NewLiberty
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November 16, 2014, 01:34:18 PM |
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Does anyone think there is any validity to the suggestion that SPV proofs should be implemented into the Bitcoin protocol simply because a "federated model is not as good for the side chain"? There are better arguments, this one should not be repeated any more please.
Please understand that I am hoping to help you refine your message here. Quite a bit of this is really not good at all for the cause you are advocating.
http://www.blockstream.com/sidechains.pdfThere are important reasons to avoid the introduction of single points of failure:
Trusting individual signers does not only mean expecting them to behave honestly; they must also never be compromised, never leak secret key material, never be coerced, and never stop participating in the network
Yes. It is very clear to everyone that implementing an OP_SIDECHAINVERIFY into the Bitcoin protocol is good for Blockstream, and good for the Side Chains. It is less clear that it is good for the Bitcoin protocol. Then when "but we can do everything with federation and oracle already today, so we should just do it" is added to the argument, it makes anyone with a wary eye look at this as if it were a slimy sales technique. If it is not needed, drop the issue and stick with OP_RETURN. If it is needed, our job is to show why it is not win/lose but win/win.
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Odalv
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November 16, 2014, 01:39:00 PM |
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Does anyone think there is any validity to the suggestion that SPV proofs should be implemented into the Bitcoin protocol simply because a "federated model is not as good for the side chain"? There are better arguments, this one should not be repeated any more please.
Please understand that I am hoping to help you refine your message here. Quite a bit of this is really not good at all for the cause you are advocating.
http://www.blockstream.com/sidechains.pdfThere are important reasons to avoid the introduction of single points of failure:
Trusting individual signers does not only mean expecting them to behave honestly; they must also never be compromised, never leak secret key material, never be coerced, and never stop participating in the network
Yes. It is very clear to everyone that implementing an OP_SIDECHAINVERIFY into the Bitcoin protocol is good for Blockstream, and good for the Side Chains. It is less clear that it is good for the Bitcoin protocol. Then when "but we can do everything with federation and oracle already today, so we should just do it" is added to the argument, it makes anyone with a wary eye look at this as if it were a slimy sales technique. If it is not needed, drop the issue. If it is needed, our job is to show why it is not win/lose but win/win. I think it is good for everyone. And everyone will vote with their money in the end. :-)
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Odalv
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November 16, 2014, 01:53:29 PM |
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If it is not needed, drop the issue and stick with OP_RETURN. If it is needed, our job is to show why it is not win/lose but win/win.
What will do OP_RETURN ?
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NewLiberty
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November 16, 2014, 01:58:42 PM Last edit: November 16, 2014, 02:14:25 PM by NewLiberty |
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I think it is good for everyone. And everyone will vote with their money in the end. :-)
Lots of people think this. Lots don't. Most of the people will just follow along with the majority authority, whether it is right or isn't right. It may take a much longer time to find out whether it is or isn't good, than it takes for these decisions to be made, so there won't be any going back. Smaller stakeholders may be more inclined to just say "hey its only an experiment, lets try it and see if it works". It remains an important test (to me at least) whether the larger stakeholders would agree. So our task is to show how it is safe, if we can. We do this by analyzing the risks, not by pretending there aren't any. This analysis is not yet begun. We don't even have a good test proposal yet.
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cypherdoc (OP)
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November 16, 2014, 03:03:37 PM |
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Has anyone else noticed that we have won a major, major concession from brg444 inadvertently?
For the first 150 pages or so of this debate he has argued that SC's are one and the same ledger as bitcoin. He had contorted that definition with terms like "extensions" or "sub ledgers" in his rush to defend Blockstream and SC's .
Now, for the last 50 pages or so he has inadvertently given up that battle and now inexplicably agrees with with every argument I've used assuming that they are in fact different ledgers. This is what happens when you're blindy defending something based not on principle but emotion.
And that is a major victory. Certainly one worth pointing out. The different ledger theory is a major pillar of the objection against SC's due to their insecurity and potential for manipulation.
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Erdogan
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November 16, 2014, 03:13:22 PM |
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Has anyone else noticed that we have won a major, major concession from brg444 inadvertently?
For the first 150 pages or so of this debate he has argued that SC's are one and the same ledger as bitcoin. He had contorted that definition with terms like "extensions" or "sub ledgers" in his rush to defend Blockstream and SC's .
Now, for the last 50 pages or so he has inadvertently given up that battle and now inexplicably agrees with with every argument I've used assuming that they are in fact different ledgers. This is what happens when you're blindy defending something based not on principle but emotion.
And that is a major victory. Certainly one worth pointing out. The different ledger theory is a major pillar of the objection against SC's due to their insecurity and potential for manipulation.
