Wow, you can describe all that in one line:  The price change will be proportional to the flow derivative.  

In other words, if BTC was moving (and would have continued to move) into the sidechain, the SC price when "broken" will rise.  If BTC is moving out of the sidechain the price will fall.

If you are still confused think about modelling it.  You would best model this by creating "value" as an immaterial quantity.  Each chain HAS a value (essentially a market cap, which is price * quantity), based on its usefulness.  If 2 chains are pegged, changes to the value cannot be expressed in price, so quantity must change -- that is BTC is transmuted from one chain to another.  If 2 chains are not pegged, changes to the value cannot be expressed by moving quantity so price must change.  This idea is fundamental; it applies to all commodities and products where you can transform one to another.




Cypherdoc your reasoning is completely flawed.  First of all, I know that you aren't an engineer, but you still you should be able to understand  that it CANT be ALL on the mainchain.  There are diametrically opposed requirements.  Like anonymity vs. public spending accountability.  Like handling vast numbers of txns per second vs. keeping all transactions forever.  Like blockchain spam vs. document timestamping.  There are plenty of things with diametrically opposed requirements in life, like sleeping (darkness) and reading a book (bright light); its unrealistic to imagine no 2 applications will emerge in a space which covers the entire concept of economic activity.

Why have all prior altcoins failed?  Simply because they're all essentially the same.  Different POW?  Come on, what end user cares?  Bitcoin 2.0 (assets)?  Colored coins is good enough, but the market is not mature enough for anyone to care right now.  

You may argue that there will never emerge a use case that is both compelling and that Bitcoin cannot handle.  Ok in that case there will be no sidechains, because Metcalf's law, etc and so the functionality will simply sit unused, and eventually be deprecated.  There is no drawback to this.

But if a use case DOES emerge, the only way to pull that value into Bitcoin is via sidechains -- because with a sidechain the Bitcoin 21million scarcity token can be applied to that use case.

You need to contemplate what you cannot contemplate, not make decisions only based on what you know.

So the ONLY way to get "all outsiders to be forced to "buy in" to BTC for their seat at the table" is via sidechains.

Note that Bitcoin itself could be supported with one CPU miner provided that it is not attacked.

As I've mentioned before, trying to out-run the threat of potential mining attack is as futile as a hamster running on a wheel.  Successful sidechains will almost certainly need to evolve other protection modes than simplistic gross sha256 hashing power.  The best hope for Bitcoin to mitigate the inevitable reality that mining becomes unprofitable is that sidechains offer money-making opportunities for miners which are more lucrative than attacking Bitcoin itself.

:-) maybe you can re-read this thread (last 300 pages)

 -  (hint) ... we can use oracles. => useful oracle is TIMESTAMP server => it is possible to use Bitcoin as TIMESTAMP server .. (counterparty uses already)

 - there are more solutions what does not require MM

Yes.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Sidechains introduce a huge marginal value-add by providing services which people need and cannot achieve on the main chain.  My seat-of-the-pants estimate is that this will easily account for any increase in value associated with scBTC on an ecosystem level and some of the value will probably back-wash into Bitcoin itself in a big way.

If 2wp does not work then pegged SC does not work.  If we are talking about pegged sidechains then 2wp MUST be working.

or maybe you want to talk about "pegged SC are not possible to create ?" => let's talk about why it is not possible to create functional 2wp SC

SC does not have any value -> until BTC are locked(escrowed) to fund this SC

Of course none of the elemental properties of gold were changed to create gold "side chains" and that is why we should go the federated route with bitcoin.

I think, that value is always stored in MC. You can only put your bitcoins into "escrow" (lock them in main-chain) and use "value" on side-chain.

The problem for scBTC in case #3, is that it first will have to survive a period with less freefloating value, so it will have a problem achiveing the status of #3.

There are plenty of examples of gold "side chains".  The GLD ETF derives its value from gold.  Egold once derived its value from gold.  In fact anyone who owns any kind of note that is redeemable for gold is participating in a gold "side chain".  Perhaps the most infamous example is the USD which has also lost its peg to gold.  These pegs were eventually lost because of central points of failure, but the physical gold remained unharmed.  Bitcoin distributes these central points of failure and if side chains fail, the bitcoin will remain.  Of course none of the elemental properties of gold were changed to create gold "side chains" and that is why we should go the federated route with bitcoin.

There are plenty of examples of gold "side chains".  The GLD ETF derives its value from gold.  Egold once derived its value from gold.  In fact anyone who owns any kind of note that is redeemable for gold is participating in a gold "side chain".  Perhaps the most infamous example is the USD which has also lost its peg to gold.  These pegs were eventually lost because of central points of failure, but the physical gold remained unharmed.  Bitcoin distributes these central points of failure and if side chains fail, the bitcoin will remain.  Of course none of the elemental properties of gold were changed to create gold "side chains" and that is why we should go the federated route with bitcoin.

This is a very interesting theoretical question: "where is the value stored for a sidechain?"  

