Bitcoin Core Developer says Bitcoin Too Fragile and in its Infancy

[Mightycoin]

Bitcoin has crossed into a certain period of evolution how could a developer say it's infancy still?

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[dankkk]

It is now that we need the features for the products 5 years from now.  Only a developer would use the logic that we can put these enhancements off 5 years.   That is suicide.  Any idiot with an ounce of knowledge of product development, marketing, and business trends knows:  You create it now.   Always.

Generally, I agree. The sooner you can add features, the better.

But what features do you think are required? The only thing that I can think of that would be an unqualified improvement is a solution to the 51% quandary. But that would not be a feature - it would be a complete re-architecting of the system. Further, it is dependent upon a breakthrough invention.

I don't think it is really possible to solve the problem of being vulnerable to a 51% attack. An attacker could simply mine from various geographic locations to various BTC addresses to hide the fact that each of his mining farms is part of a potential large percentage of the network.

[romerun]

that's how bitcoin devs miss the boat while irrational average Joes become the next "Loaded"

[wasserman99]

After its launch few years before, bitcoin raised its value from beings few dollars to more than 1000 dollars by 2012. According to an investor this price variation is too fragile. I do agree that bitcoin might still be in its infancy due to much variation going on..

I don't think it is so much the price, but is rather the stability of the network. There are still a number of ways that a well funded attacker could attempt to attack the bitcoin network and wreck havoc on the bitcoin network and on bitcoin itself.

[QuestionAuthority]

Every time I hear this story I wonder.. Why aren't big vested partners -- like Coinbase, BitPay, etc. -- in the bitcoin space are not doing more to address development.

I totally agree. All those huge, richly-backed companies should be providing multiple core developers to work on Bitcoin. It's not fair that they're riding on the shoulders of a small number of core developers who are basically doing all the grunt work for free.

Weee! Let's talk more about what other people should do, while we spend time browsing a forum.

Best response in this thread so far.

[NotAtOld]

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Captain Ulterior-Motive!

[cccarnation]

I think saying Bitcoin is "really fragile", conjuring images of a shipment of chinaware, is a bit misleading.

One could say the US multi-trillion dollar economy and infrastructure is fragile and defenseless to physical and cyber attacks on its power grid. Yet life goes on.

What's missing is the countermeasure argument. There are all sorts of what-if potential problems all around us, all the time. That doesn't mean we fear getting out of bed each day. What I mean is, sure, Bitcoin isn't perfect nor completely invulnerable to attack, but that can be said for lots of things. However, what I do believe is it's incredibly resilient due to the resourcefulness of its supporters. That counts for a lot.

[polunna]

I think saying Bitcoin is "really fragile", conjuring images of a shipment of chinaware, is a bit misleading.

One could say the US multi-trillion dollar economy and infrastructure is fragile and defenseless to physical and cyber attacks on its power grid. Yet life goes on.

What's missing is the countermeasure argument. There are all sorts of what-if potential problems all around us, all the time. That doesn't mean we fear getting out of bed each day. What I mean is, sure, Bitcoin isn't perfect nor completely invulnerable to attack, but that can be said for lots of things. However, what I do believe is it's incredibly resilient due to the resourcefulness of its supporters. That counts for a lot.

That's one of my problems with Mike, its like the guy has no idea how his glib little statements impact the larger ecosystem he's working on.
Not quite BP "We're Sorry" kind of gaffe, but certainly up there considering how much effort and money has been invested in the Bitcoin sphere.

[bambino]

While I appreciate the work Hearn has contributed so far, he is a proponent of blacklisting. He got such a huge backlash last year when he came out for it, though, I believe he'd never get such a thing implemented. Fixing malleability, as I understand it, has more to do with how businesses implement the Bitcoin protocol, not a problem with the protocol itself. It's a "best practice" kind of solution.

[master-P]

Every time I hear this story I wonder.. Why aren't big vested partners -- like Coinbase, BitPay, etc. -- in the bitcoin space are not doing more to address development.

I totally agree. All those huge, richly-backed companies should be providing multiple core developers to work on Bitcoin. It's not fair that they're riding on the shoulders of a small number of core developers who are basically doing all the grunt work for free.

There is not that big of a demand for development right now. There are really very few things that are known to are needing to be addressed.

What needs to happen is the bitcoin network to be attacked, and changes should be made to address the vulnerabilities exposed in the attack. Until this happens there is not a lot to develop. 

[Bitbirdhunt]

I guess infancy compared to the transactions being made.
The numbers are still too small. The security is solid but the transactions do not compare to the smallest of countries.

[CliveK]

Not sure you read the Risk Management Study 2014 by Jim Harper.

Possible threats (there are many, just naming a few here with the higher likelihood according to the report):

DS4: A significant bug exists in the code.
DM1: Mining becomes too expensive for anyone but a small number of specialists.
DN2: There is no benefit to running a node, the number of nodes/user shrinks.

