rocks, I also disagree with your characterization of Mc plus SC's as one seamless ledger in which 21M coins float with sov. If that were the case, why all the fuss and need to firewall them off?
In theory they are buy no one knows for sure in reality.
And again you are simply stating an opinion as if it is fact but not responding to points made before. The 2-way pegging process merge sidechains into the main chain as a single data structure. At any given time you could look at the bitcoin blockchain and billions of sidechains and see exactly where all 21M coins are in a completely open and transparent manner. That is the definition of a single seamless ledger that preserves the 21M cap and maintains the Sound Money aspect just as today. It's fine to disagree, but so far you have not presented anything that counters that. |
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OK, that makes sense. But isn't that still the same as Bitcoin in 2009/10/11 where Satoshi and later Gavin had control over commit privileges? The protocol change for sidechains is one time, after that the 5 guys in Blockstream have limited influence.
What this does is to decentralize implementation of new features. Today you have to go through a small number of people to get a commit accepted. With sidechains anyone can implement a new feature and the community can choose which to adopt. This puts the power to extend features directly in the hands of the community and out of the hands of the few commiters of today. This is decentralized implementation of features, which has tremendous potential benefits.
It seems if you are worried about today's situation where only a few people have commit privileges and have too much influence over new features, then sidechains address that worry by removing power from these few people.
It seems another fear is SC's causing the main Bitcoin chain to become stagnate and thus unused over time, damaging the network. I guess I just see this as an upgrade path. If everyone switches to a SC, that SC because the main chain. The 21M ledger is still intact.
And it's actually a better upgrade path from today. Again today those 5 guys with commit privileges can push us all to upgrade. With SC's the upgrade is completely voluntary for individuals to move, everyone can decide on their own when they feel ready to move.
the way i understand the github process is that while you may be able to put patches up there freely, nothing can be written to the source code w/o consensus from the core devs themselves. b/c the vast majority of them now work in one company, there is a potential for them to possibly insert what they want and definitely to block what they don't want. Your understanding of the process is the same as mine. But again, isn't this the case today? What's different from today. At least with SC's you can implement new features outside of the centralized process we have currently (which I do not like). JR has asked the question about technology that might obsolete the need for SC's and how that might get blocked. he doesn't think his question got answered satisfactorily. it is a potential problem that the community needs to address and talk about as it does have real world implications if abused. they're basically saying "trust us". it's up to you.
If there is strong demand, I don't think they can block SC alternatives. In Linux committers have a lot of control over their pieces, but it's not infinite by any means. And again Blockstream does not have any control over sidechains where adoption of sidechains guarantees them money in any sort of way. We might find Blockstream has disappeared in a year and the 5 people mentioned above are now advocating for a SC alternative. I think you bring up an important point which is " is this version of sidechains the best or are there potentially other solutions that are better". The reason this is important is once we have one version implemented, the preference will be to stick with the current version even if something better comes along later. So, we should make sure we implement the right technology first. That's a bigger sticking point for me. no one is saying there "are" going to be problems, only that there is the potential for problems when it comes down to money. blocking other innovations that might make SC's obsolete in the future could cost Blockstream lucrative contracts; after all, Austin has talked about designing SC's for gvts currencies. a fundamental principle of Bitcoin as i've understood it is to design systems to be as resilient and trust free as possible. why wouldn't this extend to those ppl who have influence over the source code? I get that you are only talking about the potential for problems. I am asking why you think problems related to only a few people having commit privileges is either: 1) new to sidechains or 2) worse with sidechains. Again, the issue of having to trust a few centralized people with commit privileges is a problem Bitcoin has today and has always had. These maintainers have a variety of conflicting interests today. The potential problem you are ascribing to sidechains is not a problem for sidechains but a problem for Bitcoin. Yes the Bitcoin network is trustless in that you only have to trust the code and math, but Bitcoin still places a great deal of trust in a few people who maintain the code. Everytime you update your wallet version, you are trusting that someone else did not do something dishonest. Sidechains have the potential to reduce this problem by enabling decentralized implementation of features and not relying on a few people, it actually improves the issue. a fundamental principle of Bitcoin as i've understood it is to design systems to be as resilient and trust free as possible. why wouldn't this extend to those ppl who have influence over the source code?
