Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[theZerg]

> why can't BCH do this from a dumb token standpoint ie as a pure p2p ecash plus SOV?

You still need Schwab, etrade, etc to hold stocks on your behalf and they might as well denominate your cash in USD because it gives them float.

The grab and run cases happened in coffee houses IIRC. And the point is that you can do an atomic swap between BCH and a token. There is no moment of trust where you are like ok I've sent the coins, now sign over the title (or whatever).

 

[cypherdoc]

>You still need Schwab, etrade, etc to hold stocks on your behalf and they might as well denominate your cash in USD because it gives them float.

well, the point is if BCH becomes the unit of account, all these stocks will be denominated and priced in BCH. they won't have any choice. plus, they'd also be forced to be accountable as they will be dealing in sound money, ie, no bailouts.

>The grab and run cases happened in coffee houses IIRC.

true, but your example was a trade for fiat physical cash. atomic swaps don't ameliorate that.

 

[Norway]

At the end of the SV conference, a BU member told me that there had been made a back room deal in Tokyo about implementing OP_GROUP in may next year, which sounds like stalling to me.

Can @solex or @theZerg shed some more light on this?

EDIT: I'm not much of a token fan myself, as a token issuer and oracles are points of failiure. Everything always boils down to someone having to sign a transaction. Bitcoin (cash) can be programmed by anybody without permission, the currency itself doesn't have to be the program. But I think OP_GROUP brings a lot of bang for the buck (simple, intuitive, effective, not f*ing up the future by ossification), and voted "Yes" last year together with the majority in BU.

EDIT2:

Depending upon how the increased OP_RETURN data gets used, and what advanced scripting can actually be done with the new OP codes, will determine the timescale for when or if OP_GROUP is brought back to the table as a consensus change proposal.

Basically, this means we have to wait for nChain to deliver "something" before OP_GROUP is implemented. I waited for the nChain SDK that was supposed to be released "within one month" last year, but I haven't seen it. The whole thing reminds me of the general stalling tactics we have seen from the small block side all the time. nChain has had plenty of resources to show this advanced scripting on testnets for a long time.

EDIT3: (I'm getting fired up!)
If nChain has not yet created these fancy scripts, how do we even know they can do it? Lightning Network comes to mind....

 

[majamalu]

Although I don't have a strong opinion regarding the importance of the new features, I do get where cypherdoc is coming from. Even if the probability of damaging BCH as sound money is small, we should be very careful because everything that could be done on top of BCH depends on the strength of its monetary properties.

Any cryptocurrency that reintroduces one or several disadvantages of lesser forms of money is doomed to lose the battle for the throne of universal unit of account, in the same way that salt lost it to gold, and before cattle lost it to salt. Nobody in their right mind will say today that gold would be a better form of money if it had the physical-chemical properties of salt, but for some reason (cough, cough! economic illiteracy, cough, cough!) some people think that a cryptocurrency is better if, like fiat money, it can be inflated at will, or if, like bananas, it deteriorates and loses value when you try to treasure it (cough, cough! Freicoin, cough, cough!), or if, like rai stones, it is almost impossible to transfer for common people (cough, cough! Bitcoin Core, cough, cough!).

We have cryptocurrencies for all tastes, ideologies and intellectual levels. Is that one safe but inflationary? It will lose the competition. Is that one "intelligent" but insecure? It will also lose. Is that other one safe but using it is cumbersome? It will lose. Monopolized? It will lose. Does it make privacy difficult? Some government is trying to impose it by force? Is it designed to harm miners? Does it have artificially high fees? Does it establish some kind of redistribution scheme at the protocol level? Does it underestimate the importance of the network effect? They will lose. All. Guaranteed. The market does not forgive, and here there is no judge other than the market.

We should focus on what matters the most for most people. I bet the only cryptocurrencies that will survive this bloodbath will be those based on genuine economic activity and the potential to replace fiat money -- starting from the low hanging fruits that chypherdoc insists on.