I have noticed that the arguments for the sidechais restlessly wanders all over the place. Is the sidechain discussion done?
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thezerg
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November 16, 2014, 03:18:44 PM |
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I am only able to sample this thread lately due to time constraints so I apologize if my responses have already been covered. the basis of my argument is that the BTC unit cannot be separated from its blockchain (mainchain) w/o breaking Bitcoin as Money. imo, sidechains allow this and if you read their whitepaper, their core assumption is that they they can be separated.
But its not really separated is it? The BTC unit remains on the mainchain, "locked", essentially backing the sidechain. Its like paper gold being backed by phys, except that it impossible to hide naked paper. As a one-time holder of phyz gold and silver, I imagine that you'd agree that problems with the paper are unlikely to significantly affect the actual gold in your vault, except perhaps by removing value that the paper conferred (that is, many people think that gold ETFs drove the rise due by opening a larger market, and of course that additional value also floated phys). Blockstream registered as a for-profit entity earlier this year and they have $15M investment. their biz model is constructing SC's for other entities, namely corporations, banks, gvts, anyone willing to pay for the tech. in essence, they are now in the exact same position as Mastercoin, Bitshares, CP in terms of competing to mold Bitcoin into profitability for themselves.
their business model is dependent on inserting a change into the source code called a SPV proof. this would allow BTC to flow off the highly secure Bitcoin blockchain ledger into these SC businesses where sidechain ledgers rules will be determined however the business wants and will be inherently less secure as they will not be merge mined or even directly mined. they will require trust and will ensure security most likely by signing off on blocks as they are constructed with their own signing keys.
I would prefer the devs work independently too, but reality isn't perfect. But again, the BTC are not "flowing off" the Bitcoin ledger... BTC is simply being used to transparently back another chain. there will be thousand of entities who will bolt themselves onto Bitcoin via these SPV proofs. this will in effect allow a siphoning of value, BTC units, out of Bitcoin itself. how will Bitcoin miners make their required income from tx fees if all these BTC have moved offchain to sidechains? how will Bitcoin maintain its monetary function if all these BTC have moved to sidechains and have been converted to all manner of speculative assets?
If there really will be 1000 entities who need sidechains, we now have 1000 additional uses for Bitcoin which will massively increase demand for coins and resulting in a huge price increase. This is a great problem to have. We already imagine that if Bitcoin gains a large pct of the world's txns, it may not scale, resulting in high txn fees, and therefore may end up being used mostly for large transfers. In your 1000 entities scenario, the only difference is that instead of large opaque transfers (we don't know anything about the BTC transfer just that it happened), we can see that X coins moved from SC A to SC B. But running a SC does have overhead and risk. It seems obvious to me that companies will use the mainchain if possible (that is, it scales and can capture the transaction). You can't stop innovation. If in the SC future there will be 1000 sidechains backed with Bitcoin, in the non-SC future there will be 1000 altcoins, and Bitcoin's market cap will be 1000 times lower then it could have been.
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Odalv
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November 16, 2014, 03:31:12 PM |
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I think it is good for everyone. And everyone will vote with their money in the end. :-)
Lots of people think this. Lots don't. Most of the people will just follow along with the majority authority, whether it is right or isn't right. It may take a much longer time to find out whether it is or isn't good, than it takes for these decisions to be made, so there won't be any going back. Smaller stakeholders may be more inclined to just say "hey its only an experiment, lets try it and see if it works". It remains an important test (to me at least) whether the larger stakeholders would agree. So our task is to show how it is safe, if we can.We do this by analyzing the risks, not by pretending there aren't any. This analysis is not yet begun. We don't even have a good test proposal yet. I think there are 2 things: 1. if OP_SIDECHAINPROOFVERIFY is threat to Bitcoin b/c I did not find any. 2. How safe are BTC locked in MC by OP_SIDECHAINPROOFVERIFY => but we do not have enough information about implementation (at least I do not have)
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cypherdoc (OP)
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November 16, 2014, 03:43:07 PM Last edit: November 16, 2014, 04:06:18 PM by cypherdoc |
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I am only able to sample this thread lately due to time constraints so I apologize if my responses have already been covered. the basis of my argument is that the BTC unit cannot be separated from its blockchain (mainchain) w/o breaking Bitcoin as Money. imo, sidechains allow this and if you read their whitepaper, their core assumption is that they they can be separated.
