Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Norway]

So, how frequent will these checkpoints be?

 

[freetrader]

How frequent are these attacks going to be?

In case adversaries keep it up, I will do a little time-warpey plug here for

https://github.com/BitcoinUnlimited/BUIP/blob/master/058.mediawiki

although by now there are probably better (automatic) ways of defense.

 

[Norway]

although by now there are probably better (automatic) ways of defense.

What kind of defence?

 

[freetrader]

Maybe once things have calmed down it is a better time to discuss these matters.
I want businesses and users to feel free to transact again on Bitcoin Cash, without fear.

 

[AdrianX]

SV didn't lose it looks like @deadalnix screwed us all. His ego got the better of him, he wanted to win at any cost. It's PoW that lost. We now have Proof of Social media and centralized developers consensus on what is and is not valid whenever there is contention.

[doublepost=1542342537][/doublepost]

So, how frequent will these checkpoints be?

Probably as frequently as the FED meets on economic policy changes. I'll sleep on it before giving up on Bitcoin. I just hope I'm not the first to dump.

 

[chriswilmer]

I don't see the issue with checkpointing... it's not a protocol rule. If miners with greater than 51% wanted to reorg the ABC chain they could remove the checkpoints from their own clients. Then they would have the most POW chain with the ABC ruleset... you can't stop the minority folks from keeping a checkpoint if they want it though.

 

[freetrader]

Brekken's argument against checkpoints only half makes sense to me.
On the one hand, he strongly defended the exchanges' right to protect themselves (with which I agree).

He also does have a point that checkpoints are ugly and we should not have more than one - the genesis block. But he's being an idealist here.

Checkpoints are one defense against a 51% attack (which includes deep re-org).

Setting them, as @chriswilmer points out, is not necessarily centralized. Everyone running the software can decide whether to use them at all, or to use different ones.

In practice, I think checkpoints exist in nearly every BCH client, and nearly every other coin.
They are adjusted infrequently in BCH clients, usually during hardforks when after a sufficient number of blocks have passed, a new release is issued to cement the fork block to avoid undue disruption.

The fact is, other miners and exchanges will do what it takes to protect their investments from attacks.

If some miners disagree and think their way is better, they can always fork off and implement their preferred rules.

P.S. we still don't know exactly what rules / software the actual SV nodes are running. We shall find out on Nov 17 whether it's the stock release without performance fixes, which wouldn't be able to handle 128MB blocks.

If not, they are probably running modified software with checkblock code of their own.
With ABC at least one can see the software changes made by developers.

 

[AdrianX]

@freetrader good luck keeping the TPTB propaganda machine at bay and the control of the lead implementation in the hands of the minority. If you think you need tools like Checkpoints to protect against double spends and dishonest 51% hash power you overlooked the bitcoin innovation.

 

[KoKansei]

If SV has at least the amount of hash they presented themselves to have, they can simply reorg the ABC chain aggressively until ABC is forced to implement checkpoints every block, maybe by way of a centralized server that sends out the "update" every block. Checkpoints are a losing strategy against overwhelming hash power. Assuming CSW, Calvin, et al. deliver I believe that this is game over for ABC. The only question is how long it takes everyone to realize the emperor has no clothes.

@freetrader good luck keeping the TPTB propaganda machine at bay and the control of the lead implementation in the hands of the minority. If you think you need tools like Checkpoints to protect against double spends and dishonest 51% hash power you overlooked the bitcoin innovation.

100% agree. Security by centralized checkpoint presents the same pitfalls as liberty reserve, e-gold, etc. Game over.

 

[awemany]

@satoshis_sockpuppet :

If we really see deliberate reorgs (and I suspect that if so, they'll be of the "guerilla warfare" variant as eloquently described here), then I think the comfortable explanation is just "that crazy loony over there".

The not-so-comfortable explanation is someone with an interest in seeing cryptocurrency fail, as that is an attack that is purely destructive and that simply doesn't make sense for someone within our community.

I hope it will be a moment where some of the CSW fanboys around here will finally come to their senses.

@AdrianX: As far as I can see "BCHABC" has the majority of HP as well?

 

[freetrader]

Really saddens me to see how some people I tended to respect even on this forum, behave elsewhere.

[doublepost=1542347246][/doublepost]

@freetrader good luck keeping the TPTB propaganda machine at bay and the control of the lead implementation in the hands of the minority. If you think you need tools like Checkpoints to protect against double spends and dishonest 51% hash power you overlooked the bitcoin innovation.

Every BCH client whose code I've looked at closely has implemented similar checkpoints during the BCH fork in August 2017.

I hope every one of you who now follow "Satoshi Vision" reads this Reddit post carefully to obtain an iota of understanding that Satoshi himself approved.

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/9xiw03/checkpoints_were_actually_added_by_satoshi/

 

[awemany]

@freetrader: I hope I am wrong with my gut feeling that some actors now indeed want to be actively destructive with their hash power in this space. We'll see.

