Bitcoin attestation service with MainStay

[nicosey]

Appreciate any feedback

https://blog.commerceblock.com/attestation-with-mainstay-78f06feb3aea

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[domob]

The blog post doesn't really give much technical details, but the "attestation to Bitcoin" sounds a lot like merged mining.  How is your system different/better?

[nicosey]

The blog post doesn't really give much technical details, but the "attestation to Bitcoin" sounds a lot like merged mining.  How is your system different/better?

Did you get a chance to read our white paper on the subject?

https://www.commerceblock.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/commerceblock-mainstay-whitepaper.pdf

[domob]

The blog post doesn't really give much technical details, but the "attestation to Bitcoin" sounds a lot like merged mining.  How is your system different/better?

Did you get a chance to read our white paper on the subject?

https://www.commerceblock.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/commerceblock-mainstay-whitepaper.pdf

Also from the whitepaper it sounds a lot like a variant of merged mining.  Basically, as far as I understand, you build a federated sidechain and use a commitment just like the one from merged mining to link the blocks back to Bitcoin's chain.  What am I missing?

[tomt1664]

Also from the whitepaper it sounds a lot like a variant of merged mining.  Basically, as far as I understand, you build a federated sidechain and use a commitment just like the one from merged mining to link the blocks back to Bitcoin's chain.  What am I missing?

There are similarities with the merge mining, in that an alt chain can get the benefit from Bitcoin's proof-of-work, but the concept is quite different. This doesn't require the involvement of Bitcoin miners due to attestations (of the alt chain state) being made to a 'subchain' or 'staychain' of transactions on Bitcoin. By committing to this staychain from the genesis block of the alt chain, the alt chain cannot fork. Note that you cannot get this guarantee by just making unlinked timestamped commitments (in any transaction) to Bitcoin.

You get the same properties from a merge mined sidechain, but miners don't have to cooperate. Also, by using a homomorphic commitment scheme, less burden is placed on the Bitcoin chain and attestations have greater privacy and censorship resistance.

[domob]

You get the same properties from a merge mined sidechain, but miners don't have to cooperate. Also, by using a homomorphic commitment scheme, less burden is placed on the Bitcoin chain and attestations have greater privacy and censorship resistance.

Ah ok, that makes sense - merged mining without the need for Bitcoin miners to actively cooperate is indeed an advantage (even if it is not a big burden for miners to do merged mining in practice).  Thanks for pointing this out!

[motionerror]

Also from the whitepaper it sounds a lot like a variant of merged mining.  Basically, as far as I understand, you build a federated sidechain and use a commitment just like the one from merged mining to link the blocks back to Bitcoin's chain.  What am I missing?

There are similarities with the merge mining, in that an alt chain can get the benefit from Bitcoin's proof-of-work, but the concept is quite different. This doesn't require the involvement of Bitcoin miners due to attestations (of the alt chain state) being made to a 'subchain' or 'staychain' of transactions on Bitcoin. By committing to this staychain from the genesis block of the alt chain, the alt chain cannot fork. Note that you cannot get this guarantee by just making unlinked timestamped commitments (in any transaction) to Bitcoin.

You get the same properties from a merge mined sidechain, but miners don't have to cooperate. Also, by using a homomorphic commitment scheme, less burden is placed on the Bitcoin chain and attestations have greater privacy and censorship resistance.

Really like the whitepaper.

How does the consensus mechanism work for the sidechain, how is this part regulated? Secondly, how does this paper differ from 'liquid'[1] that has been build by BlockStream?

[1] - https://blockstream.com/liquid/

[nicosey]

Also from the whitepaper it sounds a lot like a variant of merged mining.  Basically, as far as I understand, you build a federated sidechain and use a commitment just like the one from merged mining to link the blocks back to Bitcoin's chain.  What am I missing?

There are similarities with the merge mining, in that an alt chain can get the benefit from Bitcoin's proof-of-work, but the concept is quite different. This doesn't require the involvement of Bitcoin miners due to attestations (of the alt chain state) being made to a 'subchain' or 'staychain' of transactions on Bitcoin. By committing to this staychain from the genesis block of the alt chain, the alt chain cannot fork. Note that you cannot get this guarantee by just making unlinked timestamped commitments (in any transaction) to Bitcoin.

