From: Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail•com>
To: Pieter Wuille <pieter.wuille@gmail•com>
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-development@lists•sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Proposal: Vote on the blocksize limit with proof-of-stake voting
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:30:02 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAKaEYh+6eKm0FxGnWQA6RLXC4WO37JJ3nHNqsnNbFqAuAmuUOA@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAPg+sBh68-AcAVEfkRBT-x2O+DYHROYkFtG4dmZ1JfNGRr__Mg@mail.gmail.com>
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On 10 June 2013 10:35, Pieter Wuille <pieter.wuille@gmail•com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 10:14 AM, Melvin Carvalho
> <melvincarvalho@gmail•com> wrote:
> > However, Bitcoin's fundamental philosophy was one CPU one vote.
>
> This is perhaps the largest misconception that keeps being repeated.
> Bitcoin is not a democracy; it is a zero-trust system. The rules are
> set in stone, and every full node verifies all rules and must
> independently come to the same result as everyone else. Obviously, if
> everyone changes their software, anything can change, but from within
> the system there is no way to change which blocks are considered
> valid, and there is certainly no voting mechanism about that.
>
> What is voted about, is the one single thing that cannot be decided by
> each node individually: namely the order of otherwise valid and
> non-conflicting transactions, and that's just because it's a
> necessity. Because deciding the order includes delaying transaction
> potentially indefinitely, a majority of miners can indeed choose the
> enforce an additional rule about which transactions are considered
> valid, but the rules implemented in full nodes do not change without
> changing the software. For example, miners cannot decide to raise the
> block subsidy, even if every single miner out there would want that.
> They'd just end up being ignored by everyone else.
>
> > Voting is easily gamed. While this may work in one particular case, it
> is
> > perhaps a bad precedent to set. Establishing methods of voting can lead
> to
> > single points of failure.
>
> The problem is that at some point, you have to look at the system from
> a higher level than just the technical part. And because ultimately
> the possibility exists where everyone changes their software, and
> there is an exceedingly high incentive for consensus (a deliberate
> hard-fork where two groups of users decide to use different and
> incompatible rules, aware of eachother, is suicide for the system, in
> my opinion). This results in the fact that proposed changes can indeed
> become new adopted hard rules in the system, and I don't think there's
> anything that can be done about it. Bitcoin is a consensus system - at
> the technical level - but also a consensus of the people using it, and
> ultimately they decide the rules.
>
OK I accept that the timestamping is one CPU one vote. However rule
changes seem rather arbitrary.
Towit if you use a voting/consensus system and want to destroy bitcion it
seems quite easy.
Iterate on picking a rule chance that will divide the consensus in such a
way as to create ensuing chaos.
I think voting is too easy gamed for it it to be meaningful other than a
straw poll.
If there's a bug, and everyone is unanimous that it's a bug, it can be
fixed.
If there's a controversial rule change, we should be extremely cautious and
not do it unless there's a very good reason. Keeping to satoshi's model as
much as possible without introducing human factors, unnecessarily.
>
>
> > Unless there's a very good reason not to, e.g. miners are clearly abusing
> > the system, we should stick with 1 CPU one vote.
>
> So you're saying that instead of a zero-trust system, we should move
> to a system where miners can decide _everything_ - as opposed to just
> being in charge of ordering transactions? I don't think you understand
> the system at all, if that is what you're proposing.
>
> --
> Pieter
>
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2013-06-10 12:30 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 15+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2013-06-10 4:09 John Dillon
[not found] ` <CAFBxzACPpLd1gmoAzxviU2rLPry=cGNQhEZvYV=q_PLRQQ5wXw@mail.gmail.com>
2013-06-10 4:59 ` John Dillon
2013-06-10 5:30 ` Peter Todd
2013-06-10 6:34 ` Daniel Lidstrom
2013-06-10 8:14 ` Melvin Carvalho
2013-06-10 8:26 ` John Dillon
2013-06-10 8:39 ` Melvin Carvalho
2013-06-10 8:35 ` Pieter Wuille
2013-06-10 12:30 ` Melvin Carvalho [this message]
2013-06-10 16:46 ` Mark Friedenbach
2013-06-10 17:25 ` Alan Reiner
2013-06-10 17:43 ` Peter Todd
2013-06-15 18:28 ` John Dillon
2013-06-22 12:05 ` Melvin Carvalho
2013-06-28 10:25 ` John Dillon
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