Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 559. (Read 2032291 times)

Oh sure.  I've been bothered by scalability from literally the first second that I read the whitepaper, but I could see great potential for Bitcoin in certain roles anyway.  I anticipated something which are in principle sidechains right away as a means of dealing with some of the scaling issues.  And providing a lot of other benefits as well.


One example would be consolidation of infrastructure support (especially mining) to large entities who are by the nature of their capital investment (if nothing else) prone to follow regulatory edicts no matter how inane and pernicious.

Mike Hearn is hands-down the most visionary person in the space in my opinion.  Most technical people immediately grasp the significance of secret key as it relates to counter-party risk.  Mike anticipated the consolidation of mining with the famous phrase which went something like 'there is little difference between taking someone's BTC and keeping them from spending it for 20 years.'

Since 1) the net revenue (in tx fees and inflation) for mining approaches zero no matter what, and 2) the only way to remain profitable is to monetize other value streams, and 3) only large specialist entities (e.g., Google) are able to do this with maximum efficiency, there is a very clear path toward this 'de-evolution' which bothers me.

Having this potential near monopoly on Bitcoin's support infrastructure is one way to implement {color}-listing, though I believe that simple economic principles would also make {color}-listing quite effective as well, and particularly so if/when Bitcoin is primarily used as a popular exchange currency.

Me neither.


From my non technical perspective sidechains are also trying to change Bitcoins role.

"Problem sets" such as...




Okay thank you for clarifying this here ^.



Not sure what you mean when you say "more relaxed system design".

How would relaxing any form of the current bitcoin protocol be "good" or more beneficial?




To me it seemed you aren't completely sure of what your implementation would look like. When Cypher asked for your version of a token SC I was expecting much more details than this such high level vague explanation that isn't really clear on what you are getting at. Maybe it is just me but when I read your explanation/implementation a few times it still seemed very unclear on your approach.

As you can see I have several questions above that ask you to clarify what you are talking about in more detail so I can follow your proposed implementation.


My statement had nothing to do with value of the network coins/tokens. The point simply was that a malicious party could manipulate a less secure block chain much easier. Less cost to do the attack means the attack is more probable to be successful, which implies more parties could perform the attack as the cost of the attack goes down. Perhaps no one will care to steal your nickels but it could be done really easily, which means a very insecure SC could too be easily manipulated even if there isn't much to gain.

The cost to steal the gold in a vault would far exceed the cost to steal the few nickels in your pocket.

Same is the case with my statement. The main chain of Bitcoin would have a much larger cost to attack and successfully steal or double spend coins than to do it with a less secure network like Feathercoin.

The cost of attack vs reward is pretty much in line if you were to make them into a ratio.

How would bitcoin lose its appeal?

Are you implying the scalability issues?

How would bitcoin de-evolve into something other than it started out as? Examples?

The main point is that there are a lot of different and often enough conflicting goals that one might wish in a currency solution.  I've taken a few moments and invented one basically on-the-fly just as an example.  Such an idea might be applicable for some problem sets.

Another point is that it creates demand for and use of Bitcoin in exactly the same way as 'traditional' use of native Bitcoin does, but the natural advantages for targeted use cases expand the demand.


I'm not trying to sell anything.  I've got nothing to sell and no reason to (other than to try to protect my holding in Bitcoin from being destroyed by trying to shoe-horn it into roles where it doesn't fit I suppose.)  Again, it's just a few things I thought of off the top of my head, though a couple of the ideas have struck me before.


Actually the goal of this particular idea is, very deliberately, to be LESS 'sound' than Bitcoin.  It's actually a very specialized and quite inefficient and expensive system which transfers every transaction around the world immediately and retains them indefinitely on all manners of autonomous systems.  That level of specialization is simply overkill for most exchange transactions, and most people who think it makes sense think that every transaction looks like a nail because all they know is a hammer.  An idea like the one I cooked up considers this (and has the latency and off-line capabilities which go along with a more relaxed system design.)

One time I was taking a 300 or 400 level class in structural engineering at some shitty state university.  Some PE came from California and gave a really good lecture on his real-world experience with the '89 earthquake.  About 3 of the (few) follow-up questions for the guy was 'did you re-design the building to be more strong when you fixed the damage.'  To him, and anyone with a brain and a basic understanding of engineering, the obvious answer was 'no'.  I could tell he was amazed to even be asked the question, much less asked three times.  I felt bad for the guy that he wasted his time, and embarrassed to be in a group with such nitwits.  Deja-vu here.