Bitcoin today requires significant trust in a few people maintaining the code. For example last month Luke Jr slipped an update to Ubuntu (or was it Debian) that blocked statoshidice and a few similar addresses, and it caused a huge uproar. Many people claimed he tried to force his religious preferences against gambling onto the network (personally I think it was just a non-malicious mistake where his own setting were accidentally moved to the release version), but it demonstrates that the potential for abuse is very real today. This is an example of Bitcoin today not being trustless, but in fact trusting maintainers. The issue you are ascribing to sidechains is not a sidechains issue, it is a Bitcoin issue. Unless you can show that the problem is made worse with sidechains, then it's not really a problem for sidechains.Well see, you haven't really read the last 100 pages or so of this debate, or at least what I've repeatedly said about conflict of interest. The problem is your starting supposition : something is wrong with Bitcoin and needs to be fixed. That's not my starting point. I don't think something is wrong with Bitcoin and it should be left alone. This is the 2nd time you've done this and the 2nd time I'm going to call you out on it. Casually referencing some unstructured 100 pages as if they are a bible is not a response. If you believe that sidechains have a conflict of interest issue, then you have to explain how the issue is either new or worse with sidechains. Simply stating the issue is there is not enough since the issue also exists today with Bitcoin. Otherwise you are presenting a problem Bitcoin has as if it is a problem for sidechains. As described above I see sidechains as reducing the conflict of interest issue, not that the issue isn't there. You've stated nothing that counters that. |
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Somewhat related to the ongoing debate on the sidechains concept, this is a good-to-read thread on the bitcoin development mailing list: http://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net&q=subject:%22Re%3A+%5BBitcoin-development%5D+The+difficulty+of+writing+consensus+critical+code%3A+the+SIGHASH_SINGLE+bug%22particularly enlightening is this piece from Peter Todd in response to Justus: In the current model, the specification *is* the protocol, and the
Bitcoin Core team is scared to death of changing anything; they've got
very little real power. Soft-forks are the minimum-viable way of making
changes to the protocol, and it's very clear how they get adopted:
minerr consensus. They're also a fundemental way of changing the
protocol that is impossible to prevent, so you might as well use it.
You'll find another insight of what's the real complexity of bitcoin development at the beginning of the aforementioned thread. Peter is talking about how every node alt-implementation has to replicate the exact same behaviour of Bitcoin Core in terms of consensus policies (even bugs if any), otherwise it will be forked off the network. It is what he calls "bug-for-bug" compatibility. I've found it fascinating. Another really interesting quote from Peter : You know, the smartest thing the Bitcoin Foundation could do if they
wanted to cement their place in the Bitcoin ecosystem as a power broker
would be to setup a program of periodic hard-forks, say every year or
two, and then manage the committees that decide what goes into those
hard-forks. That they haven't suggested that yet is a sign that they're
either not evil, or they don't understand Bitcoin very well.
p.s. sorry for being way too OT This a great summary of the issue. The bitcoin protocol is currently a mess today and worse there is no path to fix it. The March 2013 fork was not caused by a new bug in the 0.8 version. It was caused because the 0.8 version did not contain a previously unknown bug in the 0.7 version. This unknown bug was part of the specification, but no one knew it was part of the specification. This is horrifying and will damage bitcoin in the long run. I think people think Bitcoin is more stable than it really is. The basic concepts and structure are great and all, but the implementation is not great. Worse the development process is fundamentally broken today so there is no way to fix known problems, it's a patchwork of turning bugs into specifications. If you understand Sidechains they essentially are an attempt to fix a broken development process and make it more open, that is all. |
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OK, that makes sense. But isn't that still the same as Bitcoin in 2009/10/11 where Satoshi and later Gavin had control over commit privileges? The protocol change for sidechains is one time, after that the 5 guys in Blockstream have limited influence.
What this does is to decentralize implementation of new features. Today you have to go through a small number of people to get a commit accepted. With sidechains anyone can implement a new feature and the community can choose which to adopt. This puts the power to extend features directly in the hands of the community and out of the hands of the few commiters of today. This is decentralized implementation of features, which has tremendous potential benefits.
It seems if you are worried about today's situation where only a few people have commit privileges and have too much influence over new features, then sidechains address that worry by removing power from these few people.
It seems another fear is SC's causing the main Bitcoin chain to become stagnate and thus unused over time, damaging the network. I guess I just see this as an upgrade path. If everyone switches to a SC, that SC because the main chain. The 21M ledger is still intact.
