Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

Richy_T

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Dec 27, 2015
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Again, the way ABC did it was wrong though. They should have made it an option where clients could request blocks in TTOR or CTOR ordering so that clients wouldn't need have to implement a massive update. By forcing CTOR on a short timeframe it in effect kicked other clients off of the network, I can see why BU and other clients would have been pissed.
I would have liked clients to have accepted blocks with any sort order with the ability to express a preference. Then when QTOR comes around next year and turns out to be the better protocol, there's not a huge bunch of drama about it. Also, it means that people could experiment with different ordering methods with little trouble.
[doublepost=1553721624][/doublepost]
The comparison to relativity is not nonsense.
Definitely is. Miners have their own version of reality but with relativity, it's all the same (slightly weird) reality. It's no more than superficially similar and falls apart in many other places too. Trust me, I have a bit of paper that gives me credentials in this area (though it may not be in a wheelbarrow).

Bitcoin is a "clock" that ticks every 10 minutes (on average) and everything that happens happens simultaneously on that tick.
 
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Norway

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Sep 29, 2015
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@Richy_T
Not sure what "simultaneous" is to a computer (a "reference"). You'll have to educate me on that.

The fact that A occur before B for one observer, and B before A to another observer is exactly my point.

The lucky guy who owns the ASIC finding the block gets to decide the (short term, 10 minutes on average) history. He is the clock for 10 minutes (on other clocks, lol).

EDIT: I enjoy using my brain on issues like this. It has been dead for many years. Thx, @Richy_T!

EDIT 2: You changed your last post completely while I was writing.
[doublepost=1553722933][/doublepost]Jeez, I'll back up to your latest edit, and read it.
 

freetrader

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Dec 16, 2015
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bribing a judge in the US is next to impossible with the consequences devastating if caught. we can't have a civilized society w/o any rule of law with lawsuits. i'm not in favor of this lawsuit, per se, but if ABC is innocent, i'm confident they should be able to get it dismissed or win outright.
Sadly the US currently has secret laws, ruled on in secret courts.
It's all pretty fucking far from civilized right now.

What justice can some foreign corporations and their CEOs, one among them an outspoken critic of the US government and some other anarcho-capitalist-leaning foreign nationals expect in a US court?

My guess: Not much. I'd be happy if I were proven wrong by the outcome in this case.

@cypherdoc: Was justice well served in the suit against you by Greg Maxwell?
 
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Norway

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Miners have their own version of reality but with relativity, it's all the same (slightly weird) reality.
No, it's not the same reality.
I think you consider Einsteins general theory of relativity as just an insignificant tweak of Newtonian physics.

The point is that the reality is relative to the observer, hence the name.
 

Richy_T

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Dec 27, 2015
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EDIT 2: You changed your last post completely while I was writing.
Sorry about that. I was focused more on the fact it wasn't really applicable than what you were saying about it.

Simultaneously for a computer isn't really the question here. Bitcoin uses some statistical techniques to do what computers can't. When you hash, you hash on the block hash. Now, arguably, you could say that that's solved as soon as the hash is complete. You could say everything that happens happens at that point. However, that block has to be accepted and even if it is accepted, it could still be rolled back. So it can only really be said to happen in retrospect. It's probably a bit more like quantum theory in that case ;)
 

Norway

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Bitcoin is a "clock" that ticks every 10 minutes (on average) and everything that happens happens simultaneously on that tick.
No. Bitcoin is a clock that ticks every time the miner puts a tx in a block candidate.
 

Richy_T

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Dec 27, 2015
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No, it's not the same reality.
I think you consider Einsteins general theory of relativity as just an insignificant tweak of Newtonian physics.

The point is that the reality is relative to the observer, hence the name.
Nah, it is the same reality (assuming we're not taking a meander down "many worlds" which might actually be applicable). Causality still occurs. B still follows A. Kennedy still takes it in the noggin and Trump is still our president.

