Could BitCoin Ageing be a solution to BlockChain bloat?

[Colorblind]

Hey, I know this is probably was considered before, but why not make coins have limited age before they return to coinbase? Say if coins have not been moved for 8 years it "returns" to coinbase (i.e. become unspent) and become minable. This way coins that was unspent for certain amount of time will eventually reenter circulation, we can discontinue block reward halving practice, eliminate satoshi's stash (or force him to reveal himself) and reintroduce destroyed funds to the market. This will also limit blockchain size so we would be able to use much larger blocks, allowing much more tx/second since blockchain size will be capped. More I think of it, better it seems from scaling perspective.

I know I probably missing some significant downsides but I can't see something that can't be compensated.

[mocacinno]

1. Coins haven't been spent doesn't mean it's lost (even though some of them are), maybe the owner simply hold the bitcoin for long-term investment.
2. Why would we eliminate satoshi's stats or force satoshi to move the bitcoin? It's contradiction with bitcoin goal.
3. It would take some computational power just to find unspent coins and add it for future circulation
4. I don't see the connection between unspent coins become mined after few years and limiting block size/allowing much more tx/second.
5. I don't think it's good scaling idea since your idea require more computational power and more time to develop/test the idea without much result. Even change max bitcoin supply or add "annual return" feature is slightly better idea.

CMIIW.

The first two points are the most important... Bitcoin exists as a decentralised payment system without central authority.
If we would "steal" satoshi's coins (or at least, add the value of the unspent outputs we THINK are satoshi's to the block reward), it would be a very bad precedense.
From then on out, your balance would never be safe again... If we, as a community, did this (even once), what would stop us from voiding the unspent outputs belonging to a central bank, or maybe steal the unspent outputs from all addresses we believe are BTC hoarders?

[jnano]

Whatever you do with aged UTXOs, why do you link it with block reward halving, block size, or blockchain size?

[cr1776]

Hey, I know this is probably was considered before, but why not make coins have limited age before they return to coinbase? Say if coins have not been moved for 8 years it "returns" to coinbase (i.e. become unspent) and become minable. This way coins that was unspent for certain amount of time will eventually reenter circulation, we can discontinue block reward halving practice, eliminate satoshi's stash (or force him to reveal himself) and reintroduce destroyed funds to the market. This will also limit blockchain size so we would be able to use much larger blocks, allowing much more tx/second since blockchain size will be capped. More I think of it, better it seems from scaling perspective.

I know I probably missing some significant downsides but I can't see something that can't be compensated.

This has been discussed ad nauseam, but why is it okay to steal someone's coins if they are saving them?  Whatever this proposed coin would be called, it wouldn't be bitcoin.

It kind of sounds like the United Bitcoin fiasco where they are doing the same thing with coins that weren't removed in a prescribed fashion (not just used, but you had to send them to yourself) between early November and early December or before January 3, 2018.

[DooMAD]

Didn't we already do this?

Hey, I know this is probably was considered before,

Only since 2011.  And even then, people could tell it was a terrible idea.

I know I probably missing some significant downsides but I can't see something that can't be compensated.

Moral issues of theft notwithstanding, depending on who you ask, anywhere between two and four million coins are lost forever, so how would you divide up these stolen funds so they don't just all appear in the first block mined after the idea is implemented and make one random group of miners beyond obscenely wealthy?  If you're not simply dumping them all into the economy as one big lump (and causally annihilating confidence in the market), how are you determining what proportion of the stolen funds goes into each coinbase reward?  

Even if you could come up with something that sounded reasonable, it's still altcoin territory.  No matter how many flaws you think you've overcome, this will never be implemented in Bitcoin.  If it was meant to work that way, it should have been implemented on Day 1.  Doing it this far into a blockchain's lifecycle is just moving the goalposts.

[Anti-Cen]

satoshi, err sorry god to a few people around here needs a good slapping around the head because he designed
a system that solved one problem and created many more that we are just starting to see.