So?  It's a tag for an idea which is so basic that it would be the likely course, though other better ideas might come up, or there might be subtleties which argue against it if/when one gets down to implementation.


That's simply not true.  If I have a ton of gold in a vault and a few nickles in my pocket, the ton of gold is probably at greater risk because the reward for obtaining it is much greater.

Besides, the more native Bitcoin grows the more it is open to various kinds of attack, collapse, or de-evolution into something other than what it started out as (and loses it's appeal for this reason.)  This is in fact one of the biggest reasons that sidechains appeal to me.  This growth and the associated risks need not be inevitable.

I still do not see the point of "token" side chains.

Your explanation (sales-pitch) of "token" side chains and supposed implementations are not selling me on the idea.

What's the point if the infrastructure is not as sound as the master chain? There are no guarantees that the infrastructure of a SC would be equivalent in security if not better. If it was better why would the market not just use the more secure blockchain?

BTW you use the word "probably" a lot in your implementation/explanation.

A less secure chain (network) only means MORE able to be MANIPULATED by a malicious party.

That could be an issue, but if Bitcoin can get to a point where transaction fees are actually in the equation then a sidechain who was not willing to contribute could find themselves shut out.

What might evolve would be a situation where for a sidechain to make sure their pegs were exercised, they need to be friends with (or owners of) a reasonable amount of sha256 hashing regardless of the fees paid.

Such a scenario would resolve my riddle of mining net revenue on native Bitcoin blockchain always falling to zero due to unlimited supply of durable hashing gear.  And do so in a way which requires neither of the two ugly alternatives.  Ever-present inflation, or subsidizing infrastructure by monetizing intelligence streams at the expense of the userbase.

Firstly, Bitcoin has no dependency on sidechains.  They are irrelevant (with some of the potential 'whale' effects that I've previously outlined.)

As for tokens, one potential implementation would be that they would be issued for Bitcoin pegs and redeemed in the same way.  The system would prove the circulation.  The sidechain back-end would serve mainly as an 'assay' agent which would make sure that the token was not bogus.  Probably transactions would normally involve having the tokens re-issued as a way to extinguish any previous claim after a transaction (which would probably involve a layered system of digital signatures.)  A nicety would be that they could probably be used 'off-line' in situations where one could at least temporarily trust the seller to be somewhat honest for a time and not be creating and issuing bogus tokens.  In the real world many transactions are done between parties who know one another and/or have reputations to promote, so for small sum transactions this would actually work quite well.

As I understand things, NXT is (in addition to probably being a scam) a token based system that (in theory) relies on 'proof of stake'.  A Bitcoin-backed token-flavored sidechain would not need 'POS' since it's backing is native Bitcoin.

Since you are so amazingly thick, let me again stress that this is but one in an infinite set of potential implementations for sidechains.  Most or all sidechains would need an interface layer where they interact with Bitcoin, and usually (if not always) support Bitcoin through the same old POW sha256 hash mining mechanism which, as I've also previously outlined, is conceptually economically broken as an enduring method of system support in a stand-alone ecosystem.

It's not the tech that has issue• it's the economics that change the incentives that makes sidechains a bad idea.

•the tech is just assumed to work, it will still may have issues.

SCs and altcoins:
 "“You do all the work for us, honeybadger, and we’ll just eat whatever you find. How’s that? Whaddaya say, Stupid?”

don't worry.  we won't hear anything concrete from tvbcof.  he loves bullshitting.

Chicken, meet egg.

But...scalability?

Thank you. Enough with engaging in hypotheticals. You can't stop anyone from inventing something by arguing. Same with SCs as with altcoins. Let them put THEIR money where their mouth is.

well, why don't you explain just how your token SC system would work exactly, so we can all pick it apart?

You don't understand 'dependency' either, eh?  Who could have guessed.

thanks.  i hadn't appreciated these 2 additional points.

how so?

yeah, i do have a problem with that, given the general philosophy around here by most that we're trying to reduce our dependence on centralized corrupt entities.

but of course, given your Socialistic background and propensity to favor statist tendencies, this is probably right up your alley, tvbcroc?

Some implemented in the back-end as such when it makes sense to do so given the goals of the particular sidechain.  Gotta problem with that cypherthick?

says the assclown who thinks SC's are tokens; or at least should be.

no, i just don't understand your tech.

btw, you never explained to all of us just how you've implemented your federated server SC model that you claim are already operating; as if we who are opposed to SC's should just capitulate for this very reason.  i already explained how fucked up and insecure your federated server with SC model is already.