And it's actually a better upgrade path from today. Again today those 5 guys with commit privileges can push us all to upgrade. With SC's the upgrade is completely voluntary for individuals to move, everyone can decide on their own when they feel ready to move.
the way i understand the github process is that while you may be able to put patches up there freely, nothing can be written to the source code w/o consensus from the core devs themselves. b/c the vast majority of them now work in one company, there is a potential for them to possibly insert what they want and definitely to block what they don't want. Your understanding of the process is the same as mine. But again, isn't this the case today? What's different from today. At least with SC's you can implement new features outside of the centralized process we have currently (which I do not like). JR has asked the question about technology that might obsolete the need for SC's and how that might get blocked. he doesn't think his question got answered satisfactorily. it is a potential problem that the community needs to address and talk about as it does have real world implications if abused. they're basically saying "trust us". it's up to you.
If there is strong demand, I don't think they can block SC alternatives. In Linux committers have a lot of control over their pieces, but it's not infinite by any means. And again Blockstream does not have any control over sidechains where adoption of sidechains guarantees them money in any sort of way. We might find Blockstream has disappeared in a year and the 5 people mentioned above are now advocating for a SC alternative. I think you bring up an important point which is " is this version of sidechains the best or are there potentially other solutions that are better". The reason this is important is once we have one version implemented, the preference will be to stick with the current version even if something better comes along later. So, we should make sure we implement the right technology first. That's a bigger sticking point for me. no one is saying there "are" going to be problems, only that there is the potential for problems when it comes down to money. blocking other innovations that might make SC's obsolete in the future could cost Blockstream lucrative contracts; after all, Austin has talked about designing SC's for gvts currencies. a fundamental principle of Bitcoin as i've understood it is to design systems to be as resilient and trust free as possible. why wouldn't this extend to those ppl who have influence over the source code? I get that you are only talking about the potential for problems. I am asking why you think problems related to only a few people having commit privileges is either: 1) new to sidechains or 2) worse with sidechains. Again, the issue of having to trust a few centralized people with commit privileges is a problem Bitcoin has today and has always had. These maintainers have a variety of conflicting interests today. The potential problem you are ascribing to sidechains is not a problem for sidechains but a problem for Bitcoin. Yes the Bitcoin network is trustless in that you only have to trust the code and math, but Bitcoin still places a great deal of trust in a few people who maintain the code. Everytime you update your wallet version, you are trusting that someone else did not do something dishonest. Sidechains have the potential to reduce this problem by enabling decentralized implementation of features and not relying on a few people, it actually improves the issue. a fundamental principle of Bitcoin as i've understood it is to design systems to be as resilient and trust free as possible. why wouldn't this extend to those ppl who have influence over the source code?
Bitcoin today requires significant trust in a few people maintaining the code. For example last month Luke Jr slipped an update to Ubuntu (or was it Debian) that blocked statoshidice and a few similar addresses, and it caused a huge uproar. Many people claimed he tried to force his religious preferences against gambling onto the network (personally I think it was just a non-malicious mistake where his own setting were accidentally moved to the release version), but it demonstrates that the potential for abuse is very real today. This is an example of Bitcoin today not being trustless, but in fact trusting maintainers. The issue you are ascribing to sidechains is not a sidechains issue, it is a Bitcoin issue. Unless you can show that the problem is made worse with sidechains, then it's not really a problem for sidechains. |
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OK, that makes sense. But isn't that still the same as Bitcoin in 2009/10/11 where Satoshi and later Gavin had control over commit privileges? The protocol change for sidechains is one time, after that the 5 guys in Blockstream have limited influence.
What this does is to decentralize implementation of new features. Today you have to go through a small number of people to get a commit accepted. With sidechains anyone can implement a new feature and the community can choose which to adopt. This puts the power to extend features directly in the hands of the community and out of the hands of the few commiters of today. This is decentralized implementation of features, which has tremendous potential benefits.
It seems if you are worried about today's situation where only a few people have commit privileges and have too much influence over new features, then sidechains address that worry by removing power from these few people.
It seems another fear is SC's causing the main Bitcoin chain to become stagnate and thus unused over time, damaging the network. I guess I just see this as an upgrade path. If everyone switches to a SC, that SC because the main chain. The 21M ledger is still intact.
