Re: [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin is an experiment. Why don't we have an experimental hardfork?

[Tier Nolan <tier.nolan@gmail.com>]

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On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 4:22 PM, jl2012 via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> Will the adoption of BitcoinXT lead by miners? No, it won't. Actually,
> Chinese miners who control 60% of the network has already said that they
> would not adopt XT. So they must not be the leader in this revolution.
> Again, miners need to make sure they could sell their bitcoin in a good
> price, and that's not possible without support of exchanges and investors.
>

So, the exchanges get together to "encourage" the miners to start running
bitcoin-XT.  What would they do?

One scheme would be to create a taint system.  All non-XT coinbases outputs
are marked as tainted.  All outputs are tainted if any of the inputs into a
transaction are tainted.  Tainted coins can only be un-tainted by sending
0.5% of their value to the public address of one of the participating
exchanges (or to OP_RETURN).  They could slowly ratchet up the surcharge.

Exchanges in the cartel agree not to exchange tainted coins.  Even if some
still do, the tainted coins are still inherently less valuable, since fewer
exchanges accept them.

Schemes like that are the main way for non-miners to flex their muscles,
even if they seem unsavory.

Taint tracking would allow merchants to participate.  They could give less
credit for tainted bitcoins, even if the exchanges are trying to remain
neutral.  If that happens, the exchanges could run 2 prices, BTC and
BTC-tainted.

On the other hand, implementing taint machinery is a bad thing for
fungibility.

It can also be accomplished with checkpointing.  They need to create 1 big
block and then agree to checkpoint it.

A less strict rule rule could be that blocks after the first big block
count as double POW.  That means that the big block chain only needs 34% of
the hashing power to win.

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