Re: [bitcoin-dev] Yesterday's Taproot activation meeting on lockinontimeout (LOT)

From: Matt Corallo <lf-lists@mattcorallo•com>
To: Ariel Lorenzo-Luaces <arielluaces@gmail•com>,
	Bitcoin Protocol Discussion
	<bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Yesterday's Taproot activation meeting on lockinontimeout (LOT)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2021 09:30:45 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <4A6F5D19-DF75-4C83-A435-53B6EAABD85F@mattcorallo.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <b5d23fb8-06a8-4dda-bdbb-2247a82fa1a0@gmail.com>

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I don’t think “some vocal users are going to threaten to fork themselves off” is good justification for technical decisions. It’s important to communicate and for everyone to agree/understand that a failed BIP 8/9 activation, in the scenario people are worried about, is not the end of the story for Taproot activation. If it is clear that Taproot has broad consensus but some miners failed to upgrade in time (as it presumably would be), a flag day activation seems merited and I’m not sure anyone has argued against this. That said, forced-signaling via a UASF/BIP8(true)-style fork carries material additional risk that a classic flag-day activation does not, so let’s not optimize for something like that.

Matt

> On Feb 21, 2021, at 08:26, Ariel Lorenzo-Luaces via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> What would be the tradeoffs of a BIP8(false, ∞) option? That would remove some of the concerns of having to coordinate a UASF with an approaching deadline.
> 
> Cheers
> Ariel Lorenzo-Luaces
>> On Feb 19, 2021, at 6:55 PM, ZmnSCPxj via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>> Good morning list,
>> 
>>>  It was pointed out to me that this discussion is largely moot as the software complexity for Bitcoin Core to ship an
>>>  option like this is likely not practical/what people would wish to see.
>>> 
>>>  Bitcoin Core does not have infrastructure to handle switching consensus rules with the same datadir - after running with
>>>  uasf=true for some time, valid blocks will be marked as invalid, and additional development would need to occur to
>>>  enable switching back to uasf=false. This is complex, critical code to get right, and the review and testing cycles
>>>  needed seem to be not worth it.
>> 
>> Without implying anything else, this can be worked around by a user maintaining two `datadir`s and running two clients.
>> This would have an "external" client running an LOT=X (where X is whatever the user prefers) and an "internal" client that is at most 0.21.0, which will not impose any LOT rules.
>> The internal client then uses `connect=` directive to connect locally to the external client and connects only to that client, using it as a firewall.
>> The external client can be run pruned in order to reduce diskspace resource usage (the internal client can remain unpruned if that is needed by the user, e.g. for LN implementation sthat need to look up arbitrary short-channel-ids).
>> Bandwidth usage should be same since the internal client only connects to the external client and the OS should optimize that case.
>> CPU usage is doubled, though.
>> 
>> (the general idea came from gmax, just to be clear, though the below use is from me)
>> 
>> Then the user can select LOT=C or LOT=!C (where C is whatever Bitcoin Core ultimately ships with) on the external client based on the user preferences.
>> 
>> If Taproot is not MASF-activated and LOT=!U is what dominates later (where U is whatever the user decided on), the user can decide to just destroy the external node and connect the internal node directly to the network (optionally upgrading the internal node to LOT=!U) as a way to "change their mind in view of the economy".
>> The internal node will then follow the dominant chain.
>> 
>> 
>> Regards,
>> ZmnSCPxj
>> 
>>> 
>>>  Instead, the only practical way to ship such an option would be to treat it as a separate chain (the same way regtest,
>>>  testnet, and signet are treated), including its own separate datadir and the like.
>>> 
>>>  Matt
>>> 
>>>>  On 2/19/21 09:13, Matt Corallo via bitcoin-dev wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>  (Also in response to ZMN...)
>>>>  Bitcoin Core has a long-standing policy of not shipping options which shoot yourself in the foot. I’d be very disappointed if that changed now. People are of course more than welcome to run such software themselves, but I anticipate the loud minority on Twitter and here aren’t processing enough transactions or throwing enough financial weight behind their decision for them to do anything but just switch back if they find themselves on a chain with no blocks.
>>>>  There’s nothing we can (or should) do to prevent people from threatening to (and possibly) forking themselves off of bitcoin, but that doesn’t mean we should encourage it either. The work Bitcoin Core maintainers and developers do is to recommend courses of action which they believe have reasonable levels of consensus and are technically sound. Luckily, there’s strong historical precedent for people deciding to run other software around forks, so misinterpretation is not very common (just like there’s strong historical precedent for miners not unilaterally deciding forks in the case of Segwit).
>>>>  Matt
>>>> 
>>>>>>  On Feb 19, 2021, at 07:08, Adam Back adam@cypherspace•org wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>  would dev consensus around releasing LOT=false be considered as "developers forcing their views on users"?
>>>>> 
>>>>>  given there are clearly people of both views, or for now don't care
>>>>>  but might later, it would minimally be friendly and useful if
>>>>>  bitcoin-core has a LOT=true option - and that IMO goes some way to
>>>>>  avoid the assumptive control via defaults.
>>>> 
>>>>>  Otherwise it could be read as saying "developers on average
>>>>>  disapprove, but if you, the market disagree, go figure it out for
>>>>>  yourself" which is not a good message for being defensive and avoiding
>>>>>  mis-interpretation of code repositories or shipped defaults as
>>>>>  "control".
>>>> 
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>>>>  bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
>>>>  https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>> 
>> 
>> 
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