Re: [bitcoin-dev] Trinary Version Signaling for softfork upgrades

From: Eric Voskuil <eric@voskuil•org>
To: Luke Dashjr <luke@dashjr•org>,
	Bitcoin Protocol Discussion
	<bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: Billy Tetrud <billy.tetrud@gmail•com>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Trinary Version Signaling for softfork upgrades
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2021 15:05:05 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <99FAC012-22BB-4160-A941-A99FF4D330DF@voskuil.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CB5A45C6-6446-4ECE-AD7D-8F079F8661BF@voskuil.org>

Ultimately there is only one answer to this question. Get majority hash power support.

Soft fork enforcement is the same act as any other censorship enforcement, the difference is only a question of what people want. Given that there is no collective “we”, those wants differ. Bitcoin resolves this question of conflicting wants, but it is not a democracy, it’s a market. One votes by trading.

If one wants to enforce a soft fork (or otherwise censor) this is accomplished by mining (or paying others to do so). Anyone can mine, so everyone gets a say. Mining is trading capital now for more later. If enough people want to do that, they can enforce a soft fork. It’s time Bitcoiners stop thinking of miners as other people. Anyone can mine, and that’s your vote.

Otherwise, as mentioned below, anyone can start a new coin. But it’s dishonest to imply that one can do this and all others will surely follow. This cannot be known, it’s merely a gamble. And it’s one that has been shown to not always pay off.

e

> On Jun 26, 2021, at 14:43, Eric Voskuil <eric@voskuil•org> wrote:
> 
> For some definitions of “block”.
> 
> Without majority hash power support, activation simply means you are off on a chain split. Anyone can of course split off from a chain by changing a rule (soft or otherwise) at any time, so this is a bit of an empty claim.
> 
> Nobody can stop a person from splitting. The relevant question is how to *prevent* a split. And activation without majority hash power certainly does not “ensure” this.
> 
> e
> 
>> On Jun 26, 2021, at 14:13, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>> 
>> BIP8 LOT=True just ensures miners cannot block an upgrade entirely. They can 
>> still slow it down.
>> 
>> It also already has the trinary state you seem to be describing (although 
>> perhaps this could be better documented in the BIP): users who oppose the 
>> softfork can and should treat the successful signal (whether MASF or UASF) as 
>> invalid, thereby ensuring they do not follow a chain with the rules in force.
>> 
>> No additional bit is needed, as softforks are coordinated between users, NOT 
>> miners (who have no particular say in them, aside from their role as also 
>> being users). The miner involvement is only out of necessity (to set the bit 
>> in the header, which users coordinate with) and potentially to accelerate 
>> activation by protecting upgrade-lagging users.
>> 
>> Luke
>> 
>> 
>>>> On Saturday 26 June 2021 20:21:52 Billy Tetrud via bitcoin-dev wrote:
>>> Given the recent controversy over upgrade mechanisms for the
>>> non-controversial taproot upgrade, I have been thinking about ways to solve
>>> the problems that both sides brought up. In short, BIP8 LOT=true proponents
>>> make the point that lazy miners failing to upgrade in a timely manner slow
>>> down releases of bitcoin upgrades, and BIP9 / BIP8 LOT=false
>>> proponents make the point that LOT=true can lead to undesirable forks that
>>> might cause a lot of chaos. I believe both points are essentially correct
>>> and have created a proposal
>>> <https://github.com/fresheneesz/bip-trinary-version-signaling/blob/master/b
>>> ip-trinary-version-bits.md> for soft fork upgrades that solve both problems.
>>> 
>>> The proposal uses trinary version signaling rather than binary signaling.
>>> For any particular prospective soft fork upgrade, this allows for three
>>> signaling states:
>>> 
>>> * Actively support the change.
>>> * Actively oppose the change.
>>> * Not signaling (neither support or oppose). This is the default state.
>>> 
>>> Using this additional information, we can release non-contentious upgrades
>>> much quicker (with a much lower percent of miners signaling support). For
>>> contentious upgrades, miners who oppose the change are incentivized to
>>> update their software to a version that can actively signal opposition to
>>> the change. The more opposition there is, the higher the threshold
>>> necessary to lock in the upgrade. With the parameters I currently
>>> recommended in the proposal, this chart shows how much support signaling
>>> would be necessary given a particular amount of active opposition
>>> signaling:
>>> 
>>> [image: thresholdChart.png]
>>> If literally no one signals opposition, a 60% threshold should be
>>> relatively safe because it is a supermajority amount that is unlikely to
>>> change significantly very quickly (ie if 60% of miners support the change
>>> today, its unlikely that less than a majority of miners would support the
>>> change a year or two from now), and if no one is signaling opposition,
>>> chances are that the vast majority of the other 40% would also eventually
>>> signal support.
>>> 
>>> This both gives an incentive for "lazy" miners to upgrade if they actually
>>> oppose the change while at the same time allowing these lazy miners to
>>> remain lazy without slowing down the soft fork activation much.
>>> 
>>> I think now is the right time to discuss new soft fork upgrade mechanisms,
>>> when there are no pressing soft fork upgrades ready to deploy. Waiting
>>> until we need to deploy a soft fork to discuss this will only delay things
>>> and cause contention again like it did with taproot.
>>> 
>>> I'm very curious to know what people think of this mechanism. I would
>>> appreciate any comments here, or written as github issues on the proposal
>>> repo itself.
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> BT
>> 
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