Topic: The Holy Grail! I wish I could kiss the author of Bitmessage on his face. - page 9. (Read 92725 times)

It's almost like - since Bitcoin is not going to scale well without transaction fees and wasted energy let's just keep building on top of the flawed protocol and start shifting load to more abstract layers. The problem here is that once a lower layer fails all the upper layers fail as well. You are now making the machine more complex than it needs to be - more inefficient with more moving parts. I now have a lot more trouble programming for and around this machine and building on it more since I need to take into account more moving parts, each which has a chance of breaking. This is not good engineering. Good engineering is fixing all the core problems and embracing the new system that you built, not building a house on top of a cracked, unstable foundation, but replacing the foundation.

Unfortunately, this is not closer to the singularity, but farther away from it than Ripple. Why would we go to offchain transactions with more moving parts when we have a far superior fully integrated platform? Ripple does more than just solve the "multiple currency" transaction problem - it provides a more efficient validation and confirmation ledger platform. Mining is unnecessary and inefficient in the long run. We will see higher and higher transaction fees as Bitcoin adoption increases if the block size does not increase. With so many systems and so many moving parts and bottlenecks, a Bitmessage/Open Transaction/Bitcoin build appears inferior from a Universal standpoint to an integrated Ripple platform. 

FYI the digitalis server has started using usage tokens -- so you will not be able to transact on that server without first contacting knotwork and asking him to give some usage tokens to your Nym.

I suggest for testing purposes, you run the localhost server (or contact knotwork and get some usage tokens.)

I have a quarter of a bitcoin lost in a ripple/gateway transaction.  If I get it back I'm donating it to Open-Transactions.  I think ripple is great.  It's still a bit beta, but it works pretty well.  And I think it has a reasonable likelihood of adoption (I think its centralized nature will appeal to the establishment, and it has a bit of a marketing machine as it if a for profit company).  OT is so much better though.

I've made a number of attempts at getting OT running over the last 6 months.  The last time I was mostly successful, but still couldn't connect to the digitalis server.  I don't remember what the problem was.  I think I was unable to register a nym.  This is great news about federated servers, but at the moment I'd just like to see one or two running stably.

Nice, that made me think of this old thread : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitdrop-or-shadydeliverynetwork-a-non-robotic-courier-system-6279

Ok our big goal its to descentralize absolutely our alternative economic system.

we have bitcoin + opentransactions + bitmessage,

but i think that we need two more pieces to complete this alternative system, because the global power system its attacking
the form that we change dolars/euro/... to bitcoins; and the fiat as a virtual currency are always connected to a nominal bank account controlled by the central banks.

1. A home version of bitcoin ATM.

Yes, perhaps sounds crazy,, but if we want to change the world, we need to think also about this crazy possibilities. A system by the way people could diposit fiat currencies to exchange for bitcoins from their home. So, a really p2p alternative to the banking system.

I imagine a little atm machine  connect with your cumputer where you put your bills, in order to be changed in the p2p exchange. When fiat is exchanged for bitcoins,
the atm system, blocks your possibilities to get the bills.


2. A p2p courier system to do anonymous bills exchange

To complete the bitcoin ATM home version, we need a p2p courier, that move the bills between diferents homes to adapt the exchanges between their p2p fiat accounts...Perhaps a cryptografic system could link the courier with the home ATM in order to do segure transactions...


So, i mean... we need to pierce the anonymity and decentralization to the physical world!

If people are interested perhaps its possible to create another post about this questions!

Looks great! I will definitely bookmark it.

Yep. You might be interested in what we're discussing here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=173220.new#new

This is a good point, and ultimately the answer will lie in what kind of information can be queried from SEPA and other banking APIs.

Yes, I've thought about this stuff before. Reputation systems are good for lots of little transactions, but there is a subtle but important problem with this approach.

First, decentralization always breaks if the cornerstone of the system is trust in individuals/nodes/people. That's exactly how the banking system came about. People with more and more money, and more and more power, get more of the money and power because they're the only ones you trust to keep your money. People's trust concentrates in those "nodes". This is what we have to avoid in our P2P solution.

We need to make it so the trust is in the protocol itself. This requires public verifiability of transactions.

It's good that the contract is customisable, but if that ends up meaning that we only transact with trustworthy nodes, we get centralization.

Actually it was just an example. Since smart contracts in OT contain scripted clauses, this sort of logic is customizable. Therefore the market will be able to determine which contracts work best for which purposes. (And create the contracts they need.)

If it's completely impossible for Alice / Bob to verify whether a SEPA transfer has been successful, then reputation systems (I believe) will fill the gap. (Though I would think that Bob would have access to an API to verify whether he received the funds.)

For example, instead of routing your transfers through "any ole person" you might prefer to route them through a more trusted party, such as a "gateway" (to use the Ripple nomenclature) -- although in OT that would not be someone issuing credit, but rather, someone buying/selling coins or colored coins. Perhaps 'Jorg' is just one of such services. Also on OT, that Jorg will not be operating a server but rather, using one, just like any other user.

Perhaps someday soon, 'Jorg' will just be a bank himself.

This.

And further,point 11 in the pastebin on silver/euro SEPA:

This is not a fair resolution method, is it? If the escrow has no way of knowing, then Alice is always incentivised to dispute.

