[bitcoin-dev] ossification and misaligned incentive concerns

[bitcoin-dev] ossification and misaligned incentive concerns

[Erik Aronesty]

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currently, there are providers of anonymity services, scaling services,
custody, and other services layered on top of bitcoin using trust-based and
federated models.

as bitcoin becomes more popular, these service providers have increasingly
had a louder "voice" in development and maintenance of the protocol

holders generally want these features

but service providers have an incentive to maintain a "moat" around their
services

in summary, making privacy, scaling and vaulting "hard" for regular users,
keeping it off-chain and federated...  is now incentivised among a vocal,
but highly technical, minority

is anyone else worried about this?

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Re: [bitcoin-dev] ossification and misaligned incentive concerns

[JK]

I'm worried even more about something else, but still fits into the same 
topic category.


A tax in the form of a direct tax is less acceptable to people than a 
hidden tax. This is human nature, as the saying goes, "What the eye 
doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over." A high direct tax (e.g., on 
a one-time transaction) is much more irritating than a tax of the same 
amount but hidden (especially when it affects all cash holders equally, 
as in the case of inflation).

There is no reason to believe that in any alternative financial system, 
it will be different ("This time is different." No, it is not.)

The analogy is clear: a transaction tax is on-chain fee, an inflation 
tax is the block reward. And just in case: miners are only able to 
collect payment for providing network security in an amount equal to the 
sum collected in both of these taxes, and no single satoshi more (the 
principle that "There's no such thing as a free lunch" applies).

Now, a little thought experiment:
Imagine a system that tries to maintain a constant level of difficulty 
and reacts flexibly to changes in difficulty, by modulating the block 
reward level accordingly (using negative feedback).

It is known that the system will oscillate around a certain level of the 
block reward value (around a certain level of inflation) that provides 
the desired level of network security.

Furthermore, Earth is a closed system with finite resources, making it 
hard to imagine a situation where Bitcoin is responsible for e.g. 95%
of global energy consumption (while complaints already arise at 0.1%).

In other words, the level of network security is de facto limited from 
the top, whether we like it or not.

And for a naturally limited and still acceptable level of network 
security (vide: "Change the code, not the climate") - there is a 
corresponding level of inflation.


To sum this up, the most important conclusion to remember is:

For a natural level of network security, there is a natural level of 
inflation.



I'll add a very relevant comment I know from the internet:

"It makes sense. Something akin to what the central banks do by setting 
interest rates, but algorithmic, leading to a 'natural' (rather than 
manipulated) level of inflation. But different, because it's directly 
tied to security. I haven't thought whether it would be an issue if it 
works in one direction only (halvings, but no doublings), but it might. 
When I was learning about Bitcoin, I heard "It costs you nothing to 
store your bitcoin (as opposed to, say, gold). You get security for 
free." and thought it sounded wonderful, but too good to be true. There 
is no free lunch and all that... I understand a lack of inflation is 
aligned with Austrian economics, but the Austrians didn't know a 
monetary system whose security was tied to inflation. So it's a new 
concept to wrap one's head around."
https://stacker.news/items/291420


There is growing awareness of the lack of a free market between active 
and passive participants in Bitcoin and growing awareness of the 
inevitability of the problem that will arise in the future as a result. 
And there is slowly growing acceptance of well-thought-out proposals to 
fix this situation.
The free market is more important than finite supply.


Regards
Jaroslaw


W dniu 03.11.2023 o 19:24, Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev pisze:
> currently, there are providers of anonymity services, scaling services, 
> custody, and other services layered on top of bitcoin using trust-based 
> and federated models.
> 
> as bitcoin becomes more popular, these service providers have 
> increasingly had a louder "voice" in development and maintenance of the 
> protocol
> 
> holders generally want these features
> 
> but service providers have an incentive to maintain a "moat" around 
> their services
> 
> in summary, making privacy, scaling and vaulting "hard" for regular 
> users, keeping it off-chain and federated...  is now incentivised among 
> a vocal, but highly technical, minority
> 
> is anyone else worried about this?
> 
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev

Re: [bitcoin-dev] ossification and misaligned incentive concerns

[Erik Aronesty]

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I don't believe the narrative that miners provide network security

they provide double spend insurance

and that's it

so that limits the size of the transaction and the number of confirmations
that are required before that transaction is cleared

