📅 Original date posted:2014-04-25
📝 Original message:On 25/04/14 20:17, Mike Hearn wrote:
> Proving that you can convince the economic majority that the
>
> interpretation of existing blocks is in any way up for grabs would set a
> dangerous precedent, and shake some people's faith in Bitcoin's overall
> robustness and security (well, mine anyway.)
>
>
> Hmm, then I think your faith needs to be shaken. Bitcoin is money, and
> money is a purely artificial social construct. The interpretation of
> what a bitcoin means, or what a dollar means, has always been and always
> will be a human decision taken in order to achieve some socially useful
> goal.
My argument does not concern what a bitcoin means, just what data in the
blockchain means. People are free to value an individual bitcoin however
they like. But it's useful if we all agree on a standard that defines
who owns them - ie. the protocol as described in Satoshi's whitepaper. I
recognise that your ability to provide a valid scriptSig for /any
existing UTXO in the blockchain/ as proof of your ownership of the
corresponding bitcoin. You want to pick and choose which UTXO (well,
coinbase; same diff) you consider valid and spendable /after they've
become part of the blockchain/, regardless of the fact they're buried
under PoW.
As an illustration, consider Counterparty - an altcoin whose TXns are
embedded as unvalidated data in the bitcoin blockchain. A lot of people
imagine that an XCP transaction buried under 100 blocks and a BTC
transaction buried under the same 100 blocks are equally secure. You
tell me: are they? It's the same PoW chain after all.
Hell no they're not! The way Counterparty interprets that data in the
blockchain is anything but stable or well documented. On more than one
occasion they've gone "whoops, found a bug that caused some transactions
to occur that we don't consider valid - we'll just fix that." A suddenly
the reference client doesn't consider the XCP in your wallet valid
anymore - they just magically disappear - because the parent of the TXn
that paid you was actually invalid. Nobody rewrote history via PoW; they
simply tweaked their interpretation of the existing history.
When you have a *bitcoin* TXn buried under 100 blocks you can be damn
sure that money is yours - but only because the rules for interpreting
data in the blockchain are publicly documented and (hopefully)
immutable. If they're mutable then the PoW alone gives me no confidence
that the money is really mine, and we're left with a much less useful
system. This should be more sacred than the 21m limit.
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Gareth Williams [ARCHIVE] /
npub1jk…373ck
2023-06-07 15:19:37
in reply to nevent1q…2xq2
Author Public Key
npub1jkdfcglr59lwnhek94l393g0hhhaj0v5yzz3n5s3p0r9u0576sgs7373ckPublished at
2023-06-07 15:19:37Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2014-04-25\n📝 Original message:On 25/04/14 20:17, Mike Hearn wrote:\n\u003e Proving that you can convince the economic majority that the\n\u003e \n\u003e interpretation of existing blocks is in any way up for grabs would set a\n\u003e dangerous precedent, and shake some people's faith in Bitcoin's overall\n\u003e robustness and security (well, mine anyway.)\n\u003e \n\u003e \n\u003e Hmm, then I think your faith needs to be shaken. Bitcoin is money, and\n\u003e money is a purely artificial social construct. The interpretation of\n\u003e what a bitcoin means, or what a dollar means, has always been and always\n\u003e will be a human decision taken in order to achieve some socially useful\n\u003e goal. \n\nMy argument does not concern what a bitcoin means, just what data in the\nblockchain means. People are free to value an individual bitcoin however\nthey like. But it's useful if we all agree on a standard that defines\nwho owns them - ie. the protocol as described in Satoshi's whitepaper. I\nrecognise that your ability to provide a valid scriptSig for /any\nexisting UTXO in the blockchain/ as proof of your ownership of the\ncorresponding bitcoin. You want to pick and choose which UTXO (well,\ncoinbase; same diff) you consider valid and spendable /after they've\nbecome part of the blockchain/, regardless of the fact they're buried\nunder PoW.\n\nAs an illustration, consider Counterparty - an altcoin whose TXns are\nembedded as unvalidated data in the bitcoin blockchain. A lot of people\nimagine that an XCP transaction buried under 100 blocks and a BTC\ntransaction buried under the same 100 blocks are equally secure. You\ntell me: are they? It's the same PoW chain after all.\n\nHell no they're not! The way Counterparty interprets that data in the\nblockchain is anything but stable or well documented. On more than one\noccasion they've gone \"whoops, found a bug that caused some transactions\nto occur that we don't consider valid - we'll just fix that.\" A suddenly\nthe reference client doesn't consider the XCP in your wallet valid\nanymore - they just magically disappear - because the parent of the TXn\nthat paid you was actually invalid. Nobody rewrote history via PoW; they\nsimply tweaked their interpretation of the existing history.\n\nWhen you have a *bitcoin* TXn buried under 100 blocks you can be damn\nsure that money is yours - but only because the rules for interpreting\ndata in the blockchain are publicly documented and (hopefully)\nimmutable. If they're mutable then the PoW alone gives me no confidence\nthat the money is really mine, and we're left with a much less useful\nsystem. This should be more sacred than the 21m limit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n-------------- next part --------------\nA non-text attachment was scrubbed...\nName: signature.asc\nType: application/pgp-signature\nSize: 555 bytes\nDesc: OpenPGP digital signature\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20140425/e6f0b788/attachment.sig\u003e",
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