation and Mark said somewhere else on reddit he figured they'd spent 50% of their time at blockstream on core. (Unrelated to sidechains most of it .. eg in Pieter's case the headers-first speed up you were mentioning, though he's been working on that for a long time). You could check by looking at bitcoin github, there's a stats page. hmmm fundamentally, i think allowing an offramp for BTC units over to insecure SC's is economically and technically flawed for all the Sound Money reasons i've already articulated.
I fail to see the connection between sound money and an ability to freeze coins with an spv-multisig instead of a multisig. Bitcoin is protected with a firewall from features on the sidechain. The bitcoins never leave the chain, they're just frozen in an spv-multisig instead of a multisig. Lots of people are using multisigs, daily, to effectively do the same thing, its more secure to do it with an spv-multisig. Lots of people are not even doing that, they're using pure offchain in a shared wallet, for reasons that in time could be fixed on sidechains and then with a year of live testing with $1b on it kind of assurance, ported back into bitcoin main. i know you've been saying they're equivalent for a while now but i see a difference. multisig is currently used just for security purposes as in 2of3. when necessary, the funds at those addresses can be mobilized immediately, no 2 day delay. the p2sh used to facilitate these multisigs are not meant to reanimate scBTC on the other side of a 2wp as in your proposal. with your 2wp (spvp), there is an entire "industry" awaiting on the other side of the 2wp that you wish to capitalize on. i don't like the concept you used earlier of the BTC still being on the MC. i see the 2wp as a "pass through" that reanimates those BTC into scBTC on a SC which then facilitates all sorts of speculation and trading of assets or even scCOINS like TC. the SC's can be anything at all as you've described it and it's BS business plan to sell these newly designed and constructed SC's to willing buyers and maybe even gvt's as you've said. i think that is risky. and then there's the whole mining thing. i'm not sure if you addressed some of my concerns above regarding attacks. |
|
|
|
For a thing to be a sidechain I guess it would need to first be a chain. Can you point me to Bitstamp's blockchain?
That seems to be an assumption some people make, but I did not see that stated in the paper. To be meaningful, that statement would require a defintion of what is a "blockchain" and what is not. Without such definition, I can give several "stupid answers" to that question: * The sofa in Bitstamp's lounge is "Bitstamp's blockchain". * Bitstamp's internal ledger, where the accounts are kept, is "Bitstamp's blockchain". * Bitstamp can create some junk altcoin, say a bitcoin clone, that can be traded on their site; set up an old laptop to start mining its blockchain; and call that "Bitstamp's blockchain". And also an answer that may not be so stupid: * Bitstamp could implement @GMaxwell's scheme for "proof of solvency", using a Merkle tree (not linear, but bushy) of the account balances, updated once a day, secured by strategically inserting some hashes in the bitcoin chain; and call that tree "Bitstamp's blockchain". The last example may show that trying to restrict what a sidechain can be and do is pointless (because there is no practical way to enforce those restrictions) and stupid (because it would arbitrarily exclude many interesting systems, perhaps even the feared "bitcoin killer") Jorge brings up an interesting point. Odalv, perhaps you can comment on whether all these federated server SC's that are in action already involve a true blockchain that are MM'd? i doubt it. they're probably just internal ledgers. that doesn't sound like a true SC to me. |
|
|
|
The 2 papers that come to mind are Sirer's Selfish Mining paper and the Red Balloon paper from Microsoft. I've listened to Sirer talk before which is even more puzzling that he can be so pedantic about it. For Christ's sake, if you're going to stake your academic reputation on such a theory, at least attack the network to prove it or release the code to meet everyone inspect it for flaws in reasoning or assumptions. He won't do either which should show you what the quality of his thesis is.
Well, Ph. D. theses are often like that.  Speaking as an advisor, after I have stolen five of the best years of someone's life, it would be a crime to send him/her away with empty hands. Seriously, I did not quite understand how Sirer's Selfish Mining attack works either, but I did not spend much time trying to. Anyway, even if it works, it does not seem to be fatal, but only make life less fair for miners. Or is it claimed to be worse than that? I haven't seen the other paper you mention. is Sirer the advisor or a co-grad student with co-publisher Eyal? To me though, as through the 5 other bubbles we've had, is the protocol still hasn't been hacked, tx's are going up, time has advanced (6yrs), dev is getting done, user adoption is growing worldwide, VC's investment continues to accelerate, and huge companies like Microsoft are coming on board.
Well, I am not so optimistic about those things: * By my understanding of the past bubbles, a new large bubble would require a new large market, comparable to that of the Chinese speculators who adopted Bitcoin in Nov/2013. that's possible. but Bitcoin advances in waves. we are ebbing right now awaiting the next tidal wave. probably flight from some currency somewhere. * The cryptographic security of the basic protocol, properly implemented, is assured as long as the basic tools are. However, people can easily make mistakes when using or even implementing it. See the recent BCI fiasco, for example. Claiming that those problems are not bugs "in the protocol" is a weak argument; for prospective users, what matters is the system's security, not the security of the central part. It is not reassuring to know that Chernobyl, TMI, and Fukushima were not caused by flaws in the physics of nuclear fusion, but to errors in its use.
what part of the current financial system has been trouble free for the last 100 yrs? no part. i wouldn't make that huge a deal of the R value problem of BCI. most of those coins got returned as well so there haven't been great losses. * The blockchain traffic has been falling recently: tx/day down 18% last week, BTC/day down 44% last month, USD/day down 55%.
that's a short term occurence * VC investment is almost all in ventures that will make money no matter what happens to the price. Most merchants who "accept bitcoin", including the large ones, do not want to touch it, they want dollars. When asked about its future plans for bitcoin, Microsoft dodged the question. The few minimally reliable data on bitcoin usage for e-payment through BitPay show stagnation in BTC amount over 2014, drop in USD amount.
all those examples are too negative imo. it's not simply a matter of wanting dollars. many are holding back some BTC and Bitpay did confirm that. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2oypbo/bitpay_employee_here_around_50_of_our_merchants/MS just accepted BTC even after their Red Ballon paper back in 2012. i guarantee you they aren't going to tell you or i what their long range plans are but this is a turnaround: http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/?id=156072 |
|
|
|
|
The SC's WP was disjointed to me. On the one hand, parts of it complain about alcoins, but them turns right around and gives a whole section to Freicoin, of all things. Talk about a screwed up economic policy. Adam even mentioned it again just the other day. This tells me they are not on board with Bitcoins sound or hard money principles. Probably different guys on their team contributed different sections or thi was a bone thrown to one of them. I seem to recall that Poelstra might be the one into demurrage.
|
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
