Your objections to BIP110?

[PepeLapiu]

I genuinely want to hear your objections to BIP110/RDTF.

Keep in mind this thread will be moderated by me. If your post contains personal attacks, it will be deleted.

Yes, I know, Dathon is Hitler reincarnated, and Luke Dashjr strangles cute puppies every Sunday for fun. But this is not conductive to a proper discussion.

Why do you oppose BIP110 Reduced Data Temporary Fork?

Edit: in your post please also explain your position on spam and your position of the direction core has been taking.

[(BTC)]

My main objection is that it is not needed. I've always felt this, but this post by gmaxwell put it so well:

If you have a solution-- by all means suggest it.  I think it's fundamental:  the resource needs to be limit in supply to control operating costs and to drive income for security.  Free market action turns that into a market.  If someone is outbidding what you're willing to pay that is a problem for you but it's also a success for the system.

Essentially this is just repeating the age old arguments against free markets-- they don't necessarily optimize for human flourishing to the extent a ideal spherical dictator in simple harmonic motion might be conjectured to do.   But we find that e.g. communist regimes tend to create appalling living conditions when they're not busy commit massing murder on unimaginable scale ... while dirty amoral capitalism has reliably produced the best living conditions ever known to humanity in spite of the fact that it regularly screws up some stuff.

Part of the issue is that there already are other solutions-- people just want to ignore them perhaps because stuff that works is boring.  You mention lightning but it's also perfectly possible for altruistic miners to skip over higher fee paying transactions and prioritize stuff they think is good for the welfare of the system.   And that works fine without coercive consensus changes or mob action that deprives people of individual choice.

And of course this also gets ignored because all this gnashing of teeth is over a problem which is currently inactive.   Knots supporters are a bored immune system that has turned on the host because Bitcoin's success has for the moment robbed them of any real enemies they're capable and willing to fight.

Him pointing out that people want to ignore existing solutions because stuff that already works is boring, is relevant not to this discussion, but several aspects of life.

[PepeLapiu]

My main objection is that it is not needed. I've always felt this, but this post by gmaxwell put it so well:

Let's look at what Greg has to say about it, shall we?

If you have a solution-- by all means suggest it.  I think it's fundamental:  the resource needs to be limit in supply to control operating costs and to drive income for security.  Free market action turns that into a market.  If someone is outbidding what you're willing to pay that is a problem for you but it's also a success for the system.

Here Greg is using a long winded version of saying the miner fees are the filter. But this is demonstrably false. And here is why:

Monetary users of Segwit are likely to get a 50% Segwit discount, and at most a 55% discount. But spammers who use the Segwit exploit routinely get a 75% discount. So if spammers get cheaper miner fees than monetary users, who are the fees really filtering here?
You can count on Greg to never answer this question.

Essentially this is just repeating the age old arguments against free markets-- they don't necessarily optimize for human flourishing to the extent a ideal spherical dictator in simple harmonic motion might be conjectured to do.   But we find that e.g. communist regimes tend to create appalling living conditions when they're not busy commit massing murder on unimaginable scale ... while dirty amoral capitalism has reliably produced the best living conditions ever known to humanity in spite of the fact that it regularly screws up some stuff.

I fail to see the point here. Is he saying that we have to accept spam in order to not be communist?
Satoshi himself, when faced with the idea of Lady Gaga videos on chain, said this: "That's one of the reasons for transaction fees.  There are other things we can do if necessary."

But Greg seems to think Satoshi's approach to spam made him a communist?

Do we really need to tolerate all sorts of Lady Gaga videos, dickbutt.jpegs, and other bullshit on chain to remain capitalist? Really?

Part of the issue is that there already are other solutions-- people just want to ignore them perhaps because stuff that works is boring.  You mention lightning but it's also perfectly possible for altruistic miners to skip over higher fee paying transactions and prioritize stuff they think is good for the welfare of the system.   And that works fine without coercive consensus changes or mob action that deprives people of individual choice.

Here Greg seems to think "altruistic miners" will solve the problem all by themselved. Is Greg not aware that the big pools are running spamware like LibreRelsy and SlipStream which are expressly built to promote more spam on bitcoin? The big miners are effectively part of the problem here. You only need to look at mempool.space and see that around 40% of block content is pure garbage spam. And that the tendency is for the big miners to push this spam on chain while small miners, who make up a very small segment of the hash power, tend to reject spam.

I'm a little confused as to why Greg thinks that the very same big pools that cause the problem are somehow going to find a solution to the very problem they are causing.

