Help a newbie; why is hashing not done once but twice during Bitcoin transaction

[o_e_l_e_o]

Changing the order of transactions in a block could be computationaly "expensive" for miners, because you need to recompute the merkle tree hashes to some amount, depending on the position of the changed transactions in the merkle tree, where the merkle tree hash contributes to the block header. Miners very likely choose the least expensive way to reset the nonce for further needed hash crunching.

Miners very commonly use the extraNonce field to reset the nonce, which suffers from the exact same problem. With the coinbase transaction being the first in the block, it is the left most node at the bottom level of the Merkle tree, so all the hashes running up that left side need to be redone. Even in a block with up to 4,096 transactions, that's only 12 hashes. Swapping the order of two transactions, while not commonly used, would be the exact same number of hashes if you swapped transactions next to each other.

[1714140892]

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[larry_vw_1955]

There would have to be some type of cryptographic protocol to validate timestamps.

You are now adding additional size to every transaction, thereby increasing fees, decreasing block space, and increase transaction time, as well as adding additional verification requirements for every transaction at every node, which will again slow things down, delay propagation, increase stale blocks, and so on. There are a lot of downsides to doing this.

But I was thinking you could have a separate blockchain that served as a timestamp server. When/if someone on bitcoin wanted to timestamp their transaction they have to submit it to to the timeserver first to get it timestamped. Then they can submit the timestamped transaction to the bitcoin network. Bitcoin network verifies that the transaction is valid according to normal consensus rules AND it verifies the timestamp is valid by consulting the timestamp server.

There would need to be a very good reason or major benefit to such a feature.

And then lets say a quantum computer was trying to look at pending transactions in the mempool to try and find public keys to crack. It would not be able to do anything with the mempool transactions which contained valid timestamps. Such transactions would be impossible to replace as they would stay in the mempool until confirmed.

a few small modifications on the bitcoin side but not alot. And the use of the timestamp server would of course be optional.

[kaggie]

It would not be able to do anything with the mempool transactions which contained valid timestamps. Such transactions would be impossible to replace as they would stay in the mempool until confirmed.

Off the top of my head, these two things would break 1) the ability for miners to choose whether to mine higher fee transactions over smaller fee transactions and 2) the replace-by-fee ability of users.

If you could come up with a perfect timestamp server solution, you could create a new kind of cryptocurrency rather than relying on bitcoin and its derivatives. Not being able to trust the perfect timing of any event is at the heart of bitcoin. I currently doubt that a perfect-timestamped currency is possible while being trustless.

But yes, you could have transactions timestamped and saved now in the blockchain like in the OP_RETURN field without core protocol changes. I maintain my previous position about whether you could ever trust those timestamps. You would also need to come up with a trustless timestamp server, otherwise this would break. I don't agree that all things need perfect timing -- look at "Activity" on this forum. It updates every ten minutes. This prevents all sorts of flaws (like ddos) that would occur if it updated immediately, but ten minutes is still fast enough to be useful.

[o_e_l_e_o]

But I was thinking you could have a separate blockchain that served as a timestamp server.

I don't see how this solves the problem. You broadcast your transaction first to the timestamp network, and have to wait for it to be confirmed for it to receive a timestamp, and then broadcast it a second time to the bitcoin network. There is still a time delay between broadcast and confirmation, except it is on the timestamped network instead of the bitcoin network. Plus then there is a further delay while you broadcast the transaction a second time and wait for confirmation.

And who is running this second chain? What is their incentive to do so? Do I have to pay double the fees for my transaction?

And then lets say a quantum computer was trying to look at pending transactions in the mempool to try and find public keys to crack. It would not be able to do anything with the mempool transactions which contained valid timestamps. Such transactions would be impossible to replace as they would stay in the mempool until confirmed.

Long before we reach the stage where transactions are vulnerable to quantum computers solving the ECDSA in the ~10 minutes it takes for the transaction to confirm, we will have forked to a quantum resistant algorithm, otherwise every coin in a reused address (which number several million) would have long been stolen.

