Decentralized decision making, hashing toward a better bitcoin

[onemorexmr]

Enter sidechains and payment networks.

not sure how that will work. we'll see

[1714859079]

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[shmadz]

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. by having different version numbers corresponding to the different proposed implementations.  once a version number achieves 90% of hashing power that would be considered the communities will, and that version would be implemented.

what do you think?

How is this appreciably different than the way it already works today? If 90% of the miners want to do whatever, no one's stopping them.

Bitcoin is not a democracy. It is a system of voluntary consensus. Miners are financially motivated to follow the rules and also to enforce those rules upon everyone else that wishes to participate.

You are free to go ahead and fork your own democraticoin at any time. No one can stop you; just as no one can force a change upon the bitcoin network against the will of the participants.
  

[Hazir]

How is this appreciably different than the way it already works today? If 90% of the miners want to do whatever, no one's stopping them.

Bitcoin is not a democracy. It is a system of voluntary consensus. Miners are financially motivated to follow the rules and also to enforce those rules upon everyone else that wishes to participate.

You are free to go ahead and fork your own democraticoin at any time. No one can stop you; just as no one can force a change upon the bitcoin network against the will of the participants.
  

And how this voluntary consensus is different from democracy? Because I can't see much difference. In democracy people do what they want or what they think is good because it will gain them profit or better government or something, miners are doing exactly the same they seek profit. The only difference that live democracy is fiction because not everyone vote, therefore we have something like votes 30% of whole nation, and from that 30% of people who voted option with 51% votes wins. With bitcoin everyone MUST choose.

[brg444]

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. by having different version numbers corresponding to the different proposed implementations.  once a version number achieves 90% of hashing power that would be considered the communities will, and that version would be implemented.

what do you think?

How is this appreciably different than the way it already works today? If 90% of the miners want to do whatever, no one's stopping them.

Bitcoin is not a democracy. It is a system of voluntary consensus. Miners are financially motivated to follow the rules and also to enforce those rules upon everyone else that wishes to participate.

You are free to go ahead and fork your own democraticoin at any time. No one can stop you; just as no one can force a change upon the bitcoin network against the will of the participants.
  

and one more for "I don't believe in democracy" !  

in all seriousness Adam you seem like a good lad, just a little misguided. you're from Montreal aren't you? I wouldn't mind going over this with you over a pint  

[brg444]

How is this appreciably different than the way it already works today? If 90% of the miners want to do whatever, no one's stopping them.

Bitcoin is not a democracy. It is a system of voluntary consensus. Miners are financially motivated to follow the rules and also to enforce those rules upon everyone else that wishes to participate.

You are free to go ahead and fork your own democraticoin at any time. No one can stop you; just as no one can force a change upon the bitcoin network against the will of the participants.
  

And how this voluntary consensus is different from democracy? Because I can't see much difference. In democracy people do what they want or what they think is good because it will gain them profit or better government or something, miners are doing exactly the same they seek profit. The only difference that live democracy is fiction because not everyone vote, therefore we have something like votes 30% of whole nation, and from that 30% of people who voted option with 51% votes wins. With bitcoin everyone MUST choose.

The difference is simple: stupid people don't get to have everyone in society shoulder the weight of their stupidity.

[Peter R]

How is this appreciably different than the way it already works today? If 90% of the miners want to do whatever, no one's stopping them.

Bitcoin is not a democracy. It is a system of voluntary consensus. Miners are financially motivated to follow the rules and also to enforce those rules upon everyone else that wishes to participate.

You are free to go ahead and fork your own democraticoin at any time. No one can stop you; just as no one can force a change upon the bitcoin network against the will of the participants.
  

And how this voluntary consensus is different from democracy? Because I can't see much difference. In democracy people do what they want or what they think is good because it will gain them profit or better government or something, miners are doing exactly the same they seek profit. The only difference that live democracy is fiction because not everyone vote, therefore we have something like votes 30% of whole nation, and from that 30% of people who voted option with 51% votes wins. With bitcoin everyone MUST choose.

The difference is simple: stupid people don't get to have everyone in society shoulder the weight of their stupidity.

How do we (we = Bitcoin Community) come to "consensus"?  I wouldn't say it's a democracy in the sense that every person loosely attached to Bitcoin has precisely "one vote"--that's not how Bitcoin works.  But it's not that different either.  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.  For this reason, I think the OP makes good sense.

