Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[sickpig]

Correct me if I am wrong, but from reading the whitepaper there will be no changes to the core protocol.  Each sidechain will be firewalled from the main chain and with only access to data from the main chain.  The main chain will not be directly affected? 

Sidechains should be firewalled: a bug in one sidechain enabling creation (or theft) of assets in that chain should not result in creation or theft of assets on any other chain.

relavant section

To use Bitcoin as the parent chain, an extension to script which can recognise and validate such
SPV proofs would be required. At the very least, such proofs would need to be made compact
enough to fit in a Bitcoin transaction. However, this is just a soft-forking change, without effect on
transactions which do not use the new features.

[inca]

Is this a silk road moment?

[sickpig]

Is this a silk road moment?

care to elaborate?

[HeliKopterBen]

Correct me if I am wrong, but from reading the whitepaper there will be no changes to the core protocol.  Each sidechain will be firewalled from the main chain and with only access to data from the main chain.  The main chain will not be directly affected? 

Sidechains should be firewalled: a bug in one sidechain enabling creation (or theft) of assets in that chain should not result in creation or theft of assets on any other chain.

relavant section

To use Bitcoin as the parent chain, an extension to script which can recognise and validate such
SPV proofs would be required. At the very least, such proofs would need to be made compact
enough to fit in a Bitcoin transaction. However, this is just a soft-forking change, without effect on
transactions which do not use the new features.

Thanks.  I'm not sure about tinkering with the code either, even in a small way with a soft fork.  I was under the impression that these chains could be implemented completely outside.  

[thezerg]

Yes, I'm if the belief that if Bitcoin fails, they all fail: alts and SC's.

In fact. I believe the price drop we've seen in the last 24h since the SC announcement is a direct vote of non confidence in what they're doing. I've been very vocal since I heard about them doing this project with a for profit company. The dangers of this are so obvious, Austin Hill's  response to me on Twitter giving a  hint. Can you imagine him saying that to me after SC's have been established and I inquire about some major change they want to implement that might profit  their  company? I think the market is worried  about this very thing.

this is bold, pun intended

Not really. Think about it. What they're proposing makes me nervous. Why?  Because they're monkeying with my money as if they somehow know better. 

Nobody wants that. They want certainty and confidence that this won't happen. In fact, the " bargain" I signed up for was exactly this. Yet here we are with a group of core devs et al who feel Bitcoin isn't good enough for them. And they think their for profit company is perfectly ok way to go about changing the bargain. 

Almost sounds like your new Fed.

Respectfully, I don't think you've got your head on straight in this one.  These people are acting to preserve the value you have on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin HAS issues, with micropayments, with anonymity, with atomic exchange, and with the simple issue of having to run a full node (and all the CPU, network and disk that implies) just to accept payments (ok I know about bitpay, coinbase, but then you aren't actually accepting payments are you?  You are trusting a third party).

Without sidechains it is very likely that altcoins will be eventually successful in filling these and other application specific roles, which will have a slow but ultimately very significant effect on the Bitcoin price as "value" is put into these other altcoins.

Or centralized solutions will be successful in filling these roles.  These places will inevitably go fractional reserve, increasing the effective (if not the actual) number of Bitcoins and depressing price.  Additionally, they will periodically do a runner and engage in all the other practices that Bitcoin was made to avoid.  Essentially, if centralized solutions are needed to fulfill functions other than fiat-BTC exchange then Bitcoin has failed.

TL;DR: Sidechains preserve the value of your coins by encouraging limited supply.

PS: And as others have said, nobody can use side chain technology to steal your coins if you don't put them on a side chain in the first place.

[cypherdoc]

Yes, I'm if the belief that if Bitcoin fails, they all fail: alts and SC's.

In fact. I believe the price drop we've seen in the last 24h since the SC announcement is a direct vote of non confidence in what they're doing. I've been very vocal since I heard about them doing this project with a for profit company. The dangers of this are so obvious, Austin Hill's  response to me on Twitter giving a  hint. Can you imagine him saying that to me after SC's have been established and I inquire about some major change they want to implement that might profit  their  company? I think the market is worried  about this very thing.

this is bold, pun intended

Not really. Think about it. What they're proposing makes me nervous. Why?  Because they're monkeying with my money as if they somehow know better. 

Nobody wants that. They want certainty and confidence that this won't happen. In fact, the " bargain" I signed up for was exactly this. Yet here we are with a group of core devs et al who feel Bitcoin isn't good enough for them. And they think their for profit company is perfectly ok way to go about changing the bargain. 

Almost sounds like your new Fed.