[larry_vw_1955]

It would not be able to do anything with the mempool transactions which contained valid timestamps. Such transactions would be impossible to replace as they would stay in the mempool until confirmed.

Off the top of my head, these two things would break 1) the ability for miners to choose whether to mine higher fee transactions over smaller fee transactions and 2) the replace-by-fee ability of users.

Yeah, those are more minor issues though. I think an even larger issue is not every miner has the same mempool. Now if I broadcasted a timestamped transaction and got it into some miners' mempool but the quantum computer hacked my public key and submitted a transaction and got it into some other miners mempool before my transaction got confirmed then that would be a problem.  

If you could come up with a perfect timestamp server solution, you could create a new kind of cryptocurrency rather than relying on bitcoin and its derivatives.

well apparently it has already been done.
 

I currently doubt that a perfect-timestamped currency is possible while being trustless.

Proof-of-History: A Clock Before Consensus
Because nodes in a distributed network cannot trust the timestamp on messages received from other nodes, the biggest problem in distributed networks is agreeing on the time and order in which events happen.Solana uses Proof of History (PoH) to overcome this problem by establishing a cryptographically safe source of time throughout the network. Proof of History is a high-frequency Verifiable Delay Function (VDF) that takes a certain number of steps to evaluate but provides a unique result that can be publicly confirmed.Because they can trust the date and sequencing of the messages they’ve received, nodes may generate the next block without having to align itself with the entire network beforehand. As a result, the consensus overhead is reduced.

i'm not saying solana is the greatest thing in the world but they seem to have achieved a trustless timestamped currency. would you agree? i'm a little bit unclear on how they keep timestamps in sync though...

I don't see how this solves the problem. You broadcast your transaction first to the timestamp network, and have to wait for it to be confirmed for it to receive a timestamp, and then broadcast it a second time to the bitcoin network. There is still a time delay between broadcast and confirmation, except it is on the timestamped network instead of the bitcoin network. Plus then there is a further delay while you broadcast the transaction a second time and wait for confirmation.

you don't broadcast your entire transaction to the timestamp network. you just broadcast its hash. the timestamp server would incorporate the hash into the next hash it computes so that you could or anyone (the bitcoin network) could verify your hash got incorporated into the hash chain at a certain point in time. that's what i was thinking.

And who is running this second chain? What is their incentive to do so? Do I have to pay double the fees for my transaction?

Anyone I guess could set up such a blockchain timestamping timeserver. I don't know what the incentive would be other than to perform its stated purpose. But it would need to figure out a way to make money. There might be a coin for the timeserver network that you have to pay with to have a timestamp created for something. There are services that allow you to timestamp hashes of documents. But their resolution on a timescale is pretty bad though. Some of them are free some you have to pay after you do more than a certain number in a given time period...and from what i've seen they just piggyback off of the bitcoin,eth or some other blockchain.

[kaggie]

Yeah, those are more minor issues though. I think an even larger issue is not every miner has the same mempool. Now if I broadcasted a timestamped transaction and got it into some miners' mempool but the quantum computer hacked my public key and submitted a transaction and got it into some other miners mempool before my transaction got confirmed then that would be a problem.  

I agree that at least one of those is a minor issue, but the other is important to avoid spam transactions.I could think of more issues but think this topic of time distribution is very interesting to not disparage it completely (even if I think it is impractical and dangerous for bitcoin).

well apparently it has already been done.

Proof-of-History: A Clock Before Consensus
Because nodes in a distributed network cannot trust the timestamp on messages received from other nodes, the biggest problem in distributed networks is agreeing on the time and order in which events happen.Solana uses Proof of History (PoH) to overcome this problem by establishing a cryptographically safe source of time throughout the network. ....

