Is Fear About The Potential Impact of BIP 16/17 Suppressing Bitcoin Prices?

[Technomage]

I have no fear regarding P2SH, it's the best feature to ever be added into Bitcoin. It's a very significant improvement and I hope it gets done. What does lower my confidence is that the whole issue was made into a public debate. Stuff like that shouldn't be public debates, developers should handle it themselves. Asking regular people about very intricate stuff related to the way these implementations are coded is useless. This lowers my trust in the whole development of Bitcoin, I just hope they make up their minds and get P2SH implemented at some point. Bitcoin will be overrun by competitors eventually if this is not added.

One shouldn't fear a blockchain split over this. P2SH will only be applied once 55% of hashing power is behind it and apparently Tycho of Deepbit is only adding his pool after there is already over 50% which means that there probably would be somewhere around 80% of hashing power behind this change before it's applied. So the blockchain split would be a small one and very temporary.

What people should worry about is how this affects the development of Bitcoin if it's not added. My personal hope is that they simply play hardball against Luke-Jr and force BIP 16. The second possibility is that we wait, possibly months or years, for a solution that everyone can agree on. Third option is that they go forward with BIP 17 but I think that's unlikely at best.

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[Portnoy]

I see only one risk which can affect bitcoin price. It's that bitcoin developers will be seen as a group of untrustworthy sociopaths which are unable to talk each to other. And it's not related to BIP16/17, it's more general issue.

+1

[Technomage]

I see only one risk which can affect bitcoin price. It's that bitcoin developers will be seen as a group of untrustworthy sociopaths which are unable to talk each to other. And it's not related to BIP16/17, it's more general issue.

+1

Agreed.

[muyuu]

More to the point, Bitcoin as a whole is not well understood...

This cannot be stressed enough.

Making bitcoin better understood by enough people, or failing to do so. That will be the main factor to bitcoin's future medium/long term.

[bittenbob]

A few of the big mining pools have started supporting BIP 16, and I feel pretty confident that they've shaken out any major bugs.

Just thought I would point this out. There was an unexpected bug found that was dropping transaction fees from the block rewards. He is 'pretty confident' that he has found them all and I hope he is right. I am sure he is doing everything he can to make it as bug free as possible but it is obvious that more testing should be done before implementation.

[bittenbob]

And RE: creating bots:  I created a BIP-17-stealing bot because it was really easy (took about 10 minutes of hacking). 

Also this^

[DiThi]

He is 'pretty confident' that he has found them all and I hope he is right.

Yeah, it's called "unit tests" and both BIP 16 and 17 have them. At this time BIP 16 passes more tests but I think BIP 17 is a good solution too. The whole thing has attracted too much public view just because one developer doesn't agree. I wonder what would Satoshi have done.

In other projects I love such as Python and Blender, there's a "benevolent dictator for life" (BDFL) that has the last word. People trust them because they led their projects sanely for years. I'm really amazed with both Python and Blender. Guido van Rossum and Tom Roosendaal are my idols. Hm... both are dutch. Is there a dutch coder among bitcoin devs?

[bittenbob]

He is 'pretty confident' that he has found them all and I hope he is right.

Yeah, it's called "unit tests" and both BIP 16 and 17 have them. At this time BIP 16 passes more tests but I think BIP 17 is a good solution too. The whole thing has attracted too much public view just because one developer doesn't agree. I wonder what would Satoshi have done.

In other projects I love such as Python and Blender, there's a "benevolent dictator for life" (BDFL) that has the last word. People trust them because they led their projects sanely for years. I'm really amazed with both Python and Blender. Guido van Rossum and Tom Roosendaal are my idols. Hm... both are dutch. Is there a dutch coder among bitcoin devs?

Gavin discovered the bugs after BIP was being implemented by several pools. Finding bugs after something is implemented in a financial system  is not a good thing. The fact that Gavin can make a bot to steal BIP17 transactions so easily should be a concern for everyone. This is not a matter of developers not agreeing but a matter of security. A big deal should have been made about this a lot sooner.

[DiThi]

A good BDFL would have tested it enough before. They have much more patience and prefer long term maintainability over one-time patches, no matter how good they seem to be. Neither Gavin nor Luke-Jr have this reputation right now, I'm afraid... Anyway it's a good sign Bitcoin can't be changed too easily. I personally will be confident on any solution that also works in alternate bitcoin implementations (remember OP_EVAL raised alarms in a different implementation).

[elux]

Any potential crisis now averted. Log edited for brevity.

21:58 <gavinandresen> BlueMatt: just got back... yes, I'd like to have a 0.6 rc1 soon
22:07 <gavinandresen> I'd like to talk about what to tell the miners who have already deployed BIP 16.
22:07 <gavinandresen> And talk about theymos' proposal for how to proceeed.
22:08 <BlueMatt> I was under the impression btc-guild was going to implement bip 16 later today and then [Tycho] would do it thereafter as a result
22:08 <genjix> but i am in strong favour of theymos proposal
22:08 <BlueMatt> so then we get >50%
22:08 <genjix> i think it is a great idea.
22:09 <gavinandresen> I strongly feel that we don't need more time to discuss/debate, that there is (and has been) rough consensus
22:11 <gavinandresen> I'd completely support theymos being a reality check on that, though.
22:11 <genjix> why not try theymos idea? it would be a good test case for a small thing to learn how to do this in the future.
22:11 <genjix> i called him 'organiser' there, but 'facilitator' is more accurate.
22:12 <gmaxwell> I believe that the most competent people are already burning out on this. Luke is saying that he's going to take a break. Gavin is clearly 'done' with the dispute.
22:14 <BlueMatt> Because I believe we are going to get >50% mining power on bip16 in the next few weeks, I say just continue by rolling a release candidate of 0.6 with bip16 set to start being enforced on March 1st
22:14 <BlueMatt> and then release when we hit 50%+
22:30 <BlueMatt> gavinandresen: are you sure 0.6 will make it by feb 15?
22:30 <BlueMatt> even if we push rc1 tomorrow...