Respectfully, I don't think you've got your head on straight in this one.  These people are acting to preserve the value you have on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin HAS issues, with micropayments, with anonymity, with atomic exchange, and with the simple issue of having to run a full node (and all the CPU, network and disk that implies) just to accept payments (ok I know about bitpay, coinbase, but then you aren't actually accepting payments are you?  You are trusting a third party).

Without sidechains it is very likely that altcoins will be eventually successful in filling these and other application specific roles, which will have a slow but ultimately very significant effect on the Bitcoin price as "value" is put into these other altcoins.

Or centralized solutions will be successful in filling these roles.  These places will inevitably go fractional reserve, increasing the effective (if not the actual) number of Bitcoins and depressing price.  Additionally, they will periodically do a runner and engage in all the other practices that Bitcoin was made to avoid.  Essentially, if centralized solutions are needed to fulfill functions other than fiat-BTC exchange then Bitcoin has failed.

TL;DR: Sidechains preserve the value of your coins by encouraging limited supply.

PS: And as others have said, nobody can use side chain technology to steal your coins if you don't put them on a side chain in the first place.

and you see no problem with it being designed and run by a for profit company?

[cypherdoc]

https://twitter.com/cypherdoc2/status/525286361298141184

[cypherdoc]

Bitcoin HAS issues, with micropayments, with anonymity, with atomic exchange, and with the simple issue of having to run a full node (and all the CPU, network and disk that implies) just to accept payments (ok I know about bitpay, coinbase, but then you aren't actually accepting payments are you?  You are trusting a third party).

maybe Bitcoin can't be everything to everybody but right now i see growth and usage spreading.  that's good enough for me.  simplicity can be good.

[inca]

If side chains become a reality their value is still presumably anchored in some way to the value of the original bitcoin blockchain. I.E there is no financial penalty to not moving over to the new (side)chain.

Is the blockstream (side)chain created empty, simply being comprised of locked coins flowing to and from the bitcoin chain?

Who is going to use bitstream coins online? Why would industry switch to a new protocol on a different chain when 0.5 billion dollars are invested in using bitcoin chain? In the future (now?) the vast majority of users will transact bitcoin in centralised wallet services, which are near instantaneous already. How is this functionally different in reality to people using altcoins at present. Instead of 'two way peg' between (side)chain and bitcoin chain, simply insert 'altcoin to bitcoin exchange'. Noone is currently using altcoins to do anything useful today.

If the blockstream (side)chain isn't created empty (or new coins can be created without bitcoins being 'locked') then it sounds like a great exercise in getting loads of bitcoins 'locked' from unsuspecting investors, then allowing early adopters of the blockstream chain (say the founders) to cash out back from the blockstream chain to the bitcoin chain.

Unless I am missing some giant innovation, I think this may simply fizzle out, especially if blocksize improvements occur soon. Would anyone more knowledgeable about this care to comment?

Edit: i don't buy the micropayments is needed for bitcoin success idea, i think that is niche and not really proven viable use case for btc (i could be wrong)

[cypherdoc]

the tenets that Satoshi did get right were the economic ones, mainly that of a fixed supply with a fair distribution. 

the market has invested accordingly based on those.  by allowing SC's to change or distort those economic assumption will cause confusion and uncertainty in the Bitcoin price.

we're seeing it right now.

[NotLambchop]

^
But miners...  vote with their hashpower...  honey badger don't care ... or???

[thezerg]

Yes, I'm if the belief that if Bitcoin fails, they all fail: alts and SC's.

In fact. I believe the price drop we've seen in the last 24h since the SC announcement is a direct vote of non confidence in what they're doing. I've been very vocal since I heard about them doing this project with a for profit company. The dangers of this are so obvious, Austin Hill's  response to me on Twitter giving a  hint. Can you imagine him saying that to me after SC's have been established and I inquire about some major change they want to implement that might profit  their  company? I think the market is worried  about this very thing.

this is bold, pun intended

Not really. Think about it. What they're proposing makes me nervous. Why?  Because they're monkeying with my money as if they somehow know better. 

Nobody wants that. They want certainty and confidence that this won't happen. In fact, the " bargain" I signed up for was exactly this. Yet here we are with a group of core devs et al who feel Bitcoin isn't good enough for them. And they think their for profit company is perfectly ok way to go about changing the bargain. 

Almost sounds like your new Fed.

Respectfully, I don't think you've got your head on straight in this one.  These people are acting to preserve the value you have on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin HAS issues, with micropayments, with anonymity, with atomic exchange, and with the simple issue of having to run a full node (and all the CPU, network and disk that implies) just to accept payments (ok I know about bitpay, coinbase, but then you aren't actually accepting payments are you?  You are trusting a third party).

Without sidechains it is very likely that altcoins will be eventually successful in filling these and other application specific roles, which will have a slow but ultimately very significant effect on the Bitcoin price as "value" is put into these other altcoins.

