Nostr notes by

📅 Original date posted:2021-08-19 📝 Original ...

2023-06-07T22:58:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…atru
_________________________

📅 Original date posted:2021-08-19
📝 Original message:Something that could work really well here could be having a norm of using
the checksum for bright colors, weights, sizes, capitalizations, and/or
spacing of the characters of the address, making different addresses more
clearly visually distinct.

Ethereum uses mixed case to do this a little bit:
https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-55#implementation

It seems to me the checksum at the end of the address is sufficient for
differentiating error, but making a checksum more visually distinctive is
indeed an opportunity to add another digest, reducing collisions and such.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20210819/566d8d96/attachment.html>;

📅 Original date posted:2021-05-23 📝 Original ...

2023-06-07T22:53:58Z

In reply to nevent1q…9q55
_________________________

📅 Original date posted:2021-05-23
📝 Original message:>> The turn-around time for that takes a population of both users and
>> miners to cause. Increasing popularity of bitcoin has a far bigger
>> impact here, and it is already raising fees and energy use at an
>> established rate.
>>
>> If it becomes an issue, as bandwidth increases block size could be
>> raised to lower fees.
>>
>
> Which increases block rewards somewhat (at least to some level that matches
> the overall security of the network) and you still have the same amount of
> energy consumed.

If you mean to implicitly propose that even if halved all the way with
very large blocks, block rewards would just increase to the same
level, meaning that any attempt to decrease them has no effect, I
disagree. I expect that if you raise the block size, eventually
there is so much supply for transactions that there are no fees at all
(nor security). The numbers are all things the devs, miners, and
users can together control.

> How to prove this is not happening?
> The best you can do is to have some number of authorities sign off on
> whether or not they are doing this.
> The problem is that authorities are bribeable.

You could make the proof of work be a proof of environmental kindness
by coding incentives for people to place and verify proof on the
chain, and then rewarding people for acting on it as desired. You
could code the chain to pay people to investigate and prove miners'
business practices, for example. You could define the main chain as
one where everyone consents the proofs are valid. There are a lot of
issues to resolve and it would be a very different chain.

There is not a single solution here. There are innumerable possible
solutions, any one of which could be made to work with enough brains
working on it. To use one, we need to agree on what kinds of
solutions are acceptable.

> Alternately, other entities in the locality can use force to require the
> polluting entity to clean up or suffer significant consequences.
> This at least is better incentive-wise, as they others in the same locality
> are the ones most affected, but the ability to enforce may be difficult due
> to various political constructions; the miners could be in such deep cahoots
> with the local government that the local government would willingly hurt
> other local entities in the vicinity of the polluting entity.

As bitcoin grows, if people ask some locality to enforce behavior,
they may need to be willing to enforce it themselves, too, or they
might outcompete the locality.

📅 Original date posted:2021-05-23 📝 Original message:On ...

2023-06-07T22:53:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…a5jh
_________________________

📅 Original date posted:2021-05-23
📝 Original message:On 5/23/21, ZmnSCPxj via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Good morning James,
>
>> Background
>> ===
>> Reducing the block reward reduces the incentive to mine. It reduces the
>> maximum energy price at which mining is profitable, reducing the energy
>> use.
>>
>
> If people want to retain previous levels of security, they can offer to pay
> higher fees, which increases the miner reward and thereby increasing the
> energy use again.

The turn-around time for that takes a population of both users and
miners to cause. Increasing popularity of bitcoin has a far bigger
impact here, and it is already raising fees and energy use at an
established rate.

If it becomes an issue, as bandwidth increases block size could be
raised to lower fees.

> Properly account for the entropy increase (energy usage) of all kinds of
> pollution, and the free market will naturally seek sustainable and renewable
> processes --- because that maximizes profitability in the long run.

There is little economic incentive to fine carbon emissions because
there is no well-established quick path to gain profit from reducing
them. The feedback paths you describe take decades if not hundreds of
years.

But it sounds like you are saying you would rather the energy issue
stay a political one that does not involve bitcoin. Your point is
quite relevant because bitcoin is not the largest consumer of energy;
those who care about reducing energy use would be better put to look
at other concerns.

The reason to reduce _bitcoin's_ energy use, would simply be to aid
its popularity and quell public concern. Without doing this, people
move to an altcoin, because increasing the value of bitcoin via
spreading its use, increases the demand for mining. That human
decision is part of the honesty you describe.

> What is needed is to enforce that pollution be paid for by those who cause
> it --- this can require significant political influence to do (a major world
> government is a major polluter, willing to pay for high fuel costs just to
> ship their soldiers globally, polluting the environments of foreign
> countries), and should be what true environmentalists would work towards,
> not rejecting Bitcoin as an environmental disaster (which is frankly
> laughable).
>
> Remember, the free market only works correctly if all its costs are
> accounted correctly --- otherwise it will treat costs subsidized by the
> community of human beings as a resource to pump.

It sounds like you would prefer a proof-of-work function that directly
proved carbon offsetting? And an on-chain tax for environmental harm?

On 5/23/21, Anton Ragin via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Well, it is done automatically every 4 years :) It is a self-balancing
> system - more people shout about Bitcoin being dirty -> less adoption ->
> lower the price -> less energy consumption. Add on top the fact that in
> 2024 block rewards will fall 50% anyway and someday it will be zero.

Is hashrate rising slower than the block reward is dropping, that you
mention the 4 years halving? Do you see a problem with dropping the
block reward to make faster change to the hashrate curve, that you
mention the existing system's weaker approach?

I personally wasn't aware that Elon had complained; I've been hearing
the complaint from scads of people for many years.

📅 Original date posted:2021-05-08 📝 Original message:> ...

2023-06-07T22:52:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…08he
_________________________

📅 Original date posted:2021-05-08
📝 Original message:>
> What is more important;
> Bitcoin mining introduces the first free-market demand for the cheapest
> energy source.

This is a really great idea but I think access to technologically advanced
hardware is a stronger component than energy here.

Making open community chip fabs might change that. Then anybody could get
on the bandwagon. But right now the hardware barrier keeps the common
person out.

If you can build a chip fab, you may also be able to build a powerplant.
Not many others can do that to compete with you. The energy economy still
has more supply than competition or renewable energy would quickly
outcompete nonrenewable as the price dropped.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20210508/416f416a/attachment.html>;

📅 Original date posted:2021-05-09 📝 Original message:On ...

2023-06-07T22:52:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…v8nw
_________________________

📅 Original date posted:2021-05-09
📝 Original message:On Sun, May 9, 2021, 6:21 AM R E Broadley <
rebroad+linuxfoundation.org at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 8 May 2021 at 15:36, Karl via bitcoin-dev
> <bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> > Bitcoin would get better mainstream public reputation if the block
> reward were reduced to reduce mining. This would quickly and easily reduce
> energy expenditure.
>
> You're in luck then, as the block reward is being reduced by 50%, every 4
> years.
>

I'm aware of that and it is why I mentioned "block reward termination" in
the next paragraph... did you receive the rest of my message? Or why do
you say this?

>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20210509/6cd06ec8/attachment-0001.html>;

📅 Original date posted:2021-05-08 📝 Original ...

2023-06-07T22:52:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…68va
_________________________

📅 Original date posted:2021-05-08
📝 Original message:Bitcoin would get better mainstream public reputation if the block reward
were reduced to reduce mining. This would quickly and easily reduce energy
expenditure.

A system would be needed to do that with consensus, to make it political.
For example, making a norm of extending the block reward termination
farther into the future, spreading the remaining coins out more thinly, but
never doing the opposite.

PoS can be made to work but it's hard to do so amid such disagreement. It
is so hard to express one's relevant information concisely and effectively.

I recommended earlier finding or hiring an experienced facilitator who
could make sure all concerns around the chain are included by engaging all
the dialog more productively. Somebody would need to be available to do
the work of finding such a person and any compensation they might need.

On Fri, May 7, 2021, 7:05 PM Eric Voskuil via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-Fallacy
>

This wiki states things as impossible but does not at all demonstrate them
to be so.

The assumption that something is impossible always relies on many other
assumptions, and the reader may have different ones from the author.

Quote from Proof-of-Stake-Fallacy
> In Other Means Principle it is shown that censorship resistance depends
on people paying miners to overpower the censor.
> Overcoming censorship is not possible in a PoS system, as the censor has
acquired majority stake and cannot be unseated.

If the link in that text is followed you get,

Quote from Other Means Principle:
> Given that mining is necessarily anonymous, there is no way for the
economy to prevent state participation in mining.

The article then goes on to assume this, but "no way" is a circular link
back to Proof-of-Stake-Fallacy!

Never is it demonstrated that a censor will always be able to have majority
stake. In a PoS system, they would have to be able to form false chain
histories to do that. In a PoW system, they would have to outcompete the
work.

These are not inherent limitations. The whole world is open. Consider a
proof of work algorithm that requires the freeing of prisoners: a state a
very different state if it does this. Or a communication protocol that
already cannot be intercepted. These things are exotically hard, but not
impossible, and show that the logic of the articles is not valid.

Another random idea: incentivising out-of-band channels, for example.
Mining blocks based on finding and uniting illegitimate forks. Now a chain
functions by defeating its own censorship.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20210508/0f6fc4e7/attachment.html>;