Bitcoin design contract

[Raize]

I don't understand why this keeps coming up, the issue of destroying or recycling old coins that is. But if it even seems like this is going to happen. I will stop using Bitcoin. And I suspect that I am not the only one in this category.

Same here. Bitcoin should not "reign supreme". An alt currency can "fix" this. Satoshi didn't comment on what to do with old coin because he didn't intend for there to be anything done with old coin.

If ECDSA is compromised, it's going to take effort for these old lost wallets (even those with 10k+ of BTC) to get compromised anyway, and we're probably going to know about it because one of them will be compromised before the first paper explaining the details is published, anyway. It will likely be a qualified researcher who then uses the money as a grant for more research.

Also, a weakness in ECDSA might only mean certain key combinations are weak, and the treasure hunting might still be very expensive and provide alternatives to mining. We don't really know, nor can we predict how it might unravel.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: I don't like this idea because it allows for "human error". Specifically the kind of error where a human makes any sort of decision at all. Let the code be. I don't want a developer, God, or government making these kinds of decisions, so we shouldn't touch it.

[bitfreak!]

If 500 tons of gold were lost at the bottom of the ocean for many years and the loss of this gold therefore gets factored into the gold price, I think that gold would be a better currency if the lost gold is never found because the price would then be more stable.

No the price would not be more stable. It would shift in one direction constantly for as long as we used it. But we don't live in some irrational world where lost gold can never be found again, so the opposite thing also applies; when gold is found the market adjusts and factors that into the gold price. In a world where all the gold has been mined, we would only have some gold being lost and some gold being found. Overall, this would result in the value of gold remaining at a stable pace, and not shifting infinitely in any one direction. The main factor applying a change to the value of gold will be natural market forces such as supply and demand in accordance with natural economic growth. It doesn't take a genius to see that this economic model is by far superior to a model which shifts infinitely in one direction, whether that direction is inflation or deflation. Both options taken to infinite extremes are not economically sound.

[Rudd-O]

I'm a certified genius, and I see no problem with gold going up in price forever.  I've seen absolutely zero evidence to believe that "a commodity going up forever" is bad, which makes this belief a faith-based irrationality.

Fact is, as long as businesses can predict the rate of change in value of any commodity and plan accordingly, there's nothing wrong with a commodity going up or down.

[Rudd-O]

Here's how I know that implementing "theft of long-term storage coins" is a bad idea: someone already implemented this very concept -- called demurrage, purported to be "fair" -- in an altcoin called Freicoin; that shit tanked and went nowhere.  That was 100% predictable -- lots of people want other people's money to be stolen, but nobody wants their own money to be stolen.

It's really simple to know whether something is a bad idea or not: just observe people's choices (when they are not being forced to do a particular thing), and you'll know what's "better".  People choose Bitcoin over dollars because people judge Bitcoin to be better than dollars.  People choose Bitcoin over Freicoin because people judge Freicoin to be worse.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Here's how I know that implementing "theft of long-term storage coins" is a bad idea: someone already implemented this very concept -- called demurrage, purported to be "fair" -- in an altcoin called Freicoin; that shit tanked and went nowhere.  That was 100% predictable -- lots of people want other people's money to be stolen, but nobody wants their own money to be stolen.

It's really simple to know whether something is a bad idea or not: just observe people's choices (when they are not being forced to do a particular thing), and you'll know what's "better".  People choose Bitcoin over dollars because people judge Bitcoin to be better than dollars.  People choose Bitcoin over Freicoin because people judge Freicoin to be worse.

You're grasping at straws. Demurrage has absolutely no similarity to what we've discussed - which is a technical solution aspiring (with debatable prospect of success) to make Bitcoin closer to its idealized design in the face of the harsh practical realities.


Is discussion of particular items that could go into the design contract on-topic for this thread? Or is it meant to be more meta?

[luv2drnkbr]

Are you guys high!!???  Don't fucking recycle or make unspendable old coins!  ONE OF THE MAIN FEATURES OF BITCOIN IS A STORE OF VALUE!!!