But it doesn't provide security for the rest of the network.  My private
keys are private and my note is fully validating  ..  and there's nothing
miners can do about that

let's ditch that narrative please



On Sun, Nov 5, 2023, 9:40 AM JK <jk_14@op.pl> wrote:

>
> I'm worried even more about something else, but still fits into the same
> topic category.
>
>
> A tax in the form of a direct tax is less acceptable to people than a
> hidden tax. This is human nature, as the saying goes, "What the eye
> doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over." A high direct tax (e.g., on
> a one-time transaction) is much more irritating than a tax of the same
> amount but hidden (especially when it affects all cash holders equally,
> as in the case of inflation).
>
> There is no reason to believe that in any alternative financial system,
> it will be different ("This time is different." No, it is not.)
>
> The analogy is clear: a transaction tax is on-chain fee, an inflation
> tax is the block reward. And just in case: miners are only able to
> collect payment for providing network security in an amount equal to the
> sum collected in both of these taxes, and no single satoshi more (the
> principle that "There's no such thing as a free lunch" applies).
>
> Now, a little thought experiment:
> Imagine a system that tries to maintain a constant level of difficulty
> and reacts flexibly to changes in difficulty, by modulating the block
> reward level accordingly (using negative feedback).
>
> It is known that the system will oscillate around a certain level of the
> block reward value (around a certain level of inflation) that provides
> the desired level of network security.
>
> Furthermore, Earth is a closed system with finite resources, making it
> hard to imagine a situation where Bitcoin is responsible for e.g. 95%
> of global energy consumption (while complaints already arise at 0.1%).
>
> In other words, the level of network security is de facto limited from
> the top, whether we like it or not.
>
> And for a naturally limited and still acceptable level of network
> security (vide: "Change the code, not the climate") - there is a
> corresponding level of inflation.
>
>
> To sum this up, the most important conclusion to remember is:
>
> For a natural level of network security, there is a natural level of
> inflation.
>
>
>
> I'll add a very relevant comment I know from the internet:
>
> "It makes sense. Something akin to what the central banks do by setting
> interest rates, but algorithmic, leading to a 'natural' (rather than
> manipulated) level of inflation. But different, because it's directly
> tied to security. I haven't thought whether it would be an issue if it
> works in one direction only (halvings, but no doublings), but it might.
> When I was learning about Bitcoin, I heard "It costs you nothing to
> store your bitcoin (as opposed to, say, gold). You get security for
> free." and thought it sounded wonderful, but too good to be true. There
> is no free lunch and all that... I understand a lack of inflation is
> aligned with Austrian economics, but the Austrians didn't know a
> monetary system whose security was tied to inflation. So it's a new
> concept to wrap one's head around."
> https://stacker.news/items/291420
>
>
> There is growing awareness of the lack of a free market between active
> and passive participants in Bitcoin and growing awareness of the
> inevitability of the problem that will arise in the future as a result.
> And there is slowly growing acceptance of well-thought-out proposals to
> fix this situation.
> The free market is more important than finite supply.
>
>
> Regards
> Jaroslaw
>
>
> W dniu 03.11.2023 o 19:24, Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev pisze:
> > currently, there are providers of anonymity services, scaling services,
> > custody, and other services layered on top of bitcoin using trust-based
> > and federated models.
> >
> > as bitcoin becomes more popular, these service providers have
> > increasingly had a louder "voice" in development and maintenance of the
> > protocol
> >
> > holders generally want these features
> >
> > but service providers have an incentive to maintain a "moat" around
> > their services
> >
> > in summary, making privacy, scaling and vaulting "hard" for regular
> > users, keeping it off-chain and federated...  is now incentivised among
> > a vocal, but highly technical, minority
> >
> > is anyone else worried about this?
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > bitcoin-dev mailing list
> > bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
> > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>

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Re: [bitcoin-dev] ossification and misaligned incentive concerns

[JK]

Ok, instead of (maybe too general) term "network security," - I may 
change it into a more precise term then:
"security of Store-of-Value"

Of course, your private keys are private and your note is fully 
validating...

...but: miners provide security of Store-of-Value property. Miners 
simply ensure keeping intact the purchasing power of Bitcoins stored on 
your private keys. And it's really difficult to dispute this simple fact.

