Miners are currently receiving a 25 BTC subsidy to try to encourage Bitcoin adoption.
While it is certainly true that we could all start demanding fees that cover the expense of mining and storing the transaction (probably higher than the 0.01 BTC/kB we originally started with), Bitcoin adoption is likely to suffer from that.
I'm in the camp of "if they pay for data, let them", but this is actually a very interesting argument I completely overlooked.
The 80/40 byte OP_RETURN is merely a matter of node-specific relay policy, and should not in any way affect how anyone implements their protocols, which should be done correctly, without regard for others' policies.
If people want to support these new protocol standards, they should adjust their policies accordingly.
Relaying nodes are one part, pools another. In my opinion it would be already a significant limitation, if only 3/4 of pools mine those transactions, but let's look at the facts - right now it's almost none? Your argument is moot and (exaggerated) like saying: "sure, go ahead and build a service which uses OP_CAT. If it turns out to be used by a lot of people, ...".
Hey baddw,
thanks for representing your point of view! In most parts I agree. Here are a few notes nevertheless:
At first, related to the dust sent to 1EXoDus: while I really don't share some of the actions or decisions that were made related to Mastercoin, I'm very certain that it's purpose is indeed one of a marker (similar to XCP's prefix) and by no means "unjust enrichment of the Mastercoin developers". Even if you combine all the dust, you'd probably end up with something like.. 0.5 BTC? This is absolutely insignificant, given that "thousands" of coins are allocated to fund further developement.
Can you point to non-financial data usage in Counterparty or Mastercoin? They were both created to enable the creation of further tokens, some of which may end up having little value, but all are certainly intended to have some value.
I can:
-
A new Mastercoin property with many meta-data fields-
XCP broadcasts (
transactions)
In my opinion this stuff shouldn't be stored on chain - and we should actively work on a solution to avoid this. It's questionable, if it makes sense to replace a short piece (let's say "btcusd-650") by an extern reference (say a magnet link). But at least related to Mastercoin I have a pretty strong opinion that most (meta-) data does not even serve a good purpose at all, given that it's content is not verifiable anyway and may in the worst case lead to scam based on name squatting.
So do you mean that there is a place in a .conf file or something (i.e., not in compiled code) where node runners can simply "switch on" 80-byte OP_RETURN?
You can do this in the code. But even if you do, in the end the decision is in the hand of the pool operators. My understanding of Luke's POV is something like "if your userbase wants 80 bytes and is big enough, then pools will follow".
In the best case, at some point, all this as well as op codes should be configurable via a config, but the reality is rather this:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/8175c790eb12f0b0ca3197895a6d1d479b340b67 (OP_RETURN was cut from 80 byte to 40 byte)
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/e44fea55ea73f46bc9460597c7001e77acb58db7 (option to disable OP_RETURN)
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/3da434a2ef9ac76a0ad4a33921773a9ac8f10ab7 (option to disable m-of-n multisig)
Maybe I'm bias due to the sentiment around this topic and the comments made by Luke and jgarzik, but I'm sure one can see a pattern here and the direction where this is going.
One point is brought up quite often: "metacoins enjoy a free ride, do not contribute, fullnode owners suffer, etc. ...".
What is probably overlooked here is the fact that Mastercoin or metacoin users in general have an inceive to contribute to the underlying network as well. Merged mining aside, but for the sake of an example: would you rather prefer MSC friendly miners and node owners to support Bitcoin or an alternative chain which MSC uses exclusively? In my opinion fragmentation should be avoided.
I really enjoy this round of discussion in comparison to the one earlier this year, because it clearly demonstrates that everyone acts with good intentions and at least I gained some valuable insights.
Edit: as a sidenote: the UTXO grew from 9.819.223 somewhere back in March to 12.444.288 in July at block height 312.999 whereby the total amount of all transactions grew from 33.508.561 to 43.442.280. The amount of metacoin transactions grew from 5.176 to 46.948 with a total of 14.954/69.712 spent/unspent outputs. The total amount of metacoin transactions roughly doubled since then while the ratio of spent/unspent outputs is getting much better due to the increased awareness about the topic and cost inceives, but I have no up-to-date data to back this at the moment.