What size did he think the ledger would become if just one billion people out of seven did one transaction a day ?

if all this data could fit into a single database (it cannot) then what size did he calculate the index would be given that paged
indexes are quite slow and given the terabytes of data would need replicating for a decentralized system then how
on earth did he ever think it would scale given that to calculate if a wallet owns the coins each previous input to the
transaction would need to be located from disk file or the DB and processed which results in something called
tree walking in DB terms.

We have 90KWH of electric needed to just process one transaction at about 250 bytes in size and it costs $1-2000 of electric alone just to mine one
digital coin so does he like the sound of cars reviving the engine and going nowhere or something or does today's current
speed of a mere seven transactions a second impress him because he works for general electric.

Sorry people but the king has no clothes on but if you like this block-chain (Linked list) so much then
maybe you should try going in the nude too because a single AS400 could perform more work then all
the BTC hardware put together and costing billions in chips and power consumption needed to handle what we
have today (200gb data) and that's without having to clock the chips. 

250 bytes * 7 = 1750 bytes or 14kbs which is slower than any modem I can remember and me and the internet go back a long time.

Academia has pulled the wool over your eyes, wake up

 

[nullius]

Hey, I know this is probably was considered before, but why not make coins have limited age before they return to coinbase? Say if coins have not been moved for 8 years it "returns" to coinbase (i.e. become unspent) and become minable. This way coins that was unspent for certain amount of time will eventually reenter circulation, we can discontinue block reward halving practice, eliminate satoshi's stash (or force him to reveal himself) and reintroduce destroyed funds to the market. This will also limit blockchain size so we would be able to use much larger blocks, allowing much more tx/second since blockchain size will be capped. More I think of it, better it seems from scaling perspective.

I know I probably missing some significant downsides but I can't see something that can't be compensated.

You do know that this has been considered before, and you are aware of “significant downsides”, due to the discussion which ensued when you asked this a few days ago (q.v.):

I see coins aging could be a viable on-chain scaling solution (scenario where coins that was not been moved for full halving period will automatically return to coinbase). If this will be the case - full nodes will only require to store blockchain for the past halving period since anything that remained unspent will transfer to the coinbase. This is drastic and, perhaps, cruel measure to take but that will also solve satoshi't billions, burned and lost coins problem.

For my part, I like how gmaxwell addresses this (bold/large text in the original) (permalink):

Here are a few of the ideas which I think would be most interesting to see in an altcoin. A few of these things may be possible as hardforking changes in Bitcoin too but some represent different security and economic tradeoffs and I don't think those could be ethically imposed on Bitcoin even if a simple majority of users wanted them (as they'd be forced onto the people who don't want them).

(Some of these ideas are mine, some are from other people, some are old and obvious)

[...]

• UTXO aging
  
  • Abandoned UTXO should be forgotten and become unspendable.
  • Demurrage is one possible construction for this, but its economically and educationally complicated. Simpler would just be having a long but finite maximum. Unspendable coins could vanish forever, or be returned to mining— but returning the coins to mining is economically distorting and risks creating weird incentives ("I won't mine your txn because I want to collect its inputs as fees once you've been successfully denied")
  • ATTENTION MORONS: THIS CANNOT BE DONE WITH BITCOIN. SEE THE LARGE BOLD TEXT AT THE TOP.

Good point about the “weird incentives”.  Also, the “ATTENTION” part.

[...]

Since this will never happen in Bitcoin, I suggest that you should go put all your money in Freicoin (FRC), a coin created by people who make economic arguments for demurrage.  Freicoin is currently ranked #675 on coinmarketcap.com, with a current market cap of $485,681 (27 BTC).  (Current Bitcoin market cap: $307,305,229,550.)  The idea that you should need to spend your money to not lose it—well, that idea is exactly as popular as it should be.

[...]

