From: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp•com.au>
To: Ryan Grant <bitcoin-dev@rgrant•org>,
Bitcoin Protocol Discussion
<bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] March 23rd 2021 Taproot Activation Meeting Notes
Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2021 14:31:13 +0930 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87pmz6it7q.fsf@rustcorp.com.au> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAMnpzfopMNO=73wqvXpOn9u8X4MwJArqGxODJAS4-9iFiZOd6A@mail.gmail.com>
Ryan Grant <bitcoin-dev@rgrant•org> writes:
> On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 11:58 PM Rusty Russell via bitcoin-dev
> <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>> The core question always was: what do we do if miners fail to activate?
>>
>> [...] Speedy Trial takes the approach that "let's pretend we didn't
>> *actually* ask [miners]".
>
> What ST is saying is that a strategy of avoiding unnecessary risk is
> stronger than a strategy of brinkmanship when brinkmanship wasn't
> our only option. Having deescalation in the strategy toolkit makes
> Bitcoin stronger.
I don't believe that having a plan is brinkmanship or an escalation.
During the segwit debate, Pieter Wuille said that users should decide.
I've been thinking about that a lot, especially about what that means in
a practical sense where the normal developer / miner dynamic has failed.
>> It's totally a political approach, to avoid facing the awkward question.
>> Since I believe that such prevaricating makes a future crisis less
>> predictable, I am forced to conclude that it makes bitcoin less robust.
>
> LOT=true does face the awkward question, but there are downsides:
>
> - in the requirement to drop blocks from apathetic miners (although
> as Luke-Jr pointed out in a previous reply on this list they have
> no contract under which to raise a complaint); and
Surely, yes. If the users of bitcoin decide blocks are invalid, they're
invalid. With a year's warning, and developer and user consensus
against them, I think we've reached the limits of acceptable miner
apathy.
> - in the risk of a chain split, should gauging economic majority
> support - which there is zero intrinsic tooling for - go poorly.
Agreed that we should definitely do better here: in practice people
would rely on third party explorers for information on the other side of
the split. Tracking the cumulative work on invalid chains would be a
good idea for bitcoind in general (AJ suggested this, IIRC).
>> Personally, I think the compromise position is using LOT=false and
>> having those such as Luke and myself continue working on a LOT=true
>> branch for future consideration. It's less than optimal, but I
>> appreciate that people want Taproot activated more than they want
>> the groundwork future upgrades.
>
> Another way of viewing the current situation is that should
> brinkmanship be necessary, then better tooling to resolve a situation
> that requires brinkmanship will be invaluable. But:
>
> - we do not need to normalize brinkmanship;
>
> - designing brinkmanship tooling well before the next crisis does
> not require selecting conveniently completed host features to
> strap the tooling onto for testing; and
Again, openly creating a contingency plan is not brinkmanship, it's
normal. I know that considering these scenarios is uncomfortable; I
avoid conflict myself! But I feel obliged to face this as a real
possibility.
I think we should be normalizing the understanding that bitcoin users
are the ultimate decider. By offering *all* of them the tools to do so
we show this isn't lip-service, but something that businesses and
everyone else in the ecosystem should consider.
> - it's already the case that a UASF branch can be prepared along
> with ST (ie. without requiring LOT=false), although the code is a
> bit more complex and the appropriate stopheight a few blocks later.
I don't believe this is true, unless you UASF before ST expires? ST is
explicitly designed *not* to give time to conclude that miners are
stalling (unless something has changed from the initial 3 month
proposal?).
> Although your NACK is well explained, for the reasons above I am
> prepared to run code that overrides it.
Good. In the end, we're all at the whim of the economic majority.
Cheers!
Rusty.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-04-07 5:01 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 13+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-03-24 3:46 Jeremy
2021-03-25 7:02 ` Anthony Towns
2021-03-25 14:30 ` Jeremy
2021-04-06 4:25 ` Rusty Russell
2021-04-07 1:20 ` Ryan Grant
2021-04-07 5:01 ` Rusty Russell [this message]
2021-04-07 13:42 ` Claus Ehrenberg
2021-04-07 15:25 ` eric
2021-04-07 17:13 ` Matt Corallo
2021-04-08 11:11 ` Anthony Towns
2021-03-24 11:23 Michael Folkson
2021-03-24 18:10 ` Jeremy
2021-03-24 19:14 ` Michael Folkson
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