Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

How does this adress my arguments?

stay on topic, what type of an answer is a diversion?

is this a joke ?

no, you're the joke.  and you are a plant.

[gogxmagog]

hard to tell what topic we are on now. I came in here to talk about gold markets...obviously not the convo here

[cbeast]

so sad.  no.  Bitcoin is the public good. sidechains are a sideshow.

Even I have to get clarification here. Though it's often called a virtual commodity (whatever that means) Bitcoin is a protocol. The Internet that hosts the protocol should be considered a public good. As long as Side Chains don't directly interfere with Internet or the protocol itself, they pose no more threat than any other payment system. Even if they all fail and destroy all but one satoshi, Bitcoin will survive.

[brg444]

fine.  LET THEM USE FEDERATED SERVERS.  are you deaf?  that won't hurt Bitcoin like the SPVproof.

this breaks the legitimate inextricable link btwn the currency unit BTC and its blockchain (MC). that, in itself, will destroy Bitcoin.

Which one is it? You seem to be so confused in your BS.

You do realize the federated servers break this "inextricable link", right?

So if breaking this link "destroys Bitcoin" how does it not "hurt Bitcoin"? 

well, there you go.  devs gotta dev; and get paid for it.

never mind that Bitcoin as Sound Money is our first chance at monetary freedom ever and that it should be viewed as a public good not to be messed with by vested interest groups and devs seeking profit at any costs.  i can see you don't care about any improprieties that exist.

But sidechains can potentially save Bitcoin. Unfortunately you're too dumb to see it.

[Adrian-x]

that's BS.  they even say in the WP that moving to SPVproof is the preferred outcome.  but of course, that is obvious as it institutionalizes the scheme and it forces the entire community to scramble to figure out all the changed economic assumptions this malfeasance has produced. especially those due to the conflict of interest monetary incentives that are created by Blockstream

It is not. It is a very intuitive and quite logical assumption.

The necessary level of MM required to provide secure infrastructure is not guaranteed and hardly attainable unless a chain gets the support of the whole network.

What other option exist then to secure your chain? Federated servers. They are the option of choice for any actors willing to excercise more control and oversight over their sidechain.

Until you argue against this I will consider this fact.

And stop uttering meaningless words like "institutionalizes" and what not. This is open source software we are talking about. SPV proof is indeed the preferred outcome for the reasons I have stated : more decentralized & conservation of miners incentive.

The BS is your pathetic attempt at moving goal posts and inability to properly address every one of your arguments. You are a sad, sad person.

ftfy.  don't be fooled by this guy.

Blockstream will be pretty good a creating sidechains, I agree. Fortunately, because of... you know... OPEN SOURCE, millions of developers will also have their hand at it.

there is only one fact that you are trying to disprove, all the above is a distraction.
the answer to the question must be fact and should be indisputable: Does the proposed protocol change to accommodate the SPV proof change the intensive scheme in Bitcoin in any way?

once you have answered that honestly we can debate about how and how much and when and where.

[brg444]

the only point with merit worth debating is the last one in red, the diminishing return in the block halving is not a feature that incentivises mining, it is one that reduces the cost of protecting the network to the marginal of service. Miners should hate this but tolerate it as the networks growth creates abundant profit. increasing there profits, above the marginal cost of securing the value in network puts a burden on the system akin to inflation.

Decentralized SC that supplement miners income, or as time goes by provide the majority of there income is not innovation, its a failure in the Bitcoin prototypical. Dont let it happen on your watch.

Oh so you want to debate but you only try to poke holes in my position without adressing yours.

So let us again turn your argument against you.

By suggesting that the majority of the miners income will be provided by SC you propose that the sidechains utility, security & liquidity will be such that the market will have no use for the Bitcoin mainchain. This is the result of a demand for various features that are NOT implementable on the Bitcoin mainchain.

This demand does not go away or does it exist because of SPVproof sidechain.

Consequently, the market will look to other options to fullfill this demand. All of the other options will be more centralized services using oracles, federated servers and the like.

So what happens when the same exodus you propose will happen through SPVproof sidechains happen through these other services?

Well the mainchain is abandoned and miners are left with no incentive to mine.

See how this goes both way?  

Bitcoin has grown on average an order of magnitude every year since inception, I think you may be lacking in understanding on how the incentive structures have facilitated that growth.

How does this adress my arguments?

[Adrian-x]

But sidechains can potentially save Bitcoin. Unfortunately you're too dumb to see it.

save it from what?

[brg444]

that's BS.  they even say in the WP that moving to SPVproof is the preferred outcome.  but of course, that is obvious as it institutionalizes the scheme and it forces the entire community to scramble to figure out all the changed economic assumptions this malfeasance has produced. especially those due to the conflict of interest monetary incentives that are created by Blockstream

It is not. It is a very intuitive and quite logical assumption.

