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Topic: Economically Unspendable Outputs: A Problem On The Radar - page 11. (Read 16444 times)

donator
Activity: 994
Merit: 1000
kinda reminds me of the nuclear waste debate. It's a future liability which is not captured by current transaction fees.

Would a simple change to the propagation rule fix this problem: ?

do not propagate if:
fee > unspent transaction output.

Yeah good analogy. It's exactly like nuclear waste.

Your suggestion is a good one; However, it is vulnerable to miners defecting. It would be in the short-term best interests for an individual miner or pool to just comment that line out.

Well at least it would be simple enough to quickly fix the code and maybe offer it as a command line option - and probably has a huge impact. Then SD needs to fix their problem...

But before implementing that, is there any conceivable reason why somebody may want to send a transaction where the fee is higher than the unspent transaction output (colored coins aside)?
legendary
Activity: 1064
Merit: 1001
kinda reminds me of the nuclear waste debate. It's a future liability which is not captured by current transaction fees.

Would a simple change to the propagation rule fix this problem: ?

do not propagate if:
fee > unspent transaction output.

Yeah good analogy. It's exactly like nuclear waste.

Your suggestion is a good one; However, it is vulnerable to miners defecting. It would be in the short-term best interests for an individual miner or pool to just comment that line out.
hero member
Activity: 714
Merit: 500
Psi laju, karavani prolaze.
All this bitching makes me wanna spam the blockchain myself, just to point out that removing SD is no solution.
member
Activity: 102
Merit: 10
You are basically calling for censorship based on your personal preferences, disguising them under "common good" myth. This strategy is very dishonest and reminds me of shitload of propaganda that is poured on every single person all around the world for the last several thousand years.



If anywhere this should be solved at the protocol level, not at the social level. The bitcoin system should be completely agnostic about the intention of a transaction.  All it should be concerned about is the total cost of a transaction, both to the miners and relay nodes.

If people start using patched clients to block transactions based on perceived intentions, we are going to get into a huge mess.  

You guys have restored my faith in the forum community, very well said Smiley

I fully agree, it's also great to see smart people like you having an influence. Bitcoin is the greatest invention mankind has made, and it will eventually free us from oppression, people don't realise it yet. Bitcoin's essence should never be touched.
donator
Activity: 994
Merit: 1000
Yup, that's how Bitcoin works. So what? SD paid a transaction fee to do that.
...they effectively can never be pruned.
kinda reminds me of the nuclear waste debate. It's a future liability which is not captured by current transaction fees.

Would a simple change to the propagation rule fix this problem: ?

do not propagate if:
fee > unspent transaction output.

This would prevent satoshi-type unspent transaction outputs, unless they are introduced with zero fees. And those should be filtered out heavily in a transaction fee governed market. (Although such a rule would probably have collateral damage for other valid transaction models, e.g. colored coins)
vip
Activity: 490
Merit: 271
It's not a flaw, it's competition complaining about the competition.

The best way to resolve is to increase competition.

I see SD as a anti-monopoly service. It will prevent mining consortiums from dictating their fees. They will try to do it never the less but the less greedy will gladly take less.

An extended backlog of confirms will ultimately have to lead to voluntarily reducing of difficulty through consensus. Find the 'sweet' spot.

Adapt or perish.
sr. member
Activity: 310
Merit: 250
Yup, that's how Bitcoin works. So what? SD paid a transaction fee to do that.

No, it's not how Bitcoin works. When you send an ordinary transaction, it's outputs only need to stay in the block chain while they are unspent. After someone spends the entire output, it can be pruned (removed from disk). Until that point it needs to stay in long term storage. Single-satoshi outputs would cost more in fees to send than the amount of the output, which is why no sane person would ever spend such an amount. For this reason they effectively can never be pruned.


Yea, it is how Bitcoin works. That's exactly WHY it works. Bitcoin is a protocol. Pruning is a client implementation. Does this make pruning techniques less efficient, yup sure does.

member
Activity: 102
Merit: 10
Someone please ban this mrbigg troll
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1009
Single-satoshi outputs would cost more in fees to send than the amount of the output, which is why no sane person would ever spend such an amount. For this reason they effectively can never be pruned.
You keep saying this no matter how many times someone points out that it isn't true.
legendary
Activity: 1988
Merit: 1012
Beyond Imagination
If the network can't handle the load from SD then we should all just pack it in and go home.  You ain't seen nothin' yet.

I'm quite sure the paypal network won't even stand a chance to handle the 1/10 load from Nasdaq exchange

I never understand why a game with lot's of bot's transaction should use the world bank's transaction network
legendary
Activity: 1064
Merit: 1001
Yup, that's how Bitcoin works. So what? SD paid a transaction fee to do that.