As someone who works on (not with) Bitcoin daily, I think the developer is closer to knowing the problems with the whole Bitcoin ecosystem than the evangelists who claim the Titanic is unsinkable.

Assuming everyone has read the report. If not:
https://bitcoinfoundation.org/resources/removing-impediments-to-bitcoins-success/

And will leave you with the words of Gavin Anderson to reassure you that Bitcoin is rock solid:
"However, this is a good time to re-iterate my standard disclaimers: Bitcoin is still a work in progress, and you should only risk time or money on it that you can afford to lose."

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/2014/06/centralized-mining/

[iluvpie60]

Good point . bitcoin is still in its infancy , but technically it's not fragile .

Bitcoin is in fact highly anti-fragile.

until someone has enough hashing power to do whatever they want. then it becomes oh so fragile and can be used differently. i mean, at some point cex.io could get hacked and a lot of things could happen. or maybe someone else gets hacked and screws over a bunch of stuff. ya never know until it happens.

[dankkk]

I think saying Bitcoin is "really fragile", conjuring images of a shipment of chinaware, is a bit misleading.

One could say the US multi-trillion dollar economy and infrastructure is fragile and defenseless to physical and cyber attacks on its power grid. Yet life goes on.

What's missing is the countermeasure argument. There are all sorts of what-if potential problems all around us, all the time. That doesn't mean we fear getting out of bed each day. What I mean is, sure, Bitcoin isn't perfect nor completely invulnerable to attack, but that can be said for lots of things. However, what I do believe is it's incredibly resilient due to the resourcefulness of its supporters. That counts for a lot.

That's one of my problems with Mike, its like the guy has no idea how his glib little statements impact the larger ecosystem he's working on.
Not quite BP "We're Sorry" kind of gaffe, but certainly up there considering how much effort and money has been invested in the Bitcoin sphere.

I think what he was doing was trying to prevent bitcoin from growing too quickly, as if it grows too quickly then it would be vulnerable to unknown attack vectors and if it has grown and is attacked then it will likely fail, verses it being attacked while being smaller, it's chances of survival are greater.

[MightyStorm]

Mike Hearn is also the guy that is proposing to build blacklisting into Tor, as well as reduce the fungibility of Bitcoin with built in taint tracking and rejection.

[littlebeetle]

Mike Hearn is also the guy that is proposing to build blacklisting into Tor, as well as reduce the fungibility of Bitcoin with built in taint tracking and rejection.

Mike Hearn is the Bitcoin Anti-Christ 

[superbd]

Mike Hearn is also the guy that is proposing to build blacklisting into Tor, as well as reduce the fungibility of Bitcoin with built in taint tracking and rejection.

What is wrong with a tor node wanting to block something going through their computer and network? It is their connection you're using and are under no obligation to forward any traffic to you in the first place while they risk themselves, and you're still free to use a different node.

[Bizzaran]

Mike Hearn is also the guy that is proposing to build blacklisting into Tor, as well as reduce the fungibility of Bitcoin with built in taint tracking and rejection.

What is wrong with a tor node wanting to block something going through their computer and network? It is their connection you're using and are under no obligation to forward any traffic to you in the first place while they risk themselves, and you're still free to use a different node.

Because it's fucking TOR. Why are they operating a TOR node at all if they want to block shit? That's not what TOR is for. They should take their computer and their connection to a different network.

[AriceInWonderland]

Mike Hearn is also the guy that is proposing to build blacklisting into Tor, as well as reduce the fungibility of Bitcoin with built in taint tracking and rejection.

What is wrong with a tor node wanting to block something going through their computer and network? It is their connection you're using and are under no obligation to forward any traffic to you in the first place while they risk themselves, and you're still free to use a different node.

Keep in mind that's only possible due to a flaw in Tor. The Tor devs are fixing that flaw, and mike posted on their mailing list telling them not to fix it, because he wanted it used for blacklisting. If you don't like Tor's anti-censorship ethics, I suggest you don't contribute to it at all. Equally if you do, then your "property rights" include the right to choosing to use a system where no-one has the ability to censor.

[QuestionAuthority]

Mike Hearn is also the guy that is proposing to build blacklisting into Tor, as well as reduce the fungibility of Bitcoin with built in taint tracking and rejection.

What is wrong with a tor node wanting to block something going through their computer and network? It is their connection you're using and are under no obligation to forward any traffic to you in the first place while they risk themselves, and you're still free to use a different node.

Keep in mind that's only possible due to a flaw in Tor. The Tor devs are fixing that flaw, and mike posted on their mailing list telling them not to fix it, because he wanted it used for blacklisting. If you don't like Tor's anti-censorship ethics, I suggest you don't contribute to it at all. Equally if you do, then your "property rights" include the right to choosing to use a system where no-one has the ability to censor.

This is a weak point in open source. It's possible to have a rogue dev secretly working against a project for years because they can't be fired.