{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","author_name":"npub1798ncudyucap9jzzujjsgufx8tdykm8auzfledjcs6f6wf4ekqvq8lpmjt","author_url":"https://nostr.ae/npub1798ncudyucap9jzzujjsgufx8tdykm8auzfledjcs6f6wf4ekqvq8lpmjt","provider_name":"njump","provider_url":"https://nostr.ae","html":"📅 Original date posted:2015-02-12\n📝 Original message:Den 12 feb 2015 15:53 skrev \"Mike Hearn\" \u003cmike at plan99.net\u003e:\n\u003e\u003e\n\u003e\u003e \u003e So you're just arguing that a notary is different to a miner, without\nspelling out exactly why.\n\u003e\n\u003e I'm afraid I still don't understand why you think notaries would build\nlong term businesses but miners wouldn't, in this model.\n\u003e\n\u003e I think you are saying because notaries have identity, brand awareness\nand because they have big up front bonds, that means they will be\ntrustworthy.\n\nMiners aren't contractors, they don't have to care about repeat business.\nIndividual miners don't have enough impact to have a negative impact on\ntheir own capital investment. Zero-conf transactions also aren't that tied\nto the Bitcoin valuation.\n\nMultisignature notaries need to convince people to select them. They want\nto know that even with collateral, their funds won't be temporarily locked\nup and unspendable for days at a time.\n\nWhat services would miners provide here, do you think?\n\n\u003e Well, sure. It's the same model governments use and is why being a money\ntransmitter in the USA is so difficult: you need to put up large sums of\nmoney as collateral and have your fingerprints taken 48 times. Then you can\nstart advertising to get customers!\n\nObviously you need to have collateral to provide collateral. Can't make\ncryptographic verifiable guarantees if you don't have the resources to back\nthem.\n\n\u003e The reason mining is such a nice model is it doesn't have these sorts of\nrequirements.\n\nAnd also can't make these assurances. Any minority miner can be overrun.\n\n\u003e\u003e As notaries can be small operations ..... [snip] ...... (almost every\nlarge organization in the world have some unallocated funds somewhere).\n\u003e\n\u003e Which is it? Are notaries small operations or large operations?\n\nThe operation itself is small. A few people maintaining a few servers.\n\nThe collateral needed depends on how many and how large simultaneous\ntransactions they want to provide assurances for, so they can chose to be a\nsmall player for one niche market or large and global if they have the\nfunds for it.\n\n\u003e I think exploring new consensus models with semi-trusted notaries is\ninteresting, but it's not Bitcoin.\n\nMethods for decentralized consensus that aren't PoW also aren't Bitcoin.\n\n\u003e Please don't try and apply this logic in the real world :( Rephrased:\n\u003e\n\u003e \"That's a nice house. I noticed it's made of wood. I'm going to start\nfires until it burns down, because there is no guarantee your house won't\nburn down in future and it's important you understand that wooden houses\naren't safe. Really I'm just doing you a favour.\"\n\nActually that IS often a bad idea. But fortunately the risk and threat is\nlow, and mitigation is well understood.\n\n\u003e I'm really not a fan of Peter's approach, which is \"hey let's try and\ncause as many problems as possible to try and prove a point, without having\ncreated any solutions\". Replace-by-fee-scorched-earth doesn't work and\nisn't a solution. Miners can easily cut payment fraudsters in on the stolen\nmoney, and as they'd need to distribute custom double-spending wallets to\nmake the scheme work it'd be very easy to do.\n\nSecurity analysis requires having the mindset of an attacker. Sometimes\nthat reveals suboptimal choices. Then you want them changed to more stable\nchoices such that once the incentives change, the risk already is gone.\nMinimization of damage, simply put.\n\n\u003e\u003e Your also ssume people will expect the Bitcoin network to keep zero-conf\nsafe forever and that Bitcoin valuation is tied to that. Given the options\navailable and current state of things, I'm assuming that's wrong.\n\u003e\n\u003e Why? You think ability to make payments in a few seconds is some\nirrelevant curiousity?\n\nNo. But you can't be certain it is secure without having a solid reliable\nmechanism to provide such a guarantee.\n\nYou want zero-conf to stay safe without involvement of servers? Then\nplease, try to find a way to secure it. Right now you're assuming it can\nremain safe based on circumstances which can change and assumptions about\nmarket participant's valuations that likely aren't true.\n\n\u003e Let's put it this way. If BitPay's business model evaporates tomorrow,\nalong with all the merchants they support, do you think that'd have any\neffect on Bitcoin's value? If not, why not?\n\nIt would. They'd tank. But you're assuming too much about the basis for\nvaluation.\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20150212/437c2f0a/attachment.html\u003e"}