And it's actually a better upgrade path from today. Again today those 5 guys with commit privileges can push us all to upgrade. With SC's the upgrade is completely voluntary for individuals to move, everyone can decide on their own when they feel ready to move.
the way i understand the github process is that while you may be able to put patches up there freely, nothing can be written to the source code w/o consensus from the core devs themselves. b/c the vast majority of them now work in one company, there is a potential for them to possibly insert what they want and definitely to block what they don't want. Your understanding of the process is the same as mine. But again, isn't this the case today? What's different from today. At least with SC's you can implement new features outside of the centralized process we have currently (which I do not like). JR has asked the question about technology that might obsolete the need for SC's and how that might get blocked. he doesn't think his question got answered satisfactorily. it is a potential problem that the community needs to address and talk about as it does have real world implications if abused. they're basically saying "trust us". it's up to you.
If there is strong demand, I don't think they can block SC alternatives. In Linux committers have a lot of control over their pieces, but it's not infinite by any means. And again Blockstream does not have any control over sidechains where adoption of sidechains guarantees them money in any sort of way. We might find Blockstream has disappeared in a year and the 5 people mentioned above are now advocating for a SC alternative. I think you bring up an important point which is " is this version of sidechains the best or are there potentially other solutions that are better". The reason this is important is once we have one version implemented, the preference will be to stick with the current version even if something better comes along later. So, we should make sure we implement the right technology first. That's a bigger sticking point for me. |
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i personally don't think computer's can do everything. there are going to be times when humans need to intervene. in fact, computers do what humans tell them to do most of the time and if that is fraud, computers will commit fraud.
these are the things i worry about with Blockstream. they stand to make alot of money on this.
I'm curious where the worry about Blockstream comes from. Everything would be implemented in a completely open-source manner. Blockstream would have zero control to dictate anything. The only thing Blockstream would have is domain expertise around sidechains. Expertise that anyone else can gain BTW. The only thing they could do with that expertise is to lend it out as consultants to help other entities implement their own sidechains. This is the Redhat model as stated before. Other individuals or entities could easily replace Blockstream and Blockstream could entirely disappear with no effect. This is the same as Satoshi disappearing. We all agree Satoshi does not control Bitcoin and do not worry about him. The situation between Satoshi & Bitcoin and Blockstream & sidechains seems the same to me, s so why worry about Blockstream? Is there something different missed? it's b/c they have 5 (?) guys who have commit privileges, 3 of which are core devs and all of which could derail any upgrades to Bitcoin from SC innovations for Blockstream profit motives. that's if you believe it's not critical that Bitcoin stays around while a SC takes over in the long run. OK, that makes sense. But isn't that still the same as Bitcoin in 2009/10/11 where Satoshi and later Gavin had control over commit privileges? The protocol change for sidechains is one time, after that the 5 guys in Blockstream have limited influence. What this does is to decentralize implementation of new features. Today you have to go through a small number of people to get a commit accepted. With sidechains anyone can implement a new feature and the community can choose which to adopt. This puts the power to extend features directly in the hands of the community and out of the hands of the few commiters of today. This is decentralized implementation of features, which has tremendous potential benefits. It seems if you are worried about today's situation where only a few people have commit privileges and have too much influence over new features, then sidechains address that worry by removing power from these few people. It seems another fear is SC's causing the main Bitcoin chain to become stagnate and thus unused over time, damaging the network. I guess I just see this as an upgrade path. If everyone switches to a SC, that SC because the main chain. The 21M ledger is still intact. And it's actually a better upgrade path from today. Again today those 5 guys with commit privileges can push us all to upgrade. With SC's the upgrade is completely voluntary for individuals to move, everyone can decide on their own when they feel ready to move. |
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i personally don't think computer's can do everything. there are going to be times when humans need to intervene. in fact, computers do what humans tell them to do most of the time and if that is fraud, computers will commit fraud.
these are the things i worry about with Blockstream. they stand to make alot of money on this.