But its not really separated is it? The BTC unit remains on the mainchain, "locked", essentially backing the sidechain. Its like paper gold being backed by phys, except that it impossible to hide naked paper. As a one-time holder of phyz gold and silver, I imagine that you'd agree that problems with the paper are unlikely to significantly affect the actual gold in your vault, except perhaps by removing value that the paper conferred (that is, many people think that gold ETFs drove the rise due by opening a larger market, and of course that additional value also floated phys). yes, we have been through this, that's how thoroughly we've all picked this apart. i think it's conceptually constipating to stop your view of what's happening at the SPVproof (spvp) border, as if those BTC's always remain on the MC. no, it's much more illuminating and as a laxative to view the spvp as an offramp into another speculative asset (defined as anything other than BTC which is the only sound hard money) such as Cashcoin, Truthcoin, votecoin, stocks, bonds, prediction markets, anything else. as well, your model implies that someday these have to just be unlocked on a journey back to mobile BTC. not true, whatever emerges on the other side of the spvp may never come back as Bitcoin has been forever changed by the mere insertion of the spvp. i think that mere insertion forever breaks the Bitcoin concept as Sound Money. it's like throwing the front door of your cattle barn wide open. at first, nothing happens. but once the cattle realize they are no longer safe from wolves entering, they start wandering out until you eventually get a stampede. Blockstream registered as a for-profit entity earlier this year and they have $15M investment. their biz model is constructing SC's for other entities, namely corporations, banks, gvts, anyone willing to pay for the tech. in essence, they are now in the exact same position as Mastercoin, Bitshares, CP in terms of competing to mold Bitcoin into profitability for themselves.
their business model is dependent on inserting a change into the source code called a SPV proof. this would allow BTC to flow off the highly secure Bitcoin blockchain ledger into these SC businesses where sidechain ledgers rules will be determined however the business wants and will be inherently less secure as they will not be merge mined or even directly mined. they will require trust and will ensure security most likely by signing off on blocks as they are constructed with their own signing keys.
I would prefer the devs work independently too, but reality isn't perfect. But again, the BTC are not "flowing off" the Bitcoin ledger... BTC is simply being used to transparently back another chain. see above. there will be thousand of entities who will bolt themselves onto Bitcoin via these SPV proofs. this will in effect allow a siphoning of value, BTC units, out of Bitcoin itself. how will Bitcoin miners make their required income from tx fees if all these BTC have moved offchain to sidechains? how will Bitcoin maintain its monetary function if all these BTC have moved to sidechains and have been converted to all manner of speculative assets?
If there really will be 1000 entities who need sidechains, we now have 1000 additional uses for Bitcoin which will massively increase demand for coins and resulting in a huge price increase. This is a great problem to have. We already imagine that if Bitcoin gains a large pct of the world's txns, it may not scale, resulting in high txn fees, and therefore may end up being used mostly for large transfers. In your 1000 entities scenario, the only difference is that instead of large opaque transfers (we don't know anything about the BTC transfer just that it happened), we can see that X coins moved from SC A to SC B. But running a SC does have overhead and risk. It seems obvious to me that companies will use the mainchain if possible (that is, it scales and can capture the transaction). You can't stop innovation. If in the SC future there will be 1000 sidechains backed with Bitcoin, in the non-SC future there will be 1000 altcoins, and Bitcoin's market cap will be 1000 times lower then it could have been. brg444 has also changed his argument to "there will only be Blockstream creating 2 utility SC's to now there will be a bunch of Blockstream-like companies like Google, IBM producing SC's in droves". i believe this new backpedaled theory is what will happen. that's b/c the spvp has inserted a costless, riskless, backdoor offramp which breaks Bitcoin's hard money security and allows a siphoning of value to these 1000's of SC's as new speculative assets. once we allow that offramp to be inserted into the source code, it's game over.
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cypherdoc (OP)
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November 16, 2014, 03:51:25 PM |
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We already imagine that if Bitcoin gains a large pct of the world's txns, it may not scale, resulting in high txn fees, and therefore may end up being used mostly for large transfers. In your 1000 entities scenario, the only difference is that instead of large opaque transfers (we don't know anything about the BTC transfer just that it happened), we can see that X coins moved from SC A to SC B.
But running a SC does have overhead and risk. It seems obvious to me that companies will use the mainchain if possible (that is, it scales and can capture the transaction).
You can't stop innovation. If in the SC future there will be 1000 sidechains backed with Bitcoin, in the non-SC future there will be 1000 altcoins, and Bitcoin's market cap will be 1000 times lower then it could have been.
sure it can scale. Gavin has proposed at least one. how can you see coins move from SC A to SC B? the Bitcoin network won't be monitoring all these SC's and there aren't enough mining resources to be able to MM all of them. on the contrary, they will be opaque and maintained by trusted owners of the SC's and as such are different ledgers than Bitcoin. i don't want to stop innovation. i just want truly needed innovations to be implemented on MC. i disagree that it's so dangerous. we've done it before. maybe no one has introduced such a fundamental change b/c we haven't needed one? code has to be thoroughly vetted and tested on testnet or even on these federated server SC's. just don't introduce an offramp spvp to the source which breaks Bitcoin.