 

[solex]

@Norway There was no backroom deal about OP_GROUP. The meeting I referred to discussed it in depth. The bottom line is that it is not killed off forever. There is a window for further discussion. That is all. @VeritasSapere spoke 1-to-1 with many people about it and got an understanding to keep the concept of native tokens on the table for re-evaluation next year or even later. That is as far as it went. This may please a lot of people, and that's fair enough.
[doublepost=1522395585,1522394666][/doublepost]So, we are going to have a lot more time to discuss and think about the pros and cons to native tokens.

@theZerg mentions some use cases such as tickets.
Let's consider an example in more detail. A rock concert by Spinal Tap is planned for Sin City with a maximum of 5,000 tickets to be sold. The promoter is a forward thinker and wants to do it on a crypto with native token capability. So, he chooses "crypto-units" (CU) and mints 5,000 ST-SC tokens and offers them for sale online at 0.5 CU each. People use a website or app to pay crypto-units for the ticket tokens. The purchases happen as atomic swaps. Optionally, the promoter may request some personal info to prevent on-selling, such as email and phone number which may be verified at entry time.

Has the amount of crypto-units been inflated by 5000 * 0.5 ?
No, the payments in CU aggregate in the promoter's CU wallet. The ticket tokens, however, then have a value which will only last until the event is over. Concert-goers use their hand-held device to transfer back their ticket-token to gain admittance to the event.

What happens to the ticket tokens afterwards?
Because the event is finished the tokens have no value and can be melted by the promoter.

This is a valued-added use case for a future global cryptocurrency. Exchanges are dis-intermediated. Users find it a very convenient process. There is no risk to the CU currency, in fact there is a boost to it from the additional network effect of this commercial activity.

Would BCH be better off in future if this type of activity took place on something like ETH?

 

[Norway]

Thanks @solex.

Maybe the room wasn't a "back room", and maybe it wasn't an "agreement", but an "understanding" that OP_GROUP should be postponed to next year.

You make a good case for/example of how OP_GROUP can be used.

So why is it opposed? Who are stalling BUIP077? I'm more interested in knowing "who" than "why". And if you can't say who it is, it's certainly a back room agreement.

EDIT: Typo
EDIT2: I understand that BU have limited influence, and that BUIP077 still being on the table may be considered a victory. I just want to know who is opposing it. Miners? (The only big miner/pool I recognised in Tokyo was Haipo Yang). nChain? ABC? XT?

 

[Norway]

Just to share some more experiences from the fantastic conference:
I felt almost attacked by Julian Smith, the Counterparty for BCH-guy about my Ka-ching Project. (Check it out, and explain to me why Ka-ching doesn't work guys!)

He could provide anything needed to get the project going.

It could be that he just has a manic entrepreneurial spirit, but I felt like he was basically trying to buy me off with solutions to all my "problems" for a hidden agenda. Yes, I got a little paranoid during the conference for different reasons. I felt like I was part of a James Bond movie, lol!

 

[cypherdoc]

@Norway There was no backroom deal about OP_GROUP. The meeting I referred to discussed it in depth. The bottom line is that it is not killed off forever. There is a window for further discussion. That is all. @VeritasSapere spoke 1-to-1 with many people about it and got an understanding to keep the concept of native tokens on the table for re-evaluation next year or even later. That is as far as it went. This may please a lot of people, and that's fair enough.
[doublepost=1522395585,1522394666][/doublepost]So, we are going to have a lot more time to discuss and think about the pros and cons to native tokens.

@theZerg mentions some use cases such as tickets.
Let's consider an example in more detail. A rock concert by Spinal Tap is planned for Sin City with a maximum of 5,000 tickets to be sold. The promoter is a forward thinker and wants to do it on a crypto with native token capability. So, he chooses "crypto-units" (CU) and mints 5,000 ST-SC tokens and offers them for sale online at 0.5 CU each. People use a website or app to pay crypto-units for the ticket tokens. The purchases happen as atomic swaps. Optionally, the promoter may request some personal info to prevent on-selling, such as email and phone number which may be verified at entry time.