That's a great counter-example.  I don't understand how Solana does this immediately, and don't immediately believe it can perfectly time-distribute due to the issues I've mentioned previously.  My gut feeling is that a perfect time-server with trustless distribution is impossible and is a marketing technique.   I will look into it more because I see a lot of advantages possible with trustless-time-distribution with other technologies, keeping my huge reservations against it for a currency. They seem to make the assumption that you are in a race and have to be first to transact or compute, which is a poor assumption for a currency but not other tech imho.

Now if I broadcasted a timestamped transaction and got it into some miners' mempool but the quantum computer hacked my public key and submitted a transaction and got it into some other miners mempool before my transaction got confirmed then that would be a problem.  

If quantum computing was as an issue like this where we couldn't protect against it, we'd probably have to go back to exchanging physical gold or something that could actually store value.

[BlackHatCoiner]

[...]

Even if it's possible, which I highly doubt along with kaggie for the reasons we've outlined, but say IF. Does it worth it? You're going to increase transaction size which will lead to higher fees and less block space, and which will make verification less efficient, for timestamping a timeserver? Doesn't it sound ridiculous?

If you want to know when a transaction was broadcasted to the network, regardless of when it was signed, then run your own node and do the timestamp yourself. Simple as that.

[odolvlobo]

Proof-of-History: A Clock Before Consensus
Because nodes in a distributed network cannot trust the timestamp on messages received from other nodes, the biggest problem in distributed networks is agreeing on the time and order in which events happen.Solana uses Proof of History (PoH) to overcome this problem by establishing a cryptographically safe source of time throughout the network. Proof of History is a high-frequency Verifiable Delay Function (VDF) that takes a certain number of steps to evaluate but provides a unique result that can be publicly confirmed.Because they can trust the date and sequencing of the messages they’ve received, nodes may generate the next block without having to align itself with the entire network beforehand. As a result, the consensus overhead is reduced.

i'm not saying solana is the greatest thing in the world but they seem to have achieved a trustless timestamped currency. would you agree? i'm a little bit unclear on how they keep timestamps in sync though...

From what I can tell, Solana's PoH requires a node to use standardized hardware in order to ensure that the time is synchronized.

[larry_vw_1955]

[...]

Even if it's possible, which I highly doubt along with kaggie for the reasons we've outlined, but say IF. Does it worth it? You're going to increase transaction size which will lead to higher fees and less block space, and which will make verification less efficient, for timestamping a timeserver? Doesn't it sound ridiculous?

So either you doubt that solana exists or you doubt that it is timestamping transactions. If you've ever used solana, you would notice that confirmation times are almost immediate. There's hardly any waiting at all, at least the couple times I tested it out. And the transaction fees for sending is tiny. Even smaller than litecoin. So it seems more effficent and lower fees, the opposite of what you are suggesting. Now I'm not sure how many nodes they have running, maybe it's not as decentralized as bitcoin? is that your problem with it?

If you want to know when a transaction was broadcasted to the network, regardless of when it was signed, then run your own node and do the timestamp yourself. Simple as that.

or use a blockchain that has advanced technology that can timestamp transactions simple as that right?

From what I can tell, Solana's PoH requires a node to use standardized hardware in order to ensure that the time is synchronized.

what do you mean by "standardized hardware"?

[kaggie]

So either you doubt that solana exists or you doubt that it is timestamping transactions. If you've ever used solana, you would notice that confirmation times are almost immediate. There's hardly any waiting at all, at least the couple times I tested it out. And the transaction fees for sending is tiny. Even smaller than litecoin. So it seems more effficent and lower fees, the opposite of what you are suggesting. Now I'm not sure how many nodes they have running, maybe it's not as decentralized as bitcoin? is that your problem with it?

or use a blockchain that has advanced technology that can timestamp transactions simple as that right?

what do you mean by "standardized hardware"?