"Contact with Europeans in the 19th century first provided the Yapese at 
Palau with iron tools, that made the cutting and shaping of the stones 
*** much easier ***. Not much later, the Yapese made deals with 
Europeans to use their ships to transport the stones back to Yap. These 
arrangements enabled the manufacture of much larger and heavier rai 
stones, up to 4 meters in diameter, as well of a larger number of them. 
However, these "modern" stones were *** less valuable *** than more 
ancient ones"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones#Manufacturing_after_European_contact

much easier "mining" of rai stones/Bitcoins => less valuable rai 
stones/Bitcoins

And as we can see - it's not the matter of belief or disbelief.
I really hope this simple example is ultimately enough to put an end to 
the narrative that miners do not provide security of Bitcoin - if they 
do provide the security of one of most important Bitcoin's property.



W dniu 05.11.2023 o 15:59, Erik Aronesty pisze:
> I don't believe the narrative that miners provide network security
> 
> they provide double spend insurance
> 
> and that's it
> 
> so that limits the size of the transaction and the number of 
> confirmations that are required before that transaction is cleared
> 
> But it doesn't provide security for the rest of the network.  My private 
> keys are private and my note is fully validating  ..  and there's 
> nothing miners can do about that
> 
> let's ditch that narrative please
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Nov 5, 2023, 9:40 AM JK <jk_14@op.pl <mailto:jk_14@op.pl>> wrote:
> 
> 
>     I'm worried even more about something else, but still fits into the
>     same
>     topic category.
> 
> 
>     A tax in the form of a direct tax is less acceptable to people than a
>     hidden tax. This is human nature, as the saying goes, "What the eye
>     doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over." A high direct tax
>     (e.g., on
>     a one-time transaction) is much more irritating than a tax of the same
>     amount but hidden (especially when it affects all cash holders equally,
>     as in the case of inflation).
> 
>     There is no reason to believe that in any alternative financial system,
>     it will be different ("This time is different." No, it is not.)
> 
>     The analogy is clear: a transaction tax is on-chain fee, an inflation
>     tax is the block reward. And just in case: miners are only able to
>     collect payment for providing network security in an amount equal to
>     the
>     sum collected in both of these taxes, and no single satoshi more (the
>     principle that "There's no such thing as a free lunch" applies).
> 
>     Now, a little thought experiment:
>     Imagine a system that tries to maintain a constant level of difficulty
>     and reacts flexibly to changes in difficulty, by modulating the block
>     reward level accordingly (using negative feedback).
> 
>     It is known that the system will oscillate around a certain level of
>     the
>     block reward value (around a certain level of inflation) that provides
>     the desired level of network security.
> 
>     Furthermore, Earth is a closed system with finite resources, making it
>     hard to imagine a situation where Bitcoin is responsible for e.g. 95%
>     of global energy consumption (while complaints already arise at 0.1%).
> 
>     In other words, the level of network security is de facto limited from
>     the top, whether we like it or not.
> 
>     And for a naturally limited and still acceptable level of network
>     security (vide: "Change the code, not the climate") - there is a
>     corresponding level of inflation.
> 
> 
>     To sum this up, the most important conclusion to remember is:
> 
>     For a natural level of network security, there is a natural level of
>     inflation.
> 
> 
> 
>     I'll add a very relevant comment I know from the internet:
> 
>     "It makes sense. Something akin to what the central banks do by setting
>     interest rates, but algorithmic, leading to a 'natural' (rather than
>     manipulated) level of inflation. But different, because it's directly
>     tied to security. I haven't thought whether it would be an issue if it
>     works in one direction only (halvings, but no doublings), but it might.
>     When I was learning about Bitcoin, I heard "It costs you nothing to
>     store your bitcoin (as opposed to, say, gold). You get security for
>     free." and thought it sounded wonderful, but too good to be true. There
>     is no free lunch and all that... I understand a lack of inflation is
>     aligned with Austrian economics, but the Austrians didn't know a
>     monetary system whose security was tied to inflation. So it's a new
>     concept to wrap one's head around."
>     https://stacker.news/items/291420 <https://stacker.news/items/291420>
> 
> 
>     There is growing awareness of the lack of a free market between active
>     and passive participants in Bitcoin and growing awareness of the
>     inevitability of the problem that will arise in the future as a result.
>     And there is slowly growing acceptance of well-thought-out proposals to
>     fix this situation.
>     The free market is more important than finite supply.
> 
> 
>     Regards
>     Jaroslaw
> 
> 
>     W dniu 03.11.2023 o 19:24, Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev pisze:
>      > currently, there are providers of anonymity services, scaling
>     services,
>      > custody, and other services layered on top of bitcoin using
>     trust-based
>      > and federated models.
>      >
>      > as bitcoin becomes more popular, these service providers have
>      > increasingly had a louder "voice" in development and maintenance
>     of the
>      > protocol
>      >
>      > holders generally want these features
>      >
>      > but service providers have an incentive to maintain a "moat" around
>      > their services
>      >
>      > in summary, making privacy, scaling and vaulting "hard" for regular
>      > users, keeping it off-chain and federated...  is now incentivised
>     among
>      > a vocal, but highly technical, minority
>      >
>      > is anyone else worried about this?
>      >
>      > _______________________________________________
>      > bitcoin-dev mailing list
>      > bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
>     <mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
>      > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>     <https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev>
> 

