627 sats \ 1 reply \ @nullcount 27 Oct 2022 \ on: Are alternate Bitcoin implementations dangerous? bitcoin
Different implementations of Bitcoin are useful for non-consensus software.
LND uses btcd (both written in Golang).
LDK uses rust-bitcoin (both written in Rust).
The Rust community is know for doing things "the right way". And they recommend against using rust-bitcoin for consensus code (i.e. fully validating blockchain data).
It technically supports doing this, but doing so is very ill-advised because there are many deviations, known and unknown, between this library and the Bitcoin Core reference implementation. In a consensus based cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin it is critical that all parties are using the same rules to validate data, and alternative implementations are simply unable to guarantee they implement the same rules as Core.
Given the complexity of both C++ and other languages, it is unlikely that this will ever be fixed.
It technically supports doing this, but doing so is very ill-advised because there are many deviations, known and unknown, between this library and the Bitcoin Core reference implementation. In a consensus based cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin it is critical that all parties are using the same rules to validate data, and alternative implementations are simply unable to guarantee they implement the same rules as Core.
^ This, thank you!
Also thank you for the distinction why LN can use different implementations but consensus code should not.
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