Solana states on their page that they don't perform rapid trustless time-stamp distribution, so they haven't solved anything on this theme.
"Proof of History is not a consensus mechanism, but it is used to improve the performance of Solana's Proof of Stake consensus." https://docs.solana.com/cluster/synchronization
My credit card transactions are processed on distributed servers across the world, are time-stamped and have fast transaction speeds, and has had that for decades. (I believe lightning network of bitcoin does the same? I'm ok with fast transactions. Daily-use requires that.)


A cryptocurrency designed around a rapid timestamp is destined to fail as a store of value, simple as that.
(A state currency is different because centralization is the feature.)
This is because a currency shouldn't have to worry about being in any race condition to transact. The goal is to trustlessly store value, not to spend it immediately. If you have to beat the others with processing at an inhumanly short amount of time, then this will push out people that don't have the best hardware on the market, which is nearly everyone. You force centralized use when there are time races. You prevent consensus because there is not enough time to send and verify to all nodes. A common person cannot be expected to have the fastest internet and computational power. Under race conditions, if a currency is not already adopted, you prevent adoption among the masses.
There is no such thing as standardized hardware when considering a currency used long term due to advances in computing. If there exists any advantage in going slightly faster or slower, someone will at some point exploit that.

[BlackHatCoiner]

So either you doubt that solana exists or you doubt that it is timestamping transactions.

I doubt Solana timestamps accurately every transaction that's made.

There's hardly any waiting at all, at least the couple times I tested it out. And the transaction fees for sending is tiny. Even smaller than litecoin. So it seems more effficent and lower fees, the opposite of what you are suggesting.

That's a false conclusion. Just because it has a 10MB block size, it doesn't mean it's efficient. Sure, it might have cheap fees, as any other altcoin, but this doesn't determine anything. Actually, with thousands of transactions per second and all this NFT mania, I can easily say that it's much more inefficient than bitcoin.

Now I'm not sure how many nodes they have running, maybe it's not as decentralized as bitcoin?

The number of nodes running is not so relevant with decentralization. The fact that they're using Proof-of-Stake and that there's a "Solana foundation" yells for centralization.

or use a blockchain that has advanced technology that can timestamp transactions simple as that right?

But, why should everyone be forced to have timestamped transactions just because you want it? Not only I find it unnecessary, but I don't want to have it as I'll have slightly less privacy and more expenses in fees.

[ABCbits]

Now I'm not sure how many nodes they have running, maybe it's not as decentralized as bitcoin? is that your problem with it?

Based on hardware requirement[1], it's definitely less decentralized compared with Bitcoin.

Now I'm not sure how many nodes they have running, maybe it's not as decentralized as bitcoin?

The number of nodes running is not so relevant with decentralization. The fact that they're using Proof-of-Stake and that there's a "Solana foundation" yells for centralization.

And there are many bigger concern and problem. The worst one is their cryptocurrency network down at least 3 times[2]. Justin Bons mention some of the problems[3], although i only verify few of them.

[1] https://docs.solana.com/running-validator/validator-reqs
[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/solanas-network-goes-down-for-the-third-time-in-less-than-six-months/ar-AASrd1t
[3] https://twitter.com/Justin_Bons/status/1514646388688232456#m

[larry_vw_1955]

Based on hardware requirement[1], it's definitely less decentralized compared with Bitcoin.

Uh, no. It is "Hardware Recommendations". And they're not really that steep. I bet I could build a validator way cheaper than I could some solo bitcoin mining rig. Reason being, the first miner I buy is going to cost more than a single validator. To say nothing about electricity costs...

Now I'm not sure how many nodes they have running, maybe it's not as decentralized as bitcoin?

The number of nodes running is not so relevant with decentralization. The fact that they're using Proof-of-Stake and that there's a "Solana foundation" yells for centralization.

Binance Smart chain is centralized. Solana, eth, not so much just based on # of nodes. And remember, anyone can run a validator.

