Charging rent on the bitcoin network, is that a bad idea?

[ABCbits]

why are people trying to make it sound like the bitcoin network is soo expensive when no one ever complains about youtube or netflix (1gb SD, 3gb HD, 7GB 4k.. for just 2 hours)

While i agree with block size increase, your comparison isn't fair. Simply using few hundred GB/month is easier than verify and store it on your device.

Yeah I guess more security but in reality, you can sign an offline transaction and broadcast it without needing to be a full node. Isn't that just as secure?

And you sign that transaction based on... block explorers? Some data from SPV nodes? You fill your transaction inputs based on trust that those previous transaction outputs really exist. But in case of some attacks you could be convinced to sign coins that never existed at all.

Or attack which give you wrong balance of input which could lead to overpay TX fee.

Now about your statement that bitcoin is "the only decentralized currency in existence" that's a pretty big statement. I would be willing to grant that bitcoin is the biggest decentralized currency in existence but I'm not sure how one comes to the conclusion that it's the only one.

I'd love it if you could show me another one!
The others are either centralized or semi centralized or simply they are not currencies.

How about Monero?

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[pooya87]

How about Monero?

Monero is probably the closest project to being a decentralized currency and I don't really have any criticism of it but I do have concerns.
One of it is the scaling issues it has which is a lot worse that what bitcoin faces and it will make it hard for XMR to be a good currency.
Another concern of mine is how easy it is for them to push forks! The lack of resistance is not always a good sign, it could also be because of low node count and lack of distribution.

[BlackHatCoiner]

The others are either centralized or semi centralized or simply they are not currencies.

Another way that it it distinguishes it is the work that is done. There are uncountable of repositories related with Bitcoin, from Bitcoin Core and other clients to SPVs servers, payment processors, second layers, wallets, block explorers, libraries etc.

Then there are the books, the talks, the tutorials, the articles, this forum! Generally, there's a high degree of dedication which makes it easier for every newcomer to learn and build interesting things.

How about Monero?

I recently found out that the community decided to change the mining economics. I don't know if that is subject to decentralization, but it's a serious downside.

[larry_vw_1955]

And you sign that transaction based on... block explorers? 

yes, all the big ones. if they all agree then that's almost as solid as running my own node I would think.

You fill your transaction inputs based on trust that those previous transaction outputs really exist.

that's right. and the probability that they all agree and all are wrong would be neglibible as I check additional block explorers for confirmation.

But in case of some attacks you could be convinced to sign coins that never existed at all.

and what would be the harm in doing that? once i realized the issue i could just respend on the correct chain right?

[larry_vw_1955]

Security is not limited to whether or not you leak your private key.
For example without a full node you can not be sure if your unconfirmed transaction is really unconfirmed or the third parties you rely on are lying to you. Or you can't know if a confirmed received transaction is your tip is still confirmed or double spent while you are stuck on a stale chain. That's just two examples off the top of my head.

Well those things might be true but having access to a wide variety of blockchain explorers solves the issues of security as you define them I would think.

I'd love it if you could show me another one!
The others are either centralized or semi centralized or simply they are not currencies.

As someone else mentioned, monero. You dont think it is decentralized enough but it actually has a better situation than bitcoin with regards to its mining algorithm. It's closer to the idea of "one cpu one vote" than bitcoin that's for sure.   bitcoin will never be that again. but monero will be. not saying monero is easy to mine but its mining algo is probably better at encouraging decentralization over the longterm whereas bitcoin's is just the opposite!
 
With that said though, things like Litecoin seem to be somewhat decentralized:

Litecoin was launched with the aim of being the "silver" to Bitcoin's "gold." Like Bitcoin, Litecoin is a peer-to-peer internet currency. It is a fully decentralized, open-source, global payment network. Lee developed Litecoin with the aim to improve on Bitcoin's shortcomings.

Your wallet normally has more than one address in it whether it is HD or not.

Some wallets I used were that way but it is possible to use a single address as your wallet. Sending change back to it, etc.

Another concern of mine is how easy it is for them to push forks! The lack of resistance is not always a good sign, it could also be because of low node count and lack of distribution.

Don't worry about that. They push solid stuff out the door.

[pooya87]

not saying monero is easy to mine but its mining algo is probably better at encouraging decentralization over the longterm whereas bitcoin's is just the opposite!

That's a naive conclusion. One might say that due to constant changing of the mining algorithm and lack of interest in the project, there hasn't been enough miners to grow the hashrate. There is a lot of smaller altcoins with low hashrate that you can mine with CPU!
This also increases the risk of 51% attack due to a much lower attack cost, even though such attacks are slightly different in a privacy oriented cryptocurrency such as Monero.

With that said though, things like Litecoin seem to be somewhat decentralized:

Litecoin is a weak copy coin that only changed block interval, total supply and mining algorithm to what they promised to be "ASIC resistant" which it clearly wasn't. All these changes are meaningless and without real innovation, the rest they just copy paste from bitcoin.

Don't worry about that. They push solid stuff out the door.

The concern is not about the quality of the stuff.

