Oddbean new post about login | logout Do all the "L2's" pegged to Bitcoin skyrocket fees to make things uncomfortable enough? How technically literate are relevant stakeholders, from your perspective, to have good opinions on what is contentious? We hard fork inevitably, do we hard fork once to fix the technical issues (timestamp) and add other things? Or do you see mutliple hard forks over the years? Why five years? Why not 10? why not 1?
- WHEN MOST PEOPLE AGREE MEMPOOLS WILL NEVER CLEAR AGAIN. - NOT VERY BUT THAT ALONE MAKES PROPOSALS CONTENTIOUS. - FIVE YEARS IS JUST A NUMBER. NOT TIED TO IT. JUST A FAR OUT DATE SO FORK HAS MULTIPLE RELEASES NOT JUST ONE. BIGGEST CONCERN WITH A HARD FORK IS A BUG WITHOUT BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE CLIENTS.
Most people would be more than happy to custodial LN or use ecash from a mint controlled by their bank. In general we need to stop pretending 95% people currently share or will ever share our values. Entertaining changes based on the assumption that one day people will all the sudden care about sovereignty is an error imo
It's not about will they, it's about can they. Having optionality makes LSPs and mints incentive compatible.
That’s a lot of unknown risk for the sake of optionality that may never be exercised Either way, things have changed. The people that had influence no longer do so to the same extent or at all; they just don’t know it yet.
Unknown risk is a weak answer. We have known risks to address.
It’s not at all. What existential risk is bitcoin facing at the protocol level besides the unix time issue?
You sound like a crypto-bro. Many tokens had no technical issues with the protocol. This is why bitcoin is different. What is the problem bitcoin, as a protocol, set out to fix? Do you feel it appropriately addresses the problem?
Wut? That first statement made no sense. I’m asking what about the protocol is broken and needs to be fixed besides the unix timestamp issue? I’m guessing nothing since you didn’t point it out. The problem it fixes is well understood. I didn’t get here yesterday. Yes, i think the problem is appropriately addressed. These protocol changes are motivated by ideological reasons not catastrophic flaws in bitcoin’s design. “Everyone needs to own a UTXO” and the like. It’s not as if satoshi didn’t know not everyone was not going to be able to transact on L1.
The problem is UTXO ownership that doesn't scale. Resulting in capture and then the protocol is what the capturing party says it is. If everyone can always go to main chain consensus, capture becomes deterred.
This is a subjective problem based on your opinion around UTXO ownership. Competition on higher layers addresses capture and censorship. But then again most people are perfectly happy with their banks and the idea of self custody feels crazy to them. Assuming this will change materially is delusional.
You can satisfy a script condition for a UTXO or you cannot. You own it or you do not. Multiple people can own a UTXO. How do you define ownership? Defining terms might help.
I meant to say UTXO ownership scaling*
Scaling means answer the problem outlined in the whitepaper. Where everyone can p2p settle on chain without trusting a third party financial institution.
I would rather scale at higher layers with tradeoffs there as opposed to introducing risk to the base layer. The lack of an existential problem makes unintended consequences resulting from a soft fork unnecessary, in my opinion. I would venture to say not many of the people pushing for soft forks are all in and have families to support. Not saying this is you, but it’s easy to want change when you’re a single dude with a $500 stack.
Family man talking about softforks with majority exposure in bitcoin. Count myself as another. I know personally one more. nostr:nevent1qqsp00nr5ywuvjrdktq9h0p7p6dw26q3tzz529rj3l5eyh9qjhlmmecpz3mhxw309ucnydewxqhrqt338g6rsd3e9upzp57hgyjdm76mm3sm3uvdzlpnxkamf7x8zxp2xhhzwv22fxjwk7caqvzqqqqqqym638us
Also scaling at higher layers defeats the whitepaper abstract's goal
The abstract never promised the goal would scale to every single person in the planet forever.
Peer to peer doesn't mean everyone to you?
No, it means a P2P. Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. There is no centralized party deciding who can and can’t be a peer. Bitcoin is not perfect. It’s good enough and the best we have.
Right. The opportunity to hit the main chain doesn't exist without changes to scale UTXO ownership. This is irrespective of fees. Thank you for confirming for me.
Of course it exists, what are you talking about? Anyone that wants to transact on-chain can do so at any time. The network is and will continue to be P2P. Show me an example of a peer of the network not being allowed or requiring permission to transact with another peer. The elephant in the room is that not everyone will end up being a peer. Bitcoin is scarce, blocks pace is scarce. This is not a new revelation.
How do you define a peer of the network? Do think everyone will have an equal opportunity to be a peer?
"A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution." If I am unable to go to main chain, I am now going through a financial institution.
That statement is true today and will continue to be true. Anyone that wants to enjoy those benefits can today. The people that these changes are aimed to “help” don’t even know Bitcoin exists, they don’t care or like Bitcoin, or would rather use a financial institution. When these people that can’t transact on-chain and are actively using custodial LN or ecash, and the livelihood of their families depends on using Bitcoin sovereignly start asking for changes, then I’ll take it more seriously.
legacy finance and fiat degens coming in for NGU and advocating for ossification before the network is capable of scaling to provide widespread sovereign usage.
the difficulty is that the direction the protocol is developed is according to the dominant values of community members. so if 95% of the users don't care about sovereign usage there is unlikely to work out well for us. regulatory capture is a real thing and Bitcoin is not inevitable.
- I think we'll realize private mempools before we have agreement on memepools never clearing. Then the status of mempools will live in eternal superposition of both clear and full. Do you think mempools should reflect consensus? - agreed. - The last part of this statement makes me ponder all the software dependecies that are built up by clients. For example, in the event of a hard fork, what side does BDK take?