pull down to refresh
@Scoresby
stacking since: #74100longest cowboy streak: 233
200 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 49m \ parent \ on: Thou mayest privatize Bitcoin Core bitcoin
I'm thinking of "matching bug for bug" consensus: say there was a bug in Core 26, which I am running. And a certain kind of transaction gets treated by 26 as invalid, even though all the other versions call it valid.
Now if a block with this tx gets mined, all the nodes running 26 will get stuck at the previous tip.
Okay, so clearly 26 nodes aren't running the same consensus rules as bitcoin, and if somebody starts mining on the 26 nodes' stuck chaintip, the rest of the network would say it isn't consensus.
But what if this happened when 26 was the most recent version. Say most miners had upgraded, but some had not, and were still running 25. Now the problem block gets mined and we have a fork. Which chain is BTC?
(I have a feeling my analogy here is fairly naive: surely miners are running multiple versions)
Another example might be if the bug exists, but no transaction gets proposed that triggers it. During the timeframe where 26 is running buggy rules and 25 is running non-buggy consensus rules, what are the consensus rules?
I appreciate your thoughtful response, though, especially for the link to the thread in your footnote. I hadn't read that before.
Don't underestimate the engineering that this has required, especially for segwit. It is because of developer consensus, and an open repository and mailing list, and not settling for inferior solutions, that Bitcoin is as reliable as it is.
Sending bitcoin around and zapping stackers here, it's easy to underestimate. great point! I think I often take it for granted.
I guess I'm nervous of a Bitcoin culture that says "consensus is the most important thing" -- not that I think you hold this position -- but "matching Core bug for bug" does venture down the path, I think.
Seeing how things are going with ETFs and treasury companies and custodians, it seems like a real possibility that development will continue to be funded by these large stakeholders and their priorities might not be censorship resistance. Do you worry that keeping all work on consensus in one repository makes it more vulnerable to strong nudges from such stakeholders?
Having multiple viable, well-maintained implementations, each with their own means of reaching consensus with the rest of the nodes following the BTC blockchain, seems like a stronger position to withstand such pressures.
I often feel awkward making bitcoin art (if goofy posters can be called that). Art I've done just cause I couldn't not do it is just whatever comes to mind. But Bitcoin art is thematic. It feels a little like the religious or political artwork that you find around the world: it's propaganda.
I don't mean that pejoratively. Many wondrous things have been made by propagandists. But it's hard to take oneself seriously when you feel like your making propaganda.
Is art for art's sake different than art with an agenda?
Wouldn't it be cool if discussion continued on posts?
Commenting on an old post notifies the author and the people you reply to, but the main street of stackers don't know anything about the ongoing discussion. This is sad. But it's a hard problem to solve.
The old school internet forum style (like BitcoinTalk uses) of surfacing threads that have recent comments may keep the conversation going, but it's kinda clunky.
I wonder what other style of social media does a good job of this?
I was suggesting to another wallet that they should do this as an advertisement. It's cool, let's people see how it might work, and gets attention. Really cool!
Composting toilets are cool. Urine diversion toilets make things cheaper (pee is sterile, so you can treat it easier than shit).
I've lived in communities where everyone is on septic, but I think this furthers my point: it increases the startup cost.
When people moved to Cripple Creek, the expectation was likely an outhouse and well water. Easier to deliver.
hardfork galore
...is a claim and I'm curious what evidence you have to support it? There was the btcd issue, but I'm not aware of too many other instanceswhere alt implementations have led to forks.
Running past versions of Bitcoin Core is similar to running an alt implementation (certainly there have been new versions of core that introduced potentially forking changes). Why haven't we seen more forks from miners running old versions of Core?
Pay to post is great, but I doubt it would have changed the volume of posting around the op-return debate. Spam is one thing, but what I think kanzure is getting at is separating the workspace from the public forum for discussing the project.
It is in the sense that the maintainers control the repo. Kanzure, I believe, was using the term in the sense of limiting who would be able to view discussion on prs and issues. Currently, anyone can view all of this.
Just like nobody is building houses like that house that cost our grandparents $8k (insulation was crap, probably not centrally heated, no ducting, definitely less sq ft, fewer windows, etc).
Here is Cripple Creek:
The startup cost is so much higher now because we expect a clean drinking water system, sewage system, roads...and we'd still call it "roughing it" if that's all we had. Most people in the US would not be willing to live 6 months without a public water system or sewer system. This is to say nothing about how much slower it is to build because of regulations.
I suppose my answer is that we have much higher standards/expectations now and are generally not willing to live with less for very long.
It's amazing how chatgpt defaults to that urine yellow. I have to actively tell it to change color if I want to avoid it.
Bitcoin Core, even when behavior is a bug, is the truth.
isn't this the interesting weirdness about Bitcoin? I have a feeling many things touch consensus in unexpected ways. somewhat like removing the checkpoints from Core actually could trigger a fork (it's just really unlikely).
our current situation is that the reference implementation for consensus is still kinda wrapped up with relay policy and the wallet. while i realize work is being done to separate the two, I don't agree with the match Core bug-for-bug approach.
Do I go so far as to say the chain is the reference implementation? Maybe. If you can start with the beginning and sync to the most recent tip, seems like what happens next is up for grabs a little bit. Negotiating consensus in one repo does not seem objectively better than negotiating it in the next block.
Anyway, consensus is such a tricky little bitch.
If you want to retain any reasonable expectation of consensus protocol stability
Do you think having a single dominant implementation is the main reason there haven't been more forks (soft or hard) of Bitcoin?
In a way, it's surprising that there hasn't been a somewhat popular spin off of Bitcoin in such a long while. I wonder how much of protocol stability is simply burn-out from the ICO era and altcoins in general. Or perhaps it is Bitcoin success? Any fork is going to be immediately compared to BTC and if it doesn't quickly garner massive adoption, it's a failure.
I suppose these are slightly different questions that what you pose. A fork claiming to continue BTC is not the same as a fork claiming to be something else.
- if you buy it on a kyc exchange, you can't get rid of that record, so that's there.
- if you withdraw from exchange to a lightning wallet, then send to a different lightning wallet, then swap back to on chain, I'd guess the exchange or anyone will have a very tough time tracing those coins. Maybe if the wallet you send them to only has a channel with a big LSP...AND if the people tracing you get a hold of the swap service's records, but even then, I think they'd have a hard time tracing it back to your initial withdraw from the exchange.
maybe a really brief explanation about how it works (esp the "credits" function.
here's how I understand it so far: I buy a pack from you and get some envelopes sent to me but I also get some credits that I can use at an exchange you are partnered with to load the envelopes with printable bitcoin keys.
Currently, when you click on your "How it works" section, there's no corresponding anchor.
Keep up the good work, though! Love seeing new bitcoin products like this.
(your product reminds me a little bit of Azteco).