My thoughts about hash storage and actual storage of the sig's and software aren't fully articulated, but I understand they are separate and would need to be considered separately, though that's not to say a data storage model couldn't have a built-in hash storage/verification model as well. I just understand that space usage is an important consideration in a decentralized model that you want to keep as decentralized as possible. Thanks for reading my ramblings

Thanks for the info Theymos, very in-depth and helpful.

I hope this isn't too far off topic but, related to the quote above, I've been thinking about the concept of a 'web of trust' and how bitcoin and the p2p blockchain are basically exactly that, it's a currency whose veracity is enforced by a web of trust (among other things of course, but nodes operate on a similar concept I believe, of course they rely on a percentage of participators to be rationally motivated to be good players).

I've also been thinking of a post I just read by u/cannon-c on r/bitcoin about the need to decentralize data (such as the bitcoin repository, and any important open-source repository).

It seems that both of those things (gpg signature storage and open-source software repositories) could benefit from a decentralized p2p storage model, and possibly the security of being written to a/the blockchain (side-chains come to mind, but I'm by no means a programmer so could be off in my expectations there).

In any case, taking Namecoin as an example, I think open-source software and signature repositories are the exact kind of things that could benefit from bitcoin's model.

I'm truly a noob so there could be things I'm not considering. Thanks for any thoughts you have

I wish it was still feasible to solo mine (for the home miner that is), it'd be great. Maybe one day we'll switch to a different pow algo and home (decentralized) mining will be feasible again. I saw that discussed recently and the idea gives me hope for it's continued decentralization.

I mined with Kano for about the last 6 months of my mining. I had to quit a month or so before the halving because of electrical problems but while I mined with them I had very good payouts, higher for sure than antpool and f2pool. I only wish I had found them sooner. Of course I valued Philipma's endorsement of them and their stated concern for centralization of mining.

woops I see that now, sorry.

There's one step I didn't see you list. Did you copy your backed up wallet.dat into the new install?

The wallet.dat holds your bitcoin and when you reinstalled, it created a brand new wallet.dat. Of course, since they hold all your coins or your private keys, you want to be very careful that you never overwrite a wallet.dat with btc on it, make sure you have multiple backups in multiple secure places.

I bet this guy already hired someone.

I'm a little more open-minded employer. If you come work for me, you can do whatever job you want as long as I get to collect and divy out the compensation

You're right. I should have read your post and BIP70 more carefully. I see now that you're making a case for someone to step up and do a better job of offering arbitration services using the existing infrastructure.

I'll read more carefully in the future. After re-reading your post and BIP70, I was arguing out of misunderstanding and I sincerely apologize.

When I get a chance I'll got to bitrated and check out their services, and I'll be thinking about your advice as well.

Aah, I ran into fRejectAbsurdFee while looking into it. I have yet to figure out the criteria for an absurd fee but I'll post it here when/if I do.

I mentioned just showing a warning, that allows users to still do what they want....

But why would anyone do this regularly? I can think of some fringe scenarios, but unless you're the miner collecting the fee, you lose money on the deal. So it doesn't make sense for someone to do intentionally under normal circumstances.

And just as I post that I see frejectAbsurdFee in main.cpp. I'll see if my limited skills can determine if that fits the bill

I was thinking about the person that accidentally sent about 300 btc as a fee and .001 as the transaction amount, and it occurred to me that some simple logic could be put in place to avoid that. Just add a check to see whether the tx fee is larger than the amount being transferred and if so, either warn the user or reject the transaction or whatever. I don't recall what wallet he was using, but I haven't heard that any wallet has such simple logic yet....

I'll also point out that BIP70 was written or proposed by Gavin Andresen, who recently had his commit priveleges to core revoked for what seem to be attempts to sabotage bitcoin (or at the very least a stupid, and very out of character endorsement).

BIP70, to me, is just more evidence that Gavin is acting in opposition to bitcoin and the core stated values.

Why does arbitration have to be built into a BIP? If people want it, as you and I have both said, any service provider can offer it with current functionality. So I think the discussion is at an end there because I don’t think you’ll disagree with that statement.

I'll just say thought that everything else you say sounds like you want to implement control over bitcoin. Leave bitcoin as it is and let consumers choose what gets implemented through natural processes. BIP70 sounds like it’s intended simply to further identity tracking and it sounds like a horrible idea for bitcoin. I’m sure some of your altcoins have that functionality built in. Bitcoin doesn’t need it built in in any form.


People who talk about getting rid of governments don't generally sit and think up ways to govern things. You're talking about governing. If you really believed there was a market for it, then you would write some code and try to sell your service. That's my challenge to you. Go do it with bitcoin as it is today. Go make some money and support bitcoin in the way that you're so passionate about, which seems to be arbitration and identity tracking. Only, let consumers choose.

thanks RD  You're the one etc..... :-D

I sent a combination of a lot of small inputs in each case. Correct 3 and 4 were larger than the others, with more data of similar size inputs. The others were less inputs, with fees that were comparably smaller than the difference in size/number of inputs.

Great suggestion, there are a few ways I could change it up to get more accurate data. Next time I do this (if I can ever find the time to do it right) I'll incorporate that and some other ideas to make the test more scientific and thorough.

Those are great things to keep in mind and I'll refer back to this next time I run a test to remind me the kind of things I should keep in mind.

Inputs were all within the last year...

So, I think what you're saying is that you, or some fine young entrepreneur should offer an arbitration service and try to create a market for it within the bitcoin space? Bitcoin isn't broken and doesn't need fixing. It was capable of arbitration before ethereum was thought of. All it needs is a service provider, and willing, paying customers. So if you believe in it, go out and do it with bitcoin as it is, and make consumer protection better (if you can find the customers).


If you're not talking about service providers being aribiters, then who would be this arbiter? Please answer this question if I've made a mistake in assessing the situation.


EDIT: changed 'private entity' to 'service providers'. There doesn't ever need to be one arbiter, and the arbiters should be market participants subject to competition, not some form of government, as seems to be implied. If that's what you're after, go somewhere else. Go do something with Ethereum, as you're keen to mention.


EDIT Again: After reading your comments above about the arbiter being a merchant, that's fine. Is your main point that wallets should provide for this service? That's fine too. Is this post geared toward merchants? It sounds like it's calling out a problem with bitcoin, when it's actually just calling out a potential service within the market. That service has it's place, but it will likely not get much business soon.

Good point, you just saved me some btc I suspect

I'm getting the feeling that it's the politics of the mining pools that affects confirmation times more than anything. I'll update when I run my next test for sure. It will be an interesting metric to keep a pulse on over time.