[shmadz]

How is this appreciably different than the way it already works today? If 90% of the miners want to do whatever, no one's stopping them.

Bitcoin is not a democracy. It is a system of voluntary consensus. Miners are financially motivated to follow the rules and also to enforce those rules upon everyone else that wishes to participate.

You are free to go ahead and fork your own democraticoin at any time. No one can stop you; just as no one can force a change upon the bitcoin network against the will of the participants.
  

And how this voluntary consensus is different from democracy? Because I can't see much difference. In democracy people do what they want or what they think is good because it will gain them profit or better government or something, miners are doing exactly the same they seek profit. The only difference that live democracy is fiction because not everyone vote, therefore we have something like votes 30% of whole nation, and from that 30% of people who voted option with 51% votes wins. With bitcoin everyone MUST choose.

The difference is simple: stupid people don't get to have everyone in society shoulder the weight of their stupidity.

How do we (we = Bitcoin Community) come to "consensus"?  I wouldn't say it's a democracy in the sense that every person loosely attached to Bitcoin has precisely "one vote"--that's not how Bitcoin works.  But it's not that different either.  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.

As long as their free choice does not change the fundamental rules that the consensus network agrees on, they can run whatever client they like. XT, core, electrum, armory, etc... but when it comes to making a change to the fundamental rules of consensus, I would argue the best approach is to make this process as hard as possible.

Making a change like bip 101 that involves ballooning the block size to 8MB and eventually to 8GB is reckless and can bring about problems and attack vectors that we can't know or predict. They (Gavin and Hearn) are spreading fear and panic and preying on your fear of what might happen if we don't change [1] while they pay no heed to all to the consequences and real danger that could occur from such a drastic change to the fundamental rules that balance incentives and keep bitcoin secure.

[1]even though we've seen from the spam attacks that it's not a problem and bitcoin deals with full blocks just fine... In fact, it may even be desirable to be in a constant state of full blocks so that a fee market can emerge. Remember that the miners must continue to get paid as the reward continues to diminish)

[brg444]

How do we (we = Bitcoin Community) come to "consensus"?  I wouldn't say it's a democracy in the sense that every person loosely attached to Bitcoin has precisely "one vote"--that's not how Bitcoin works.  But it's not that different either.  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.

Stop trying to nuance the discussion using "vote" as if this somehow ties it to democracy somewhere down the road.

It is not a vote. It is a decision. A show of strenght. Power. You might not like it expressed as such but that doesn't particularly matter. In short, it is the people with the most resources and, yes, the most influence amongst their wealthy and powerful peers who will ultimately decide where the ship sails. No, influence as in "popular amongst reddit derps" is not valued nor accounted for.

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.  For this reason, I think the OP makes good sense.

There are several public forums where people might want to "express their free choice". I'm not sure what's the point of somehow tying this into the system as if this would somehow legitimize the process.

To be fair I'm not even sure what it is OP is proposing. Seemed to me like a one hash, one vote miner governance which is quite honestly absurd.

[Peter R]

How do we (we = Bitcoin Community) come to "consensus"?  I wouldn't say it's a democracy in the sense that every person loosely attached to Bitcoin has precisely "one vote"--that's not how Bitcoin works.  But it's not that different either.  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.

As long as their free choice does not change the fundamental rules that the consensus network agrees on, they can run whatever client they like. XT, core, electrum, armory, etc... but when it comes to making a change to the fundamental rules of consensus, I would argue the best approach is to make this process as hard as possible.

Making a change like bip 101 that involves ballooning the block size to 8MB and eventually to 8GB is reckless and can bring about problems and attack vectors that we can't know or predict. They (Gavin and Hearn) are spreading fear and panic and preying on your fear of what might happen if we don't change [1] when they pay no heed to all to the consequences and real danger that such a drastic change to the fundamental rules that balance incentives and keep bitcoin secure.

[1]even though we've seen from the spam attacks that it's not a problem and bitcoin deals with full blocks just fine... In fact, it may even be desirable to be in a constant state of full blocks so that a fee market can emerge. Remember that the miners must continue to get paid as the reward continues to diminish)

Thank you for the polite reply.  

I agree that changing a consensus rule about what constitutes a valid transaction should be extremely hard.  We all agree that Alice shouldn't be able to move coins without a valid signature, Bob shouldn't be able to create coins out of thin air, and Charlie shouldn't be able to spend his coins twice.  

