From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from smtp3.osuosl.org (smtp3.osuosl.org [140.211.166.136]) by lists.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 657E2C0001 for ; Fri, 21 May 2021 20:55:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp3.osuosl.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4729B615BD for ; Fri, 21 May 2021 20:55:11 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at osuosl.org X-Spam-Flag: NO X-Spam-Score: 1.299 X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.299 tagged_above=-999 required=5 tests=[BAYES_50=0.8, DKIM_SIGNED=0.1, DKIM_VALID=-0.1, FREEMAIL_FORGED_FROMDOMAIN=0.249, FREEMAIL_FROM=0.001, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS=0.249, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE=-0.0001, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001] autolearn=no autolearn_force=no Authentication-Results: smtp3.osuosl.org (amavisd-new); dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=q32-com.20150623.gappssmtp.com Received: from smtp3.osuosl.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp3.osuosl.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id DpvPszElGChd for ; Fri, 21 May 2021 20:55:10 +0000 (UTC) X-Greylist: whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.8.0 Received: from mail-pg1-x52c.google.com (mail-pg1-x52c.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:4864:20::52c]) by smtp3.osuosl.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 44289606C5 for ; Fri, 21 May 2021 20:55:10 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-pg1-x52c.google.com with SMTP id v14so12457696pgi.6 for ; Fri, 21 May 2021 13:55:10 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=q32-com.20150623.gappssmtp.com; s=20150623; h=mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date:message-id:subject:to :cc:content-transfer-encoding; bh=hrRmkd9fdHnSJ5KShxp9QpKTDkW3v4bo1DF4dzDJu/M=; b=O9wFWnxio2vtq+YrMVvdzvD/byW8BmZef/+W01TREVlq0mnqh4AXWTInE3z/soc2tZ x8xqdIVpoJnDobdAA1nmuABAOSaHFHrwgaJC4GJN3/nBNENvG6rRwUYhlTlwmEZC/qYn DTenuxshXFi+aJs+aH+f9cRza+DIYzO96COlCd9RpQXA5F+Yf4vrw2nSG7NQtdiSW+Ll 0tZcfLZNXE/u8LVjPX/3giR1LKKVjA+J6/6TaJGmQqZ3wRtmJUI1KB8jCbT5yHZHKNSC pbGaBBtTIOEIKksy7A1oIlyBwYfq2atFrbhWcz9BcTVS/WBUQOiZOsYFp5LvfcZHPlKu QUlw== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to:cc:content-transfer-encoding; bh=hrRmkd9fdHnSJ5KShxp9QpKTDkW3v4bo1DF4dzDJu/M=; b=Rzpt6dYYvSYVhmg+8AygdHp8U5XoM0ZkO7iK26NaY62sqauBTZszouG9/iqeALQWh5 UH5pbIBzZhi9kzr7Sgz/kA070rxA2bNnch0q1Pg8L09PSv61wzH6vQhoYTBk0tVnO9h0 6b+zTF+N3DM5VJnbMd7fiMY2LPk18q/Nm/oAfFS/kC66gKuvRD4BVVdKikSQQBfrKvOK DvYXkSkSkz7Ydx2Re+N1rPGf7EkTRTljgHJXqZiV5oLlUl+lV6Brw/h05HnQeEWj51PG f2aZv7hIXIjNN6JtVVOfva/n/USm/CFqHfv9+31l7CQ+uFT3FJX9Lccwknwvl1onZKYa 0O/w== X-Gm-Message-State: AOAM530ghyG+unCgezsTmzGc8AeDCLsK1zB4v3Y7pKVA7fak2qFavdxC fjD0Fxj/b3mFw+lUw0u7OX1SPL9FQzdHHbktyjaekY0= X-Google-Smtp-Source: ABdhPJzMuddoc9B82SyNFETzK6CVhsK4P58aMwv+yEb1CZa2w0Fsnt7k1EYf4/ryLu34lN8kRP+5Jinvzm7L3OAAt8c= X-Received: by 2002:a63:416:: with SMTP id 22mr605341pge.363.1621630509542; Fri, 21 May 2021 13:55:09 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <20210417114717.GA8079@erisian.com.au> In-Reply-To: From: Erik Aronesty Date: Fri, 21 May 2021 16:54:57 -0400 Message-ID: To: Billy Tetrud Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Mailman-Approved-At: Fri, 21 May 2021 21:53:42 +0000 Cc: Bitcoin Protocol Discussion , Anthony Towns Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Gradual transition to an alternate proof without a hard fork. X-BeenThere: bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.15 Precedence: list List-Id: Bitcoin Protocol Discussion List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 21 May 2021 20:55:11 -0000 the original argument was correct: has to be a hard fork. otherwise there's nothing to prevent a miner with leftover asics from "tricking" old nodes to following another chain. a hard fork is a really, really high bar - there would have to be something very broken to justify it. quantum-hashing or whatever (proof-of burn of course is as quantum-safe as the underlying chain is... so it's nice to switch to, should it be necessary) On Fri, May 21, 2021 at 4:11 PM Billy Tetrud wrote= : > > The way I would think of doing this kind of thing (switching consensus pr= otocol), which includes switching to a different hash function for proof of= work, is to have a transitionary period where both consensus mechanisms ar= e used to mine. This transitionary period should