On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 3:52 PM, Peter Todd <p...@petertodd.org> wrote: >> Comparisons with the SPV security of sidechains are fallacious. The >> alternative to a proof-of-publication system reliant on client-side >> validation is a blockchain. The question of whether the token used on >> said blockchain should be two-way-pegged to BTC is completely orthogonal. >> >> (ie. yes, sidechains are "economically secure", in that you're reduced >> to balancing economic incentives to avoid peg theft. But sidechains also >> give us something unique in return - the ability to innovate without >> needing to start new artificial scarcity races. Nothing else can do that.) > > I covered this in my original post: 1-way-pegs allow the creation of new > valuable tokens without those tokens being useful for speculation.
I stand corrected. A permanent 1-way-peg is sufficient to preserve scarcity; "nothing else can do that" WRT 2-way-pegs was overreaching. I still don't see what "2-way-peg vs. 1-way-peg" has to do with "embedded consensus vs. blockchain consensus" though, and feel it disingenious to conflate them. Blockchain consensus (eg. sidechains) can utilise either mechanism, 1-way-peg or 2-way-peg. Arguments in favour of 1-way-peg are interesting, but they're ultimatley just arguments in favour of one type of sidechain over another. Arguments in favour of embedded consensus - and I feel I'm being generous with the term "consensus" here - should surely stand on their own merit against blockchain consensus, if they're to be convincing. > Of course even without 1-way-pegs there's a much more important issue > with your objection: worrying about creating new artificial scarcity > races while innovating is fundementally a *moralistic* and *regulatory* > concern that has no little if any bearing on whether or not the systems > created are useful and secure. It's also an objection that raises > serious questions about conflicts of interest between giving accurate > and honest technical advice and promoting ways of using Bitcoin that > will drive the price up. IMO the question of whether scarcity can be preserved while enabling innovation bears heavily on the liklihood of longterm viability of said innovations - and perhaps of Bitcoin itself. FWIW I'll happily declare that I hold a modest amount of BTC and have an interest in the price appreciating. I'm sure you'll admit you're hardly an impartial party in this discussion yourself Peter :) But it really shouldn't matter. I'm not here today to make it, but I think the argument for preservation of scarcity stands quite well on its own merits - as rightly it should, regardless of anybody's interests. > A number of mechanisms for detecting divergence are possible in embedded > consensus systems, some of them even natural outcomes. For instance > transactions can contain a hash of the previous consensus state, thereby > creating an indicator of consensus measured in terms of economic stake. > Extending that idea many anti-censorship proposals are to use such state > hashes as encryption keys - if you are out of consensus you won't even > see the transaction. (and you can't be double-spent either if > implemented correctly; see my other reply to this thread today) <snip> > Indeed I did, which is why I worked out a better way to do upgrades > almost a year ago: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg06578.html <snip> > The quality of Counterparty's software engineering has no bearing on > whether or not the underlying idea is a good one; you wouldn't say ring > signatures are an inherently bad idea just because the CryptoNote > implementation of them is atrocious. Very interesting. I admit I hadn't come across these ideas before; I really must search the archive before posting :) They certainly offer a measure of robustness over the naive approach. I'm not sure they address my primary concerns however, WRT how consensus is demonstrated and incentivised. I know what my own node considers valid transaction history; how can I be confident that everyone else takes the same view? For contrast, with blockchain consensus, I can be confident that there is consensus on the longest chain observed. If I receive a new transaction, simply waiting for it to be buried under N blocks of PoW provides a high level of confidence that everyone else considers it valid. The obvious "embedded consensus" answer of "wait until N other transactions have occurred that include a hash of system state that includes your transaction" doesn't provide me with any confidence; it could be simulated with a Sybil attack. <snip> > I prefer to make robust arguments; if I can start with accepting that > 95% of what my opponents say is true, yet still end up being correct, > all the better! Indeed :) To avoid wasting time it's only ever worth arguing against the strongest opposing position you're aware of (whether your opponent is aware of it or not.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration & more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
