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From: Natanael <natanael.l@gmail.com>
To: "Emin Gün Sirer" <el33th4x0r@gmail.com>
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin Guarantees Strong, not Eventual, Consistency.
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2016 09:39:07 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAAt2M197OWV1euFX5x+9A0K=0tTMamrTbXS=2KWX=ZKyPMyXAQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAPkFh0tx6BJ2=pCamtawa=niPfci7-a6Vs-wFo3rXXx6oks0Jg@mail.gmail.com>

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To say that Bitcoin is strongly consistent is to say that the memory pool
and the last X blocks aren't part of Bitcoin. If you want to avoid making
that claim, you can at best argue that Bitcoin has both a strongly
consistent component AND an eventually consistent component.

The entire point of the definition of eventually consistency is that your
computer system is running continously and DO NOT have a final state, and
therefore you must be able to describe the behavior when your system either
may give responses to queries across time that are either perfectly
consistent *or not* perfectly consistent.

And Bitcoin by default *does not* ignore the contents of the last X blocks.
A Bitcoin node being queried about the current blockchain state WILL give
inconsistent answers when there's block rearrangements = no strong
consistency. Not to mention that your definition ignores the nonzero
probability of a block rearrangement extending beyond your constant omega.

Bitcoin provides a probabilistic, accumulative probability. Not a perfect
one.
Den 2 mar 2016 04:04 skrev "Emin Gün Sirer" <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>:

>
> There seems to be a perception out there that Bitcoin is eventually
> consistent. I wrote this post to describe why this perception is completely
> false.
>
> Bitcoin Guarantees Strong, not Eventual, Consistency
>
> http://hackingdistributed.com/2016/03/01/bitcoin-guarantees-strong-not-eventual-consistency/
>
> I hope we can lay this bad meme to rest. Bitcoin provides a strong
> guarantee.
> - egs
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>
>

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  reply	other threads:[~2016-03-02  8:39 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2016-03-02  0:57 [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin Guarantees Strong, not Eventual, Consistency Emin Gün Sirer
2016-03-02  8:39 ` Natanael [this message]
2016-03-02 16:56   ` Emin Gün Sirer

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