Has the amount of crypto-units been inflated by 5000 * 0.5 ?
No, the payments in CU aggregate in the promoter's CU wallet. The ticket tokens, however, then have a value which will only last until the event is over. Concert-goers use their hand-held device to transfer back their ticket-token to gain admittance to the event.

What happens to the ticket tokens afterwards?
Because the event is finished the tokens have no value and can be melted by the promoter.

This is a valued-added use case for a future global cryptocurrency. Exchanges are dis-intermediated. Users find it a very convenient process. There is no risk to the CU currency, in fact there is a boost to it from the additional network effect of this commercial activity.

Would BCH be better off in future if this type of activity took place on something like ETH?

In your ticket example,

1. I assume he burns one Satoshi per token? Or did he color it?
2. How does he reverse (melt) this after the concert?
3. What economic feedback did he use to determine that 0.5 CU was a fair and profitable price for a ticket?

 

[witly]

What is the benefit to sell the tickets as tokens instead of QR codes?

@Norway There was no backroom deal about OP_GROUP. The meeting I referred to discussed it in depth. The bottom line is that it is not killed off forever. There is a window for further discussion. That is all. @VeritasSapere spoke 1-to-1 with many people about it and got an understanding to keep the concept of native tokens on the table for re-evaluation next year or even later. That is as far as it went. This may please a lot of people, and that's fair enough.
[doublepost=1522395585,1522394666][/doublepost]So, we are going to have a lot more time to discuss and think about the pros and cons to native tokens.

@theZerg mentions some use cases such as tickets.
Let's consider an example in more detail. A rock concert by Spinal Tap is planned for Sin City with a maximum of 5,000 tickets to be sold. The promoter is a forward thinker and wants to do it on a crypto with native token capability. So, he chooses "crypto-units" (CU) and mints 5,000 ST-SC tokens and offers them for sale online at 0.5 CU each. People use a website or app to pay crypto-units for the ticket tokens. The purchases happen as atomic swaps. Optionally, the promoter may request some personal info to prevent on-selling, such as email and phone number which may be verified at entry time.

Has the amount of crypto-units been inflated by 5000 * 0.5 ?
No, the payments in CU aggregate in the promoter's CU wallet. The ticket tokens, however, then have a value which will only last until the event is over. Concert-goers use their hand-held device to transfer back their ticket-token to gain admittance to the event.

What happens to the ticket tokens afterwards?
Because the event is finished the tokens have no value and can be melted by the promoter.

This is a valued-added use case for a future global cryptocurrency. Exchanges are dis-intermediated. Users find it a very convenient process. There is no risk to the CU currency, in fact there is a boost to it from the additional network effect of this commercial activity.

Would BCH be better off in future if this type of activity took place on something like ETH?

 

[cypherdoc]

Although he'll probably say atomicity, that was my next question, assuming the promoter is honest of course. Which is reasonable esp with a little research.

 

[LudwigVonRothoppe]

CSW just posted an article about selfish mining on yours.org: https://www.yours.org/content/the-cancer-in-bitcoin-e75381d0fd75

 

[cypherdoc]

good article. i've always disagreed with Emin about his assumptions and promotions surrounding selfish mining, and even Peter once, on this topic. without all the maths of course. just a gut feeling based on real world mining experience. maybe i was just lucky.

edit: his writing is difficult to read, overdramatic, grammatically incorrect, and highly pedantic. nonetheless, i can follow his logic train and i agree.

 

[MarkBLundeberg]

CSW is moving the goal posts a bit by now focussing on γ instead of on the memorylessness of mining, but honestly I think that's a reasonable debate to be had. I can't see how γ >> 0.5 is very feasible on the realistic bitcoin mining network. Even then, if we have γ less than 1 by some as-yet-unknown amount, then for small α the profits are slim-to-negative as seen in the Eyal-Sirer paper. I imagine these two factors, combined with unmodelled repercussions (damage to reputation, etc.) are what disincentivise people from actually doing a selfish mining attack in reality.