You get the same properties from a merge mined sidechain, but miners don't have to cooperate. Also, by using a homomorphic commitment scheme, less burden is placed on the Bitcoin chain and attestations have greater privacy and censorship resistance.

Really like the whitepaper.

How does the consensus mechanism work for the sidechain, how is this part regulated? Secondly, how does this paper differ from 'liquid'[1] that has been build by BlockStream?

[1] - https://blockstream.com/liquid/

MainStay does not define the consensus of the sidechain, just a form of merging into the main chain.

[ajpandey]

Thank you for the explanation.  It really helps the ones who are interested in Learning about Bitcoins. Am interested in Learning about bitcoin and Crypto trading, So I think this forum would be a great resource for me.

[nicosey]

Thank you for the explanation.  It really helps the ones who are interested in Learning about Bitcoins. Am interested in Learning about bitcoin and Crypto trading, So I think this forum would be a great resource for me.

your welcome

[mr_sparkles]

The blog post doesn't really give much technical details, but the "attestation to Bitcoin" sounds a lot like merged mining.  How is your system different/better?

Did you get a chance to read our white paper on the subject?

https://www.commerceblock.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/commerceblock-mainstay-whitepaper.pdf

This could be a really powerful feature for sidechains - the benefits of merge mining but without needing Bitcoin miners to do anything.
But if I understood it right, someone or a group needs to keep paying the Bitcoin to keep it going. Who would pay if the sidechain is decentralised? (like with proof of work or proof of stake)

[tomt1664]

The blog post doesn't really give much technical details, but the "attestation to Bitcoin" sounds a lot like merged mining.  How is your system different/better?

Did you get a chance to read our white paper on the subject?

https://www.commerceblock.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/commerceblock-mainstay-whitepaper.pdf

This could be a really powerful feature for sidechains - the benefits of merge mining but without needing Bitcoin miners to do anything.
But if I understood it right, someone or a group needs to keep paying the Bitcoin to keep it going. Who would pay if the sidechain is decentralised? (like with proof of work or proof of stake)

If the sidechain is federated, then the block-signing federation is responsible for funding the Bitcoin staychain - and the Bitcoin staychain can be run with the same multisig script for signing sidechain blocks (we show in the paper how you can verify a pay-to-contract homomorphic commitment via a multisig redeem script).

For a fully decentralised/permissionless sidechain, it would be possible to incorporate SPV proofs of Bitcoin staychain transactions into the block reward policy of the sidechain: in this way sidechain miners would be incentivised to fund the Bitcoin staychain in order to gain block rewards on the sidechain. The details of this would need to be worked out though.

[ptrwtts]

Appreciate any feedback

https://blog.commerceblock.com/attestation-with-mainstay-78f06feb3aea

Hi nicosey. Can you give a quick summary of how this differs from Blockstream's Liquid?

[tomt1664]

Appreciate any feedback

https://blog.commerceblock.com/attestation-with-mainstay-78f06feb3aea

Hi nicosey. Can you give a quick summary of how this differs from Blockstream's Liquid?

Liquid is a permissioned sidechain where you can move Bitcoins into and out of it via a 2-way federated peg. To do this you would send Bitcoins to a special output on the Bitcoin blockchain, and then 'Liquid Bitcoins' would be created and issued to you on the Liquid sidechain - which you can then transact with faster confirmations and more privacy than on the Bitcoin mainchain. You must trust the block-signing federation to not collude to double-spend against you on the sidechain by creating more than one version on the chain (this is prevented in Bitcoin with PoW mining).

The mainstay concept is nothing to do with 2-way pegging, but is designed to remove the trust required in the block-signing federation - it transfers the trustless immutability of the Bitcoin blockchain to the sidechain. It secures the sidechain in a similar way to merge-mining, but without requiring the cooperation or permission of Bitcoin miners.

There is nothing stopping Liquid, or any other sidechain, from using this method to secure the chain.