Making Bitcoin and its Forks Turing Complete

[ABCbits]

would you prefer i store a 60KB picture of my daughter's cat using 700 transactions or 1 transaction?   

What we prefer is for bitcoin to be used as it was meant to, meaning as a payment system not a distributed database where arbitrary data is being stored.

Exactly, there are different protocol (such as IPFS and BitTorrent) which is more suitable for distributed data sharing. Besides, it's more practical to use OP_RETURN to share hash of the IPFS/BitTorrent instead.

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[Merkle Token Inc.]

What do ya'll think about the idea of using test-nets or even something like datacoin to host websites? -TN is impermanent which is fine because websites will be updated anyway...

[n0nce]

What do ya'll think about the idea of using test-nets or even something like datacoin to host websites? -TN is impermanent which is fine because websites will be updated anyway...

Why not use https://nginx.org/en/?

[garlonicon]

What do ya'll think about the idea of using test-nets or even something like datacoin to host websites?

I think it is cheaper than using mainnet. But even then, there is no reason to spam some existing network, where you can create your own, and only commit to some existing network, just to reuse its Proof of Work and commit for no additional cost. So, you can create your own blockchain, with your own content, add any rules you want (that would be more suitable for hosting files than for moving coins, so coding and adjusting consensus rules would be easier). Then, you can just place "OP_RETURN <someHash>" in a TapScript commitment every sometimes to get Proof of Work protection from some chain. It will be definitely cheaper and still very secure, without creating spam on the chain you want to commit to.

-TN is impermanent which is fine because websites will be updated anyway...

I think one commitment every sometimes for the whole network is all you need. If you only want to attach to the Proof of Work, you don't have to push things on-chain, you only need to create a commitment, then you can adjust content on your side, and everyone will still be able to verify if your commitment is correct, so every participant of your network will be sure that the history was not modified, and that your history is protected by Proof of Work of the chain you commit to.

[midnightmagic]

Since no one mentioned it yet, i'd like to mention that Rootstock (RSK) exist. It's Bitcoin sidechain which support smart contract with merged mining to Bitcoin network.

Rootstock is **not** a Bitcoin sidechain as per the sidechains whitepaper. It does **not** benefit from Bitcoin hashrate..

[midnightmagic]

the great #satoshi seemed to have no problems with storing our history on blockchains.

 “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”  

You do realise this had a very, very specific, useful and actually necessary purpose, though? Like, proving there was no pre-mine?
I'm not sure it's a good idea to store data on the blockchain by putting it into the UTXO set.
Using your numbers, Ripple and Greenpeace with their $5M anti-Bitcoin budget could have increased the UTXO set size to over 500GB over the course of roughly a year.
I understand that even if you don't put a tool out there that easily allows people to bloat like this, they can code it themselves. But it's still a pretty considerable attack vector if we see how much money is splurged on anti-Bitcoin campaigns these days.

It was just a time-based anchor. It does not prove the lack of a pre-mine. The proof of no premine was something any miner at the time could prove for themselves just by winning blocks.

[pooya87]

Rootstock is **not** a Bitcoin sidechain as per the sidechains whitepaper. It does **not** benefit from Bitcoin hashrate.

That is the definition of a sidechain, a separate chain that has its own mining, own blockchain, own network and the only link it has to bitcoin is usually a 2 way peg. It isn't really using bitcoin or its blockchain to benefit from its hashrate. It just benefits from its name!

RSK is a Bitcoin sidechain, so it has its own network, and its own blockchain, but not its own token.

[tromp]

Rootstock is **not** a Bitcoin sidechain as per the sidechains whitepaper. It does **not** benefit from Bitcoin hashrate.

That is the definition of a sidechain, a separate chain that has its own mining

RSK is a Bitcoin sidechain, so it has its own network, and its own blockchain, but not its own token.

A sidechain.borrows all coins from its host chain. So while it can not have its own block *subsidy*, it still has miners earning block rewards composed entirely of transaction fees.

[ABCbits]

Since no one mentioned it yet, i'd like to mention that Rootstock (RSK) exist. It's Bitcoin sidechain which support smart contract with merged mining to Bitcoin network.

Rootstock is **not** a Bitcoin sidechain as per the sidechains whitepaper. It does **not** benefit from Bitcoin hashrate.

Did you even check RSK mining page[1]? It's clearly stated it utilize Bitcoin mining hashrate. The paper[1] even state it.

Satoshi consensus, based on proof-of-work, is the only consensus system that prevents the rewrite of blockchain history at a low cost. The academic community is advancing the knowledge and study of proof-of-stake as an alternative, but currently PoW provides the highest proven security. Merge mining is a technique that allows Bitcoin miners to mine other cryptocurrencies simultaneously with nearly zero marginal cost. The same mining infrastructure and setup they use to mine Bitcoins is reused to mine RSK simultaneously. This means that, as RSK rewards the miners with additional transaction fees, the incentive for merged mining becomes high.

[1] https://mining.rsk.co/
[2] https://www.rsk.co/Whitepapers/RSK-White-Paper-Updated.pdf, page 15.

[pooya87]

A sidechain.borrows all coins from its host chain. So while it can not have its own block *subsidy*, it still has miners earning block rewards composed entirely of transaction fees.

It doesn't "borrow" coins, it pegs them to the host chain so it can have flexibility. It also has an entirely separate chain that can an entirely different consensus rules which means it could technically have block subsidy too although in a pegged coin it doesn't make much sense.

[n0nce]

It was just a time-based anchor. It does not prove the lack of a pre-mine. The proof of no premine was something any miner at the time could prove for themselves just by winning blocks.

How would it be possible to pre-mine if the genesis block has some newspaper headline in it that satoshi couldn't know in advance?

Without this text, he could have invented Bitcoin 10 years earlier and created 10 years worth of blocks (all without publishing), then created the whitepaper and a genesis block (that his 'private' chain is also based on) and let people mine. He would then have been able to attack the network as long as the chain was shorter than his private one by publishing it.

But due to this text in the genesis block, we can be fairly sure he didn't start a private chain before that newspaper article got published.

[takuma sato]

TC is just not safe and not a bright idea for a store of value, that is why no one with a brain is storing money on the Ethereum network. All these "im holding ETH long term" cryptonoobs will sooner or later pay the fee.

[NotATether]

the great #satoshi seemed to have no problems with storing our history on blockchains.

 The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.  

You do realise this had a very, very specific, useful and actually necessary purpose, though? Like, proving there was no pre-mine?
I'm not sure it's a good idea to store data on the blockchain by putting it into the UTXO set.
~

It was just a time-based anchor. It does not prove the lack of a pre-mine. The proof of no premine was something any miner at the time could prove for themselves just by winning blocks.

Not that a time-based anchor was ever necessary in the first place, as all bitcoin transactions are timestampped from the very beginning.


Also, it's prohibitively expensively to store arbitrary OP_RETURN data inside the blockchain as a result of the tx fees going over the roof in the years since then.