be long (perhaps years) to= give miners time to manage the logistics of switching over. However, becau= se there would be no trustless mechanism to automatically relate the amount= of work (or burn, or whatever) done between the two consensus mechanisms, = there would need to be some manually determined estimate of equivalence har= d coded into the software. Eg, if we're talking about a different hash func= tion, we could define in software that 100 current hashes is about equal to= 10 hashes using the new algorithm. This could even be set such that its ma= rginally (but significantly) favorable to use the new hash function, to giv= e additional incentive to miners to switch. The risk with that is that hard= ware that processes that new hash function might innovate arbitrarily more = quickly than the old hash function (which is likely to have somewhat platea= ued), and this might make the manually estimated equivalence become inaccur= ate in a way that could significantly reduce the security of the network. a= change like this could be fraught with perils if the miners using each mec= hanism don't end up cooperating to ensure that equivalence is set fairly, a= nd instead make efforts to attempt to unfairly increase their share. > > In any case, the idea is that you'd have a smooth switch over from (block= s the old mechanism creates / blocks the new mechanism creates) 100%/0% -> = 75%/25% -> 50/50 -> eventually 0%/100%. Or at some fraction of total hashpo= wer, (eg 95%) the old consensus mechanism could simply be shut off - which = would give additional incentive for miners to switch sooner rather than lat= er. However, it would probably be best to make this cut off more like 99% t= han 95%, since screwing over 5% of the hashpower for a few months is probab= ly not necessary or ideal. It might actually just be better to have a time-= based cutoff. Or have the final switch over lock in at 95% with a few month= s to give the other 5% time to switch over (and if they don't then its on t= hem). > > I would think this could work for switch between any consensus mechanism.= However, how to do this in a soft fork is another story. It sounds like it= s doable from other people's comments. > > On Sat, Apr 17, 2021 at 1:47 AM Anthony Towns via bitcoin-dev wrote: >> >> On Fri, Apr 16, 2021 at 04:48:35PM -0400, Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev = wrote: >> > The transition *could* look like this: >> > - validating nodes begin to require proof-of-burn, in addition to >> > proof-of-work (soft fork) >> > - the extra expense makes it more expensive for miners, so POW slowly= drops >> > - on a predefined schedule, POB required is increased to 100% of the >> > "required work" to mine >> > Given all of that, am I correct in thinking that a hard fork would not >> > be necessary? >> >> It depends what you mean by a "hard fork". By the definition that >> "the old software will consider the chain followed by new versions of >> the software as valid" it's a soft fork. But it doesn't maintain the >> property "old software continues to follow the same chain as new softwar= e, >> provided the economic majority has adopted the new software" -- because >> after the PoW part has dropped its difficulty substantitally, people can >> easily/cheaply make a new chain that doesn't include proof-of-burn, and >> has weak proof-of-work that's nevertheless higher than the proof-of-burn >> chain, so old nodes will switch to it, while new nodes will continue to >> follow the proof-of-burn chain. >> >> So I think that means it needs to be treated as a hard fork: everyone >> needs to be running the new software by some date to ensure they follow >> the same chain. >> >> (The same argument applies to trying to switch to a different PoW >> algorithm via a soft fork; I forget who explained this to me) >> >> Jeremy wrote: >> > I think you need to hard deprecate the PoW for this to work, otherwise >> > all old miners are like "toxic waste". >> > >> > Imagine one miner turns on a S9 and then ramps up difficulty for >> > everyone else. >> >> If it's a soft-fork, you could only ramp up the PoW difficulty by mining >> more than one block every ten minutes, but presumably the proof-of-burn >> scheme would have its own way of preventing burners from mining blocks >> too fast (it was assumption 2). >> >> Cheers, >> aj >> >> _______________________________________________ >> bitcoin-dev mailing list >> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org >> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev