Decentralized decision making, hashing toward a better bitcoin

[adamstgBit]

Long has the development of bitcoin been slowed by the devs inability to agree on design decisions, it's time to put in place a system that ensures continued development / evaluation of the code base, in a low friction decentralized manner. Imagine a bitcoin where YOU as a user get a say in every design decision. we can do this today.

There is a design decision to be made, 3 possible implementations, each similar, impossible to say which way is the best way to go. Who ultimately makes the decision on which way to go? It is my belief that satoshi would want the decision to be made by community as a whole. we can achieve this today and use this process to put the block limit debate to rest.

We could have in place a system in which all the different BIP's ( design options ) can be voted on using hashing power and BTC. By having different version numbers attached to a block mined corresponding to the different proposed implementations (exactly how XT is gauging its support) we would quickly see where miners stand. We could also set up wallets corresponding to the different proposed implementations, people would send a tiny amount of BTC to the address they want to vote for, they could change their vote by sending another tiny amount to another address. This would prove they own X amount of bitcoin, and are in favor of  BIP XXX, and in that way we would gauge where the economic marjory stand.  This "Voting system" wouldn't be the deciding factor as to what BIP gets implemented, ultimately this is in the hands of the devs, but it would be hard for devs to continue to push for a BIP with very little support by the community, and it would be easier for the devs to agree to  BIPXXX after seeing an overwhelming majority of the community vote for BIPXXX. All this system would really do is give the devs and the community itself an accurate picture of what the community wants or doesn't want Before drastic measures are taken like BitcoinXT Vs BitcoinCore


From the white paper (paraphrased):
Nodes assemble valid transactions into a block and work to find a proof-of-work.
Nodes express their acceptance of a new block by mining on top of it.
The longest chain composed of valid transactions is "Bitcoin."  



Lets take this a step future and add the ability for miners and BTC to express their acceptance of a particular BIP, making it easier for the network to come to consensus according to the original design of Bitcoin.

Without this system, what do we see in times of disagreement? In this case we are faced with two extremist choices no block limit increase at all ( Core ) or a huge increase ( XT ), mean while most agree we should bump up the limit at least a little, most are unhappy with either camp, yet are voices are ignored, as ego and self interest fuel the devs decision making. i think we can all agree both not bumping the limit at all, or increasing it so much so that that becomes the solution to scalability are both not the best decision bitcoin should take at this time, why are we force to choose??


what do you think?

[1714861795]

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[CIYAM]

To be honest it sounds like a "popularity contest" rather than a well thought out technical solution to a problem (this has been my thinking about this whole issue ever since XT embarked on the alarmist idea that Bitcoin is going to die and that they are going to fork it by "convincing others" that they should follow them).

I'm yet to be convinced that Bitcoin is broken to the point that we need to suddenly rush in the change and abandon the core devs in the process.

Also in the middle of the "stress test" I actually sent BTC amounts with no fee and with no problem (as the UTXOs were well aged the txs confirmed very quickly) so the "panic" seems rather out of proportion to the reality.

[adamstgBit]

To be honest it sounds like a "popularity contest" rather than a well thought out technical solution to a problem (this has been my thinking about this whole issue ever since XT embarked on the alarmist idea that Bitcoin is going to die and that they are going to fork by "convincing others" that they should follow them).

you don't think the most popular solution would tend to be the one which appears to be well thought out technical solution to the problem??

[CIYAM]

you don't think the most popular solution would tend to be the one which appears to be well thought out technical solution to the problem??

If that were the case we'd have solved climate change through the election of politicians with well thought out technical solutions years ago.

A popular solution has absolutely nothing to do with being "sensible" or even "viable" for that matter.

[adamstgBit]

you don't think the most popular solution would tend to be the one which appears to be well thought out technical solution to the problem??

If that were the case we'd have solved climate change through the election of politicians with well thought out technical solutions years ago.

having gavin fork the blockchain is a better way to government bitcoins development?

[knight22]

Exaclty. I believe the free market is the only one that can take the best decision for it. As long as it has choices.