Or centralized solutions will be successful in filling these roles.  These places will inevitably go fractional reserve, increasing the effective (if not the actual) number of Bitcoins and depressing price.  Additionally, they will periodically do a runner and engage in all the other practices that Bitcoin was made to avoid.  Essentially, if centralized solutions are needed to fulfill functions other than fiat-BTC exchange then Bitcoin has failed.

TL;DR: Sidechains preserve the value of your coins by encouraging limited supply.

PS: And as others have said, nobody can use side chain technology to steal your coins if you don't put them on a side chain in the first place.

and you see no problem with it being designed and run by a for profit company?

Sure it would be great if these people did the work as charity, but its hard to demand that, especially for a project with a 6B market cap.  Can no $ flow to contributors?

Many for-profit companies contribute meaningfully to open source.  

In this case, the company will provide open source patches enabling sidechains to Bitcoin, and spend $ to create the consensus to get it actually included.  This might be the hardest part.  At that point, anyone can create their own sidechains.

[FNG]

FED buying stocks again?

markets are mind boggling

[inca]

the tenets that Satoshi did get right were the economic ones, mainly that of a fixed supply with a fair distribution.  

the market has invested accordingly based on those.  by allowing SC's to change or distort those economic assumption will cause confusion and uncertainty in the Bitcoin price.

we're seeing it right now.

I don't see how SC's can distort the original bitcoin fixed supply rules without being a total sham that no one will adopt.

If side chains allow creation of new coins/tokens not originating through the 'two way peg' then why would anyone in their right mind use them?

Edit: would appreciate an answer to this one please

[brg444]

Yes, I'm if the belief that if Bitcoin fails, they all fail: alts and SC's.

In fact. I believe the price drop we've seen in the last 24h since the SC announcement is a direct vote of non confidence in what they're doing. I've been very vocal since I heard about them doing this project with a for profit company. The dangers of this are so obvious, Austin Hill's  response to me on Twitter giving a  hint. Can you imagine him saying that to me after SC's have been established and I inquire about some major change they want to implement that might profit  their  company? I think the market is worried  about this very thing.

this is bold, pun intended

Not really. Think about it. What they're proposing makes me nervous. Why?  Because they're monkeying with my money as if they somehow know better. 

Nobody wants that. They want certainty and confidence that this won't happen. In fact, the " bargain" I signed up for was exactly this. Yet here we are with a group of core devs et al who feel Bitcoin isn't good enough for them. And they think their for profit company is perfectly ok way to go about changing the bargain. 

Almost sounds like your new Fed.

Respectfully, I don't think you've got your head on straight in this one.  These people are acting to preserve the value you have on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin HAS issues, with micropayments, with anonymity, with atomic exchange, and with the simple issue of having to run a full node (and all the CPU, network and disk that implies) just to accept payments (ok I know about bitpay, coinbase, but then you aren't actually accepting payments are you?  You are trusting a third party).

Without sidechains it is very likely that altcoins will be eventually successful in filling these and other application specific roles, which will have a slow but ultimately very significant effect on the Bitcoin price as "value" is put into these other altcoins.

Or centralized solutions will be successful in filling these roles.  These places will inevitably go fractional reserve, increasing the effective (if not the actual) number of Bitcoins and depressing price.  Additionally, they will periodically do a runner and engage in all the other practices that Bitcoin was made to avoid.  Essentially, if centralized solutions are needed to fulfill functions other than fiat-BTC exchange then Bitcoin has failed.

TL;DR: Sidechains preserve the value of your coins by encouraging limited supply.

PS: And as others have said, nobody can use side chain technology to steal your coins if you don't put them on a side chain in the first place.

I expect cryptographic proof of reserve to be mandatory for any centralized solutions in the future

[justusranvier]

Sure it would be great if these people did the work as charity, but its hard to demand that, especially for a project with a 6B market cap.  Can no $ flow to contributors?

Many for-profit companies contribute meaningfully to open source.  

In this case, the company will provide open source patches enabling sidechains to Bitcoin, and spend $ to create the consensus to get it actually included.  This might be the hardest part.  At that point, anyone can create their own sidechains.

I like the Conformal model.

They make money from Coinvoice, and btcd is the Bitcoin implementation they use to run their business. They eat their own dogfood, and donate the code into the community, but don't make money from other people using btcd.

I wish more companies would develop alternate implementations using this model.

[cypherdoc]

Yes, I'm if the belief that if Bitcoin fails, they all fail: alts and SC's.