Re: [bitcoin-dev] ossification and misaligned incentive concerns

[alicexbt]

Hi Erik,

> currently, there are providers of anonymity services, scaling services, custody, and other services layered on top of bitcoin using trust-based and federated models.
> 
> as bitcoin becomes more popular, these service providers have increasingly had a louder "voice" in development and maintenance of the protocol

> is anyone else worried about this?

Yes. I share your concerns about the growing influence of centralized service providers on Bitcoin's development. Although there is nothing much we can do about it especially 
when trusted, centralized, custodial, federated etc. projects keep getting funded. Only solution is to build better things and be positive.

Example: Everyone is aware of the risks involved in a project that takes custody of funds, provide privacy without KYC. There are several examples from past in which similar 
projects with some volume ended up getting shutdown by governments. With [covenants and statechains][0], it is possible to use bitcoin (p2p ecash) with privacy and involves no custody.

There are other [benefits][1] of payment pools (w/ covenants) in terms of privacy. Hopefully we agree to do soft fork in next year or so.

[0]: https://github.com/AdamISZ/pathcoin-poc
[1]: https://gnusha.org/bitcoin-wizards/2019-05-21.log

/dev/fd0
floppy disk guy

Sent with Proton Mail secure email.

------- Original Message -------
On Friday, November 3rd, 2023 at 11:54 PM, Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:


> currently, there are providers of anonymity services, scaling services, custody, and other services layered on top of bitcoin using trust-based and federated models.
> 
> as bitcoin becomes more popular, these service providers have increasingly had a louder "voice" in development and maintenance of the protocol
> 
> holders generally want these features
> 
> but service providers have an incentive to maintain a "moat" around their services
> 
> in summary, making privacy, scaling and vaulting "hard" for regular users, keeping it off-chain and federated... is now incentivised among a vocal, but highly technical, minority
> 
> is anyone else worried about this?

Re: [bitcoin-dev] ossification and misaligned incentive concerns

[Ryan Grant]

On Fri, Nov 3, 2023 at 8:59 PM Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> is anyone else worried about this?

Yes. +1

Re: [bitcoin-dev] ossification and misaligned incentive concerns

[vjudeu]

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> Imagine a system that tries to maintain a constant level of difficulty and reacts flexibly to changes in difficulty, by modulating the block reward level accordingly (using negative feedback).
 
This is exactly what I did, when experimenting with LN-based mining. CPU power was too low to get a full block reward out of that. But getting single millisatoshis from a channel partner? This is possible, and I started designing my model from that assumption. Also, because channel partner usually don't want to explicitly pay, I created it in a form of "LN transaction fee discount". Which means, a CPU miner just received cheaper LN transactions through the channel partner, instead of getting paid explicitly. Which also caused better network connectivity, because then you have an upper bound for your mining (it won't be cheaper LN transaction than for free). Which means, if you mine so many shares, that you have free LN transactions, then you have to sell them, or open another channel, and then instead of having "one channel with free transactions", you have many.
 
> The free market is more important than finite supply.
 
I would say, the backward compatibility is more important than increased (no matter if still constant or not) supply. Which means, you can "increase" the supply, just by introducing millisatoshis on-chain. Or add any "tail supply", or anything like that, what was discussed in the past. The only thing that matters is: can you make it compatible with the current system? Hard-fork will be instantly rejected, without any discussion. Soft-fork will be stopped at best, exactly in the same way, how other soft-fork proposals were stopped, when achieving consensus was hard, and the topic was controversial. So, what is left? Of course no-forks and second layers. This is the only way, that is wide-open today, and which requires no support from the community. And that's why Ordinals are so strong: because they are a no-fork. Better or worse designed, it doesn't matter, but still a no-fork. Which means, they exist in the wild, no matter if you like them or not.