Do you know what happened to Satoshi and his private keys?  I hate it when I see people salivating over Satoshi’s coins, declaring them a “problem”.  What if he laser-engraved the private keys in corrosion-resistant nickel alloy plates and secreted them in a treasure cave for the benefit of his posterity, the future Nakamoto Royal Line?  What if he’s still around, lurking in the forum or posting under another nym?

More generally, who the hell are you to find a “problem” in the unknown numbers of people who have simply made long-term plans?  As opposed to children, adults measure “long-term” starting in decades.  There are people out there who have moved a portion of their assets into a Bitcoin cold wallet, and written the BIP39 seed phrase therefor into a sealed Last Will and Testament.  What makes you think you can steal their children’s inheritance?[/li][/list]

If you think the foregoing comes off as harsh, stop and consider that Bitcoin’s value derives from its promise of safe, secure, stable currency in which everybody can participate without anybody’s permission, according to a set of rules declared in advance and known fairly to all.  Any change to those fundamental rules which seized away people’s coins would instantly destroy Bitcoin altogether—which is why it will never happen.  No, I haven’t been harsh; not by half.

[...]

[Colorblind]

1. Coins haven't been spent doesn't mean it's lost (even though some of them are), maybe the owner simply hold the bitcoin for long-term investment.
2. Why would we eliminate satoshi's stats or force satoshi to move the bitcoin? It's contradiction with bitcoin goal.
3. It would take some computational power just to find unspent coins and add it for future circulation
4. I don't see the connection between unspent coins become mined after few years and limiting block size/allowing much more tx/second.
5. I don't think it's good scaling idea since your idea require more computational power and more time to develop/test the idea without much result. Even change max bitcoin supply or add "annual return" feature is slightly better idea.

CMIIW.

1. I don't see a big deal to move all your coins once in 5-6 years.
2. Agree. But if he has private key he can just move it. Of course this way everyone will be able to deduce some information about his activity but it's not like people don't expect him to return at some point. Just a little bit of certainty.
3. It should be done only once - at certain block height block header will contain information about all aeged coins.
4. Let's say coins can be spent only if their age less than 700 000 blocks. This means that after block #700 000 all previous blocks become irrelevant. This means we will always have hard cap of blockchain size. We can limit it without fear it will grow out of control. We can say "Blockchain can never be more than 1 TB (this isn't that much tbh)" and make blocksize bigger without fear of centralization (scenario where normal users wouldn't be able to host full node because they ran out of available HDD space)
5. It won't take more computing power. Miners will only need to check if coins that are being spent in tx are younger than certain age. It won't affect POW at all and POW is what consumes computational resources.

[Coding Enthusiast]

You will also be forcing a lot of transactions that otherwise wouldn't have been made. People who are forced to move their coins if they don't want to lose them.

[ranochigo]

^Eh good point

1. I don't see a big deal to move all your coins once in 5-6 years.

Of course not. From a perspective of a long term investor, I'm going to store my coins securely for a long time. Who's going to remind them by the way?

2. Agree. But if he has private key he can just move it. Of course this way everyone will be able to deduce some information about his activity but it's not like people don't expect him to return at some point. Just a little bit of certainty.

Isn't it his Bitcoin? Why can anyone choose to do anything with it?

3. It should be done only once - at certain block height block header will contain information about all aeged coins.

The problem is that, at that point, every single node, now or in the future will have to gather all of the information about the previous transactions and ensure that an address doesn't have any activity. That alone is hard, since Bitcoin does not currently store the block height(IIRC) of the UTXO in the database. This means that everyone has to rescan their blockchain. UTXO is added and removed even before the transaction gets into a block.

4. Let's say coins can be spent only if their age less than 700 000 blocks. This means that after block #700 000 all previous blocks become irrelevant. This means we will always have hard cap of blockchain size. We can limit it without fear it will grow out of control. We can say "Blockchain can never be more than 1 TB (this isn't that much tbh)" and make blocksize bigger without fear of centralization (scenario where normal users wouldn't be able to host full node because they ran out of available HDD space)

You can't make any blocks irrelevant. The whole goal of Bitcoin is for the full history to be available and verifiable. If you aren't allowing that to happen, you aren't running a full node at all since it isn't trustless anymore. Someone will have to ensure that the past information remains verifiable and accessible and that results in centralisation.

5. It won't take more computing power. Miners will only need to check if coins that are being spent in tx are younger than certain age. It won't affect POW at all and POW is what consumes computational resources.

Yeah, it won't take much hashpower by itself.
It's more about an issue with the morals than the technical difficulty. I fail to see how this would help in scaling Bitcoin since someone has to store the "irrelevant" history of Bitcoin as you've stated.

[nullius]

<snip>

Colorblind, as I told you in the other thread where you raised this, there is already an altcoin which does this.  Go there.  Or else, go to the Flat Earth thread.  Either way, understand that this will never happen in Bitcoin.  There are certain iron-clad, carved-in-stone, oath-bound-on-pain-of-death rules in Bitcoin, and this is one of them; you may as well suggest inflating the monetary base beyond 21 million bitcoins, or requiring KYC checks to transact Bitcoin, or making transactions reversible by an Appellate Court of Bitcoin which holds tx override keys (or perhaps via “the execution of an irregular state change” as decreed by the Grand Poobah in Chief).

I am not even remotely interested in further expounding on the technical reasons why this idea is a non-solution to a non-problem; for the idea itself is reprehensible.  You are advocating massive theft—and you are advocating the total destruction of Bitcoin.  That does not even deserve serious discussion.

• UTXO aging
  
  • ATTENTION MORONS: THIS CANNOT BE DONE WITH BITCOIN. SEE THE LARGE BOLD TEXT AT THE TOP.

Since this will never happen in Bitcoin, I suggest that you should go put all your money in Freicoin (FRC), a coin created by people who make economic arguments for demurrage.  Freicoin is currently ranked #675 on coinmarketcap.com, with a current market cap of $485,681 (27 BTC).  (Current Bitcoin market cap: $307,305,229,550.)  The idea that you should need to spend your money to not lose it—well, that idea is exactly as popular as it should be.

Edit—P.S., one technical argument:  You should learn to spell “aging” before you write a proposal about it.  A respect for the simplest orthography is the handmaiden of sound monetary policy the basic honesty of not stealing people’s money.

[Colorblind]

<snip>

Colorblind, as I told you in the other thread where you raised this, there is already an altcoin which does this.  Go there.  Or else, go to the Flat Earth thread.  Either way, understand that this will never happen in Bitcoin.  There are certain iron-clad, carved-in-stone, oath-bound-on-pain-of-death rules in Bitcoin, and this is one of them; you may as well suggest inflating the monetary base beyond 21 million bitcoins, or requiring KYC checks to transact Bitcoin, or making transactions reversible by an Appellate Court of Bitcoin which holds tx override keys (or perhaps via “the execution of an irregular state change” as decreed by the Grand Poobah in Chief).

I am not even remotely interested in further expounding on the technical reasons why this idea is a non-solution to a non-problem; for the idea itself is reprehensible.  You are advocating massive theft—and you are advocating the total destruction of Bitcoin.  That does not even deserve serious discussion.

• UTXO aging
  
  • ATTENTION MORONS: THIS CANNOT BE DONE WITH BITCOIN. SEE THE LARGE BOLD TEXT AT THE TOP.

Since this will never happen in Bitcoin, I suggest that you should go put all your money in Freicoin (FRC), a coin created by people who make economic arguments for demurrage.  Freicoin is currently ranked #675 on coinmarketcap.com, with a current market cap of $485,681 (27 BTC).  (Current Bitcoin market cap: $307,305,229,550.)  The idea that you should need to spend your money to not lose it—well, that idea is exactly as popular as it should be.