If and when ecdsa is cracked, everybody will hear about it.  And even if they don't-- making coins unspendable is WORSE than having them be stolen.  If they are unspendable, the legitimate account holder can never spend them.  If they are steal-able by cracked ecdsa, they may get stolen, but the account holder MAY ALSO SPEND THEM HIMSELF.  So in one scenario, the legit holder can NEVER spend them, and in the other, he MIGHT be able to.  MIGHT is clearly preferable to NEVER unless everybody universally agrees that spiting a thief is worth a lot of money.

Stop trying to make giant protocol changes!!  Leave britany bitcoin alone!!!!!!!!!!!

[bitfreak!]

Here's how I know that implementing "theft of long-term storage coins" is a bad idea: someone already implemented this very concept -- called demurrage, purported to be "fair" -- in an altcoin called Freicoin; that shit tanked and went nowhere.  That was 100% predictable -- lots of people want other people's money to be stolen, but nobody wants their own money to be stolen.

It's really simple to know whether something is a bad idea or not: just observe people's choices (when they are not being forced to do a particular thing), and you'll know what's "better".  People choose Bitcoin over dollars because people judge Bitcoin to be better than dollars.  People choose Bitcoin over Freicoin because people judge Freicoin to be worse.

You're grasping at straws. Demurrage has absolutely no similarity to what we've discussed - which is a technical solution aspiring (with debatable prospect of success) to make Bitcoin closer to its idealized design in the face of the harsh practical realities.


Is discussion of particular items that could go into the design contract on-topic for this thread? Or is it meant to be more meta?

Even if these ideas were incredibly similar, his argument is still entirely invalid because most alt coins fail regardless of their apparent advantages. Not to mention, we are talking about the recycling or deletion of coins which will happen a long time from now, so anything which implements that idea wont even be able to test how well it works until that time is reached when it comes into effect.

If they are steal-able by cracked ecdsa, they may get stolen, but the account holder MAY ALSO SPEND THEM HIMSELF.  So in one scenario, the legit holder can NEVER spend them, and in the other, he MIGHT be able to.  MIGHT is clearly preferable to NEVER

The only reason they want to delete them is because they don't want truly lost coins to come back into circulation, which reveals the real motive for why some people here don't want coin recycling to happen, but would be fine with coin deletion, even when that's clearly the worste option. It has nothing to do with the potential to "steal" coins, but because they want infinite deflation and the benefits it offers coin hoarders.

edit: clarified above statement, wasn't thinking clearly when I first wrote it.

[socrates1024]

Forever is a long time to keep a promise. Even if you tattoo "21M BTC / 10 minutes" on your forehead. The "Social Contract" is the right metaphor to bring up here, because the truth is that there's nothing cryptographic, mathematical, or algorithmic that keeps the rules from changing. Even constitutions can be amended. So, the future of Bitcoin will be determined by much fuzzier social things than the rhetoric (like "in cryptography we trust") suggests. It's worth talking about these processes and our values/priorities now, rather than sweeping these concerns under the rug.

If Bitcoin continues to survive, then at least one of the following statements must be true:

1. Bitcoin will never face a crisis where a (timely) hard fork is required to prevent disaster/collapse.
2. If a hard fork is required, then the best choice for the new rule set will be unambiguous or the community will quickly reach consensus.
3. Eventually there will be a substantial split between two forks within the community.

My biggest concern is that it will eventually become apparent/obvious to a large portion of the community that a major technical change will be necessary for future prosperity (for example, UTXO commitment, altered between-blocks interval, modified proof-of-work puzzle, UTXO rental fees or demurrage, more powerful script-tx binding) but that it will meet resistance from another large portion of the community. Then we'll have a dilemma, and we'll be much better off if we prepare ahead of time.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

It has nothing to do with the potential to "steal" coins, but because they want infinite deflation

I don't want infinite deflation. I'd be a happy man indeed in nobody lost coins. But lost coins should remain lost.

and the benefits it offers coin hoarders.

You're trying to make it sound like a bad thing. People who have invested their time and money on Bitcoin have every right to want it to live up to what it promised, and prevent devaluation of their bitcoins or the shock to the economy that would be caused by a sudden resurfacing of lost coins.

That said: The solution proposed to this problem has potential issues (as some have pointed out), which is why we might have no choice but to allow crackers to steal the lost coins.

[cedivad]

I don't understand why this keeps coming up, the issue of destroying or recycling old coins that is. But if it even seems like this is going to happen. I will stop using Bitcoin. And I suspect that I am not the only one in this category.

I have bitcoins stored in such a way that their private key has never been on a harddrive and they are stored in a way that was designed to be passed down from one generation to another. Destroying coins is destroying these.

I have a sort of "retirement" cold storage key (also, not ever having been on a harddrive, but stored in another way). Destroying coins on a timescale of anything less than a lifetime makes it more difficult and less secure to handle these coins.

Please don't destroy old coins. Please don't recycle old coins.

Please stop bringing up the topic.

Please don't tell us the details on how you store your lifetime savings.

I'm a certified genius, and I see no problem with gold going up in price forever.  I've seen absolutely zero evidence to believe that "a commodity going up forever" is bad, which makes this belief a faith-based irrationality.

Fact is, as long as businesses can predict the rate of change in value of any commodity and plan accordingly, there's nothing wrong with a commodity going up or down.

Please tell us more about that!

[bitfreak!]

You're trying to make it sound like a bad thing. People who have invested their time and money on Bitcoin have every right to want it to live up to what it promised, and prevent devaluation of their bitcoins or the shock to the economy that would be caused by a sudden resurfacing of lost coins.

I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing, but it is a bad thing when people are using that potential profit as an excuse to circumvent changes which could help create a more sound currency. Furthermore, the limited nature of bitcoin already makes it inherently deflationary (in terms of price change), since demand tends to increase over the long term and leads to economic growth. We don't need to have lost coins to have deflation in the value of bitcoin. The value will tend to go up regardless, in fact lost coins will probably play a very small role in the price deflation compared to economic growth.

[Pieter Wuille]

The value will tend to go up regardless, in fact lost coins will probably play a very small role in the price deflation compared to economic growth.

Then why does this problem need solving, anyway?

[bitfreak!]

The value will tend to go up regardless, in fact lost coins will probably play a very small role in the price deflation compared to economic growth.

Then why does this problem need solving, anyway?

Because infinite inflation and infinite deflation are both fundamentally flawed.

[Rudd-O]

You're grasping at straws. Demurrage has absolutely no similarity to what we've discussed - which is a technical solution aspiring (with debatable prospect of success) to make Bitcoin closer to its idealized design in the face of the harsh practical realities.


Is discussion of particular items that could go into the design contract on-topic for this thread? Or is it meant to be more meta?

Demurrage is exactly what is being proposed by baking the theft of "old Bitcoins" here.  The distinction is not one of category, but one of parameters -- the demurrage being proposed would be after a few decades, rather than only a few months or whatnot.

If the code contract in the Satoshi client changed to include demurrage, I stand by my promise to keep the original source code running so demurrage will not happen.  That will ensure Satoshi Bitcoin users will not lose value or coins at the hands of people peddling organized theft as a "virtuous solution"  to a non-problem.

[Rudd-O]

Going back to the original idea before retarded people derailed it with a proposal to steal "abandoned" coins.

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I think it would be a great idea to add this "contract" to the Help menu of the client, and to a text file in the source code.  The contract should explain in plain terms how the network works, what's the limit on the generation of coins, what happens to lost coins (they remain lost), what the fees are and in which circumstances they are required, et cetera.  The goal of clarity for such a document should be that anyone understands the implications of Bitcoin's technical decisions before committing to using Bitcoin.  That is, to generate mutually informed and voluntary consent.  ALMOST like a contract (but not quite, in any legally binding sense, of course).

If possible, this document should be formatted using Markdown or (failing that) HTML.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Demurrage is exactly what is being proposed by baking the theft of "old Bitcoins" here.  The distinction is not one of category, but one of parameters -- the demurrage being proposed would be after a few decades, rather than only a few months or whatnot.

It's not "after a few decades". It's when the signature algorithm becomes so weak that your coins will be taken anyway by crackers if you don't move them. Again - the new version will cause you to lose your coins in exactly the same situation where you will lose them in the current version too.

Going back to the original idea before retarded people derailed it with a proposal to steal "abandoned" coins.

The proposal was in the OP. It was more of an example than a proposal, but still.

Decimal places.
Each Bitcoin can be divided into 100 million units.  This means there will be a maximum of 2.1 quadrillion (in U.S. numbering style) units of currency.

This is almost universally agreed to be mutable.

No double spends.
Bitcoin gives you a 99.999% guarantee that Bitcoins given to you won't be given to someone else at the same time, causing you to lose the Bitcoins given to you.  This guarantee is only valid after the transaction in question has seen six confirmations, which should take an hour on average.

Bitcoin can't make such a guarantee. It can try, though.

Do not lose your coins.
Sending coins to invalid or abandoned addresses will cause these coins to be lost forever, reducing the amount of Bitcoins in circulation by that amount.  Since this usually causes a very slight appreciation of everyone else's Bitcoins, think of this phenomenon as a donation to the general well-being of every Bitcoiner out there.

So you agree with the proposal to keep lost coins lost by deleting them when the algorithm is weakened?

[caveden]

To make this stuff clear, I think that an explicit "Bitcoin contract" should be written and included in all Bitcoin clients which says exactly what properties are guaranteed by the Bitcoin network.

I like this idea.

It is likely that at some point ECDSA will be weakened and everyone will need to send their BTC to different addresses that use different signing algorithms. However, lost coins will not be moved, and when ECDSA is finally broken, these lost coins will be spent by random people.

If you mean weakened by quantum computing, then only those lost coins whose public keys have already been published will be spendable. The addresses hashes are not vulnerable to quantum computing, AFAIK.
Or do you have any reason to believe anything else other than quantum computing risks "weakening" ECDSA (and RIPEMD-160, and SHA256...)?

Perhaps old coins should be "expired" before this can happen.

I don't like this idea.

[Rudd-O]

Example follows.

---------------------------------------

Number of coins.
The number of coins generated by Bitcoin participants will be a maximum of 21 million.  This number will increase slowly over the space of a few decades.  The increase will slow down as Bitcoiners get closer to 21 million generated coins, and then stop.

Decimal places.
Each Bitcoin can be divided into 100 million units.  This means there will be a maximum of 2.1 quadrillion (in U.S. numbering style) units of currency.  In the future, this may be amended to increase the number of units -- but the number of Bitcoins you have will not change by such an increase.

No double spends.
There is a (tiny) risk that bitcoins given to you won't be given to someone else at the same time, causing you to lose the bitcoins given to you.  Bitcoin prevents this by having multiple participants verify ("confirm") all transactions, and showing confirmations to you.  The more confirmations, the less likely it is that this will ever happen; with six confirmations, there is a XX.XXXXXX% guarantee that the transaction is irreversible.  The more bitcoins you are receiving from someone, the more prudent you must be in waiting for six confirmations.

Do not lose your coins.
Sending coins to invalid or abandoned addresses will cause these coins to be lost forever, reducing the amount of Bitcoins in circulation by that amount.  Since this usually causes a very slight appreciation of everyone else's Bitcoins, think of this phenomenon as a donation to the general well-being of every Bitcoiner out there.

Keep your Bitcoins secure.
If someone manages to swipe your Bitcoin wallet (and, if it has been password-protected, your password), Bitcoin provides no mechanism for you to block them from spending your Bitcoins.  So keep these valuables as safe as possible (or safer) as you would keep cash or any other valuables.

Eventually, your Bitcoin wallet will require an upgrade.
Computers become faster all the time.  The complicated security puzzles that Bitcoin uses to secure your coins become easier and easier to solve as time passes by.  Given this physical reality, after a few decades, the Bitcoin network will have to change to a newer, more complicated security algorithm, securing the existing Bitcoins with the new algorithm in the process.  You will, in all likelihood, have ample time to secure your Bitcoins by transferring them to a new wallet.  However, should you not do that during the transition, Bitcoin will not be able to keep your coins protected from theft.  So you will have to perform this operation at least once.

[paraipan]

...

What about the whitepaper? www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

[Rudd-O]

Sure, the whitepaper could conceivably be linked in the contract.