Re: [bitcoin-dev] [Mempool spam] Should we as developers reject non-standard Taproot transactions from full nodes?

From: Erik Aronesty <erik@q32•com>
To: Michael Folkson <michaelfolkson@protonmail•com>
Cc: Bitcoin Protocol Discussion
	<bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>,
	Ali Sherief <ali@notatether•com>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] [Mempool spam] Should we as developers reject non-standard Taproot transactions from full nodes?
Date: Mon, 8 May 2023 17:01:27 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAJowKgLAWRmo8LB+F5dw1TWYEUxqm=Ld99J9r4W1dXc0fBaq8w@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAJowKgLWSd4AC+L0NFfon3YQZyB1eBrvmd==nerRQCs+637zKQ@mail.gmail.com>

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the more i think about it, the more that this is essential.   consider that
bitcoin is secured by mining and mining is secured by fees.   all of that
is relative to the value of bitcoin itself.   but consider the incentive
for a reorg if a single ordinal is worth 1 billion dollars and is being
transferred.  now all the incentive logic is thrown to the wind.
 non-monetary use is quite dangerous to network stability, and the game
theory underpinning it, imo.

On Mon, May 8, 2023 at 4:59 PM Erik Aronesty <erik@q32•com> wrote:

> > value you can from these Lightning channel(s) onchain even if it means
> paying a higher fee than the amount you are receiving.
>
> in that case, you're not getting any value - you're losing value.   the
> only benefit i could imagine would be to prevent the other party from
> having access to the funds should the channel expire.
>
> regardless, this is an edge case.   it's clear that a utxo whose value is
> less than the fee paid to move it is dust, and we already have plenty of
> code to censor dust transactions
>
> > no reason to prevent
>
> the reason to prevent them is to prevent something that has more value
> than the bitcoin itself from being stored on-chain.  that is to say:
> real-estate ownership, nfts, or any other thing that isn't "using bitcoin
> as money"
>
> by going at the "incentive/economic layer", rather than pointlessly
> forcing brc-20 and ordinals users to obfuscate their transactions, we can
> provide a permanent incentive to keep that stuff off of bitcoin
>
> personally, i'm not sure it's desirable to keep it off of bitcoin, but if
> it is, the only sure way to disincentivize it is to go at it in this way or
> similar
>
> i suspect all the opcode validation suggestions are just silly.   ordinals
> can time their fork to the same moment, and store data in a less efficient,
> but still functional, way using any number of mechanisms.   we've had
> similar things posted on-chain since 2010 (my favorite was a software
> license key - in an attempt to make bitcoin nodes illegal.   it's still in
> there)
>
>
> On Mon, May 8, 2023 at 4:36 PM Michael Folkson <
> michaelfolkson@protonmail•com> wrote:
>
>> > im unclear as to the purpose paying an onchain transaction fee greater
>> than the amount receiving could possibly serve.
>>
>> If you expect fees to continue to rise and be sustained at abnormally
>> high levels for a long period of time you might seek to close your
>> Lightning channel(s) and move whatever value you can from these Lightning
>> channel(s) onchain even if it means paying a higher fee than the amount you
>> are receiving.
>>
>> I don't necessarily recommend doing this (it would depend on a number of
>> factors, both personal and external) but there is no reason to prevent
>> someone in say the consensus rules from doing this if they wish.
>>
>> --
>> Michael Folkson
>> Email: michaelfolkson at protonmail.com
>> GPG: A2CF5D71603C92010659818D2A75D601B23FEE0F
>>
>> Learn about Bitcoin: https://www.youtube.com/@portofbitcoin
>>
>> ------- Original Message -------
>> On Monday, May 8th, 2023 at 20:47, Erik Aronesty <erik@q32•com> wrote:
>>
>> im unclear as to the purpose paying an onchain transaction fee greater
>> than the amount receiving could possibly serve.
>>
>> what benefit do you get aside from losing bitcoin?
>>
>> are there any, non-theoretical, benefits to facilitating dust
>> transactions?
>>
>> we could, of course, have it be non-consensus (no route dust) to start
>> with
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, May 8, 2023 at 1:13 PM Michael Folkson <
>> michaelfolkson@protonmail•com> wrote:
>>
>>> > probably easier just to reject any transaction where the fee is
>>> higher than the sum of the outputs
>>>
>>> And prevent perfectly reasonable transfers of value and attempted
>>> Lightning channel closes during fee spikes? If I *want* to close my
>>> Lightning channel during a protracted fee spike where I have to pay an
>>> onchain transaction fee greater than the amount I am receiving you want to
>>> stop me doing that? You are impinging on a valid use case as well as
>>> requiring a consensus rule change.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Michael Folkson
>>> Email: michaelfolkson at protonmail.com
>>> GPG: A2CF5D71603C92010659818D2A75D601B23FEE0F
>>>
>>> Learn about Bitcoin: https://www.youtube.com/@portofbitcoin
>>>
>>> ------- Original Message -------
>>> On Monday, May 8th, 2023 at 13:58, Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev <
>>> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> probably easier just to reject any transaction where the fee is higher
>>> than the sum of the outputs
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 8, 2023, 7:55 AM Ali Sherief via bitcoin-dev <
>>> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi guys,
>>>>
>>>> I think everyone on this list knows what has happened to the Bitcoin
>>>> mempool during the past 96 hours. Due to side projects such as BRC-20
>>>> having such a high volume, real bitcoin transactions are being priced out
>>>> and that is what is causing the massive congestion that has arguable not
>>>> been seen since December 2017. I do not count the March 2021 congestion
>>>> because that was only with 1-5sat/vbyte.
>>>>
>>>> Such justifiably worthless ("worthless" is not even my word - that's
>>>> how its creator described them[1]) tokens threaten the smooth and normal
>>>> use of the Bitcoin network as a peer-to-pear digital currency, as it was
>>>> intended to be used as.
>>>>
>>>> If the volume does not die down over the next few weeks, should we take
>>>> an action? The bitcoin network is a triumvirate of developers, miners, and
>>>> users. Considering that miners are largely the entities at fault for
>>>> allowing the system to be abused like this, the harmony of Bitcoin
>>>> transactions is being disrupted right now. Although this community has a
>>>> strong history of not putting its fingers into pies unless absolutely
>>>> necessary - an example being during the block size wars and Segwit - should
>>>> similar action be taken now, in the form of i) BIPs and/or ii) commits into
>>>> the Bitcoin Core codebase, to curtail the loophole in BIP 342 (which
>>>> defines the validation rules for Taproot scripts) which has allowed these
>>>> unintended consequences?
>>>>
>>>> An alternative would be to enforce this "censorship" at the node level
>>>> and introduce a run-time option to instantly prune all non-standard Taproot
>>>> transactions. This will be easier to implement, but won't hit the road
>>>> until minimum next release.
>>>>
>>>> I know that some people will have their criticisms about this,
>>>> absolutists/libertarians/maximum-freedom advocates, which is fine, but we
>>>> need to find a solution for this that fits everyone's common ground. We
>>>> indirectly allowed this to happen, which previously wasn't possible before.
>>>> So we also have a responsibility to do something to ensure that this kind
>>>> of congestion can never happen again using Taproot.
>>>>
>>>> -Ali
>>>>
>>>> ---
>>>>
>>>> [1]:
>>>> https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/05/05/pump-the-brcs-the-promise-and-peril-of-bitcoin-backed-tokens/
>>>> <https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/05/05/pump-the-brcs-the-promise-and-peril-of-bitcoin-backed-tokens/?outputType=amp>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>

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