Here is the full article since some don't trust external links. I want to know what you think!
The Age of the Block Explorer: Simplest method of how to save Bitcoin
In my last post I discovered a problem in the bitcoin network. Bitcoin has been hacked and is no longer decentralized. This was done by China shutting down exchanges. Whether you believe this development means that China now has control over the price of bitcoin or not, it shows undisputedly that the currency has lost its fungibility in china meaning people can no longer use it freely. This is a fatal flaw and now trading crypto's is under threat everywhere by governments simply cracking down on exchanges.
My last post proposed the "trust factor" and "reversing transactions" to solve this issue. While i think that method could work, I don't think it is practical to implement. I have a new idea that would require not changing bitcoin at all,simply utilizing built in technology in order to bring the "exchanges" inside the blockchain itself, and thus make it impossible to hack.
Welcome OP RETURN!
OP return is a function in the bitcoin blockchain that had been added years ago but has thus been under-utilized. What this does is allow for messages to be added to the blockchain and to transactions. I have formulated an example language (very simple) that would allow for OP return to hold the key for making the blockchain into a self contained e-commerce platform thus negating the need for exchanges.
If you want to learn more about OP_Return here is a link:
https://bitzuma.com/posts/op-return-and-the-future-of-bitcoin/Now back to the topic.
All messages are signed by your private key so you know which wallet sent the message.
Enter the age of the block explorer. Block explorers will become to the blockchain what search engines are to the internet. Originally the internet was based just on links (and it still is) but now search engines have become the go-to way for the average person to use the internet, not just going from link to link. Now bots do that for us. The block explorer will become the same for the blockchain. In the future the way people interact and use the blockchain itself will be through block explorers. We know google has a monopoly on search, which is dangerous, and a blockchain explorer would also have the risk of being a monopoly. So this idea isn't foolproof, but this will be a quite robust system.
I don't want to sound like a block explorer is a new thing. It isn't. Block explorers are widespread now. But currently they serve only niche uses. What I am saying is that in the future most people will think of block explorers as the blockchain, as people currently think of search engines as the internet. It will be a huge paradigm shift as blockchain goes mainstream.
The block explorer should show the value of the bitcoin address in question and how many blocks the address mined and how many days the address has existed. This should give the person a feel for how trustworthy the address is that they are considering sending money to. Also the explorer will show the bitcoin addresses feedback (#FB) for their transactions (which is explained below).
The following example language is used to tell block explorers information. Think of this like the HTML of the blockchain.
Use hashtags to tell block explorers what type of info you are providing. All of them are optional but some more than others. What you will do is start your OP return message with the following and block explorers will know that the message should be filed under that sort of information. Basically think of it like you are setting up your e-commerce site on the blockchain using the following commands to create your profile.
#FT: your "for trade" list. BTC2USD 10000 (I will sell bitcoins for $10,000 usd each) USD2BTC 8000:100000 (I will buy up to $100,000 worth of bitcoins at $8,000 each.) YTN2BTC 5000:20000 (I will sell up to 20,000 yenten for bitcoin at a rate of 5,000 yenten per Bitcoin).
#AD: Your wallet addresses. for example YTN:hekcuFekGI75Hnekzha BTC:wiUenxYGk8619GskzuH etc.
#WW: Your website for people to visit for more information about your warez. This is especially good if you have lots of physical things for sale and you don't just trade currency. Block explorers should be able to pull info from your website too especially if you are using hashtags to denote information.
#CI: your contact info. Optional [if the buyer specifies a payment address and pays 1 bitcoin to seller and attaches a note to the transaction (TX) that says BTC2YTN then seller will send the amount of yenten he offered for 1 btc to buyer without any communication needed.] But if you want something that can't be traded digitally then you should provide contact info. Anonymous email addresses through TOR is a great way to do it.
#PO: what pay-out methods you offer. (Paypal, credit card, check, cash in the mail, amazon/itunes/steam gift cards, etc.)
#FB(TXID): Feedback for transactions. Make sure you reference the transaction id (TXID). The block explorer will know if your address was actually involved in the transaction.
If you sign a message with a hashtag you used previously, the block explorer will know to disregard your old #FT list for example and only consider your newest one as valid. There is a 40 letter limit to OP return messages so techniques may need to be used like breaking posts up into several pieces or using abbreviations or whatnot. I leave that up to you to figure out the technicalities for making this work in practice.
So basically using a block explorer people can search the blockchain in a way just like how localbitcoins.com works today. We will have a fully decentralized exchange that is un-corruptible built into the blockchain itself. I am aware that this will add size to the blockchain but Monero adds size to their blockchain to anonymize transactions, the least we can do is sacrifice some size in order to keep bitcoin and other crypto's fully decentralized and outside the influence of state powers.
PS: Wallets could help with this funcionality by providing a gui to help people compose thier profile. Also wallets could connect with block explorers to function as peoples effective bitcoin trading search engine.
BONUS: Something I just realized is this idea could be used to "automatically" convert the crypto that a person is mining into another crypto or even cash. In the wallet the person mining could be mining yenten and have it automatically converted into bitcoin for them and sent to their bitcoin address for them. The wallet would contain code to do this. This could make mining much more mainstream if someone could mine Monero and see their paypal balance automatically grow.
Also if you recieve a bitcoin transaction you can have your wallet automatically convert it into monero and back again to bitcoin to "clean" the history from your bitcoin.
