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[60.240.212.53]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id kr5sm5598943igb.9.2014.04.26.05.15.23 for (version=TLSv1 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Sat, 26 Apr 2014 05:15:24 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <535BA357.6050607@gmail.com> Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 22:15:19 +1000 From: Gareth Williams User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.4.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Bitcoin Dev References: <5359E509.4080907@gmail.com> <535A60FE.10209@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 1.6 OpenPGP: id=378E4544 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="O7chOWSpdbRDjH3BGHXGQPMNDBijLurjC" X-Spam-Score: -1.6 (-) X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by mx.sourceforge.net. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. -1.5 SPF_CHECK_PASS SPF reports sender host as permitted sender for sender-domain 0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is commonly abused enduser mail provider (gacrux[at]gmail.com) -0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record -0.1 DKIM_VALID_AU Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from author's domain 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily valid -0.1 DKIM_VALID Message has at least one valid DKIM or DK signature X-Headers-End: 1We1Vy-0006ow-Nl Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Coinbase reallocation to discourage Finney attacks X-BeenThere: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 12:15:31 -0000 This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 4880 and 3156) --O7chOWSpdbRDjH3BGHXGQPMNDBijLurjC Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 26/04/14 01:28, Mike Hearn wrote: > When you have a *bitcoin* TXn buried under 100 blocks you can be da= mn >=20 > sure that money is yours - but only because the rules for interpret= ing > data in the blockchain are publicly documented and (hopefully) > immutable. If they're mutable then the PoW alone gives me no confid= ence > that the money is really mine, and we're left with a much less usef= ul > system. This should be more sacred than the 21m limit. >=20 >=20 > Well, I think we should avoid the term "sacred" - nothing is sacred > because we're not building a religion here, we're engineering a tool. Are you sure there isn't room for just a touch of "religion"? :) As you state below, all that protects my money from confiscation is strong group consensus that it's mine - "a social rule, not a mathematical one."= Everything ultimately balances on that. People being a little bit "religious" about following the protocol faithfully are the linchpin of Bitcoin security, not PoW. > Consider a world in which 1 satoshi is too valuable to represent some > kinds of transactions, so those transactions stop happening even though= > we all agree they're useful. The obvious solution is to change the rule= s > so there can be 210 million coins and 10x everyones UTXOs at some > pre-agreed flag day. We probably wouldn't phrase it like that, it's > easier for people to imagine what's happening if it's phrased as "addin= g > more places after the decimal point" or something, but at the protocol > level coins are represented using integers, so it'd have to be > implemented as a multiply. Agree. > Would this be a violation of the social contract? A violation of all > that is sacred? I don't think so, it'd just be sensible engineering and= > there'd be strong consensus for that exactly because 21 million /is/ so= > arbitrary. If all balances and prices multiply 100-fold overnight, no > wealth is reallocated which would be the /actual/ violation of the > social contract: we just get more resolution for setting prices. Wholeheartedly agree. "21 million" is just shorthand for the preservation of artificial scarcity. No rational person could argue that what you described violates the social contract. I do see what you're driving at - that there exists a situation where it would be justified to change the interpretation of data in existing block= s. But, please consider: if I controlled a single UTXO worth 1% of the total money supply before your change, the network would still recognise that I control a single UTXO worth 1% of the total money supply after your change. So you haven't really changed the interpretation of existing blocks at all there. It's just semantics :) Contrast this with invalidating a coinbase before maturity, which clearly has a very real impact. At the point the vote passes, you're *** sidestepping the PoW mechanism and rewriting the meaning of an existing, validated block ***. > So. The thing that protects your money from confiscation is not proof o= f > work. PoW is just a database synchronisation mechanism. The thing that > protects your money from confiscation is a strong group consensus that > theft is bad. But that's a social rule, not a mathematical rule. Agree. That's my whole point :) I recognise my security is in the hands of the users (the economic majority.) Tomorrow they could all decide to patch their nodes to reallocate my UTXOs, and there's not a damn thing I could do about it, PoW and private keys notwithstanding. I must simply trust that they will not do this. So we can have: 1. "Neutral Bitcoin", where everyone is committed to prevention of theft by following a simple set of mathematical rules which treat all validated blocks as equal. Or: 2. "Political Bitcoin", where everyone is committed to prevention of theft based on human judgements, and the contents of some validated blocks are more equal than others. I recognise that the latter allows for a lot of flexibility in combating fraud, but with (substantial) due respect, it isn't Bitcoin. -Gareth --O7chOWSpdbRDjH3BGHXGQPMNDBijLurjC Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJTW6NXAAoJEEY5w2E3jkVEok0IAI8HHIGvA9UIzeDaCZtdGDAn 8xO0rwkI/d2CFDn/imSk1daLC5/EwcG1+4cba270VTJyKVq8r4tbQpvZg4/IwQLb qa5Mu1W8tVwIRkQ/xbfvyskbq48+eUJ7EqE1Glr9cAdsydFaOWZWomQJjTyK1xPM c+fP8dIbMb0AiOoZmTJp5cN54CA9b4mVL85TAcz7E6Vf8/Y4wM3GTLA4U42J9mh1 9Sfvfe9cylhlbFhBXJlg/7JLi3W43T0T9nQYF0qjd3petcBDoE925xLQFYPcpo9a kJDIk8oMYX1rOGuoCHDqALu6KFdEovQG64iQLhLoOcmJ1+/vcCa9N3ZjpTOe8MM= =9xfv -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --O7chOWSpdbRDjH3BGHXGQPMNDBijLurjC--