I disagree that this applies to the size of the block.  The reason I disagree is because Satoshi already designed a way for us to come to consensus on what "appropriately sized" blocks are.  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."  



By making it easier for nodes to "express their acceptance of a block" (e.g., for blocks larger than 1 MB), we are making it easier for the network to come to consensus according to the original design of Bitcoin.  Thus Adam's proposal is simply Bitcoin playing out the way it was designed.

(There is no mention of a block size limit in the Bitcoin white paper.)
 
 

[Peter R]

How do we (we = Bitcoin Community) come to "consensus"?  I wouldn't say it's a democracy in the sense that every person loosely attached to Bitcoin has precisely "one vote"--that's not how Bitcoin works.  But it's not that different either.  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.

Stop trying to nuance the discussion using "vote" as if this somehow ties it to democracy somewhere down the road.

It is not a vote. It is a decision. A show of strenght. Power. You might not like it expressed as such but that doesn't particularly matter. In short, it is the people with the most resources and, yes, the most influence amongst their wealthy and powerful peers who will ultimately decide where the ship sails. No, influence as in "popular amongst reddit derps" is not valued nor accounted for.

I think we're saying similar things but using different words.  You also seem to discredit the community at /r/bitcoin as "powerless," whereas I think their sentiment reflects the desires of the economic majority.  Time will tell, I suppose...

[brg444]

How do we (we = Bitcoin Community) come to "consensus"?  I wouldn't say it's a democracy in the sense that every person loosely attached to Bitcoin has precisely "one vote"--that's not how Bitcoin works.  But it's not that different either.  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.

Stop trying to nuance the discussion using "vote" as if this somehow ties it to democracy somewhere down the road.

It is not a vote. It is a decision. A show of strenght. Power. You might not like it expressed as such but that doesn't particularly matter. In short, it is the people with the most resources and, yes, the most influence amongst their wealthy and powerful peers who will ultimately decide where the ship sails. No, influence as in "popular amongst reddit derps" is not valued nor accounted for.

I think we're saying similar things but using different words.  You also seem to discredit the community at /r/bitcoin as "powerless," whereas I think their sentiment reflects the desires of the economic majority.  Time will tell, I suppose...

Economic majority reflects the ownership of important stakes in either Bitcoin, its mining network, and to a lesser extent the exchanges & services infrastructure.

As far as the two most important are concerned : owning a shitload of Bitcoin and or possessing a significant portion of the mining network I feel confident enough to say that those who share one or two of these criterias don't hang on reddit and therefore their "sentiment" is not reflected there.

To be quite honest I don't see how any smart person (I consider you are one) can view reddit as anything more than some group think cargo cult full of loud but absolutely irrelevant voices.

[Peter R]

To be quite honest I don't see how any smart person (I consider you are one) can view reddit as anything more than some group think cargo cult full of loud but absolutely irrelevant voices.

Thank you.  I also recognize that you are intelligent.  I also believe that you are young.  I think I may have had a view more inline with yours a decade ago. 

[brg444]

To be quite honest I don't see how any smart person (I consider you are one) can view reddit as anything more than some group think cargo cult full of loud but absolutely irrelevant voices.

Thank you.  I also recognize that you are intelligent.  I also believe that you are young.  I think I may have had a view more inline with yours a decade ago. 

That's too bad.... Old dogs do indeed lose the will to fight 

[Peter R]

To be quite honest I don't see how any smart person (I consider you are one) can view reddit as anything more than some group think cargo cult full of loud but absolutely irrelevant voices.

Thank you.  I also recognize that you are intelligent.  I also believe that you are young.  I think I may have had a view more inline with yours a decade ago. 

That's too bad.... Old dogs do indeed lose the will to fight 

Hahaha.  Let's see how it all pans out, shall we?

[TerraMaster]

By the way, the fork will be determined when 75% of the blocks found by miners (750) of the last 1000 found. Not 75% of the nodes.

If all miners tonight pointed to slushes pool offering XT core mining, the next 750 blocks its over. Well almost, but that will become the fork at that time. So yes miners do really control that. (vote) Now enough nodes should be in place as well to handle the work also on XT.  

From Gavin:

Deployment shall be controlled by hash-power supermajority vote (similar to the technique used in BIP34), but the earliest possible activation time is 2016-01-11 00:00:00 UTC.