Let's do a little thought experiment to try to come up with a reasonable answer.  The purpose of the thought experiment is to isolate the effect of the 2-way peg; it's meant to be a tool to help us understand where the value is actually stored, and not meant to represent plausible future scenarios.  We'll ask what happens to the value of scBTC should the 2-way peg be instantly and permanently severed (and the locked BTC on the main chain frozen).  If one argues that the value is always stored on Bitcoin's Blockchain, then I think in all cases the value of scBTC should fall to zero.  It's pretty clear to me that that won't actually happen in all cases:

Case #1: Small sidechain backed by 0.01% of the main-chain BTC

Here we have a small sidechain used, perhaps, for experimentation with faster confirmation times.  Very little real economic activity takes place on this side chain.  When the 2-way peg is severed, I believe the value of scBTC#1 would drop rapidly to zero, as everyone would realize that another sidechain employing the same features but maintaining the BTC backing could easily be recreated.  The network effect is too small to matter.

--> value is stored on Bitcoin's Blockchain.

Case #2: Large sidechain backed by 10% of the main-chain BTC

Here we have a large sidechain that perhaps employs ring-signatures for improved anonymity.  This scBTC#2 has become the token of choice for black-market activity such as the purchase of illicit goods from SilkRoad 3.0.  When the 2-way peg is severed in this case, the value does not fall to zero. The value immediately drops, because many individuals would prefer to hold BTC than unbacked scBTC#2.  However, it does not drop to zero because speculators and scBTC#2 users realize that the huge network of users and wallet infrastructure already set up to accept scBTC#2 will maintain demand for unbacked scBTC#2.  scBTC#2 becomes an alt coin and trades with a floating exchange rate with respect to main-chain BTC.

--> value is stored in both Bitcoin's Blockchain and the sidechain ledger.  

Case #3: Uber sidechain backed by 60% of the main-chain BTC

Here we consider the case where the majority of bitcoins are stored on the sidechain.  Perhaps this sidechain is just "better" than bitcoin, and there's a huge push by merchants to move all economic activity here.  Speculators also decide to move their BTC to this sidechain, as they fear that a severing of the 2-way peg would hurt the value of their main-chain BTC (they see that the network-effects of this sidechain are becoming greater than Bitcoin's).  Now when the 2-way peg is severed, I would argue that it would be the value of bitcoin that would fall and the value of scBTC would actually rise!  Scarcity of scBTC#3 is actually greater once the peg is severed (no more main-chain BTC can be converted) and since the majority of economic activity is taking place on this chain, the ledger for scBTC#3 becomes the dominant "memory" for our money.    

--> value is stored mostly on the sidechain ledger.  


Once again, the purpose of this thought experiment was not to propose "realistic scenarios"; the purpose was to help answer the question "on which ledger is the value stored?"  I think the answer is that for low-levels of adoption, the value remains stored on Bitcoin's Blockchain.  But as the network effect of the sidechain grows, a larger component of the value is actually stored on the sidechain's ledger.  

it gets transformed into jewelry, btw, this then becomes its intrinsic value that drives demand,  the new demand pulls up the price win win. 

i think its going strong, its the best solution not a failed one.

even Google's Eric Schmidt is getting in on the action.  

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/11/17/linked-in-sun-microsystems-founders-lead-big-bet-on-bitcoin-innovation/

whenever we get proposals to "fix Bitcoin" as we are currently getting with SC's, it's often helpful to step back to before the proposal to help reassess where we actually.  below is a talk by Daniel Krawiscz, whose views very much correspond to mine.  listen carefully and realize everything is just fine and there is nothing to panic about by making rash changes to the protocol.  other points that struck me in this talk are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKRH_zxpdjM

1.  OT appears to be a better federated system in that it doesn't require another currency and doesn't require an spvp change to the protocol which would "siphon off" BTC value from its blockchain.
2.  he, and Balaji Srinivasan here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOubCHLXT6A, both advocate "exiting the system" principles if you are dissatisfied with your current existing fiat system.  exiting the current system implies that there is another new and secure system to which you can flee which will protect you.  since this is high risk, this system would have to be a Self Contained Financial System that is secure, reliable, and firewalled off from outside intervention.  ideally, it would be a public good, not subject to improprieties or vested interests that might be motivated to "profit" off said system.  this system, as it currently and already stands, is Bitcoin.  its transactional units are inextricably linked to its blockchain for maximum impenetrable security.
3.  i think the reason you're hearing such common calls for the "blockchain" as distinct and removed from its "currency unit" is b/c the outside public intuitively realizes that if left as is, Bitcoin fundamentally disrupts the current fiat system.  they can conceptually "understand" a blockchain as new "tech" while rejecting the currency unit.  it also allows them to continue to "resist" buying a seat at the table by using cold hard cash or trading something of great value for BTC.  if you can subvert the system by changing the rules, ie the protocol, to break the inextricable link, then you can "attract" value out of the Bitcoin system and convert or transform that value into all manner of inflationary, speculative assets.  this is what the spvp or 2wp does.  we don't want that.

i view the spvp as a breach in that system, like a leaky valve or offramp thru which real value can be siphoned off and transformed into all manner of speculative assets.  this is a problem.  guys like brg444 have already shown their cards that Bitcoin "is broken" and if you just insert this "funnel" or 2wp (spvp) into the walls of what now is an impenetrable system, it will make it "better".  i think this is fundamentally wrong and is a major flaw in the Blockstream WP.  the mere insertion of this funnel will break Bitcoin's Sound Money principles as it allows an offramp into all manner of insecure, alternative ledger systems (fake blockchains).  if we can know ahead of time that it "might" be a problem, why insert it?  it's not enough to say, "let's just let them put it in and see what happens".  if they're wrong, and i am right, it will destroy the system as it erodes confidence that we indeed have a secure firewalled off Bitcoin not subject to for-profit opportunities and structural weakness.