public inbox for bitcoindev@googlegroups.com
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: <eric@voskuil.org>
To: "'Luke Dashjr'" <luke@dashjr.org>
Cc: 'Bitcoin Protocol Discussion' <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] CTV BIP review
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 15:00:27 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <000601d80cbf$2f6a1d80$8e3e5880$@voskuil.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <202201182209.46044.luke@dashjr.org>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Luke Dashjr <luke@dashjr.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2022 2:10 PM
> To: eric@voskuil.org
> Cc: 'Bitcoin Protocol Discussion' <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
> Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] CTV BIP review
> 
> On Tuesday 18 January 2022 22:02:24 eric@voskuil.org wrote:
> > The only material distinction between BIP9 and BIP8 is that the latter
> > may activate without signaled support of hash power enforcement.
> >
> > As unenforced soft forks are not "backward compatible" they produce a
> > chain split.
> 
> Enforcement of the Bitcoin consensus protocol is by users, not miners.

Given that I stated "hash power enforcement" it is quite clear that this is
in fact only produced by mining. You are misrepresenting my statement to
make an emotional appeal. Without "hash power enforcement", a soft fork is
NOT backward compatible.

"[enforcement of] consensus protocol" is of course by merchants, but that is
not the question at hand. The question is explicitly compatibility. Anyone
can activate a soft fork at any time, but without "hash power enforcement"
soft forks are NOT backward compatible.

> Softforks never produce a chain split. Miners can, and might try to do it
to cause disruption in retaliation, but the softfork itself does not.

Maybe you are trying to split hairs given the fact that blocks are produced
only by miners, so only miners can "cause" a split.

But through not intention ("disruption in retaliation") whatsoever by
mining, a soft fork will result in those activating the rule being split off
the original chain unless majority hash power enforces the rule. The fact
that doing nothing apart from deploying the rule will result in a split is
the very definition of NOT compatible.

I assume you will argue that the original chain is not "valid" and therefore
irrelevant (as if no chain split occurred). But again the point is about
compatibility. The appearance of multiple chains, which appear valid
according to either the previous or new rules, is obviously the
incompatibility.

I shouldn't have to point this out, but observed chain splits have occurred
in more the one large scale soft fork deployment. These splits have only
been resolved through hash power enforcement. In 2010 it took 51 blocks
before the current chain took the lead. In 2012 minority chains persisted
for months. The deployment of soft forks caused these splits, NOT the
actions of miners. And unless majority hash power eventually enforces it,
the soft fork branch necessarily dies.

> > It was for this reason alone that BIP8 never gained sufficient
> > support.
> 
> BIP 8 in fact achieved consensus for Taproot activation.

Please define "achieved consensus", because by any definition I can imagine,
this is simply untrue.

> > This is one of the most misleading statements I've seen here. It's not
> > technically a lie, because it states what "should" happen. But it is
> > clearly intended to lead people to believe that BIP8 was actually used
> > ("again") - it was not. ST was some technical tweaks to BIP9.
> 
> BIP 8 was used to activate Taproot.

No, it wasn't. I find it hard to imaging how you rationalize such grossly
misleading statements.

> > The outright deception around this one topic has led to significant
> > unnecessary conflict in the community. Make your argument, but make it
> > honestly.
> 
> You are the one attempting to deceive here.

That is for others to decide. I appreciate your responses above, since they
certainly help clarify what is happening here.

e



  reply	other threads:[~2022-01-18 23:00 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 12+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2022-01-18 21:19 [bitcoin-dev] CTV BIP review Luke Dashjr
2022-01-18 22:02 ` eric
2022-01-18 22:09   ` Luke Dashjr
2022-01-18 23:00     ` eric [this message]
2022-01-19 12:02       ` Michael Folkson
2022-01-20 15:23         ` Billy Tetrud
2022-01-20 22:03           ` eric
2022-01-21 17:36             ` Billy Tetrud
2022-01-18 23:54 ` Jeremy
2022-01-19  0:37   ` Alex Schoof
2022-01-20 18:38   ` Anthony Towns
2022-01-18 22:20 Prayank

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to='000601d80cbf$2f6a1d80$8e3e5880$@voskuil.org' \
    --to=eric@voskuil.org \
    --cc=bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org \
    --cc=luke@dashjr.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox