{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","author_name":"npub1mtxs7jztn027d9cylej99hltqq9vq84uxm80zl4naxafd9hpxqwsj9g5zm","author_url":"https://nostr.ae/npub1mtxs7jztn027d9cylej99hltqq9vq84uxm80zl4naxafd9hpxqwsj9g5zm","provider_name":"njump","provider_url":"https://nostr.ae","html":"📅 Original date posted:2014-04-26\n📝 Original message:This seems like splitting hairs, no? A block isn't a guarantee (it can\nget orphaned). And as a user of bitcoin (as opposed to a miner), this\nchange cannot affect any payment you ever receive.\n\nSome of the interpretation is already different for coinbase UTXO's\n(need a valid height, locked for 100 blocks). Anyone expecting them to\nbehave like any other UTXO will get bitten by one of those subtleties\n(MtGox's withdrawals had issues with exactly this, IIRC).\n\nOn Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 8:15 AM, Gareth Williams \u003cgacrux at gmail.com\u003e wrote:\n\u003e On 26/04/14 01:28, Mike Hearn wrote:\n\u003e\u003e     When you have a *bitcoin* TXn buried under 100 blocks you can be damn\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e     sure that money is yours - but only because the rules for interpreting\n\u003e\u003e     data in the blockchain are publicly documented and (hopefully)\n\u003e\u003e     immutable. If they're mutable then the PoW alone gives me no confidence\n\u003e\u003e     that the money is really mine, and we're left with a much less useful\n\u003e\u003e     system. This should be more sacred than the 21m limit.\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e Well, I think we should avoid the term \"sacred\" - nothing is sacred\n\u003e\u003e because we're not building a religion here, we're engineering a tool.\n\u003e\n\u003e Are you sure there isn't room for just a touch of \"religion\"? :) As you\n\u003e state below, all that protects my money from confiscation is strong\n\u003e group consensus that it's mine - \"a social rule, not a mathematical one.\"\n\u003e\n\u003e Everything ultimately balances on that. People being a little bit\n\u003e \"religious\" about following the protocol faithfully are the linchpin of\n\u003e Bitcoin security, not PoW.\n\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e\u003e Consider a world in which 1 satoshi is too valuable to represent some\n\u003e\u003e kinds of transactions, so those transactions stop happening even though\n\u003e\u003e we all agree they're useful. The obvious solution is to change the rules\n\u003e\u003e so there can be 210 million coins and 10x everyones UTXOs at some\n\u003e\u003e pre-agreed flag day. We probably wouldn't phrase it like that, it's\n\u003e\u003e easier for people to imagine what's happening if it's phrased as \"adding\n\u003e\u003e more places after the decimal point\" or something, but at the protocol\n\u003e\u003e level coins are represented using integers, so it'd have to be\n\u003e\u003e implemented as a multiply.\n\u003e\n\u003e Agree.\n\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e\u003e Would this be a violation of the social contract? A violation of all\n\u003e\u003e that is sacred? I don't think so, it'd just be sensible engineering and\n\u003e\u003e there'd be strong consensus for that exactly because 21 million /is/ so\n\u003e\u003e arbitrary. If all balances and prices multiply 100-fold overnight, no\n\u003e\u003e wealth is reallocated which would be the /actual/ violation of the\n\u003e\u003e social contract: we just get more resolution for setting prices.\n\u003e\n\u003e Wholeheartedly agree. \"21 million\" is just shorthand for the\n\u003e preservation of artificial scarcity. No rational person could argue that\n\u003e what you described violates the social contract.\n\u003e\n\u003e I do see what you're driving at - that there exists a situation where it\n\u003e would be justified to change the interpretation of data in existing blocks.\n\u003e\n\u003e But, please consider: if I controlled a single UTXO worth 1% of the\n\u003e total money supply before your change, the network would still recognise\n\u003e that I control a single UTXO worth 1% of the total money supply after\n\u003e your change. So you haven't really changed the interpretation of\n\u003e existing blocks at all there. It's just semantics :)\n\u003e\n\u003e Contrast this with invalidating a coinbase before maturity, which\n\u003e clearly has a very real impact. At the point the vote passes, you're ***\n\u003e sidestepping the PoW mechanism and rewriting the meaning of an existing,\n\u003e validated block ***.\n\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e\u003e So. The thing that protects your money from confiscation is not proof of\n\u003e\u003e work. PoW is just a database synchronisation mechanism. The thing that\n\u003e\u003e protects your money from confiscation is a strong group consensus that\n\u003e\u003e theft is bad. But that's a social rule, not a mathematical rule.\n\u003e\n\u003e Agree. That's my whole point :)\n\u003e\n\u003e I recognise my security is in the hands of the users (the economic\n\u003e majority.) Tomorrow they could all decide to patch their nodes to\n\u003e reallocate my UTXOs, and there's not a damn thing I could do about it,\n\u003e PoW and private keys notwithstanding. I must simply trust that they will\n\u003e not do this.\n\u003e\n\u003e So we can have:\n\u003e 1. \"Neutral Bitcoin\", where everyone is committed to prevention of theft\n\u003e by following a simple set of mathematical rules which treat all\n\u003e validated blocks as equal.\n\u003e Or:\n\u003e 2. \"Political Bitcoin\", where everyone is committed to prevention of\n\u003e theft based on human judgements, and the contents of some validated\n\u003e blocks are more equal than others.\n\u003e\n\u003e I recognise that the latter allows for a lot of flexibility in combating\n\u003e fraud, but with (substantial) due respect, it isn't Bitcoin.\n\u003e\n\u003e -Gareth\n\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e ------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\u003e Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform\n\u003e Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software\n\u003e Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready\n\u003e Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform\n\u003e http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform\n\u003e _______________________________________________\n\u003e Bitcoin-development mailing list\n\u003e Bitcoin-development at lists.sourceforge.net\n\u003e https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development\n\u003e"}