The necessary level of MM required to provide secure infrastructure is not guaranteed and hardly attainable unless a chain gets the support of the whole network.

What other option exist then to secure your chain? Federated servers. They are the option of choice for any actors willing to excercise more control and oversight over their sidechain.

Until you argue against this I will consider this fact.

And stop uttering meaningless words like "institutionalizes" and what not. This is open source software we are talking about. SPV proof is indeed the preferred outcome for the reasons I have stated : more decentralized & conservation of miners incentive.

The BS is your pathetic attempt at moving goal posts and inability to properly address every one of your arguments. You are a sad, sad person.

ftfy.  don't be fooled by this guy.

Blockstream will be pretty good a creating sidechains, I agree. Fortunately, because of... you know... OPEN SOURCE, millions of developers will also have their hand at it.

there is only one fact that you are trying to disprove, all the above is a distraction.
the answer to the question must be fact and should be indisputable: Does the proposed protocol change to accommodate the SPV proof change the intensive scheme in Bitcoin in any way?

once you have answered that honestly we can debate about how and how much and when and where.

Yes. I believe it actually improves it and enables miners to continue claiming every one of the BTC's currency transactions even in a future where there will be a demand for features and applications that can NOT be implemented on the mainchain.

[brg444]

But sidechains can potentially save Bitcoin. Unfortunately you're too dumb to see it.

save it from what?

From the very exact thing you are afraid about. Threats to the safety and integrity of the network.

[Adrian-x]

Yes. I believe it actually improves it and enables miners to continue claiming every one of the BTC's currency transactions even in a future where there will be a demand for features and applications that can NOT be implemented on the mainchain.

please define "improves"
please define "what "enables miners to continue claiming every one of the BTC's currency transactions?"

[NewLiberty]

Cypher, it's great that you care so much about Bitcoin, but the facts are that there is nothing you can do to stop SPV proofs.  If the code were available today, any miner who wanted could start processing them and every other miner would still find their blocks valid.  If this upsets you, your only recourse is to create an altcoin that is designed to be immutable.  Satoshi designed Bitcoin to be able to adapt to the changing needs of the community.

Although it's true that any miner can choose to support SPV proofs (OP_SIDECHAINPROOFVERIFY), my current understanding is that the "locked coins" will only be secure if the majority of the hashpower also supports OP_SIDECHAINPROOFVERIFY.

Remember, only the soft-forked nodes can discern a valid proof from an invalid proof--the older nodes accept all proofs as valid (that's why it's a soft fork as opposed to a hard fork).  My interpretation of this is that the "locked coins" are only "locked" according to the new protocol rules--according to the old rules the coins are free for the taking (i.e., old nodes accept all "proofs" as valid).  What this means is that unless the majority of the hashpower supports the change, SPV proofs are useless because they won't be enforced by the longest proof-of-work chain.

As an example, imagine that a miner who doesn't support sidechains (and running the pre-SPV-proof code) publishes a block where "locked coins" are unlocked without a valid proof.  All the other pre-sidechain nodes will interpret this block as valid and will begin mining on top of it (let's call this Chain A).  The nodes that support OP_SIDECHAINPROOFVERIFY, however, will interpret this block as invalid and will continue mining on top of the previous block (let's call this Chain B).  So we get a forked blockchain…

Now, if >50% of the hashpower supports SPV proofs, then eventually Chain B will become the longest proof-of-work chain.  When this event occurs, the miners and nodes running the pre-sidechain code will abandon Chain A in favour of Chain B.  Chain A will get orphaned and Chain B (where the sidechain coins are still locked) will become the main chain.  

However, if <50% of the hashpower supports SPV proofs, then Chain B will grow at a slower rate than Chain A, and the two chains will remain forked.  


TL/DR: I think network support for SPV proofs is still a political decision.  It's just that instead of requiring support from a super majority of the community, it requires support from a simple majority of the hashpower (which is perhaps easier to obtain).    

You are right, but SPV proofs can be combined using multi-signatures and oracles. => SPV proof and/or oracle/authority signature are valid transactions too.

Sure they CAN be combined with multi-sig and oracles.  But if this is not ALWAYS done (and it appears that it is likely to in fact be rare) then each SPV proof that does not so combine them, increases the incentive for a 51% attack (with miners not running OP_SIDECHAINPROOFVERIFY support, due to the ability to unlock SPV locked coins, and perhaps make some use of them).

[Adrian-x]

But sidechains can potentially save Bitcoin. Unfortunately you're too dumb to see it.

save it from what?