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Re: [bitcoin-dev] ossification and misaligned incentive concerns

[JK]

With an enormous annual inflation rate at the beginning, stakeholders 
were able to survive such a harsh for them phase only because of the 
system's expansion where "numbers go up" (e.g., almost no one from 
outside Turkey would like to buy and just hold the turkish lira).

Now we are in a completely different situation, without such room as 
before because we are approaching the saturation of the system (and 
"Change the code, not the climate" action assures us of it).

Unfortunately, noone can predict everything decades ahead, and the 
system is designed in a way (incorrectly, no need to sugarcoat it) that 
with each halving, we shift from one extreme (edge case) to the opposite 
(from infinite inflation to zero inflation). We move along this axis 
without any control, without any feedback. If anything is controversial 
here, it's this fact. And that means: favoritism of one group over 
another, with clear conflict of interest.

It's a truism to say that stakeholders want transacting users to pay for 
Bitcoin's security, and transacting users want stakeholders to pay for 
Bitcoin's security. And this has been the case for many years - yes, as 
active users, we were all free-riders, paying almost nothing for 
transactions, with terawatt-hours annually dedicated to the system's 
operation.

And there's really no better evidence for what I've written above than 
the storm that erupted due to high fees caused by Ordinals - even here, 
even with ideas to censor the paid transactions...

I have to agree with Peter Todd: "21 million is a stupid meme." ;)
Yes, it's a harmful, silly meme that has turned everything upside down...

Because we realize that "Houston, we have a problem..." - but by 
promoting this meme, we've created a situation where more controversial 
is not the problem itself, but talking about it...

Overtaxed active users will not pay endlessly for the entire network's 
security, including "free lunches" for passive free-riders - that's as 
clear as crystal.

And it's impossible to build a healthy second layer if the first layer 
isn't healthy.

By the way, the first layer may become doubly unhealthy at some point 
due to the threat from quantum computers.
A hard fork to save Bitcoin from a future quantum threat will be 
instantly accepted, without any discussion.
And this might be the only chance to fix both issues at once.

If we introduce a change involving delay of the halving by another 4 
years, but only in case of a 4-years long network regression, we finally 
have a free market with an unpredictable variable where passive users 
won't become free riders. The new and old code will be perfectly 
compatible with each other until such a critical event occurs.

And this is a critical event with no doubt, because a 4-year network 
regression caused by an earlier halving, doomed yet by every next 
halving - is a slippery slope, it's the end of the Store-of-Value story 
(as I demonstrated you above with the fate of rai stones), and 
unfortunately, probably the end of Bitcoin (at least in the form we've 
been dreaming of all along...)


W dniu 07.11.2023 o 09:58, vjudeu@gazeta.pl pisze:
>  > Imagine a system that tries to maintain a constant level of 
> difficulty and reacts flexibly to changes in difficulty, by modulating 
> the block reward level accordingly (using negative feedback).
> This is exactly what I did, when experimenting with LN-based mining. CPU 
> power was too low to get a full block reward out of that. But getting 
> single millisatoshis from a channel partner? This is possible, and I 
> started designing my model from that assumption. Also, because channel 
> partner usually don't want to explicitly pay, I created it in a form of 
> "LN transaction fee discount". Which means, a CPU miner just received 
> cheaper LN transactions through the channel partner, instead of getting 
> paid explicitly. Which also caused better network connectivity, because 
> then you have an upper bound for your mining (it won't be cheaper LN 
> transaction than for free). Which means, if you mine so many shares, 
> that you have free LN transactions, then you have to sell them, or open 
> another channel, and then instead of having "one channel with free 
> transactions", you have many.
>  > The free market is more important than finite supply.
> I would say, the backward compatibility is more important than increased 
> (no matter if still constant or not) supply. Which means, you can 
> "increase" the supply, just by introducing millisatoshis on-chain. Or 
> add any "tail supply", or anything like that, what was discussed in the 
> past. The only thing that matters is: can you make it compatible with 
> the current system? Hard-fork will be instantly rejected, without any 
> discussion. Soft-fork will be stopped at best, exactly in the same way, 
> how other soft-fork proposals were stopped, when achieving consensus was 
> hard, and the topic was controversial. So, what is left? Of course 
> no-forks and second layers. This is the only way, that is wide-open 
> today, and which requires no support from the community. And that's why 
> Ordinals are so strong: because they are a no-fork. Better or worse 
> designed, it doesn't matter, but still a no-fork. Which means, they 
> exist in the wild, no matter if you like them or not.