And of course this also gets ignored because all this gnashing of teeth is over a problem which is currently inactive.   Knots supporters are a bored immune system that has turned on the host because Bitcoin's success has for the moment robbed them of any real enemies they're capable and willing to fight.

This is just pure personal attack and insults to character. I'm not going to address the insults. But Greg seems to think spam is not a problem. Of course if you think that 40% of block space being filled by spam, 40% of the UTXO set filled with spam dust outputs, and miners actively running services to push for more spam, all the while core is blowing up existing spam filters, and none of that is a problem for Greg?

Than yeah, if Greg refuses to even see the problem, he's not going to like any attempt to address the problem he thinks does not exist.

Him pointing out that people want to ignore existing solutions because stuff that already works is boring, is relevant not to this discussion, but several aspects of life.

I assure you, when I need life advise, Greg Maxwell will not be who I turn to.

And you managed to say absolutely nothing about what BIP110 actually does. Much less what your criticism of it is.

[(BTC)]

Sir, this is a Wendey's.

[PepeLapiu]

Sir, this is a Wendey's.

I don't understand. Please elaborate.

[Omj1014]

The core issue here is that we are trying to use social engineering to solve a technical resource problem. If users are willing to pay the market rate for block space whether it’s for a financial transaction or a dickbutt.jpeg the protocol shouldn't be the arbiter of value. If we start defining what legitimate data looks like today through BIP-110, we set a precedent for censorship that could be used against actual financial transactions tomorrow. Let the fees do the filtering.

[Ambatman]

Well I'm biased against consensus changes especially ones that are restrictive in nature.
I wouldn't want to talk about it's effect on advance taproot and smart contract
Since you can just state it's of Limited use

But using such a low threshold for miners may lead to a chain split since this is consensus level even if it's supposedly temporary

Did I mention it's like the start of serious censorship?
I usually believe that every big changes starts small
There was always a compromise Now the censorship may seem limited to certain uses
But what about in the future.

[PepeLapiu]

Hi, Omj1014
Thank you for your reply.

The core issue here is that we are trying to use social engineering to solve a technical resource problem. If users are willing to pay the market rate for block space whether it’s for a financial transaction or a dickbutt.jpeg the protocol shouldn't be the arbiter of value.

I don't agree, and I have Satoshi on my side. For a long explanation as to why we should be hostile to arbitrary data, and why I think Satoshi would agree with me, have a look here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5575199.0

Essentially, when faced with the idea of Lady Gaga videos on the btc chain, Satoshi said this:

That's one of the reasons for transaction fees.  There are other things we can do if necessary.

Like Satoshi, I believe that bitcoin is for money. And as such, we should guard bitcoin against the Lady Gaga videos of this world.

If we start defining what legitimate data looks like today through BIP-110, we set a precedent for censorship that could be used against actual financial transactions tomorrow.

That's the slippery slope argument. And while there is a slippery slope occurring, it's going in the opposite direction.

Before 5 years ago, spam was not really a problem. There was the odd case of inscription, but no market for it. You could inscribe a bible verse or a marriage proposal. But nobody would buy or sell it. The idea of inscribing a message and selling it was not a thing.

Today over 40% of the UTXO set is spam dust outputs. And 40% of the block space is spam.
Core doesn't even acknowledge there is spam, they call it "use cases we have today" and spammers are refered to as "users who need to upload data", not spammers, not attackers.
Some are even claiming that we need miner fees from spam in order to protect bitcoin and miners would go belly up without the fees from spam.
After 4 years of doing nothing to fight spam, core decided to actually blow up an existing spam filter.
Big miners are now using LibreRelay and SlipStream, two services expressly designed to promote and facilitate spam on bitcoin.

It's obvious there is a slippery slope happening. But it's slipping towards spam, not towards censoring of Iranian UTXOs.

I'm of the opinion that BIP110 is not leading us into a slippery slope, it's trying to stop the existing slippery slope that id going towards more and more spam.

And I find the idea that we can't try to prevent dickbutt.jpegs because it's going to lead us into censoring Iranian UTXOs. Please give the 100,000 nodes some credit and let's not pretend we don't know the difference between a jpeg and Iranian UTXOs.

Let the fees do the filtering.

I already explained in post #3 how the fees are not sufficient to fight spam as spammers get a bigger fee discount than monetary users. So if spammers get cheaper fees, who are the fees really filtering out?

Furthermore, Satoshi said about spam: "That's one of the reasons for transaction fees.  There are other things we can do if necessary."

I think the "other things we can do if necessary", are indeed necessary now.

And I promise you, the 100,000 nodes have no incentive to store useless arbitrary junk like dickbutt.jpegs. But if anyone attempts to censor Iranian UTXOs, the nodes will not stand for it.