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justusranvier
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November 16, 2014, 04:01:58 PM |
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But running a SC does have overhead and risk. It seems obvious to me that companies will use the mainchain if possible (that is, it scales and can capture the transaction). There are significant number of people who don't want the main chain to scale, for various reason. Sidechains provide those people both with an argument against scaling the main chain, and it creates a group of people with a financial interest in preventing the main chain from adopting new features which might render particular sidechains less necessary. The latter part wouldn't be such a big deal if Blockstream wasn't so closely connected with Bitcoin Core development.
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cypherdoc (OP)
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November 16, 2014, 04:09:38 PM |
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But running a SC does have overhead and risk. It seems obvious to me that companies will use the mainchain if possible (that is, it scales and can capture the transaction). There are significant number of people who don't want the main chain to scale, for various reason. Sidechains provide those people both with an argument against scaling the main chain, and it creates a group of people with a financial interest in preventing the main chain from adopting new features which might render particular sidechains less necessary. The latter part wouldn't be such a big deal if Blockstream wasn't so closely connected with Bitcoin Core development. the SC's idea was hatched in the minds of the Blockstream ppl at least a year ago from an interview,iirc, and someone put up a link on bitcointalk from a thread by killerstorm initially discussing the idea maybe 2 yrs ago. they then filed the trademark in April 2014. so we know they've been thinking about making this move for at least a year. http://www.inovia.com/products/directory/trademarks-number-86247026/blockstream-trademark-owned-by-blockstream-corporation
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cypherdoc (OP)
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November 16, 2014, 04:16:35 PM |
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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).
If you have big enough user base then even 100% hash power attack cannot spend this BTC b/c it is not valid transaction. 1. you can ignore OP_SIDECHAINPROOFVERIFY 2. if some miner will add transaction what will spent BTC from address using OP_SIDECHAINPROOFVERIFY into block without valid "SideChain proof" then this block will be ignored b/c it will contain invalid tx. Thanks, I've been intrigued on the details of that since the San Jose 2013BF conference. This was something that Eli Ben-Sasson worked out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRcPReUpkcUThe TX are invalid for nodes running OP_SIDECHAINPROOFVERIFY, but if not... This is an implementation of this SCIP (Succinct Computational Integrity and Privacy) so it has to be checked, yes? It struck me as the opening of the window for deterministic computing. Essentially verifiability of what all computers are doing all the time. It sets up a powerful framework. Terrifying, important, and exciting. I get why the core devs want to work on it. New math changes things. that was an interesting video. thx for sharing. is the skiplist as described in the SC WP the same as SCIP? doesn't sound like it.
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Peter R
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November 16, 2014, 04:24:23 PM |
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But running a SC does have overhead and risk. It seems obvious to me that companies will use the mainchain if possible (that is, it scales and can capture the transaction). There are significant number of people who don't want the main chain to scale, for various reason. Sidechains provide those people both with an argument against scaling the main chain, and it creates a group of people with a financial interest in preventing the main chain from adopting new features which might render particular sidechains less necessary. The latter part wouldn't be such a big deal if Blockstream wasn't so closely connected with Bitcoin Core development. I think most of the sidechain.pdf authors still want to hard-fork bitcoin to support an increased max block size, no? On that matter, are there any core devs remaining who are against increasing the max block size? Nevertheless, I made the same point earlier that sidechains could be used as an "excuse" to not move forward with this hard fork, fragmenting community opinion at a time when we need to come together to support this change. Ideally, I like to see us move forward with the hard fork within the next 12 months, sidechains explored using federated servers, and the risks and rewards of adding support for SPV proofs to the protocol analyzed in much greater detail from the technical perspective, but also from the economic, legal, and game-theory perspectives too.
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Adrian-x
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November 16, 2014, 04:29:44 PM Last edit: November 16, 2014, 05:28:17 PM by Adrian-x |
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...
If it is not needed, drop the issue. If it is needed, our job is to show why it is not win/lose but win/win.
I think it is good for everyone. And everyone will vote with their money in the end. :-) Thanks Odalv, I've understood you think it's good, can you explain why you think it is good?