And there are many bigger concern and problem. The worst one is their cryptocurrency network down at least 3 times[2]. Justin Bons mention some of the problems[3], although i only verify few of them.

people love to beat solana over the head with this item. fair enough but bitcoin has had its problems in the past too. things like inflation bugs.

I doubt Solana timestamps accurately every transaction that's made.

I think the idea is that Solana slots create a real world clock.

I can easily say that it's much more inefficient than bitcoin.

easy to say hard to prove.

But, why should everyone be forced to have timestamped transactions just because you want it? Not only I find it unnecessary, but I don't want to have it as I'll have slightly less privacy and more expenses in fees.

I'm not saying everyone should be forced to. I'm just saying it's nice to have alternative technologies that do things slightly differently. Bitcoin is not cheap as it is. it's fees are higher than solana by orders of magnitude. you probably get more anonymity with bitcoin than solana but i haven't heard anyone proving that.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Binance Smart chain is centralized. Solana, eth, not so much just based on # of nodes. And remember, anyone can run a validator.

A validator doesn't contribute a lot to decentralization, that's what I'm saying. It's actually nearly-zero contributory.

easy to say hard to prove.

Which thing? That it's more inefficient? I've already told you why, where do you disagree?

I'm not saying everyone should be forced to.

But, they all use the blockchain. I may also want to have my coins represented in cryptokitties, but that doesn't mean everyone should be forced to do that just because I want it.

Bitcoin is not cheap as it is.

Ugh. That is not relevant to the discussion...

[kaggie]

people love to beat solana over the head with this item. fair enough but bitcoin has had its problems in the past too. things like inflation bugs.

That's an unfair comparison. Solana has a $33 billion market cap and had a network crash last quarter. Bitcoin was the first major cryptocurrency. That bug was fixed when it had a few hundred thousand dollar market cap and when only a few dozen people knew about bitcoin or crypto in general. And bitcoin has been going strong since...

I'd prefer to discuss Solana here only where relevant to hashes and time stamping though. I think the main argument here was that Solana uses time-stamping, which is fine for it, but the question is why you would want this for Bitcoin. I don't recall seing an argument about how you could do distributed trustless rapid time-stamping (bitcoin does distributed trustless slow time-stamping), nor about why you would want to do such rapid time-stamping in Bitcoin.

[o_e_l_e_o]

You can correct me if I'm wrong here, since up until 10 minutes ago I knew literally nothing about Solana, but a quick read of their whitepaper and it seems they use relative timestamps rather than absolute timestamps. That is to say, they simply use a hash function on repeat, endless hashing the output of the previous hash, while occasionally concatenating the output of the hash function with some arbitrary data before hashing it again. This allows them to say that data was timestamped at "Hash number 346,124,805", for example, but it says nothing about whether hash 346,124,805 was a second ago, an hour ago, or a day ago. And that is without mentioning the inherent centralization of proof of stake and that they apparently use a small number of "leader nodes" which dictate to the rest of the network.

Still, as I said above and as other have repeated, why do you want to do this on bitcoin considering all the downsides? You need to have a reason beyond "Well, I think it would be nice". If altcoins want to base their insecure consensus mechanisms on timestamps, then go ahead. Bitcoin doesn't base its consensus mechanism on timestamps, and so timestamps are not relevant. Why add unnecessary bloat?

[larry_vw_1955]

You can correct me if I'm wrong here, since up until 10 minutes ago I knew literally nothing about Solana, but a quick read of their whitepaper and it seems they use relative timestamps rather than absolute timestamps. That is to say, they simply use a hash function on repeat, endless hashing the output of the previous hash, while occasionally concatenating the output of the hash function with some arbitrary data before hashing it again. This allows them to say that data was timestamped at "Hash number 346,124,805", for example, but it says nothing about whether hash 346,124,805 was a second ago, an hour ago, or a day ago. And that is without mentioning the inherent centralization of proof of stake and that they apparently use a small number of "leader nodes" which dictate to the rest of the network.

if you look at a solana block explorer, they put things into "slots". there might be 2000 transactions in a single slot. not sure how many slots occur per second but maybe more than 10. and every slot is timestamped. so with that type of volume flowing through, each transaction in a slot has the same timestamp down to the second. but yeah, you got the basic idea. except that slots do have a timestamp.