Those who think they can overule the free market are agaisnt the very principles of decentralization and bitcoin as a whole and can go work for central banks that will share their views.

[Peter R]

A popular solution has absolutely nothing to do with being "sensible" or even "viable" for that matter.

Would you then agree with the statement (in relation to the direction of Bitcoin's evolution):

   "Consensus is too important to be left to the people."

[knight22]

you don't think the most popular solution would tend to be the one which appears to be well thought out technical solution to the problem??

If that were the case we'd have solved climate change through the election of politicians with well thought out technical solutions years ago.

A popular solution has absolutely nothing to do with being "sensible" or even "viable" for that matter.

We all know politic is rigged by lobbies. The strongest ones are banking and petrolium consortium and those only care about their profits. The population have no real say.

[CIYAM]

having gavin fork the blockchain is a better way to government bitcoins development?

I don't think we need a "personality" to govern the development (my preference would always be for a "figurehead" rather than a "benevolent dictator") but maybe we do need some more clearer ways of solving the consensus of development.

Again I don't see the need to rush this and allow Gavin and Mike to simply "take over control" because somehow we should trust them.

[adamstgBit]

A popular solution has absolutely nothing to do with being "sensible" or even "viable" for that matter.

Would you then agree with the statement (in relation to the direction of Bitcoin's evolution):

   "Consensus is too important to be left to the people."

isnt that an oxymoron?

[CIYAM]

Would you then agree with the statement (in relation to the direction of Bitcoin's evolution):

   "Consensus is too important to be left to the people."

Yes - I think I would (he says feeling that he has just walked into a spring loaded trap).

That being said we do have the voting power of miners and of peers and IMO that should be used to determine the future (and I don't think 75% is enough of a majority for a hard fork which I was rather disappointed to discover XT has decided to use when initial communications had indicated that a 95% majority would be required).

To clarify the confusion - it should not be up to the "general population" to make a vote but up to those who actually are the key participants (in particular the miners).

[adamstgBit]

A popular solution has absolutely nothing to do with being "sensible" or even "viable" for that matter.

Would you then agree with the statement (in relation to the direction of Bitcoin's evolution):

   "Consensus is too important to be left to the people."

isnt that an oxymoron?

it obviously wouldn't be the little poeple voting it would be the miners who has invested interest in seeing bitcoin grow in the best possible way. consider the alternative, Core Vs XT, while everyone is ready and willing to increase the block limit, egos and political BS turn a simple update into a full on war.

ultimately the will of the majority will win, this is the nature of bitcoin, try as they might devs will never be able to make changes that a big % of users do not agree with, why not streamline the process so thing happen in a calm and orderly fashion?
 

[Peter R]

Would you then agree with the statement (in relation to the direction of Bitcoin's evolution):

   "Consensus is too important to be left to the people."

Yes - I think I would (he says feeling that he has just walked into a spring loaded trap).

Thank you for the honest reply.  

Consensus is an interesting problem.  I would tend to agree that if every person loosely attached to Bitcoin had "one vote," then the results would be negative.  However, in reality each person has a vote that carries a weight in proportion to their influence.  If influence accrues to those who are wiser, then the decision of the "influence-weighted majority" will be the best decision IMO.

I would thus argue that the best approach to reaching consensus is to give the people the necessary tools to make expressing their free choice (e.g., BIP101 vs BIP100 vs no increase) as easy as possible.

  "Consensus is too important to be left to the people."

isnt that an oxymoron?

Hahaha, I'm not sure.  What do others think?

[knight22]

Would you then agree with the statement (in relation to the direction of Bitcoin's evolution):

   "Consensus is too important to be left to the people."

Yes - I think I would (he says feeling that he has just walked into a spring loaded trap).

That being said we do have the voting power of miners and of peers and IMO that should be used to determine the future (and I don't think 75% is enough of a majority for a hard fork which I was rather disappointed to discover XT has decided to use when initial communications had indicated that a 95% majority would be required).