Unless the bank wire is publically verifiable as well as irreversible, the fiat part of these exchange models always seems to be broken.

I believe dansmith has the essential elements of the solution in the discussion we've been having here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/tlsnotary-cryptographic-proof-of-fiat-transfer-for-p2p-exchanges-173220

I'll give you the precis as that's a lot of reading. In case of dispute, the BUYER of fiat (not the seller) can be requested to run an open source plugin that reroutes their banking SSL session through a proxy (after they've logged in), the proxy can be the escrow agent or another user of the P2P software, the encrypted data is dumped and using the master key for the session, the data can be read such that it's verified that the fiat buyer did/did not receive the fiat funds (the fiat buyer only needs to show their bank statement for the period). Thus it can be made public knowledge whether the fiat was transferred or not.

Agree fully with oakpacific in that digital signatures, which would be trivial for banks to implement, on bank statements would immediately solve the problem. However banks are only using cryptography for the privacy functionality - they are not interested in non-repudiation of messages, even though it would be helpful to customers for a lot more than Bitcoin, it's not useful to them so they don't care. But I see that discussion as a tangent since we are not going to change bankers minds, we just have to get rid of their archaic system.

bookmarked.

beautiful

I never tried it.
Wasn't aware of it. Thanks for the link.

Thanks! (Corrected in original post.)

Just a correction for anyone who tries this, it should read

Very exciting stuff!

Actually I meant what I said.

Have you tried libertyreserve.com lately?

Quote from: fellowtraveler on May 25, 2013, 02:19:39 PM

--- I'm sure the recent victims of the Liberty Reserve heist, who just had all their money stolen

What Liberty Reserve heist? Couldn't find it with Google. You're not confusing it with Liberty Dollar, perhaps?

You are correct that a colored coin issuer is the "weakest link." You do have to trust that the colored coin issuer will ultimately redeem those colored coins back for GBP again.

However…

--- The system described works without colored coins. You can use normal BTC. (There's no reason why you couldn't give a normal BTC to someone in return for legacy funds, instead of a colored coin.)

--- The main advantage of using colored coins is that it eliminates capital gains tax liability. (I'm not a lawyer and that's not legal advice. My point is that if you buy something for $100 and then sell it for $100, there is obviously no gain or loss.)

--- Also keep in mind that certain currencies require an issuer. For example, any gold-backed currency will need an issuer who stores that gold. Any Euro-backed currency will need an issuer who stores those Euros, etc.

--- And in the case of currencies that require an issuer, it's better to issue them first as colored coins, versus having the issuer create them directly on the OT server as IOUs. This is because it breaks the link between the issuer and the transaction server.

--- You see, if the gateway directly runs the server (Ripple) or if the issuer directly issues the currency as IOUs onto the server (OT can do this) then either way, pressure from authorities or criminals can be brought down onto the issuer, regarding that server. (Such as, "Shut that server down, or we'll shoot you!" or "Remove your IOUs from that server, or we'll shoot you!")

--- Whereas, if the issuer issues the currency first as colored coins, then the issuer cannot be held liable for those coins later being traded on various servers by various users. The issuer becomes totally divorced from the transaction servers. Just the same as the Federal Reserve being completely innocent of whatever their dollars are used for, once those dollars enter circulation beyond their reach.

--- Of course, the issuer still needs to provide bank wires in/out as a redemption of last resort, and he will need to follow KYC / AML for those wires, but as long as he does, most people will be able to get in/out of the system by buying/selling the colored coins from each other instead of having to go directly through the issuer. This is very powerful! Therefore I believe that colored coins are very important. Kudos to J.R. Willett!

--- This allows the issuer to operate legally, without any involvement in the operations of the servers themselves.

--- After that, I suggest using OT's basket currencies to distribute the risk of a single currency across multiple issuers, using jurisdictional arbitrage. For example, if there are 20 issuers in various jurisdictions who issue a GBP-based currency, we can combine those on OT into a single basket, such that no one is risking all their money with a single issuer.

--- I'm sure the recent victims of the Liberty Reserve heist, who just had all their money stolen, wish they had considered such possibilities, as I have been for the past few years.




This may sound surprising to you, but I was actually talking to at least one Rippler before they started that company. When I was originally approached, it was regarding business development for Open-Transactions, but later they started the Ripple company instead. I even sent them a document of all my intimate thoughts.

In fact, since they already got to read it, I might as well make that document available to the rest of you as well:

http://ft.vm.to/files/britto/FT-thoughts.pdf

Enjoy!

That is one of the reasons I am Ripple-positive: because my whole goal with OT was to inspire related development based on these concepts. Thus, I view them as one of my "children."

We are all working towards the same goals. May a million currencies bloom!


The OT server will not issue colored coins -- currency issuers will. These issuers will be entirely divorced from the transaction server, as described above.

Once a user uploads colored coins (or regular BTC) to an OT server, the coins will not actually be received by that server, but will be stored in a multi-sig voting pool, which prevents that server from having direct control over those coins. Even if the server disappears, the coins are still recoverable.

The transaction server is also incapable of forging receipts internally. As I have said previously, inflation is the only possible crime, but that is prevented through an auditing protocol.


This sounds like a question better posed to the author of Bitmessage (Atheros.) My own project is for transaction processing, not messaging.