Still, as I said above and as other have repeated, why do you want to do this on bitcoin considering all the downsides? You need to have a reason beyond "Well, I think it would be nice". If altcoins want to base their insecure consensus mechanisms on timestamps, then go ahead. Bitcoin doesn't base its consensus mechanism on timestamps, and so timestamps are not relevant. Why add unnecessary bloat?

I didn't say I wanted to use solana's technology in bitcoin. i was just pointing out a blockchain that had the ability or seeming ability to timestamp each transaction but i can see that you would disagree with that vehemently. but it comes close.

That's an unfair comparison. Solana has a $33 billion market cap and had a network crash last quarter. Bitcoin was the first major cryptocurrency. That bug was fixed when it had a few hundred thousand dollar market cap and when only a few dozen people knew about bitcoin or crypto in general. And bitcoin has been going strong since...

and what was bitcoin's marketcap in 2018 when another serious bug was found that could have crippled it and brought it to its knees. hmm?
but you're not here to debate problems of solana vs bitcoin...

I'd prefer to discuss Solana here only where relevant to hashes and time stamping though. I think the main argument here was that Solana uses time-stamping, which is fine for it, but the question is why you would want this for Bitcoin.

well it uses a verifiable delay function and inserts transactions into a hash chain as it computes hashes at a very high speed. then it puts a timestamp on that set of transactions from what I understand so it's not like it's timestamping every single transaction. but since slot times are on the order of maybe 100 ms, that's kind of inconsequential. i just like to see a timestamp on everything. especially any transaction I do. so I know when I did it and things like that. a 10 second delay is one thing but a delay of 1 day is another. if I have to wait that long to see it confirmed, then theres a discrepancy between when i submitted it and when it got "timestamped". so when i look back at it in the future, i might get confused about when i actually submitted it.

I don't recall seing an argument about how you could do distributed trustless rapid time-stamping (bitcoin does distributed trustless slow time-stamping), nor about why you would want to do such rapid time-stamping in Bitcoin.

for all intents and purposes, it seems like solana does exactly that. but if someone disagrees then fine. that carrot is still for the taking by some clever engineering type.

why would you want to do it in bitcoin? well just imagine a quantum computer has 10 minutes to crack someone's public key and steal their utxos. if you could timestamp the transaction that they submitted then when the quantum computer came and tried to use the same utxos it would be denied. because its timestamp would be later. people keep saying "by then, we'll have moved to another quantum resistant algo." that's all well and good but until then it doesn't hurt to have a backup plan.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I didn't say I wanted to use solana's technology in bitcoin.

I wasn't talking about the technology, just about timestamps. I still don't see any reason why we should increase transaction size, fees, and bloat, by including unnecessary timestamps just because.

so when i look back at it in the future, i might get confused about when i actually submitted it.

So keep your own records or, as above, run your own node and timestamp everything locally. No point bogging down the entire network with unnecessary bloat simply for your own convenience.

people keep saying "by then, we'll have moved to another quantum resistant algo." that's all well and good but until then it doesn't hurt to have a backup plan.

But it does hurt. As we've said multiple times, you make every transaction larger, you make every transaction more expensive, you decrease the number of transactions which can fit in to every block, you slow down validation and propagation, you increase latency, and so on. You make the entire network more inefficient, all in the name of a "back up" plan which wouldn't be needed for decades, but actually won't be needed at all.

[kaggie]

and what was bitcoin's marketcap in 2018 when another serious bug was found that could have crippled it and brought it to its knees. hmm?
but you're not here to debate problems of solana vs bitcoin...