To clarify the confusion - it should not be up to the "general population" to make a vote but up to those who actually are the key participants (in particular the miners).

A 95% consensus would indeed be preferable but on the other hand is a large group of poeple can reach such a consensus? I doubt it. If not, it could also lead to an impasse where consensus is impossible and block any development ( just like what is happening with Core)....

[CIYAM]

A 95% consensus would indeed be preferable but on the other hand is a large group of poeple can reach such a consensus? I doubt it. If not, it could also lead to an impasse where consensus is impossible and block any development ( just like what is happening with Core)....

Personally I don't see we actually have an impasse (but it does appear that Gavin and Mike are trying to push this agenda) as there are BIPs from the Bitcoin Core devs about increasing the block size.

About the only good thing that has come of all this block size debate has been that the price of BTC has been going up and down making it a great time for day-trading.

[adamstgBit]

Would you then agree with the statement (in relation to the direction of Bitcoin's evolution):

   "Consensus is too important to be left to the people."

Yes - I think I would (he says feeling that he has just walked into a spring loaded trap).

That being said we do have the voting power of miners and of peers and IMO that should be used to determine the future (and I don't think 75% is enough of a majority for a hard fork which I was rather disappointed to discover XT has decided to use when initial communications had indicated that a 95% majority would be required).

To clarify the confusion - it should not be up to the "general population" to make a vote but up to those who actually are the key participants (in particular the miners).

A 95% consensus would indeed be preferable but on the other hand is a large group of poeple can reach such a consensus? I doubt it. If not, it could also lead to an impasse where consensus is impossible and block any development ( just like what is happening with Core)....

i think we'd see poeple change camps purely to get consensus and have progress, lets face it BIP 100..105 are all the same with a twist, its only because ego's are at stake that the devs are unwilling to change their vote, without ego a clear runaway winner would emerge and at 75% everyone would change their vote, because they want progress above getting there way.

it would be interesting to say the least if we could put blocklimit to this "Decentralized decision making" process

[CIYAM]

The biggest concern I have is that maybe 75% is not putting the bar high enough - if we really end up with two competing forks (and from what I have read the 75% doesn't need to hold so the XT fork would keep going even if the support had dropped below 50%) then that could really cause problems (some forum members have been talking about getting pools to "pretend to support" XT so they can sell their coins twice).

Initially I had assumed that Gavin was not going to do anything so hastily and had assumed that rational minds would be led towards consensus by reason but unfortunately it does seem that now that is no longer the case.

There have already been issues in the past with soft forks and an accidental hard fork so I don't think it is actually very responsible for people to play political games with this.

[Carlton Banks]

Sorry adam, I don't like your idea. CIYAM is right here.

The main quality you need in order to develop something like bitcoin is expertise. The required expertise is in short supply. The inverse is the alternative; you can't develop sophisticated technology with the "everyone gets an A for effort" mentality.

And so, dare I say it, open source development teams have inherently socialistic characteristics. It's one of a few examples where socialism is preferable to free market decision making.

The wider free market is still free to reject the work of these communes, though. As it should be.

[adamstgBit]

Sorry adam, I don't like your idea. CIYAM is right here.

The main quality you need in order to develop something like bitcoin is expertise. The required expertise is in short supply. The inverse is the alternative; you can't develop sophisticated technology with the "everyone gets an A for effort" mentality.

And so, dare I say it, open source development teams have inherently socialistic characteristics. It's one of a few examples where socialism is preferable to free market decision making.

The wider free market is still free to reject the work of these communes, though. As it should be.

it would be the dev's responsibly to use their expertise to present to the miners viable options, not the other way around, your argument is invalid.

[CIYAM]

it would be the dev's responsibly to use their expertise to present to the miners viable options

From what I have read recently miners can express their support for one of the BIPs in each block - this seems like a reasonable approach to me (although in one topic about this I read that miners might actually be confused as to what they are supposed to put in their block so that is perhaps the fault of the devs for not clearly communicating how they should do this).