From the very exact thing you are afraid about. Threats to the safety and integrity of the network.

I find the incentive system amassing, its what gives Bitcoin its value. I see adjustments to the incentive scheme a threat to bitcoin, how does changing the incentive scheme, save Bitcoin?

if I'm afraid "about" adjusting the incentive scheme, how does adjusting it put my fear to rest?  

[NewLiberty]

thousand/billions of sidechains, yea right. this makes no sense and is an obvious stretch of reality.

It is an idea that has been floated many times, that the endgame would be for each of us to have our own coin and chain.  SPV provides a handy mechanism for accomplishing this, and for funding these with our own bitcoins.

[brg444]

Yes. I believe it actually improves it and enables miners to continue claiming every one of the BTC's currency transactions even in a future where there will be a demand for features and applications that can NOT be implemented on the mainchain.

please define "improves"
please define "what "enables miners to continue claiming every one of the BTC's currency transactions?"

Improves:

Enable miners to continue claiming BTC transactions fxs in a future where the Bitcoin blockchain will be unable to accomodate all types or needs of transactions. It incentivizes miners to continue securing the network in the best possible way by insuring their profitability.

It is an improvement on the current situation where transactions are ALREADY tending to be processed off-chain for convenience, speed and utility. Given the absolute existence and growth of demand for transactions types that are not implementable on the Bitcoin sidechain, the exodus of transactions to off-chain schemes is a rational concern going forward.

This is not only true with concern to miners and their transaction fees but also because for the integrity of the Bitcoin ledger. Off-chain schemes inherently require additional trust in that the ledger will be preserved. The most likely suspects to inflate Bitcoin in its current state are these off-chain schemes. SPVProof sidechains enables the possibility to ensure the conservation of the ledger on a protocol level. With this we potentially eliminate fractional reserve schemes. If your chain/service/application do not recognize and preserve my stake in the ledger, at the extent that I am not looking to speculate on it,  then you will not have my money and neither will you profit from the ledger's network effect.

Of course, this feature can be changed at the whims of the sidechain creator but it is in the interest of the consensus majority of the network to preserve the value of their investment, no matter the speculative prospects.

Bitcoin is a store of value first and foremost. Speculation, as much as it can be a danger to users, is a niche market, especially going forward.

What enables :

SPVProof sidechains, combined with merged-mining, enables miners to accomodate different chains with their security while reserving the rights to claim the transactions of any chain that gains significant traction. Their services are like a stamp of approval. Inclusion into the circle of chains who are MM by miners in some sort validates the legitimacy of a chain.

It is reasonable to assume a majority of sidechains will be bootstrapped on top of a federated model as it enables more security in the probable scenario where you will not be "backed" by the majority of miners from the start. You'll have to "earn your stripes", especially if you are a private entity/corporation.

The most established and community supported/used chains will end up being nearly as secure as BTC's mainchain simply because their value will command the ultimate security/decentralization

[NewLiberty]

Is it even fair to ask a rhetorician for concise facts that should be indisputable?

[brg444]

Is it even fair to ask a rhetorician for concise facts that should be indisputable?

Please bestow us with your wisdom of these indisputable facts or shut the hell up.

[NewLiberty]

Is it even fair to ask a rhetorician for concise facts that should be indisputable?

Please bestow us with your wisdom of these indisputable facts or shut the hell up.

That was Adrian-x's challenge to you, your response was your belief in a potential future.
I was defending you.  He did a switch up on you, and challenged you to change your argumentation style. and for that you attack me?

You aren't even turning out to be a good rhetorician.  You can't even tell who is on your side.

[cypherdoc]

Is it even fair to ask a rhetorician for concise facts that should be indisputable?

Please bestow us with your wisdom of these indisputable facts or shut the hell up.

That was Adrian-x's challenge to you, your response was your belief in a potential future.
I was defending you.  He did a switch up on you, and challenged you to change your argumentation style. and for that you attack me?

You aren't even turning out to be a good rhetorician.  You can't even tell who is on your side.

he's so frantic to shill for Blockstream, you'd think he was being paid by them to do so.

[cypherdoc]

But sidechains can potentially save Bitcoin.

Save me!  Save Bitcoin!

[brg444]

Is it even fair to ask a rhetorician for concise facts that should be indisputable?

Please bestow us with your wisdom of these indisputable facts or shut the hell up.

That was Adrian-x's challenge to you, your response was your belief in a potential future.
I was defending you.  He did a switch up on you, and challenged you to change your argumentation style. and for that you attack me?

You aren't even turning out to be a good rhetorician.  You can't even tell who is on your side.

 

well sorry about that. but your obscure 1 liner with no reference had me confused.