In fact. I believe the price drop we've seen in the last 24h since the SC announcement is a direct vote of non confidence in what they're doing. I've been very vocal since I heard about them doing this project with a for profit company. The dangers of this are so obvious, Austin Hill's  response to me on Twitter giving a  hint. Can you imagine him saying that to me after SC's have been established and I inquire about some major change they want to implement that might profit  their  company? I think the market is worried  about this very thing.

this is bold, pun intended

Not really. Think about it. What they're proposing makes me nervous. Why?  Because they're monkeying with my money as if they somehow know better.  

Nobody wants that. They want certainty and confidence that this won't happen. In fact, the " bargain" I signed up for was exactly this. Yet here we are with a group of core devs et al who feel Bitcoin isn't good enough for them. And they think their for profit company is perfectly ok way to go about changing the bargain.  

Almost sounds like your new Fed.

Respectfully, I don't think you've got your head on straight in this one.  These people are acting to preserve the value you have on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin HAS issues, with micropayments, with anonymity, with atomic exchange, and with the simple issue of having to run a full node (and all the CPU, network and disk that implies) just to accept payments (ok I know about bitpay, coinbase, but then you aren't actually accepting payments are you?  You are trusting a third party).

Without sidechains it is very likely that altcoins will be eventually successful in filling these and other application specific roles, which will have a slow but ultimately very significant effect on the Bitcoin price as "value" is put into these other altcoins.

Or centralized solutions will be successful in filling these roles.  These places will inevitably go fractional reserve, increasing the effective (if not the actual) number of Bitcoins and depressing price.  Additionally, they will periodically do a runner and engage in all the other practices that Bitcoin was made to avoid.  Essentially, if centralized solutions are needed to fulfill functions other than fiat-BTC exchange then Bitcoin has failed.

TL;DR: Sidechains preserve the value of your coins by encouraging limited supply.

PS: And as others have said, nobody can use side chain technology to steal your coins if you don't put them on a side chain in the first place.

and you see no problem with it being designed and run by a for profit company?

Sure it would be great if these people did the work as charity, but its hard to demand that, especially for a project with a 6B market cap.  Can no $ flow to contributors?

Many for-profit companies contribute meaningfully to open source.  

In this case, the company will provide open source patches enabling sidechains to Bitcoin, and spend $ to create the consensus to get it actually included.  This might be the hardest part.  At that point, anyone can create their own sidechains.

have you read u/historians comments on Reddit?  lots of good stuff in there.

for instance, what if the involved core devs decide, or are told, that any signif innovations are to be directed toward a SC they happen to have invested in instead of Bitcoin Core?  

ossification excuses could also be interpreted to mean that innovations proposed by nullc, et al haven't been good enough to implement.

i do find it interesting that the price tanked right after their announcement.  the market doesn't like confusion which will only get worse if we get a bunch of SC's with different economic assumptions that could siphon off BTC to itself to the detriment of the main chain.

[cypherdoc]

Sure it would be great if these people did the work as charity, but its hard to demand that, especially for a project with a 6B market cap.  Can no $ flow to contributors?

Many for-profit companies contribute meaningfully to open source.  

In this case, the company will provide open source patches enabling sidechains to Bitcoin, and spend $ to create the consensus to get it actually included.  This might be the hardest part.  At that point, anyone can create their own sidechains.

I like the Conformal model.

They make money from Coinvoice, and btcd is the Bitcoin implementation they use to run their business. They eat their own dogfood, and donate the code into the community, but don't make money from other people using btcd.

I wish more companies would develop alternate implementations using this model.

also, they didn't require a fork to do their thing.

[sickpig]

Sure it would be great if these people did the work as charity, but its hard to demand that, especially for a project with a 6B market cap.  Can no $ flow to contributors?

Many for-profit companies contribute meaningfully to open source.  

In this case, the company will provide open source patches enabling sidechains to Bitcoin, and spend $ to create the consensus to get it actually included.  This might be the hardest part.  At that point, anyone can create their own sidechains.

I like the Conformal model.

They make money from Coinvoice, and btcd is the Bitcoin implementation they use to run their business. They eat their own dogfood, and donate the code into the community, but don't make money from other people using btcd.

I wish more companies would develop alternate implementations using this model.

also, they didn't require a fork to do their thing.

sure you are right, if possible avoiding forking is a good thing, but take into account that there
are certain type of features that require a fork.

if memory serves gavin recently proposed an hard fork to introduce a 50% a year automatic
increase of the max block size.

edit: found gavin's proposal https://bitcoinfoundation.org/2014/10/a-scalability-roadmap/

[sickpig]

i do find it interesting that the price tanked right after their announcement.  the market doesn't like
confusion which will only get worse if we get a bunch of SC's with different economic assumptions
that could siphon off BTC to itself to the detriment of the main chain.

Unfortunately we can't know for sure the reason why the recent price tank.