Also, +1 what cypherdoc says about CSW's writing. There seems nothing wrong with the mathematical model of the Eyal-Sirer paper, and calling it pseudoscience is just being an asshole.

 

[cypherdoc]

i distinctly remember coming to a full stop on my first pass reading of the SM paper when it first came out b/c very early on (maybe in the abstract perhaps) Emin stated this was a fundamental flaw in mining and that miners would take advantage of this strategy once they became aware of this attack (from his paper of course). that might not have been so bad, but then he proceeded to recommend to everyone publicly that they sell all their BTC. as well, he went on a speaking tour of several conferences, one of which i attended in LV, during which i sensed he was attempting to become an authority in the space using the logic of this paper. during the Q&A and personally after his talk where he was spreading all sorts of FUD about SM, i challenged him about the assumptions in the paper being wrong; those were that miners would conduct this attack for financial gain. he didn't take kindly to me doing that. he then revealed to me afterwards, something he did not mention in the talk, that the attack depended on Sybiling other nodes which i thought was kinda disingenuous. and still wrong. i asked him why would they destroy confidence in the very system that was feeding them by using SM? he then became pedantic with a i am The Professor stance towards me. of course, i didn't help things ultimately as i became very publicly critical of his position thereafter. but here is the key economic point that many of these academic ppl always seem to flat out miss and never discuss in these attacks: Bitcoin is a Sound Money system (b/c of the fixed supply of coin) whose miners stand to, and are incentivized to, become fabulously rich (as has already played out, see Bitmain 2017 income projections) as the world's next accounting industry as timestampers. banks, and esp central banks, stand to become severely deprecated in this scenario to the miner's benefit. if they/Bitcoin are successful long term, the price of a single coin will Moon way beyond the last ~$20K high. and this is simply from Sound Money by my estimation. this is why the attacks on miners has been so vicious and unfair. or the trolls just don't understand. plenty of ppl stand to be disrupted by miners and PoW. i talked about all this in realtime when it happened right here in this thread.

anyways, Emin can also be highly pedantic at times altho he appears to be getting better (maybe).

 

[theZerg]

What is the benefit to sell the tickets as tokens instead of QR codes?

Stops reseller from double-selling them.

https://seatgeek.com/tba/articles/seatgeek-101-how-to-tell-if-tickets-are-fake/

 

[cypherdoc]

Although fake tickets are often a customer’s main concern when purchasing from the secondary market, fewer than one percent of orders are subject to fraud.* The reason being: sellers don’t make any money when they sell fake tickets. In fact, they lose money!

 

[Erdogan]

About smart contracts

What has been done in ethereum is interesting, but a contract is not something that you can delegate to a supposedly nonhuman system. Think about it, ownership of a land plot with a house can not rest only on the papers. Imagine someone coming to your house insisting that "I know the private key to this property, so I am coming to live here, please leave". Not even the current contract and registry system is enough, all of it can be tested in court, and what the court will be looking for is of course the meeting of the minds, was there a valid agreement between the original owner and the next.

All smart contracts that tries to regulate something that is outside the blockchain system needs an input from the real world, often called an oracle, which can be contested in the same way, or the contract relies on input that is entirely inside the chain. Not the price of the coin, because that is external to the system. I can think of properties in a future block, like size, number of transactions, and the like. Not even the timestamp, because the timestamp is not absolute. Also the code compared to the human understanding of the contract, but that was solved in ether with defining the contract to be how the code happened to work, not the intent or some other human meaning.

And even with that restriction, we have seen that the ether chain was rolled back because of an alleged theft. You could also argue that there was no rollback, because the chain split.

I guess this is not something new.

Now, what we have is this sound money system with stuff that has no value for direct use, it can only be exchanged for something of real value. But as the system is constructed, and as long as it stays alive with the security that we have, which is based on the value of the tokens and in the future the value of its use in trade, there are some additional uses for it. Not the coins, but the system. That is at least the timestamping feature, and also some form of smart contracts.