I had deliberately glossed over CVE-2018–17144 since it didn't fit that description.

That bug introduced by a developer in 2017 (PR 9049) would crash the program if someone tried a double spend. It could have brought 50% of the network to its knees by doing spam attacks, by doing very obvious spamming, and forcing them to reboot? It wouldn't affect the 50% that was running on older software that was not vulnerable to the bug. It was when SegWit was introduced so understandable how a bug could be introduced, and clearly there was community hesitancy to move to new, less tested code.

I'd still prefer to not discuss solana except where relevant to timestamping and hashing. Since Solana's novelty is its timestamp, well, ok.

well it uses a verifiable delay function and inserts transactions into a hash chain as it computes hashes at a very high speed. then it puts a timestamp on that set of transactions..

I don't think anyone had an issue that timestamping was possible, just that it required trust in service providing the timestamp.

for all intents and purposes, it seems like solana does exactly that. but if someone disagrees then fine. that carrot is still for the taking by some clever engineering type.

Solana introduces central services that allow for time-stamping. Their timestamping requires trust. They even described their timestamping as not being a consensus mechanism. If they had actually solved the timestamping problem, consensus could (and should) rely on that.

Solana sacrifices security and fairness by having leader nodes, introducing the possibility of ddos and eclipse attacks. Unlike a PoW system, the PoS and timehashing ironically prevents new independent verification of transaction history, so I think that is a flaw that will prevent major money in it.

For those interested in reading about tower-byzantine-fault-tolerance of Solana:
https://medium.com/solana-labs/tower-bft-solanas-high-performance-implementation-of-pbft-464725911e79

why would you want to do it in bitcoin? well just imagine a quantum computer has 10 minutes to crack someone's public key and steal their utxos. if you could timestamp the transaction that they submitted then when the quantum computer came and tried to use the same utxos it would be denied. because its timestamp would be later. people keep saying "by then, we'll have moved to another quantum resistant algo." that's all well and good but until then it doesn't hurt to have a backup plan.

A cryptocurrency can't rely on simple timestamping though, it requires trustless timestamping. It is at the heart of what bitcoin is trying to solve, and is still unsolved.

If you had the ability to timestamp so accurately, you could simply skip over bitcoin's methods. Like, you could develop a different cryptocurrency entirely from the ground up. It appears that Solana noticed that problem, but never solved it since it isn't their consensus mechanism. It is precisely the issue that made bitcoin what it currently is.

I can see quantum computing as being a potential issue in the future, and agree that it is worth thinking about. Timestamping wouldn't help against QC flaws - your transactions would be intercepted and delayed until someone could crack it, even if it took longer than 10 minutes. If QC became such an issue, I doubt that any internet banking dependent on those hashings would be possible, whether your standard banking, bitcoin or their derivatives, including any time-hashing cryptos. You'd have to consider very different paradigms I think.

As a complete aside, I don't think we will see trustless timestamping in any currency anytime soon. Anyone who developed that would have a clear technological advantage well outside of crypto that they would secure as many rights to it as possible, which would prevent them from giving it the open licensing necessary for a currency to develop. Solana, as broken-recorded, requires timestamping trust.

[larry_vw_1955]

As a complete aside, I don't think we will see trustless timestamping in any currency anytime soon. Anyone who developed that would have a clear technological advantage well outside of crypto that they would secure as many rights to it as possible, which would prevent them from giving it the open licensing necessary for a currency to develop. Solana, as broken-recorded, requires timestamping trust.

Well it's almost like you're setting it up to fail when you say "trustless timestamping" because in your mind that's something that is impossible. Here's an idea though. it may not be so practical currently but someday it could be.

Miners would have atomic clocks. required to have them. the point being :

"The best cesium fountain atomic clocks are now predicted to be off by less than one second in more than 50 million years."

so miners wouldn't need to "sync up" to each other to agree on the time very often. they could perform local computations.