We also had a pop at a solution here

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152219.0

There are plenty of smart people who understand Bitcoin enough to knock up a new version..

Sure - John Carmack invented Quake, but others took it to the levels 3D shooters are now..

I too feel a new chain, with all the benefits of hindsight, may be the answer, but then again, they said the same about the only other massive peer-to-peer decentralised comms system.. email.

And it just keeps on ticking.. :-)

You can't force people off Bitcoin. Just as you can't force people to stop using email. That's the beauty of decentralisation..

I think in the end, as always, the answer will lie somewhere in the middle. BitEmail anyone ?

I think , as mentioned earlier, there is a VERY good reason WHY Litecoins are useful..

You can trade them for Bitcoins and wash your cash. There is no other crypto left that is stable and isn't dying..

There's always batman AND ROBIN!

So it may be the case that just having 2 types of coin is better for strange and wondrous reasons.

Will it ever run IN FULL on my phone.. ?

This would make me happy.

I want a server & client that runs IN FULL on my phone..  

I was thinking 10,000 blocks, with a one megabyte limit on block size is 10GB. I know the limit has grown.. but it's still TINY.

And - to be fair - if Alice did get run over when her money is in the chain it's lost whatever.

No-one would 'log-out' without refreshing. It would be the last thing you ALWAYS do after accessing your coins.

The size aspect is DEFINITELY MUCH smaller that it would be with the non-refreshing. If that many addresses are used on any system it'll be big, whatever.

As you say though - if it could be done automatically - by the miners that would be nice, but we shouldn't dismiss the client side power the network has at it's disposal..

Does leaving an empty script sig leave any possible avenues of attack ?

Nice. This would require a new type of tx, the refresh, that combines the unspent output txs.  I'm not sure of the ramifications of being able to combine someone else's tx outputs? Is is safe ? Seems it but you never know..

If we wanted to maintain the fact that only the private key holder can spend the cash, how about :

1) Each address is allowed ONE, and only ONE, UNSPENT tx output past a certain block from the current. The DEAD-LINE block. Say a year in the past..

2) Whenever a user has finished 'playing/paying' with his account, THEY perform the refresh tx, there and then, to refresh his account into one valid output tx that can never be deleted. If the refresh were done by the users, it would be trivial to implement. And cold storage works again. For high volume traffic like satoshi dice, you may want to choose when to refresh.

3) If a user has 2 (or more) UNSPENT tx outputs past the 'DEAD-LINE' block, the miners can choose to claim one of the outputs. To keep the money in the system equal. This repeats until the address has only ONE UNSPENT out past the DEAD-LINE block.

We may not be able to delete all the old blocks, as the single UNSPENT refresh transaction will always remain, but that doesn't REALLY matter. Barring all the daily transactions, to maintain the network, we will either have ONE block with ONE UNSPENT output per address, or one block per address, with one UNSPENT tx per block. Both seem tiny when compared to the potential size of the BlockChain..
  
Effectively - we are making people have ONE spendable tx output at all times they are away..   

Yep. Definitely prefer your choice of word..

The 'Refresh' transaction. Much better than 'scoop'.. ;-)

Very nice breakdown.

It seems the issue is the fact that no-one but the owner of the address, who has the private keys, can perform the refresh transaction. This is what causes the litter, as we wait for the original tx output to be verified.

Well, no problem.. Why not say that YOU - the owner of the address MUST perform one refresh transaction a year. I know , I know.. this will mean you can't just lock your coins in cold storage.. (unless we could forward date some tx's, that would fire if the outputs were unspent?)..

It is definitely is a little harsh, but NOT totally UNACCEPTABLE, to expect people to log in ONCE a year to "refresh their affairs" as it were. If it meant the whole network now worked, from a protocol level within definable limits, well I'm in..

Also - I think the point is, once the data is not part of the valid year long blockchain anymore, it is very hard to prove who is right when looking stuff up.. Only the current ROLLING chain is valid. I personally think this would be best, so everyone could just run the year long chain, on their PHONE, and that was it.. No records.. No History.. Scary! :-)

What happens if there are errors.. well it will have to be about 10,000 blocks deep, and I suppose stringent requirements would be placed on the validity of all the blocks together, as a whole. I think it would be just as hard/easy to screw up in either.. Getting the old transactions may be more problematic, but we would have all the transactions that mattered thousands of blocks deep to check with, not totally blind!

Need another way of simulating a user logging on once a year, to perform the 'Refresh' transaction.. hmm..

Almost..

As I said - The only EXTRA bit is the Scoop up tx, which would combine all the unspent satoshi dust.. Just pruning unspent tx's won't do that.
 

Absolutely..

I think we'll see a lot more 'code' action when BitcoinJ , the java library for bitcoin, is able to actually mine for blocks like the C boys. It's coming along nicely. Excellent work by Andreas..

The truth is, I think, there are a lot of good JAVA programmers who would love to get stuck in, at a protocol level.. :-)

Also - having looked around the forums, it seems that pruning spent tx outputs is a common idea.

The only EXTRA bit is the 'Clean-up' (launder?) transaction that moves all the remaining UNSPENT tx outputs to the one SPENDABLE tx output. Then we can remove whole blocks.

And you could say you can only remove blocks, if all previous blocks are removed.

Then it's starts rolling..

"..merge their Coins.."

They won't have a choice.. The miners do it. And get paid, so that is the incentive..