Activation is achieved when 750 of 1,000 consecutive blocks in the best chain have a version number with bits 1,2,3 and 14 set (0x20000007 in hex). The activation time will be the timestamp of the 750'th block plus a two week (1,209,600 second) grace period to give any remaining miners or services time to upgrade to support larger blocks. If a supermajority is achieved more than two weeks before 2016-01-11 00:00:00 UTC, the activation time will be 2016-01-11 00:00:00 UTC.

Block version numbers are used only for activation; once activation is achieved, the maximum block size shall be as described in the specification section, regardless of the version number of the block.

[brg444]

To be quite honest I don't see how any smart person (I consider you are one) can view reddit as anything more than some group think cargo cult full of loud but absolutely irrelevant voices.

Thank you.  I also recognize that you are intelligent.  I also believe that you are young.  I think I may have had a view more inline with yours a decade ago. 

That's too bad.... Old dogs do indeed lose the will to fight 

Hahaha.  Let's see how it all pans out, shall we?

I think you're gonna get your increase.  

Don't get your hopes up for any 8 mb blocks or exponential increase though  

Definitely prepare to say goodbye to Gavin & Mike  

[HostFat]

@TerraMaster
But still miners need the majority of the nodes, and the nodes of exchanges, payment processors ecc ..

Even if the 99% of the miners will chose to be on BIP101, but the majority of nodes will still with the old block format, the 1% of miners are going to make a lot of money, because only their blocks will be validated from the network (the majority of nodes/services/users)

So miners have a lot of power, but still they need to follow the will of the market.

Anyway, I think that the market will converge on the BIP101

[TerraMaster]

@TerraMaster
But still miners need the majority of the nodes, and the nodes of exchanges, payment processors ecc ..

Even if the 99% of the miners will chose to be on BIP101, but the majority of nodes will still with the old block format, the 1% of miners are going to make a lot of money, because only their blocks will be validated from the network (the majority of nodes/services/users)

So miners have a lot of power, but still they need to follow the will of the market.

Anyway, I think that the market will converge on the BIP101

Yes that's true, and a real point,,, that's why I quickly mentioned there will have to be enough XT nodes to support that  its like which would come first the nodes or the miners/hash lol chicken or the egg 

I think they would grow together....

[brg444]

@TerraMaster
But still miners need the majority of the nodes, and the nodes of exchanges, payment processors ecc ..

Even if the 99% of the miners will chose to be on BIP101, but the majority of nodes will still with the old block format, the 1% of miners are going to make a lot of money, because only their blocks will be validated from the network (the majority of nodes/services/users)

So miners have a lot of power, but still they need to follow the will of the market.

Anyway, I think that the market will converge on the BIP101

Yes that's true, and a real point,,, that's why I quickly mentioned there will have to be enough XT nodes to support that  its like which would come first the nodes or the miners/hash lol chicken or the egg 

I think they would grow together....

That is not a question... No miners will make any significant switch unless they get equally significant node support

[shmadz]

By making it easier for nodes to "express their acceptance of a block" (e.g., for blocks larger than 1 MB), we are making it easier for the network to come to consensus according to the original design of Bitcoin.  Thus Adam's proposal is simply Bitcoin playing out the way it was designed.

(There is no mention of a block size limit in the Bitcoin white paper.)

Larger blocks do not make it easier to come to consensus, they make it harder. An 8MB block will take longer to propagate, making it more likely that small forks and orphans occur. Also since you are now locked into exponential growth, in two years my well connected mine in northern Europe can mine and quickly propagate 16MB blocks which will take longer for the Chinese miners to download and validate, giving me an advantage (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) and also an incentive to pack blocks full of junk transactions (which is necessarily a bad thing) - if the nodes are all following the rules of bip101 they have to accept my garbage filled 16MB blocks, as they are perfectly valid. 

By allowing these much larger blocks to be created, you increase the effectiveness of selfish mining and thus, increase the incentive to act in a malicious manner.  Satoshi might not have realized a block size limit was necessary when he was drafting the white paper, but it sure didn't take him long to implement one once the network was up and running.

For anyone who is still struggling to understand why bigger blocks might not be such a good idea, I thought this was a nice, succinct, and humorous explanation of XT from a rather unlikely source.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-23/what-bitcoin-xt-primer-everyone

Enjoy.