At some point this was regarded as misuse by some, and now the question is to losen up and let this be used, with a market pricing of transactions as for other use of the blockchain.

I think it is good to losen up, I think it is not necessary but at the same time not something to be scared of, as long as the main function of sound money is kept. I have some concerns about the stability, the new stuff should not require more computing power at the miners, and I would really hate it if a split should occur because of the contracts, like it did with ether.

I think the progress in use goes well, we have been set back a bit, and it takes time to regain trust. Stability is the key to regain trust, and I am quite sure that bitcoin in the form of bitcoin cash eventually will be used by everybody.

 

[theZerg]

Although fake tickets are often a customer’s main concern when purchasing from the secondary market, fewer than one percent of orders are subject to fraud.* The reason being: sellers don’t make any money when they sell fake tickets. In fact, they lose money!

So says the ticket resellers association, because they want to manage the problem without scaring you away. I've seen people trying to buy scalped tix at the door because their etix sale was double spent. Lets put that 1% (if it's even accurate) in perspective ). suppose a sports arena seats, what 30000 people? So 300 people per game head all the way to the stadium just to turn around and head home.

 

[solex]

@Norway Ideally, we want to see developers/architects make their opinions public on development proposals, which is one of the great benefits of a thread like this: transparency. Also, there is a grey-scale in opinion, and someone might be mildly against, mildly for, or happy to go with the majority view. OP_GROUP has this grey-scale. Also, some people need a lot of time to decide their view, and don't want to make a public statement too soon, or be called out for having reservations as a default stance. Craig Wright has tweeted that he opposes OP_GROUP, and we understand that this is primarily because he expects a lot of similar functionality to be available from advanced scripting with the re-enabled op codes. Jonald Fyookball wrote up his opinion against it (though I didn't see him at the conference, - it would have been good if he had made it).
-----
Going back to the example of concert tickets. I used crypto-units (CU) for this so that we can leave BCH out of the debate, and maybe some of the emotion as well. CU can be considered as BCH, ETH, LTC or anything else, one day in common use.

@witly's point about using existing tech like QR codes is a good one, but reminds me of a question like this from the 1980s "Why use digital photography when film photography works well?" The answer is more apparent decades later when we see film technology as hopelessly outdated, and part of that is because of new technologies which have appeared since e.g. the web, smartphones, flash-drives which has taken digital photography far beyond the scope of the original comparison which was principally about picture quality, and convenience for re-taking shots.

Moving to the issue of ticket validity, there may be less problems in OECD countries, but what about Colombia, Nigeria or Pakistan, for example? Those countries must have massive problems with valid ticketing for events.

Also, ticket tokens provides flexibility for use over multiple events and allowing the option of secondary markets. We don't know how this technology will find a niche, but when it does it will be big.
@cypherdoc
1. A recent improvement to OP_GROUP is that satoshis are not re-purposed and colored. They remain in CU. There is a separate quantity field which dramatically improves flexibility. CU satoshis continue with their p2p cash role which is the fuel (like ETH's gas) to drive token transactions.
2. Melting is a privilege of the issuer. theZerg's presentation gives a good overview.
3. The economic feedback for ticket pricing is no different from today, involving a costed plan, including commissions and profit. In a CU economy all the input costs are known in CU. In a fiat economy, they will need to be converted at the market rate.

 

[witly]

I think this double spend problem is different from the problem in bitcoin because there is one party we can/have to trust: the event organizer. In the end they will check the validity of the ticket. Maybe we can find a much simpler solution based on this rather than resorting to a p2p solution?

So says the ticket resellers association, because they want to manage the problem without scaring you away. I've seen people trying to buy scalped tix at the door because their etix sale was double spent. Lets put that 1% (if it's even accurate) in perspective ). suppose a sports arena seats, what 30000 people? So 300 people per game head all the way to the stadium just to turn around and head home.