No, it's not how Bitcoin works. When you send an ordinary transaction, it's outputs only need to stay in the block chain while they are unspent. After someone spends the entire output, it can be pruned (removed from disk). Until that point it needs to stay in long term storage. Single-satoshi outputs would cost more in fees to send than the amount of the output, which is why no sane person would ever spend such an amount. For this reason they effectively can never be pruned.
legendary
Activity: 1470
Merit: 1005
Bringing Legendary Har® to you since 1952
I think that raising awareness is the best we can do.

This is not "raising awarness". This is whining like a crybaby, and spreading unnecessary panic & chaos.
sr. member
Activity: 291
Merit: 250
OP, thread title is VERY misleading...go take some prozac.
legendary
Activity: 1064
Merit: 1001
...How about just not sending dust to notify losing bets?
That would reduce the SD transactions by about 25%. Will that satisfy you and solve the "problem"? Or will this discussion flare up again when SD grows by a subsequent 33% a month later?

Again it's not the volume of transactions that is the sole problem, it's the unprunable and unspendable outputs that are sent for losing bets. They will be carried around in every copy of the block, in perpetuity, and can never be realistically spent (since it would cost more in fees than the actual amount).

The volume is making fees go up in the short term which isn't the best but that problem will go away as we get more "legitimate" transactions. But the unprunable and unspendable outputs have a permanent effect.

sr. member
Activity: 310
Merit: 250


If you read the post, then you understand that these outputs can never be realistically spent, since they would cost more in fees than the amount received.


That's only true today. Maybe in the future a bitcoin becomes divisible to 16 places. Either way, who cares?

Quote
Again, you do not understand that these transactions cannot be pruned. They must exist until the end of time, and yet the outputs cannot be spent.

So what? If disk space is a problem for you, don't run a full node. I have 10x the current size of the Bitcoin blockchain available on one thumb drive I got for $30. And guess what, it turns out that storage gets cheaper over time. Crazy huh?


Quote
No, I'm saying that we don't need fees to go up sooner than necessary just because of one bad actor on the network.

We should be thankful for this "bad actor". He is helping to understand how to deal with a larger issue by working within the system as it currently exists at a stage that is early enough to correct the problem.

Quote

Every time SatoshIDICE sends a losing bet transaction, every current node and every new node must keep a copy of the transaction until the end of time.

Yup, that's how Bitcoin works. So what? SD paid a transaction fee to do that.


legendary
Activity: 1064
Merit: 1001
More valuable transactions will crowd out SD ineffcient use of the resource...Personally I believe free markets are the most efficient allocator of resources (including space in a block) and thus SD isn't a "problem" long term.

It's true that SD isn't a problem long term but as of this very moment, SD transaction spam accounts for upwards of 80% of all transaction volume. There is so much of it (likely due to betting bots) that it is driving up transaction fees. Eventually fees will go up anyway but we don't need fees to increase so much yet. The block subsidy is more than enough to incentivize mining. What the SD transaction spam is doing is prematurely raising the costs of transactions at a time when Bitcoin is in it's early stage and doesn't need the burden.

We need to be prepared for everything, not whine around because somebody is using a known vulnerability. Vulnerability needs to be fixed and that is end of discussion.

Yeah, I don't think anyone is disputing that the vulnerability needs to be fixed but until we have a robust technical measure in place that discourages the bad behavior (instead of just blocking any address that starts with "1dice") I think that raising awareness is the best we can do. You're more than welcome to propose solutions in the Development and Technical Discussion forum.
legendary
Activity: 1008
Merit: 1021
Democracy is the original 51% attack
Let's say I shut down SatoshiDice tomorrow

I think that's going a little too far. How about just not sending dust to notify losing bets?


That would reduce the SD transactions by about 25%. Will that satisfy you and solve the "problem"? Or will this discussion flare up again when SD grows by a subsequent 33% a month later?
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
After reading OP all I have to say is....da fuuuuuuuuuq?

I think I might just through a few bets into SD just to cleanse myself from all the FUD you just posted.
donator
Activity: 994
Merit: 1000
SD inefficiently uses a critical resource.  Basically it comes down to you either believe in free markets or you don't. ... Personally I believe free markets are the most efficient allocator of resources (including space in a block) and thus SD isn't a "problem" long term.
this.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. SD is a business model which is viable because it kinda enjoys a free ride. The moment gambler's have to spend 50% irreversible fee on a 50:50 bet, they're going to say, WTF.

So in essence SD competes only with a zero-transaction fee market. I have no problem with miners using social criteria on a zero-transaction fee market, because it's altruistic anyway. (also note the distinction between propagation vs. validation, https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1600289)
legendary
Activity: 1064
Merit: 1001
Let's say I shut down SatoshiDice tomorrow

I think that's going a little too far. How about just not sending dust to notify losing bets?
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