I'm curious where the worry about Blockstream comes from. Everything would be implemented in a completely open-source manner. Blockstream would have zero control to dictate anything. The only thing Blockstream would have is domain expertise around sidechains. Expertise that anyone else can gain BTW. The only thing they could do with that expertise is to lend it out as consultants to help other entities implement their own sidechains. This is the Redhat model as stated before. Other individuals or entities could easily replace Blockstream and Blockstream could entirely disappear with no effect. This is the same as Satoshi disappearing. We all agree Satoshi does not control Bitcoin and do not worry about him. The situation between Satoshi & Bitcoin and Blockstream & sidechains seems the same to me, so why worry about Blockstream? Is there something different missed? |
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instead of doing drive bys hiding behind cryptic messages and never taking position why don't you counter argue my "contradictions"
Its going to be hard, I didn't see any contradictions. Your statement that the ledger remains the same is accurate, coins transfered to a SC are the same as coins transfered to an address. In both cases there is still one ledger, the mechanics may be different but its still one ledger. Its quite obvious they don't understand both the tech or the economic implications. "There is one ledger" Is untrue if (as it appears) you are referring to the side chain and Bitcoin, and true only if you are referring only to Bitcoin. Each side chain has its own ledger, its own block chain. Understanding side chains is much easier than understanding your descriptions of them. No NewLiberty there is in fact a single ledger in the system, you are wholly incorrect and do not understand the basic concepts apparently. The phase "one ledger" means a single ledger of 21M coins. Yes in sidechains there are multiple separate blockchains, but the 2-way pegging system merges these blockchains into a single ledger. This is the basic 101 concept. Just because it is over your head does not mean that it is not the case. There is one Bitcoin ledger. There are also as many side chain ledgers as there are side chains. So how many does that make? (hint >1) Please do not pretend to know what is in my head.  I limit my guesses to what is in your head to the words that you write. I hope I am being helpful to you in making more careful use of those words. Let me explain it even more simply then. The sidechain ledgers are merged into the bitcoin ledger through the 2-way pegging process, which creates a single merged ledger. Merged means one ledger, that is why the 21M cap holds. The reason it is a single ledger is because the separate data structures are merged into a single data structure with 2-way pegging. Congratulations, in 3 years on this board I've never once put someone on ignore because I usually like to hear what others have to say even if I disagree. But you are the first. It was a feat, you should be proud. |
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All I'm saying is the Blockchain is the money, dont mess with it, I care about my private keys like everyone else but the value is in the ledger moving value to other ledgers is actually a threat. This isn't code, it's and economic experiment that parent child relationship is not defined in code, its defined by market forces, I'm not trolling, to be clear I am pro secure trust free 1:1 Pegs that can be diploid within the existing feature set of the Bitcoin protocol, they are an essential innovation to the future of Bitcoin.
I am opposed to changing the protocol as proposed by BlockStream, here’s why?
It changes the incentive structure that gives Bitcoin its value. Miners will eventually have to MM Bitcoin not for profit but for some other reason.
Adrian, please.. why do you repeating the same mistakes all over. Sidechains are not messing with Bitcoin, they are improving it and ensuring its preservation and adaptability to future threats. The value does NOT move to other ledgers. The ledger remains the same, its token are only given more features to work with. Only the creation of a new coin creates a new ledger and this is not the purpose of sidechains. You keep parotting the same "it changes the incentive structure". In reality, it improves the incentive structure for miners who are no more dependent on ONE chain. They now have a whole ecosystem of interconnected chains that are each valued for their particular characteristics. The mother chain being BTC's, it is the least likely to be abandoned This one is amazing. Practically every other sentence contradicts each other. instead of doing drive bys hiding behind cryptic messages and never taking position why don't you counter argue my "contradictions" Its going to be hard, I didn't see any contradictions. Your statement that the ledger remains the same is accurate, coins transfered to a SC are the same as coins transfered to an address. In both cases there is still one ledger, the mechanics may be different but its still one ledger. Its quite obvious they don't understand both the tech or the economic implications. "There is one ledger" Is untrue if (as it appears) you are referring to the side chain and Bitcoin, and true only if you are referring only to Bitcoin. Each side chain has its own ledger, its own block chain. Understanding side chains is much easier than understanding your descriptions of them. No NewLiberty there is in fact a single ledger in the system, you are wholly incorrect and do not understand the basic concepts apparently. The phase "one ledger" means a single ledger of 21M coins. Yes in sidechains there are multiple separate blockchains, but the 2-way pegging system merges these blockchains into a single ledger. This is the basic 101 concept. Just because it is over your head does not mean that it is not the case. |
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did you understand the math? being an SPV proof, the probabilities for attack seemed to be somewhat less strong than that of std POW. also something about headers and summary hashes:
While the hash value itself does not
change the amount of work a block is counted as, the presence of lower-than-necessary hashes is in
fact statistical evidence of more work done in the chain[Mil12]. We can exploit this fact to prove
equal amounts of work with only a few block headers[Fri14]. It should therefore be possible to
greatly compress a list of headers while still proving the same amount of work. We refer to such a
compressed list as a
compact SPV proof
or
compressed DMMS
.