[bittenbob]

Any potential crisis now averted. Log edited for brevity.

21:58 <gavinandresen> BlueMatt: just got back... yes, I'd like to have a 0.6 rc1 soon
22:07 <gavinandresen> I'd like to talk about what to tell the miners who have already deployed BIP 16.
22:07 <gavinandresen> And talk about theymos' proposal for how to proceeed.
22:08 <BlueMatt> I was under the impression btc-guild was going to implement bip 16 later today and then [Tycho] would do it thereafter as a result
22:08 <genjix> but i am in strong favour of theymos proposal
22:08 <BlueMatt> so then we get >50%
22:08 <genjix> i think it is a great idea.
22:09 <gavinandresen> I strongly feel that we don't need more time to discuss/debate, that there is (and has been) rough consensus
22:11 <gavinandresen> I'd completely support theymos being a reality check on that, though.
22:11 <genjix> why not try theymos idea? it would be a good test case for a small thing to learn how to do this in the future.
22:11 <genjix> i called him 'organiser' there, but 'facilitator' is more accurate.
22:12 <gmaxwell> I believe that the most competent people are already burning out on this. Luke is saying that he's going to take a break. Gavin is clearly 'done' with the dispute.
22:14 <BlueMatt> Because I believe we are going to get >50% mining power on bip16 in the next few weeks, I say just continue by rolling a release candidate of 0.6 with bip16 set to start being enforced on March 1st
22:14 <BlueMatt> and then release when we hit 50%+
22:30 <BlueMatt> gavinandresen: are you sure 0.6 will make it by feb 15?
22:30 <BlueMatt> even if we push rc1 tomorrow...

Can you explain to me what theymos' proposal is?

[elux]

Can you explain to me what theymos' proposal is?

Sure. Here's genjix's take: Cathartic Progress

Although that point seems moot now that Deepbit is coming over:

I am trusting that Tycho will wait for us to all calm down, eventually review this thread, determine that the consensus is clearly with Gavin, and run with it.

Looks like I have to remind one of my points:

• I don't think that there is any chance of BIP17 winning because it's not supported by any major force besides Eligius (sorry, luke)

I like the fact that it doesn't uses magic cases and serialized form, but it may have drawbacks too. Also, I expect most people to be disappointed if I choose BIP17.
So I'll repeat: I don't think that there is any serious competition between BIP16 and BIP17. The only question is WHEN BIP16 will be adopted (if no other proposals appear soon).

I would immediately support any plain multisig scheme or sane long-address multisig TX proposal as possible first-stage on our way to P2SH to allow people play with it and get more time for preparing P2SH deployment.

[bittenbob]

Can you explain to me what theymos' proposal is?

Sure. Here's genjix's take: Cathartic Progress

Although that point seems moot now that Deepbit is coming over:

I am trusting that Tycho will wait for us to all calm down, eventually review this thread, determine that the consensus is clearly with Gavin, and run with it.

Looks like I have to remind one of my points:

• I don't think that there is any chance of BIP17 winning because it's not supported by any major force besides Eligius (sorry, luke)

I like the fact that it doesn't uses magic cases and serialized form, but it may have drawbacks too. Also, I expect most people to be disappointed if I choose BIP17.
So I'll repeat: I don't think that there is any serious competition between BIP16 and BIP17. The only question is WHEN BIP16 will be adopted (if no other proposals appear soon).

I would immediately support any plain multisig scheme or sane long-address multisig TX proposal as possible first-stage on our way to P2SH to allow people play with it and get more time for preparing P2SH deployment.

My concern is that anonymous votes could be faked or hacked. I do like his proposal other than that however.

[Qoheleth]

I still don't see why we need to hack the protocol to support multisig at all.

Bitcoin uses ECDSA, where the public key is a known point multiplied by an integer private key. Generating a multisig address is as simple as generating two independent addresses, the second using the first one's public key as the known point. Such a combined address can be supported by today's clients, while only being accessible to someone who knows both private keys.

This fight between BIP16 and BIP17 isn't just a barn-painting argument, it's a barn-painting argument over a barn that's already painted.

[notme]

I still don't see why we need to hack the protocol to support multisig at all.

Bitcoin uses ECDSA, where the public key is a known point multiplied by an integer private key. Generating a multisig address is as simple as generating two independent addresses, the second using the first one's public key as the known point. Such a combined address can be supported by today's clients, while only being accessible to someone who knows both private keys.

This fight between BIP16 and BIP17 isn't just a barn-painting argument, it's a barn-painting argument over a barn that's already painted.

Except that doesn't help because then you need both private keys on the same machine to spend them.  If your machine is compromised, it will wait until you try and spend, then steal your coins as soon as it has both keys.

[finway]

It's about the delay of deploying

[YoYa]

Interesting.

Not going to get in to the fundamentals of the argument, more interested in the fundamentals of the price and how the current discussions will impact market confidence in the value of bitcoin if even over the short term.

Now's a rare chance to see how Technical analysis will reflect the fundamentals.

[elux]

BTC Guild blocks will be containing BIP 16 support, hopefully between February 10 and 12.