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Thank me in Bits 12MwnzxtprG2mHm3rKdgi7NmJKCypsMMQw
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cypherdoc (OP)
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November 16, 2014, 04:31:35 PM |
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Another way to look at this is that with my model, outsiders wishing to use Bitcoin have to buy a seat in the system by putting up hard cold cash to purchase bitcoin. This helps drive the price which helps all of us. With SC's, all they have to do is "attract" btc by bolting themselves onto the system using the SPVProof.
I do not understand. Can you explain ? the way i see it, adding the spvp to source forever alters Bitcoins property of Sound Money. i would no longer view it as a SOV. as it currently stands, you want outsiders to either pay hard cash to buy BTC's to get a seat at the table or trade something of value for BTC. by introducing an offramp spvp, these same outsiders also may have figured out that Bitcoin is broken and instead of buying in, they will simply bolt onto Bitcoin via the spvp offering some speculative asset to trade into and just wait. eventually, once everyone figures out that there's a leak in the system they will start moving out in droves into all manner of speculative assets and SC's it's like a barn full of cattle. they feel perfectly safe and secure while the barn door is closed. the wolves outside have no way of getting in except for scaling the side of the barn to an open upstairs window. the cost is high for the wolves cuz they might fall and kill themselves. instead, someone throws the front door wide open. initially nothing happens and an occasional cattle glances over at the open door and figures the owner will close it back up to protect them. eventually they figure out the door isn't closing. instead of the wolves rushing thru the front door, they decide to just wait outside and pick off every single cattle that comes storming out with time.
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tvbcof
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November 16, 2014, 04:34:59 PM |
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But running a SC does have overhead and risk. It seems obvious to me that companies will use the mainchain if possible (that is, it scales and can capture the transaction). There are significant number of people who don't want the main chain to scale, for various reason. ... I for one dearly wish that Bitcoin would scale while retaining the distributed features which, to me, give Bitcoin it's strength. Unfortunately wishing for something is a poor engineering strategy. About all I see from the scale-up folks is 'it's so easy...just tweak max_block_size and we can do 20,000 transactions per second no problem because Moore's Law.' Meanwhile as we get half way to the paltry 7 tps six years on, one's computer running a full node acts like it has a mining trojan. So, demo some code which does a fraction of the wild numbers needed to support the world. Also, for an actual convincing test, let an adversary run DPI and filtering between your test sites.
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sig spam anywhere and self-moderated threads on the pol&soc board are for losers.
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NewLiberty
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November 16, 2014, 04:39:24 PM |
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I think it is good for everyone. And everyone will vote with their money in the end. :-)
Lots of people think this. Lots don't. Most of the people will just follow along with the majority authority, whether it is right or isn't right. It may take a much longer time to find out whether it is or isn't good, than it takes for these decisions to be made, so there won't be any going back. Smaller stakeholders may be more inclined to just say "hey its only an experiment, lets try it and see if it works". It remains an important test (to me at least) whether the larger stakeholders would agree. So our task is to show how it is safe, if we can.We do this by analyzing the risks, not by pretending there aren't any. This analysis is not yet begun. We don't even have a good test proposal yet. I think there are 2 things: 1. if OP_SIDECHAINPROOFVERIFY is threat to Bitcoin b/c I did not find any. 2. How safe are BTC locked in MC by OP_SIDECHAINPROOFVERIFY => but we do not have enough information about implementation (at least I do not have) 1) If it does something, it can do something bad. There are threats and risks to Bitcoin from implementing OP_SIDECHAINPROOFVERIFY, the question is more whether "the hook is worth the bait". (But I see I can sign you into the group that pretends that there are no risks to Bitcoin.) If the hook is tiny, not so sharp and the line is weak...and the bait is very tasty, we may bite the baited hook. We may find out we were foolish anyway and end up served for dinner. The older the fish, the more bait it has stolen from a fisherman's hook. 2) Yes, currently the technical implementations require either blind trust, or wading through some very dense mathematics, and then checking whether the full C libraries have been correctly implemented. When I saw this presentation, it sort of blew my mind in the type of things that it could change. It is really the beginning of the end of analog. The only limits seem to be the computational power of the proof systems. This is not a small thing, it may easily be as revolutionary as the BGP solution.
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justusranvier
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November 16, 2014, 04:39:34 PM |
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Ideally, I like to see us move forward with the hard fork within the next 12 months, sidechains explored using federated servers, and the risks and rewards of adding support for SPV proofs to the protocol analyzed in much greater detail from the technical perspective, but also from the economic, legal, and game-theory perspectives too.
Ideally, I'd like to see a development roadmap for the protocol, with clearly-defined criteria for determining what goes in and what does not. Unfortunately a prerequisite for that is a common agreement on goals.
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