No, I've mostly been looking at the concept and playing with that. What I've seen at the concept level I like. For now, I've assumed the math behind the two-way pegging system is sound. This is something I need to understand better before completely buying into the concept. Hopefully over the coming months there will be better layman descriptions of the two-way pegging system and from there can dive in the details more. This was the process I used when learning ECDSA originally. It's entirely possible once I understand the pegging system better I'll hate the idea, but for now am looking at the concept assuming the peg works as advertised. If anyone understand the math behind the peg, please share. I think everyone could use that. |
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who here has gone thru the math in Appendix B on SPV proofs? is it sound and how does a compact SPV proof work in practical terms?
also, what is the structure of a SC? does it start at the same block height (328739) as Bitcoin on day 1 with a complete history going back to the genesis block or does it start at it's own Block 1 w/o a coinbase?
i assume the crypto would be the same? ECDSA and sha256, ripemd160?
The SC two-way peg mechanism lets you move information (in this case bitcoins) from one blockchain A to another blockchain B, use that data (in this case scBTC) however the new blockchain B allows, and then move them back to the original blockchain A. The new blockchain B (sidechain) could be setup any way it wants. The design space is entirely open. The one constraint is the 2-way peg. If blockchain A transfers 10 BTC to blockchain B, then regardless of whatever happens on blockchain B, blockchain B can only reclaim 10 BTC on the main blockchain A. I'd imagine most sidechains would start at a their own block 1, and operate from there. They may have coinbases in found blocks or may not. They may use sha256 or something (anything) else for POW. They may use ECDSA, or something (anything) else. If they try something that fails and is hacked, it only effects people who transferred value to that sidechain as the sidechain can only reclaim the original value transferred to it. If they have coinbases it does not change the fact that they can only reclaim the original BTC that were sent. I'd imagine most sidechains will have no coinbase on use the same crypto as Bitcoin so transaction fees alone would attract miners to MM and thus benefit from Bitcoin's hashrate. There could also be centralized sidechains that trust a single entity. (i.e. a paypal coin) Here no real mining needs to happen because the centralized entity would maintain the block order. Only people comfortable with that arrangement would use that sidechain. The centralized entity could do whatever it wants, but is still limited by the 2-way peg with the main chain. In all these cases though the concept of a single 21M BTC ledger is preserved through the 2-way pegging system. This maintains the economics of Bitcoin and it's role as sound money. Bitcoin is the parent chain and all sidechains are children chains dependent on the Bitcoin genesis chain, the total value of all will only total 21M BTC at any given time. The thing to remember is Bitcoin is the root of the system, within a world of many sidechains Bitcoin is still the genesis chain, there is still only one ledger due to the 2-way peg. If anything starts to screw up Bitcoin (such as miners exiting due to no fees) it effects all and the community would work to fix that. March 2013 showed how focused everyone is in the face of existential threats. |
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All I'm saying is the Blockchain is the money, dont mess with it, I care about my private keys like everyone else but the value is in the ledger moving value to other ledgers is actually a threat. This isn't code, it's and economic experiment that parent child relationship is not defined in code, its defined by market forces, I'm not trolling, to be clear I am pro secure trust free 1:1 Pegs that can be diploid within the existing feature set of the Bitcoin protocol, they are an essential innovation to the future of Bitcoin.
I am opposed to changing the protocol as proposed by BlockStream, here’s why?
It changes the incentive structure that gives Bitcoin its value. Miners will eventually have to MM Bitcoin not for profit but for some other reason.
Adrian, please.. why do you repeating the same mistakes all over. Sidechains are not messing with Bitcoin, they are improving it and ensuring its preservation and adaptability to future threats. The value does NOT move to other ledgers. The ledger remains the same, its token are only given more features to work with. Only the creation of a new coin creates a new ledger and this is not the purpose of sidechains. You keep parotting the same "it changes the incentive structure". In reality, it improves the incentive structure for miners who are no more dependent on ONE chain. They now have a whole ecosystem of interconnected chains that are each valued for their particular characteristics. The mother chain being BTC's, it is the least likely to be abandoned This one is amazing. Practically every other sentence contradicts each other. instead of doing drive bys hiding behind cryptic messages and never taking position why don't you counter argue my "contradictions" Its going to be hard, I didn't see any contradictions. Your statement that the ledger remains the same is accurate, coins transfered to a SC are the same as coins transfered to an address. In both cases there is still one ledger, the mechanics may be different but its still one ledger. Its quite obvious they don't understand both the tech or the economic implications. |
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I thought they made it pretty clear, I understood it like this: we are a blockchain technology company, we promise to make technology to keep your BTC save we won't inflate the 21M cap but we will extract and leverage the value kept in the blockchain, and for the miners, don't worry about the diminishing bitcoin block reward we've got something special for you, infinite fees and Merged Mining.
 was that supposed to be funny. here is Blockstream's activity description from the company's incorporation filling : Développeur cryptographique qui assure des infrastructures sécuritaires qui numérisent en toute sécurité les marchés, les actifs et l'avenir de l'égalité des possibilités économiques.
