A strange idea of labeling bitcoins

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Imagine that ASIC manufacturers have found a parallel application for their devices, which is in demand by millions of consumers, and not by tens of thousands of miners.
The idea would have gained more interest.

There is nothing to imagine. Has someone forgotten what the 'AS' part of ASIC stands for? Application Specific. The chips can only do 1 thing - process hashes.

Now perhaps someone can come up with a different purpose other than validation that the results of matching a hash can be used for but the mfgrs have nothing to do with that part of the equation.

Ah I see! You mean like what if instead of making circuits that are application specific to Bitcoin mining, they would make processing units that could also be used for, let's say, graphics? 🤔

Such as a RISC processor or GPU? What a ground breaking idea...

[HeRetiK]

Ah I see! You mean like what if instead of making circuits that are application specific to Bitcoin mining, they would make processing units that could also be used for, let's say, graphics? 🤔

Such as a RISC processor or GPU? What a ground breaking idea...

Yes! Or if they continue to target business clients instead they could create something like an array of gates with programmable fields 🤔


But yeah, to get back on topic: ASIC miners as used for Bitcoin can do literally nothing else but process hashes. You could use the excess heat for heating, but that's about it as far as consumer use cases are concerned.

[Carlton Banks]

But yeah, to get back on topic: ASIC miners as used for Bitcoin can do literally nothing else but process hashes. You could use the excess heat for heating, but that's about it as far as consumer use cases are concerned.

whoa, that's some 18th century thermodynamics thinking you're stuck in there homie

we can take:

• the excess heat
• all the consumer use cases
• the color of the miner they  were all hashed on

...and put them all on blockchains! Then we put those on.... ONE BIG BLOCKCHAIN!

actually, let's just hash every possible thing in the whole world, and see if it doesn't unify quantum physics and relativity?! even if it doesn't, the rig would be awesome ;P we could put it on a monster truck?


sorry, I'm a little bored of this thread

[HereticalSmile]

sorry, I'm a little bored of this thread

I don't have everything ready yet to dispel boredom. But the topic is part (and not very mandatory) of another, much larger and not boring at all.

[HereticalSmile]

The hardware you're looking for isn't ASIC, but FPGA (Field-programmable gate array) which have good performance (compared with CPU/GPU) while can be used for multiple application.

In the topic of bitcoin tags, of course, the most interesting question is the algorithmic proof that calculations (any flow of information) had a specific hardware source. If algorithmic is impossible, then it would be interesting to know about the ways that make it as difficult as possible to replace (things like mac, IMEI, etc.)

[kaggie]

But yeah, to get back on topic: ASIC miners as used for Bitcoin can do literally nothing else but process hashes. You could use the excess heat for heating, but that's about it as far as consumer use cases are concerned.

whoa, that's some 18th century thermodynamics thinking you're stuck in there homie

we can take:

• the excess heat
• all the consumer use cases
• the color of the miner they  were all hashed on

Convert the heat generated from hashing back into electricity, which is then put into more hashing, which is put into electricity....

You could call it
The perpetual mining machine!

In the topic of bitcoin tags, of course, the most interesting question is the algorithmic proof that calculations (any flow of information) had a specific hardware source. If algorithmic is impossible, then it would be interesting to know about the ways that make it as difficult as possible to replace (things like mac, IMEI, etc.)

Bitcoin can be tagged as is.  Tags can exist in blockchain in the forms of : private keys, public addresses, balances, addresses of the transfers to/from.  This of course relies on the ability of someone who has access to those keys, can prove the tags, etc. The question is whether you can trust the tags.  (If someone has a private key with a specific tag, then it relies on their willingness to share that private key.)  There aren't any tags in existence that are immutable -- MAC and IP addresses can be spoofed. Blockchain is the closest immutable human creation due to the wide distribution of nodes/ledgers.

For a tag to follow a specific coin, you might need a different specific ledger.  Maybe you could sell a mined coin in the form of the coin itself, with an associated NFT that follows a dominant line? I don't understand NFTs, but that seems like it would be doable. Or the miner could list coins produced by it on a simple website...

For a hardware specific tag, you'd have a key that could sign for the veracity of the generating hardware. I can't think of a 100% hardware/software method of verification yet that was completely devoid of the human element to prevent fraud.

But what happens as soon as the coin is mixed with others?

[Carlton Banks]

Convert the heat generated from hashing back into electricity, which is then put into more hashing, which is put into electricity....

You could call it
The perpetual mining machine!

YES! INFINITY BITCOINS!

[HereticalSmile]

But what happens as soon as the coin is mixed with others?

In bitcoin, there is no absolute mixing, since all the inputs and outputs are always known, there are no balances in the chain, only history.

But for an optimal and complementary scheme of separating the value of bitcoin from the value contributed by specific manufacturers of devices for miners, it is just possible to think about creating side chains of manufacturers. In which there would be just a real separation.

[kaggie]

But what happens as soon as the coin is mixed with others?

In bitcoin, there is no absolute mixing, since all the inputs and outputs are always known, there are no balances in the chain, only history.

But for an optimal and complementary scheme of separating the value of bitcoin from the value contributed by specific manufacturers of devices for miners, it is just possible to think about creating side chains of manufacturers. In which there would be just a real separation.

If tags were added to each bitcoin that was mined, then you would eventually result in infinite tags to a child coins after used coins are mixed.

Labelling coin is a bit late at any rate based on a miner, considering 18/21 M are already mined, and everyone can have a record of the inputs/outputs/chain history. A miner in 2021 could probably just declare that they mined particular coin to all if they want and it was done under X requirements, considering the difficulties of mining and requirements for tax reporting.

