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Author Topic: Why can't output values be set by scripts?  (Read 1752 times)
jimbo77
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August 08, 2011, 06:15:30 PM
 #21

All I'm saying is that it's conceivable that someone might want to use an output script to try to control where the value goes in the next transaction.

Gift cards have restrictions on how they can be spent.  Do those not make sense?

I'm not saying it's currently possible, or that it should be made possible, or that it would be a good idea to use it even if it were made possible.  I'm just talking about a hypothetical possibility, which I also happen to think is not a good idea.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts and see Example 4.
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kokjo
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August 08, 2011, 06:19:16 PM
 #22

All I'm saying is that it's conceivable that someone might want to use an output script to try to control where the value goes in the next transaction.

Gift cards have restrictions on how they can be spent.  Do those not make sense?

I'm not saying it's currently possible, or that it should be made possible, or that it would be a good idea to use it even if it were made possible.  I'm just talking about a hypothetical possibility, which I also happen to think is not a good idea.
somehow i don't think you did understand the idea behind bitcoin.
limitless control of your money

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts." -Bertrand Russell
vector76
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August 08, 2011, 07:34:52 PM
 #23

All I'm saying is that it's conceivable that someone might want to use an output script to try to control where the value goes in the next transaction.

Gift cards have restrictions on how they can be spent.  Do those not make sense?

I'm not saying it's currently possible, or that it should be made possible, or that it would be a good idea to use it even if it were made possible.  I'm just talking about a hypothetical possibility, which I also happen to think is not a good idea.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts and see Example 4.

There is a world of difference between trusting an external agent and trusting the protocol.  They might achieve the same ends but they are nothing alike.

You are entitled to your own opinions about "the idea behind bitcoin" but to me one of its key features is wherever possible, to do through technology what has traditionally required trusted institutions and intermediaries.  You already have limitless control of paper in your mattress.
markm
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August 09, 2011, 05:07:58 AM
 #24

If a transaction has two outputs, each to a different address, then only a script that uses the correct keys for both can get both.

Thus, you can control how much of the value there is output by a script simply be your choice of whether to supply that script with the correct key for one of those two addresses, or the other of those two addresses, both of those two addresses, or neither of those two addresses.

If a transaction has 100 outputs, each to a different address, then you have a much wider number of combinations of the outputs that a script can choose to take (as inputs to itself).

So, a script can control the amount output from a transaction, but, it is the scripts taking those outputs as input that do the choosing of how much value it wants its inputs to output to it. (The outputs it does not want to take right now, it need not take. The total amount of the output that can ever be taken in total is constant but the amount output at any given time - meaning, the amouint output to any particular new transaction that chooses to take some of those outputs - is set by the scripts of the transaction that causes the output to actually "happen", as it were.

The confusion seems to have been between the "potential eventual output possible if the right keys ever turn up" and "the actual output that ends up having happened by the time the universe ends or som other event ensures that not key that hasn't yet shown up will ever show up.

So what scripts control about the poutput values is whether they ever are output or not. More smaller "potentially eventually claimable outputs" means more "granularity" of the amounts scripts can eventually set in the blockchain as having been actually output so far, the remainder being possibly simply lost-forever coins rather than ever turning out to output to an input.

(If you only want half the amount to be output, you give the transaction two outputs and only give the key to one of those outputs to some later transaction that takes the value from the previous transaction as input. If you want the whole amount to be output, you eventually provide both keys, either both in one transaction or if you want the entire amount but half at one time half at another, you provide one key at one time and some other time eventaully you provide the other key.)

-MarkM-

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