If not, and as I said, the most likely scenario I can see is a couple blocks deep reorg here and there but with the majority hash power staying honest.

But if this is not addressed, it will still be very destructive to commerce and hard to defend against with just ordinary, hard-coded checkpoints as they can be still frequent enough to cause havoc (but not to get releases out). Maybe your BUIP058 would help with that. Maybe something like Gavin's 51% attack defense would help.

Notably, ZCF with the extra requirement that the inputs are sufficiently buried might help with getting payments secured against double-spends in such a hostile environment, and it would also help more than just for 0-conf.

What is also interesting is that this kind of hostility, though still being very destructive if unchecked, is ultimately a lot less damaging than it would be on BTC. Because with the crowded situation on BTC, reorgs there would mean that there's going to be transactions that will just be squeezed out and can't reenter the chain from the orphan pool, meaning a huge amount of double spends will go through.

Given that the rhetoric from the SV side of things is already as belligerent as it is, I guess it might make sense to think about more active modes of potential defense.

That said, I hope any kind of offensive reaction can be avoided and we can continue what so far is a relatively amicable separation. For the folks who believe in the BSV vision, go and build on top of that. I think you're following a master of hypnosis and false god to nowhere for what amounts to petty reasons, but to each their own.

And I say that as someone who's been quite critical of CTOR and still not sure that we're going down the right path there and who lamented and laments the pace of implementation, lack of proper testing and so forth.

But I take CTOR over "recovering buried treasures" any day. At most CTOR will become a minor nuisance and some technical debt.

But you SV supporters are all cheering folks who have expressed intent to actively steer BCH towards government fiat. WTF is wrong with you?

Last but not least and funnily enough, I like to remark that I haven't had anyone tell me about a >32MB block on the SV chain yet.
[doublepost=1542350111][/doublepost]@freetrader: The imgur is not loading for me. Can you make it a plain link?

 

[Zarathustra]

 

[freetrader]

@awemany - this is the imgur link

 

[awemany]

During the BCH/BTC split, someone brought up the idea to tie mining one chain to destruction of the other chain.

I am just thinking out loud and I think this should not be considered unless we start to actually see intentional, malicious reorgs:

But what if the BCH side of things adds a requirement that the second-longest chain is consisting just of empty blocks with mere coinbase transactions since the fork block, thus requiring BSV to be an empty chain?

Note that this would be a symmetrical requirement that could also be implemented by BSV to the same effect, as an empty chain is valid on both forks as far as I can see.

 

[Zarathustra]

@awemany

I am just thinking out loud and I think this should not be considered unless we start to actually see intentional, malicious reorgs

Who is 'we'? Who is in the position to "start to actually see" what is malicious and what's nice? The Judean People's Front or the People's Front of Judea?

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Interesting times ahead!

I'd love to comment more today but need some actual sleep before I can meet the standard for quality I'd like to uphold in this thread.

 

[awemany]

Who is 'we'? Who is in the position to "start to actually see" what is malicious and what's nice? The Judean People's Front or the People's Front of Judea?

The answer is easy: Bitcoin Cash is quite simply meant as a money system, a system to do commerce with. And if you actively disrupt that with hash power you are being malicious.

Is that so hard to grasp for you?

And, regardless of whether you think solving puzzles using hash power can be violating the NAP or not, I think it is very fair game in any scenario to do what I just described if your false god starts to fuck with the chain.

And you must like that as you seem to believe CSW has majority hash and as you have cheered this messy hash war on. But the answer you just gave me indicates to me that you actually seriously doubt that.

Maybe reality is creeping in for the CSW fanboys now.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Just a few easy-to-answer ones:

The clearest thinker since David Hume?!

Not what I wrote. I do choose my words carefully, hope the effort comes through.
[doublepost=1542352980][/doublepost]

To see why the 51% attack isn't objectionable, you would have to do the thinking exercise proposed by zb but swap the two options for:

1) These types of attacks are part of the protocol design
2) These types of attacks are not

Then see how that fits with the result of the original exercise.

My result is that any rule change can be considered an attack on BCH, and any miner has a right to either attack (propose a new rule) or defend (attack the new rule).

Indeed it is fascinating to see how many think altruism (at risk of one's own annihilation, no less) is part of Bitcoin's security model.
[doublepost=1542353436,1542352717][/doublepost]

i do not know how to evaluate that argument but i do know how not to mistake it for FUD.

Exemplary mindset.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Checkpoints: Having them around for emergencies is a good idea, but that doesn't change the fact that actually using them - especially repeatedly - introduces tremendous moral hazard and warrants the "centralized shitcoin" brand to stick for years thereafter. Early Bitcoin is exempt for obvious reasons.

Advocating for having checkpoints available as a nuclear option preferable to chain death should be carefully distinguished from advocating for their use as a whole new security model.