Hello,

I wanted to mention an idea for fixing the Never Ending Blockchain conundrum that hangs over us all. Simply assuming we'll be able to handle a 50 quintillion TB file, doesn't fill me, as a developer, with confidence..

I understand the protocol, I think, and so I came up with this.

Satoshi Dice is NOT A PROBLEM. He generates a lot of transactions, and miners get paid for processing tx's. That's what they do.! The fact that there is all this dust etc, is quite frankly irrelevant. The protocol allows it, so it's good.

The PROBLEM - as I see it - is that if we want to keep a record of every transaction ever, this is a BIG task. What if we changed the perpective and kept the ONLY really important piece of information.. How much each account has in unspent output txs.. ?

What I mean is this.

The Blockchain is made up of blocks, mined by the miners. I say, that the only useful blocks, are ones with UNSPENT TX outputs. If a block is only full of SPENT tx outputs, other than for the sake of posterity, and as a checking reference, that block is not really essential.

So - What if a miner could perform a special transaction, that spends UNSPENT tx outputs from earlier blocks, all from the same account, scoops them ALL UP, to say 1000 blocks behind the current block, and outputs 1 UNSPENT tx output in the latest block, for the SAME USER.?

This would sweep up all the Satoshi Dust, and all the unused spends and make, one useable SPENDABLE output tx for the same account.

You would simply remove the earlier blocks from the blockchain as they were cleared of spendable outputs..

Actually, maybe a special block that simple stores a list of [ account, IN amount, OUT amount, ] so that for reference we know the basic info, could be used to replace the much larger block which holds ALL the info.. hmm..

The blockchain would then still have the correct amount of fixed coins in it, but it would be a 'ROLLING-CHAIN' that would sacrifice it's history, but maintain balances accurately. Can a blockchain with only 1000 blocks still be verifiable ? It woud be just as hard to hack it, no?

This would make its size orders of magnitude smaller.. actually manageable by todays hardware..

The Miners would love it because they benefit from a smaller blockchain, AND they could get paid for processing that SCOOP-UP transaction.

You could say that ONLY blocks 1000 deep or more can be mined for UNSPENT txs..

This would also, rightly I think, bring in a very small, 1 Tx fee every so on, say 6 months, to keep your balance in the blockchain. As it gets shuffled up to a newer block.

I don't know if this is easily possible, but I know that nothing is impossible..

This idea may be full of holes, but may spur some lateral thinking.

Thoughts !?

Hi,

I really need access to the technical forum.

I'm trying to discuss a blockchain space saving solution.. but noy getting much feedback in the newbie section.

thnks

Hello

3 hrs 37 mins and counting..

Hello,

I wanted to post this is the technical forum, but after 3 weeks of using the site I am still only 1hr 57 min newbie..

Anyway - I wanted to mention an idea for fixing the Never Ending Blockchain conundrum that hangs over us all. Simply assuming we'll be able to handle a 50 quintillion TB file, doesn't fill me, as a developer, with confidence..

I understand the protocol quite well, I think, and so I came up with this.

Satoshi Dice is NOT A PROBLEM. He generates a lot of transactions, and miners get paid for processing tx's. That's what they do.! The fact that there is all this dust etc, is quite frankly irrelevant. The protocol allows it, so it's good.

The PROBLEM - as I see it - is that if we want to keep a record of every transaction ever, this is a BIG task. What if we changed the perpective and kept the ONLY really important piece of information.. How much each account has in unspent output txs.. ?

What I mean is this.

The Blockchain is made up of blocks, mined by the miners. I say, that the only useful blocks, are ones with UNSPENT TX outputs. If a block is only full of SPENT tx outputs, other than for the sake of posterity, and as a checking reference, that block is not really essential.

So - What if a miner could perform a special transaction, that spends UNSPENT tx outputs from earlier blocks, all from the same account, scoops them ALL UP, to say 1000 blocks behind the current block, and outputs 1 UNSPENT tx output in the latest block, for the SAME USER.?

This would sweep up all the Satoshi Dust, and all the unused spends and make, one useable SPENDABLE output tx for the same account.

You would simply remove the earlier blocks from the blockchain as they were cleared of spendable outputs..

Actually, maybe a special block that simple stores a list of [ account, IN amount, OUT amount, ] so that for reference we know the basic info, could be used to replace the much larger block which holds ALL the info.. hmm..

The Blockchain would then still have the correct amount of fixed coins in it, but it would be a 'ROLLING-CHAIN' that would sacrifice it's history, but maintain balances accurately.

This would make its size orders of magnitude smaller.. actually manageable by todays hardware..

The Miners would love it because they benefit from a smaller blockchain, AND they could get paid for processing that SCOOP-UP transaction.

You could say that ONLY blocks 1000 deep or more can be mined for UNSPENT txs..

This would also, rightly I think, bring in a very small, 1 Tx fee every so on, say 6 months, to keep your balance in the blockchain. As it gets shuffled up to a newer block.

I don't know if this is easily possible, but I know that nothing is impossible..

This idea may be full of holes, but may spur some lateral thinking.

Thoughts !?

Hello - I'm an android developer.

Trying to get to the Tech forum.. only 17 more posts.. :-(

Blockchain.info

Nice site. Used the Bank Transfer. Worked very well, and was quick to boot.

Thanks!

9 more posts to go before I can discuss my Technical ideas :-)..