On 6 June 2013 23:48, Luke-Jr wrote: > On Thursday, June 06, 2013 8:16:40 PM Andreas M. Antonopoulos wrote: > > > This doesn't work like you might think: first of all, the fees today > are > > > greatly subsidized - the actual cost to store data in the blockchain is > > > much higher than most storage solutions. Secondly, only the miner > receives > > > the fees, not the majority of nodes which have to bear the burden of > the > > > data. That is, the fee system is setup as an antispam/deterrant, not as > > > payment for > > > storage. > > > > There's a difference between storing the content itself, and storing > just a > > hash to content (which however is not spendable payment). I undertand why > > content itself doesn't belong. But it goes too far to say that only > > payments should be allowed. > > Because payments are the only thing everyone using Bitcoin has agreed to > use > the blockchain for. Furthermore, there is no *reason* to store > non-payments in > the blockchain. If there was in fact such a use case, things might be > arguable > - but there isn't any I'm aware of. > Two quotes satoshi: "Piling every proof-of-work quorum system in the world into one dataset doesn't scale." and "I like Hal Finney's idea for user-friendly timestamping. Convert the hash of a file to a bitcoin address and send 0.01 to it" This leads me to believe, that while bitcoin should not be over used as a time stamp server, there could be a balance reached for casual time stamp recording as part of satoshi's concept. What we call "spam" is to a degree subjective, and I think not always obvious, tho in some cases it clearly is. > > If the fees are not enough, fix the fee structure, don't stop incredibly > > innovative and promising uses of the distributed timestamping database. > > That is definitely throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If the issue > > is size, then address that, rather than the content itself. > > The issue is using other peoples' resources for something they did not > agree > to use it for. The fees aren't merely "not enough", they were never > *intended* > to be "cost of storage". They are "cost of security" and "prevent > spamming". > > > Discriminating based on transaction content violates neutrality of the > > protocol and in my mind removes a very very large possibility of future > > innovation. If bitcoin is a *platform* and not just a payment system, > then > > it needs to be neutral to content, like TCP/IP so that other protocols > can > > be layered. Solve the size problem itself, without picking and chosing > > which uses of bitcoin are good and which are "bad" or "spam". I think it > > risks killing a tremendous amount of innovation just as it is starting. > > The concepts behind Bitcoin are applicable to future innovation, but this > can > all be accomplished without spamming Bitcoin itself. > > > > Not the same thing at all; nobody is forced to store/relay > > > video/voice/images without reimbursement. On the other hand, any full > > > Bitcoin node is required to at least download the entire blockchain > once. > > > And the network as a whole suffers if nodes decide to start not-storing > > > parts of the blockchain they don't want to deal with. > > > > > > So don't store content, but allow hashes of content. > > > > Again, I think it is extreme and extremely restrictive to say that ONLY > > payments are allowed. > > Non-payments are quite possible without the Bitcoin blockchain itself. If > you're worried that not enough people will store the > alternative-non-payment > data, then you are essentially saying that voluntary participation is not > enough and that forced storage is your solution. I don't think this is what > you intend... > > > > This is how merged mining solves the problem. A single extra hash in > the > > > coinbase can link the bitcoin blockchain up with unlimited other data. > > > > Can you explain this part or refer me to some docs? What do you mean by > > "coinbase", I assume not the company. > > The Bitcoin blockchain protocol has 95 bytes per block reserved for miners > to > put extra data. Currently, this is used for extranonces, political or other > short messages (such as in the Genesis block), miner "signatures", and > also, > as I mentioned, merged mining. Merged mining works by tying a non- > transactional merkle tree to the blockchain. The block coinbase stores the > hash of the top of this merkle tree, so any data within the merkle tree can > prove it is associated to the block. The merged mining merkle tree then > stores > hashes of multiple other data sets: for example, a Namecoin block can be > referenced in a merged mining merkle tree, to use the Bitcoin block's > proof- > of-work for itself (so, miners can mine both Bitcoin and Namecoin using the > same hashing effort). You could also add other non-transactional blocks to > the > merged mining merkle tree, for generic timestamping or really anything at > all. > > Luke > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > How ServiceNow helps IT people transform IT departments: > 1. A cloud service to automate IT design, transition and operations > 2. Dashboards that offer high-level views of enterprise services > 3. A single system of record for all IT processes > http://p.sf.net/sfu/servicenow-d2d-j > _______________________________________________ > Bitcoin-development mailing list > Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development >