[HereticalSmile]

If tags were added to each bitcoin that was mined, then you would eventually result in infinite tags to a child coins after used coins are mixed.

Is it now impossible for any transaction in bitcoin to find out through a retrospective study in which blocks all the components were extracted by the miners? I do not know how difficult it is to calculate, but since there are all inputs and outputs in the circuit, it is certainly possible.

The protocol, by the way, could provide that in the bitcoin chain, the additional value from the manufacturer lives no more than n blocks, so as not to really load the main chain and motivate miners to immediately output the mined bitcoins into the side chain to clear the bits from the labels and receive the manufacturer's tokens.

[kaggie]

Would this result in a lack of fungibility?
How would you prevent label abuse? At what point should you prevent labelling? How many labels would you consider possible or feasible?

Should we label every coin based on who owned the previous transactions as to whether they were a republican/democrat/libertarian/socialist, or whether they believed in christianity/judaism/islam/shintoism/buddhism/etc?

I understand that certain things become collectors items and criminality should be traced, but that seems already inbuilt, so I don't understand the further uses of such a thing. A manufacturer can give plenty of incentives to use their own equipment. I'm sure they could come up with other methods to provide tracking mechanisms if they really wanted to, but would a manufacturer risk changing the fundamentals of blockchain or potential security holes?

[HereticalSmile]

Should we label every coin based on who owned the previous transactions as to whether they were a republican/democrat/libertarian/socialist, or whether they believed in christianity/judaism/islam/shintoism/buddhism/etc?

Yes, why not? The only question is what kind of community, who will fill this label with value. Equipment manufacturers were mentioned first of all, because they could potentially really give this additional value quite noticeable, they could implement their own sub-chain. And also, the question of the possibility of some proof of mining on the equipment of a particular manufacturer is still relevant.

[kaggie]

Yes, why not? The only question is what kind of community, who will fill this label with value.

I'd say that is a pretty big question.

Specifically, labeling coin with previous political beliefs would destroy the functionality of the coin by limiting the transaction ability of users. Some might view such labels as creating a dystopian control over the world. In reality, enacting such labels users would cause a coin with a high barrier to entry, and users would not use it and move to a coin with lower barriers for use. Practically, this would also require a lot more synching of data between nodes, making it less distributed and secure.

I can see some argument for a manufacturer labeling coin mined by it, but that is a marketing method that doesn't require a change of bitcoin protocol, and can be done wholly off-chain.

What makes us limit ourselves to trustless and only cryptography in order to obtain the required functionality?

Can you name any 100% trustworthy source? I can't.

All actors will inherently behave within their own self interest.
Your self interest and my self interest are not the same and will occasionally compete.
Some actors will find ways to abuse any system for their own self interest, so it's best to consider safe guards.

It's best to find ways in which all actors are awarded for acting in a mutual self interest.

[Carlton Banks]

Should we label every coin based on who owned the previous transactions as to whether they were a republican/democrat/libertarian/socialist, or whether they believed in christianity/judaism/islam/shintoism/buddhism/etc?

Yes, why not?

because

• it's easy to fake
• if the units of a currency aren't uniform, acceptance could be harmed

really you're straying into various ideological territories with this thread, which is not what the dev and tech forum is about


technically, what you're suggesting cannot be achieved, which you readily conceded earlier. why are you still talking?

[HereticalSmile]

technically, what you're suggesting cannot be achieved, which you readily conceded earlier. why are you still talking?

There are still technical aspects here, even without ideology. For example, if you drop the topic of proving that a digital label corresponds to a real physical object (even unsubstantiated attempts to do this also have technical aspects), but simply give the miner the right to put this label.

 Then such a technical aspect has already been raised here. How difficult will it be in any transactions to allocate tags attached to coins during mining? I assume that this complexity is not infinite, but how big - it would be interesting to understand. Immediately, the second question arises technically, does it make sense to limit the lifetime of tags inside the bitcoin chain to a certain number of blocks?

I thought there was some dislike in your question. Or was it just my imagination?

[Carlton Banks]

simply give the miner the right to put this label.

they've got it already, they can sign any data and put it in their block reward transaction. someone has said this in the thread already

[HereticalSmile]

they've got it already, they can sign any data and put it in their block reward transaction.

And this fact immediately offers to solve many applicative, including technical problems.  In what applications is this already used?  After all, you can do interesting things with this feature.
For example, sub-chains without pre-mining, but with PoS, in which coins are also mined by bitcoin miners, in case they freeze their bitcoins in these sub-chains for a certain number of bitcoin blocks (the lifetime set by the protocol of this sub-chain), on some kind of smart contracts.
I wonder if this has not been implemented anywhere yet.

[ABCbits]

they've got it already, they can sign any data and put it in their block reward transaction.

And this fact immediately offers to solve many applicative, including technical problems.  In what applications is this already used?  After all, you can do interesting things with this feature.
For example, sub-chains without pre-mining, but with PoS, in which coins are also mined by bitcoin miners, in case they freeze their bitcoins in these sub-chains for a certain number of bitcoin blocks (the lifetime set by the protocol of this sub-chain), on some kind of smart contracts.
I wonder if this has not been implemented anywhere yet.

OP_RETURN already have some usage, such as
1. Colored coins. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Colored_Coins
2. Connecting to side chain. https://blog.omni.foundation/2019/07/16/omni-state-of-the-layer/
3. Storing IPFS hash. https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/81449

And some other usage which i don't bother to mention.