Edit—P.S., one technical argument:  You should learn to spell “aging” before you write a proposal about it.  A respect for the simplest orthography is the handmaiden of sound monetary policy the basic honesty of not stealing people’s money.

Relax, I was just looking for an intelligent discussion, and thank you for useful and enlightening inside!



Oh there is flat earth thread. Neat!

[audaciousbeing]

Hey, I know this is probably was considered before, but why not make coins have limited age before they return to coinbase? Say if coins have not been moved for 8 years it "returns" to coinbase (i.e. become unspent) and become minable. This way coins that was unspent for certain amount of time will eventually reenter circulation, we can discontinue block reward halving practice, eliminate satoshi's stash (or force him to reveal himself) and reintroduce destroyed funds to the market. This will also limit blockchain size so we would be able to use much larger blocks, allowing much more tx/second since blockchain size will be capped. More I think of it, better it seems from scaling perspective.

I know I probably missing some significant downsides but I can't see something that can't be compensated.

You have made a valid point in that in this current situation that bitcoin has found itself, there is need for serious thinking out of the box in making the situation a better place. However, the suggestion you made from where I stand, are not improvement rather they are complete deviation or alteration of the initial plan.

On the issue of returning coins to coinbase or any place at all, that is centralization which is making some body have direct influence over the entire bitcoin. The number of years you suggested is another thing because with the potential that bitcoin has, some people would keep beyond 8 years who should then repay them in case they come back for their bitcoin.

Other ways should be suggested on improving the current situation but not this.

[Syke]

Relax, I was just looking for an intelligent discussion, and thank you for useful and enlightening inside!

Here's your intelligent discussion ... Keep your fucking hands out of my wallet you god damn thief.

[vintagetrex]

this sounds like a bad idea because it would be bad for the pseudonymity of bitcoin, by forcing everyone to renetwork to move coins

[cr1776]

<snip>

Colorblind, as I told you in the other thread where you raised this, there is already an altcoin which does this.  Go there.  Or else, go to the Flat Earth thread.  Either way, understand that this will never happen in Bitcoin.  There are certain iron-clad, carved-in-stone, oath-bound-on-pain-of-death rules in Bitcoin, and this is one of them; you may as well suggest inflating the monetary base beyond 21 million bitcoins, or requiring KYC checks to transact Bitcoin, or making transactions reversible by an Appellate Court of Bitcoin which holds tx override keys (or perhaps via “the execution of an irregular state change” as decreed by the Grand Poobah in Chief).

I am not even remotely interested in further expounding on the technical reasons why this idea is a non-solution to a non-problem; for the idea itself is reprehensible.  You are advocating massive theft—and you are advocating the total destruction of Bitcoin.  That does not even deserve serious discussion.

• UTXO aging
  
  • ATTENTION MORONS: THIS CANNOT BE DONE WITH BITCOIN. SEE THE LARGE BOLD TEXT AT THE TOP.

Since this will never happen in Bitcoin, I suggest that you should go put all your money in Freicoin (FRC), a coin created by people who make economic arguments for demurrage.  Freicoin is currently ranked #675 on coinmarketcap.com, with a current market cap of $485,681 (27 BTC).  (Current Bitcoin market cap: $307,305,229,550.)  The idea that you should need to spend your money to not lose it—well, that idea is exactly as popular as it should be.

Edit—P.S., one technical argument:  You should learn to spell “aging” before you write a proposal about it.  A respect for the simplest orthography is the handmaiden of sound monetary policy the basic honesty of not stealing people’s money.

Relax, I was just looking for an intelligent discussion, and thank you for useful and enlightening inside!



Oh there is flat earth thread. Neat!

Discussions about whether and under what circumstances you can steal money from one group and give it to another is always going to be met with a thumbs down from the group you want to steal from.