{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","author_name":"npub1u03cz099kt69z9awg232rjvlt34azukpzkkvy5uqv64dj9j5fqtshdnn03","author_url":"https://nostr.ae/npub1u03cz099kt69z9awg232rjvlt34azukpzkkvy5uqv64dj9j5fqtshdnn03","provider_name":"njump","provider_url":"https://nostr.ae","html":"📅 Original date posted:2017-03-18\n📝 Original message:As everyone in the Bitcoin space knows, there is a massive scaling debate\ngoing on. One side wants to increase the block size via segwit, while the\nother side wants to increase via hard fork. I have strong opinions on the\ntopic but I won’t discuss them here. The point of the matter is we are\nseeing the politicization of protocol level changes. The critiques of these\nchanges are slowly moving towards critiques based on who is submitting the\nBIP -- not what it actually contains. This is the worst thing that can\nhappen in a meritocracy.\n\n*Avoiding politicization of technical changes in the future*\n\nI like what Tom Elvis Judor did when he submitted his MimbleWimble white\npaper to the technical community. He submitted it under a pseudonym, over\nTOR, onto a public IRC channel. No ego involved — only an extremely\npromising paper. Tom (and Satoshi) both understood that it is only a matter\nof time before who they are impedes technical progress of their system.\n\nI propose we move to a pseudonymous BIP system where it is required for the\nauthor submit the BIP under a pseudonym. For instance, the format could be\nsomething like this:\n\nBIP: 1337\n\nAuthor: 9458b7f9f76131f18823d73770e069d55beb271b at protonmail.com\n\nBIP content down here\n\nThe hash “6f3…9cd0” is just my github username, christewart, concatenated\nwith some entropy, in this case these bytes:\n639c28f610edcaf265b47b0679986d10af3360072b56f9b0b085ffbb4d4f440b\n\nand then hashed with RIPEMD160. I checked this morning that protonmail can\nsupport RIPEMD160 hashes as email addresses. Unfortunately it appears it\ncannot support SHA256 hashes.\n\nThere is inconvenience added here. You need to make a new email address,\nyou need to make a new github account to submit the BIP. I think it is\nworth the cost -- but am interested in what others think about this. I\ndon't think people submitting patches to a BIP should be required to submit\nunder a pseudonym -- only the primary author. This means only one person\nhas to create the pseudonym. From a quick look at the BIPs list it looks\nlike the most BIPs submitted by one person is ~10. This means they would\nhave had to create 10 pseudonyms over 8 years -- I think this is\nreasonable.\n\n*What does this give us?*\n\nThis gives us a way to avoid politicization of BIPs. This means a BIP can\nbe proposed and examined based on it’s technical merits. This levels the\nplaying field — making the BIP process even more meritocratic than it\nalready is.\n\nIf you want to claim credit for your BIP after it is accepted, you can\nreveal the preimage of the author hash to prove that you were the original\nauthor of the BIP. I would need to reveal my github username and\n“639c28f610edcaf265b47b0679986d10af3360072b56f9b0b085ffbb4d4f440b”\n\n*The Future*\nPoliticization of bitcoin is only going to grow in the future. We need to\nmake sure we maintain principled money instead devolving to a system where\nour money is based on a democratic vote — or the votes of a select few\nelites. We need to vet claims by “authority figures” whether it is Jihan\nWu, Adam Back, Roger Ver, or Greg Maxwell. I assure you they are human —\nand prone to mistakes — just like the rest of us. This seems like a simple\nway to level the playing field.\n\nThoughts?\n\n-Chris\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20170318/c788f5e3/attachment.html\u003e"}