Imagine for a minute that you are a powerful entity who wants to ban Iranian UTXOs or impose an OFAC compliant list of users. Would you go to the 100,000 nodes spread out around the world? Or would you go to the handful of mining pools who control over 70% of the hashrate?

If monetary censorship ever comes to bitcoin, it will be imposed by the miners who are already mining spam for profit, not from the nodes who want to protect bitcoin and enforce the rules.

So far, the only instance of attempting censorship came from Mara pool when they attempted to impose OFAC compliance to their own blocks. This is where the biggest threat of censorship could come from, not from the decentralized pool of 100,000 nodes dedicated to protect bitcoin.

[PepeLapiu]

Hi, Ambatman
Thanx for the reply.

I find that the best descritor for your side is "pro-spam" but that might be a bit insulting to some. So I'm just going to use "the core side" instead.

Well I'm biased against consensus changes especially ones that are restrictive in nature.

I find this phrase a bit confusing and frustrating. We were told again and again that filters don't work, that my Knots node is nothing more than useless virtue signalling. Some on the core side even told us that policy won't work and we need to take it of the consensus level.
Now that we are taking it to the consensus level, you tell us it's too extreme. That leaves us with what option? Screaming on town square with a sandwich board?

Changes at the consensus level can either loosen the rules or tighten the rules. A loosening of the rules would require a hard fork, like B-cash did during the block war. Tightening or restriction of the rules can and should be done with a soft fork, like we are doing with BIP110.

And so, if we want to restrict spam, or lower spam, we have no choice other than restricting the rules. Can't block something by being more permissive towards it. If you don't want to be more restrictive, you plainly don't want to fight spam at all.

I wouldn't want to talk about it's effect on advance taproot and smart contract
Since you can just state it's of Limited use

What I can tell you is that over 90% of Taproot users are spammers. And that if you make use of those advanced convoluted multisig op_if in Taproot for a legit monetary transaction, you are really misusing it. You can get more details about that here:
https://youtu.be/JPE7X_q3A7A

But most importantly, any use of op_if in Taproot that are done before the fork will be grandfathered in. So the only risk is for those who use op_if in Taproot during the fork year. And wallets and users are given prenty of warning ahead of time to not use op_if in Taproot.

Given that it's an advanced use case, very improper way to transact, even for genuine monetary users, I think it's fair game.

I don't believe there will be any risk of genuine monetary use confiscation. But even if there is, you should blame core for having done nothing about it for so long, not BIP110 for finally fixing the problem.

Core not addressing the problem for so long, and wallets refusing to update accordingly should share the blame if anything bad happens with the use of op_if in Taproot. But I don't believe anything bad will happen.

But using such a low threshold for miners may lead to a chain split since this is consensus level even if it's supposedly temporary

I don't think the miner activation method is likely to happen because the big centralized pools benefit from spam and look to actively enable spam.

But say it happens and 55% of the hashrate signals for BIP110. Do you actually believe the other 45% will hang on to the smaller spam legacy chain?

Did I mention it's like the start of serious censorship?
I usually believe that every big changes starts small

That's how I feel about the current state of things. We are 5 years deep into a slippery slope towards total spam.

But let me ask you, do you believe there is a problem? Because if you don't think there is a problem, any solution to it will be a waste of time to you. Do you agree with lifting the op_return filter? Do you think core is going in the right direction? Do you think core is acting in the best interest of nodes?

There was always a compromise Now the censorship may seem limited to certain uses
But what about in the future.

I don't think framing anti-spam measures as censorship is appropriate.
Bitcoin should protect your right to money. It can't protect your right to "everything else" and still do a good job at protecting your right to money.

When BSV dropped their op_return filter, they got swamped with child p**n almost immediately. I think that was a state level attack test run. And I think the reason it hasn't happened yet is because we sounded the alarm and a child p**n attack would lend too much suppory to BIP110.

I think a swarm of child p**n material, or something to that effect in op_returm absolutely will happen. It's not an if, but a when. And here are the most likely suspects:

- State level actor wishing to destroy bitcoin, or gain control of it, or slow down adoption, or greatly reduce the node count which is the only part of bitcoin still decentralized.
- Same thing but coming from the banks, not government.
- Disgusting child pornographer who wants to dump the risk of hosting that stuff away from his own machine onto the 100,000 nodes.
- Some shotcoiner thinking he can promote his own shitcoin by doing this to bitcoin.
- Some high volume trader with a large sell position, hoping to cash in on the resulting price drop.
- Or even someone on my side eigher to drum up more support for BIP110.