I think this is a very interesting idea. As Bitcoiners, we often stuff things into the 'alt chain' bucket in our heads; I wonder if this idea works better as a curing period, essentially an extended version of the current 100 block wait for mined coins. An alternate setup comes to mind; I can imagine this working as a sort of gift economy; people pay real BTC for merge-mined "beta BTC" as a way to support development. There is no doubt a more elegant and practical solution that might have different economic and crypto characteristics. On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 6:23 AM, Adam Back wrote: > Is there a way to experiment with new features - eg committed coins - that > doesnt involve an altcoin in the conventional sense, and also doesnt impose > a big testing burden on bitcoin main which is a security and testing risk? > > eg lets say some form of merged mine where an alt-coin lets call it > bitcoin-staging? where the coins are the same coins as on bitcoin, the > mining power goes to bitcoin main, so some aspect of merged mining, but no > native mining. and ability to use bitcoins by locking them on bitcoin to > move them to bitcoin-staging and vice versa (ie exchange them 1:1 > cryptographically, no exchange). > > Did anyone figure anything like that out? Seems vaguely doable and > maybe productive. The only people with coins at risk of defects in a new > feature, or insufficiently well tested novel feature are people with coins > on bitcoin-staging. > > Yes I know about bitcoin-test this is not it. I mean a real live system, > with live value, but that is intentionally wanting to avoid forking > bitcoins > parameters, nor value, nor mindshare dillution. In this way something > potentially interesting could move forward faster, and be les risky to the > main bitcoin network. eg particularly defenses against > > It might also be a more real world test test (after bitcoin-test) because > some parameters are different on test, and some issues may not manifest > without more real activity. > > Then also bitcoin could cherry pick interesting patches and merge them > after > extensive real-world validation with real-money at stake (by early > adopters). > > Adam > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > AlienVault Unified Security Management (USM) platform delivers complete > security visibility with the essential security capabilities. Easily and > efficiently configure, manage, and operate all of your security controls > from a single console and one unified framework. Download a free trial. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/alienvault_d2d > _______________________________________________ > Bitcoin-development mailing list > Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development > -- Are you coming to Bitcoin2013 in San Jose In May? ------------------------------ [image: CoinLab Logo]PETER VESSENES CEO *peter@coinlab.com * / 206.486.6856 / SKYPE: vessenes 71 COLUMBIA ST / SUITE 300 / SEATTLE, WA 98104