Roughly translated : Cryptography developers building secure infrastructures that digitize markets, assets the future of egalitarian economic alternatives/possibilities Adrian's reply was absurd, simply absurd. Its like asking the CEO of Bitcoin to explain their incentive structure.... |
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This is competition, this is bitcoin, this is what sidechains offer, decentralized implementation of new features.
how does one innovate with new incentive options in this SC system, say incentivising storage or bandwidth, how does one go about experimenting with new PoW replacements? SC is an terrible solution for testing features that could compete with bitcoin, Testnet is where you test bitcoin features. the few market is where you test something else. You can easily innovate with new PoW options for example, those sidechains by definition could not MM with Bitcoin and would need their own miners, but that is fine. SC could also have new incentive structures (such as different fees) or different ways to store/compress blocks or different ways to communicate transactions. You can make them be anything you want. The point clearly went over your head. SC is not for testing features, it is for implementing features. If you've ever tried to role out new software to an installed user base you would understand why this is so useful. yes one could have a scripted mining system, or some other format that was not MM, but it wouldn't be very secure from hacking and a week point if we have BTC in that SC so not likely. so fee based reward innovation only, how about incentivising Block rewards on a normal distribution curve instead of the stepped Block function. every innovation i crave for an Altcoin cant be done in a SC. its a test bed as Justus put it to stop Bitcoin type innovation making it to the Bitcoin. if a SC innovation gets traction you bet it wont be adopted, the incentives are the wrong way around. Regarding "Block rewards on a normal distribution curve instead of the stepped Block function". This would change the Sound Money aspect because it changes the release and quantity of btc. Sidechains rightly do not effect this in any manner. The fact you are making this argument after claiming SC's are inflationary is shocking. Regarding " its a test bed as Justus put it to stop Bitcoin type innovation making it to the Bitcoin." Sidechains ARE bitcoin, there is little need for features in a sidechains to be in the main chain also (although very popular ones can be moved). You must not be a programmer, the main chain is a parent class and a side chain is a child class. This is the right way to look at it. Adrian at this point it is clear you don't know what you are talking about, you last several replies have demonstrated no understanding of the topic or of bitcoin. |
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SC are an horrible hybrid, imagine creating an assent you want like a house and when you buy it your BTC get locked away. sure you get your BTC back when you destroy your house, but why exchange back if you want your house more then the BTC. If SC are allowed on the prototypical level BTC won't be used as an exchange of value the SC will.
NewLiberty described it well; why let your competitor into the Core engine of your business? imagine you're an entrepreneur with a start up. your biz model has gone from $0 to $4 billion in value and your stock from $0 to $325 in just 6yrs. your top competitor comes to you and says, "let me set up my biz within your walls here. i'll stay out of the way over here in the corner. i know you don't have time to test that top innovation you've been wanting to implement so let me do it instead. don't mind the fact that i'll be attracting away from your customer base in the meantime and making some money while i'm at it, i'll return all of them in time along with a working implementation of your idea, i promise. would you let him in? Still reading from page 780 but I just wanted to say, this sold it for me. Against. If you want to build an alt then you need to get enough of a community and userbase on your own. If you're coin is innovative that won't be a problem. Also, if your coin can just be merge mined with Bitcoin then it likely is not innovative enough. Keep reading, sidechains are in no manner similar to altcoins. That is so far off the the mark that it is simply FUD at this point. |
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This is competition, this is bitcoin, this is what sidechains offer, decentralized implementation of new features.
how does one innovate with new incentive options in this SC system, say incentivising storage or bandwidth, how does one go about experimenting with new PoW replacements? SC is an terrible solution for testing features that could compete with bitcoin, Testnet is where you test bitcoin features. the few market is where you test something else. You can easily innovate with new PoW options for example, those sidechains by definition could not MM with Bitcoin and would need their own miners, but that is fine. SC could also have new incentive structures (such as different fees) or different ways to store/compress blocks or different ways to communicate transactions. You can make them be anything you want. The point clearly went over your head. SC is not for testing features, it is for implementing features. If you've ever tried to role out new software to an installed user base you would understand why this is so useful. |
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Bitcoin the currency will never leave Bitcoin the Blockchain, even with sidechains. Sidechains just gives you more potential uses for your Bitcoins.... locking them gains you tokens that have added functionality.