[garlonicon]

It's closer to the idea of "one cpu one vote" than bitcoin that's for sure.  bitcoin will never be that again

I think you are wrong and it is technically possible to decentralize mining. Some ideas are still in progress, but I think someone will come up with a solution, sooner or later. The easiest and the most inefficient is of course collecting all shares from all miners and treating 80-byte headers in the same way as transactions, but just on a different layer. But that doesn't scale, in the same way as blockchains doesn't scale, and you eventually have to process up to max_number_of_miners*max_block_size per each superblock, so it should be optimized or solved in a different way.

but monero will be

I don't think so, because the mining algorithm is not the problem. You could have decentralized mining on double SHA-256, you just need some way to solo mine a million times easier block and get a million times smaller reward for doing that in pure P2P way. Also, if you complicate the mining algorithm, then it is harder to verify blocks, you can clearly see that on CPU-based coins, where initial chain download is quite fast, but initial chain verification takes a lot of hours, even if the size of the chain is around 1 GB. You can run two offline nodes, one will have the whole chain and one will be empty. You can even use SSD and have everything downloaded, it will still take a lot of hours, just because hashing block headers will take a lot of time (and it will be a disaster if that coin also uses the same algorithm everywhere, for example to build a merkle tree, then checking 1000 blocks can be as hard as mining one block!).

Some wallets I used were that way but it is possible to use a single address as your wallet. Sending change back to it, etc.

There is no reason to harm your privacy, where you can use a brand new address each time (that could come from some HD wallet), and pay the same fees.

[larry_vw_1955]

That's a naive conclusion. One might say that due to constant changing of the mining algorithm and lack of interest in the project, there hasn't been enough miners to grow the hashrate. There is a lot of smaller altcoins with low hashrate that you can mine with CPU!
This also increases the risk of 51% attack due to a much lower attack cost, even though such attacks are slightly different in a privacy oriented cryptocurrency such as Monero.

they used to have to change the algo constantly because of asics.

Litecoin is a weak copy coin that only changed block interval, total supply and mining algorithm to what they promised to be "ASIC resistant" which it clearly wasn't. All these changes are meaningless and without real innovation, the rest they just copy paste from bitcoin.

And yet litecoin is fast and has very low transaction fees. making it more attractive (than btc) in some ways.

The concern is not about the quality of the stuff.

ok then?

One of it is the scaling issues it has which is a lot worse that what bitcoin faces and it will make it hard for XMR to be a good currency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem
7 transactions per second is pretty bad it can't get much worse right?

at least monero has dynamic block sizes.

Another concern of mine is how easy it is for them to push forks! The lack of resistance is not always a good sign, it could also be because of low node count and lack of distribution.

Or maybe it's just that you don't understand the monero ecosystem. They don't call them "forks" they call them periodic "network upgrades". for example in nov 2019 they upgraded the network with RandomX and a few other minor things. we might imagine that the userbase generally saw this as a very big net positive as they probably do with all such upgrades and  thus went along with it.

oh and by the way, the amount of "forks" as you call them has not been every 6 months like it used to be. it's alot less in the last few years.

[garlonicon]

7 transactions per second is pretty bad it can't get much worse right?

I think we don't have to increase block size to increase transactions per second, because there are non-interactive ways to batch multiple transactions into one, making it smaller and serving more users with less bytes, and in my opinion that's the way Bitcoin should take.

They don't call them "forks" they call them periodic "network upgrades".

It doesn't matter how they call them. If you are forced to upgrade every time, then it is bad for the stability of the protocol. Bitcoin is going to do hard-forks only when forced to (for example in 2038 the current version of Bitcoin Core will be incompatible, because of reaching 0x7fffffff time value and handling time in a wrong way during convertions, for now it is the only case that could need a hard-fork I can see).

[larry_vw_1955]

I think we don't have to increase block size to increase transactions per second,

i think you do.

because there are non-interactive ways to batch multiple transactions into one, making it smaller and serving more users with less bytes, and in my opinion that's the way Bitcoin should take.

how?

It doesn't matter how they call them. If you are forced to upgrade every time, then it is bad for the stability of the protocol.

that all depends. i wouldn't say i agree with your statement though. because it is a sweeping generality.

Bitcoin is going to do hard-forks only when forced to (for example in 2038 the current version of Bitcoin Core will be incompatible, because of reaching 0x7fffffff time value and handling time in a wrong way during convertions, for now it is the only case that could need a hard-fork I can see).

bitcoin will do hard forks whenever someone wants to fork it. not when "bitcoin" decides to.


batching multiple transactions seems like putting people into a 2nd class citizen heirarchy with regards to their money transfer no thanks. bitcoin is already slow enough as it is. also you can't really predict the future and when and under what circumstances bitcoin might be required to do a hard fork.

[garlonicon]

because there are non-interactive ways to batch multiple transactions into one, making it smaller and serving more users with less bytes, and in my opinion that's the way Bitcoin should take.

how?

For example by using things like MimbleWimble or CoinPool, but I think more will come. People are creative.

bitcoin will do hard forks whenever someone wants to fork it. not when "bitcoin" decides to.

Yes, you can always do some hard-fork, but if you are in economic minority, then you will end up with some other coin than "Bitcoin". There are many forks like BCH or BSV, but I think some useful features like SIGHASH_GROUP could be imported (like Schnorr signatures were), and the main difference will be just a block size, where Bitcoin will batch things in non-interactive way, when other chains will grow ad infinitum and call "scaling" something that does not scale. If you need 1000x bigger blocks to reach 1000x more transactions per second, that's not scaling, that's linear growth, where you need 1000x more resources, so you have the same scale.

also you can't really predict the future and when and under what circumstances bitcoin might be required to do a hard fork

In case of timestamps, it is possible to set your system clock to 2038 or 2106 and see that the chain will stop or the client will crash. So in this case I am sure that the newest version of Bitcoin Core cannot handle it here and now. So I know for sure that we would need a hard-fork in this case, unless we are going to do weird tricks, like replacing the latest block and pretending that the chain is still going forward. Maybe some hard-fork will be needed in other cases, but for timestamps I am quite sure about that.