For those not following NXT, I have been divorced from NXT.
https://nxtforum.org/core-development-discussion/nxt-2-0-design/msg210601/#msg210601The above is my last post in the NXT forum, unless the fNXT plan is revoked. fNXT is not NXT and NXT lifetime is limited, so we will need to migrate the NXT assets to a different blockchain.
Now before you panic, I like to make lemonade out of lemons, so like BC2 led to iguana, fNXT has led to:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/declaration-of-independence-atomic-cross-chain-asset-standard-1372879A passport system for assets that allows the asset holder to decide the blockchain they want to reside in. While the PoS mechanism is fully protecting the NXT holders as designed, it allows the creation of a hardfork that ignores other parts of the ecosystem, like assets.
This is a problem for any derivative. The core PoS or PoW or PoAnything will only protect the interests of the stakeholders, miners or whatever, that the block consensus algorithm uses. As such the hardfork attack vector is a very real and actual in the case of fNXT hardfork.
So while the PoS ensures that the NXT holders (including SuperNET) will vote for the fNXT hardfork out of their fiduciary duty to maximize revenues, there are no protections for asset holders or issuers. In some sense the PoS worked too well, instead of not well enough and it needs to be weakened.
Does this mean decentralized assets are dead?
Not at all!
This attack vector directly led me to create a solution, namely blockchain independent assets that is blockchain enforced. It does require all participating blockchains to implement an asset passport protocol, but the ones that do will allow for free travel among them.
blockchains with iron curtains that dont allow anybody to come in, still wont be able to prevent assets from leaving as long as there is a burn mechanism. So far all blockchains I have seen have either a direct burn method, or one can be devised.
That means that any blockchain that doesnt support asset immigration, is subject to a oneway outflow to ones that do. This is basically the SuperNET concept applied to assets and iguana tech will build into BTCD the ability to trade against BTC using BTCD's one minute block times but to be able to coldstore idle assets in the BTC blockchain. Even if they are in cold storage, it just means that they cannot be traded and all the dividends they earn will still go to your account.
How does this protect assets from the hardfork attack?
Simple. If an upcoming hardfork threatens your interests, just move to a different blockchain.
Even if a blockchain just increases taxes (txfees) and you want a lower cost blockchain, you can move.
If a blockchain just is slow to create useful tech, you can move to one that does.
By distributing an asset across multiple decentralized (or even distributed) blockchains appears to be the best protection available to derived crypto. The alternative is a new blockchain for each asset using itself as its PoS with blocks generated only when there is a transaction. Private chains are coming, but this seems excessive use of the blockchain "hammer" from the toolkit. And it creates a massive N*N problem of cross chain transactions for all such assetchains.
With asset passports, you just reside your assets where you are most actively using the local blockchain and since trading against the native currency of the blockchain is most efficient (it better be!) you will be able to take advantage of this affinity. But if ever some storm clouds appear, you can simply move to a safer blockchain.
BTC is here to stay. Certainly as the reference currency, but even the tech development pace is starting to accelerate, so this is encouraging for all of crypto. iguana is achieving less than an hour BTC blockchain sync for full 60 GB blockchain, so the problem I used to think was so big a problem is not so big anymore. bitcoin 0.12 supports pruning, so HDD space is also going to be an issue not so important. Most importantly, I will be able to run a bitcoind node on my laptop!
So why not everything BTC? Well if you ever are waiting for a trade to go through, you know that waiting even a minute is a long time. Try waiting 10 minutes. Just not a good experience. So I will make a hybrid system combining the speed of BTCD 1 minute blocks with BTC for long term storage. Trading against BTC should really be a requirement, but not sure if all passport enable blockchains will be able to do this, so it would probably need to be a strong recommendation.
iguana unites all the bitcoin compatibles using technology. It is inching toward completion and we even have a freelancer based GUI dev team now, using fully open source development.
docs.supernet.org shows the API and in spite of the external events that keep happening to cause delays, we still march on. This is a marathon and we will complete it.
James
P.S. Before any NXT holder panics, do not worry, NXT peoples are doing everything they can, literally, to make sure NXT goes up, so it seems pretty likely that NXT price will do just fine. I just have some ideological and technical disagreements and since I have no actual power within NXT, I was forced to move.