Side chains create a place to experiment with new functionality, and also create people who have an financial incentive to make sure that functionality never makes it into the main chain. Do you where else it's possible to test new features? Testnet. Where is it possible to test features too invasive for even testnet? The btcd team has produced a great feature called simnet where you can easily bootstrap a small mining network that tests modifications of the Bitcoin protocol. All the tools needed to develop and test safe upgrades to the protocol already exist. If the Bitcoin Core team doesn't have enough software engineering and project management resources to push the protocol forward now, employing half of them at Blockstream and adding new opcodes to Bitcoin isn't going to magically fix anything. This is incorrect. Sidechains provide a decentralized mechanism to implement new features, not simply test. This is the entire spirit of Bitcoin's decentralized & open design. On the Testnet you can only test new features, not implement globally and drive adoption. The reason new features have stalled is Bitcoin has grown too big to easily change things. This a tremendous risk in the long run. Today new features can only be implemented through centralized players in a highly political environment through global agreement to change at once, which is too hard. This both makes it next to impossible to implement new features and there is a risk of bad actors implementing negative features. For example, let's say you want to add Zerocoin functionality. How is this even remotely possible today? The hurdles are so high that it is next to impossible. Also, assume you did do it and somehow got everyone to agree to the changes, but then you find out later the implementation was a little off and needed adjustment, again the hurdle is too high to make these corrections. On the other hand, with sidechains any one of us could easily create and fully deploy zerocoin functionality. You could make and launch version A and I could make and launch version B, and the best version would gain global adoption. That is infinitely better than the situation today. This is competition, this is bitcoin, this is what sidechains offer, decentralized implementation of new features. Instead of focusing on the beauty of this, 3 people on this thread are falsely beating a "sidecoins will cause inflation" horse that is FUD and simply not true. |
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Altcoins are competition, that's good, I'm not advocating you should buy them.
No, money doesn't need competition. Money thrives the most as a singular, monopolistic participant in the market. why adopt bitcoin? Because there is nothing else in the modern era that functions as money, at least since paper gold destroyed real gold. " No, money doesn't need competition" BS - people think this guy has insight? we have a Fiat monopoly we need competition, if there is something better than Fiat i want it, I want it to thrive in a free market as proof, if there is something better than Bitcoin I want that too. It was just a light comment, driven by the fact that Fiat is not actually money. Calm down. |
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Altcoins are competition, that's good, I'm not advocating you should buy them.
No, money doesn't need competition. Money thrives the most as a singular, monopolistic participant in the market. why adopt bitcoin? Because there is nothing else in the modern era that functions as money, at least since paper gold destroyed real gold. |
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you need to dig way deeper than that rocks. have you been following all the comments since the paper release here in this thread? read them all and see if you come to the same conclusion. I haven't had time to go over the 100+ pages on the topic
And it shows. instead of making pronouncements, you should get into the details of what i'm saying to prove me wrong. I have made several lengthy replies, that several others have supported, and each time you have not responded in any meaningful manner, and simply ignored the thrusts of my counter arguments to your comments by saying something along the lines of "I already addressed that 80 pages ago, take it as a given you're wrong". I'm not even sure what you are claiming I should be worried about, let alone whether it is true or not. HOW does SC break the incentive structure? Don't hold back on the details, I'm a miner, a computer scientist, I've read the SC whitepaper (including the appendicies), and I've been working with bitcoin technologies for 4 years. Give me something concrete to be afraid of that doesn't involve crazy cypher pumping shitcoins.
But yet you would not trust my incessant buy recommendations during the entire year when you were subbed to my newsletter when bitcoin went straight up. How does that even come close to answering my simple question? You clearly don't want to have a reasonable discussion. I am in the exact same position as notme: CS background (good one), strong knowledge of Bitcoin internals built over 3 years and a decent understanding of SC. Please explain with specifics HOW sidechains inflate the bitcoin money supply and break Bitcoin's Sound Money property or anything else. If it was discussed 80 pages ago, great then you should be able to easily summarize the past discussion into simple points by now. I believe I have summarized a few times why this is likely to not be the case and why what is being described is simply the (ever present) altcoin threat and nothing more. |
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