I recommend this book, which goes into the ins-and-outs of simultaneity vis-a-vis relativity in a way that's very well explained. Also some quantum stuff too. A very good read.

Gotta go. Need to be somewhere...
 
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My god, there's some kind of pathology going on there.
[doublepost=1553719759][/doublepost]

Not really. "Timestamp", "Chronological", it's all time related. Given two independent transactions, A and B, there's no way to tell which is generated first. The only thing that's chronological is that you can say that block (n+1) occurred *after* block (n). It's not an interpretation, it's the only way it can be.

(The chronology of two dependent transactions is defined by the dependence of one on the TXID of the other).
[doublepost=1553720126,1553719296][/doublepost]

That doesn't sound very, uh, sound. I think you would need to pass a BUIP to enable that to be the case first.
[doublepost=1553720750][/doublepost]

Here's an alternative view on that. BU is not just about offering alternative implementations of protocol X, it's actually about allowing users and miners choice in advancing the protocol. https://www.bitcoinunlimited.info/resources/BUarticles.pdf

However, BSV intends to lock down the protocol, set it in stone. So as far as BU is concerned, job done. There's no more to see there.

Now, obviously, future direction is decided by BUIPs and voting but I think it's important to consider original intent in these things.

(Edit: Apologies, you already upvoted this post for the first part and the forum software has collapsed all the posts into one).
I don't think the transaction order in a block is something fundamental to Bitcoin. The real order obviously is the block clock, anything else can't be very reliable.

But ordering transactions in a block in time makes sense, obviously, as it's all about time. Ordering them chronologically makes it harder for light wallets to not confuse the order of chained transactions. I guess for things like transaction scheme based applications like bsv's bitcom it would be an annoyance.

I don't think ctor was worth the trouble. It advancing a bandwidtg compression which is already strong and kicked the bottlenecks to some other factors. It might also play with orphan incentives, which might hurt a natural fee market. But I'm curious and excited about seeing the results with bu's next release. I hope bu starts doing Stresstest again.

....

For me, bu was - I hope it still is - a vehicle to transport a bit of democracy in client development and its context. The scope of the buip has always been larger then protocol development.

Think of Peter's ledger journal, scientists applying for funding, integrating public tx comments and timelocks in the gui, organizing online and real live conferences ...

If we learned one thing, than that protocol development is not in the scope of bu membership votes. Members voted against ctor, but the developers had no other choice - or felt they had - as to default on ctor. Protocol decisions are not made with a democratic vote of a minor organization when mining Cartells want something.

The Beauty of bu is that it enables to have more. A voice in protocol decisions - it was heard, and Andrew and Peter represented it loudly -, but also a voice in the context, in directions of client development and so on.

I wished bu would give funds to create high class nodes, like a full bitdb node. I also like much that Andrea both implements ctor and starts a node on nchains scaling testnet.

There are two sides, two parties, two enemies, two dictators, and bu in between. The most stupid thing would be to go full dependency on one. Playing in both teams gives bu a much better outlook.
 
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Norway

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B still follows A.
Not from a miner's perspective.

Sorry @Richy_T .
The theory of relativity is too mindblowing for you to accept. As a social animal, you want all the animals to agree on a single reality. So you choose to simplify your perspective and ignore the uncomfortable truth that reality is relative.

Bitcoin is a global truth machine. It use economy as the judge to what the truth is.

Bitcoin fights against relativity. And it works because people don't like relativity.
 
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kostialevin

Member
Dec 21, 2015
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147
The chronology of two dependent transactions is defined by the dependence of one on the TXID of the other
And when two dependent TXs appear in the same block, LTOR can change their chronological order.
To me, the cronological order of transactions is such that for any given utxo, if I look back to its history in the blockchain, with all the blocks stitched together, I see it in chronological order (but there's not a unique chronological order). This order is lost with LTOR.
 

Richy_T

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Dec 27, 2015
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Not from a miner's perspective.
Precisely. In relativity B still follows A when there is causality. It doesn't matter the frame of reference.

Sorry @Richy_T .
The theory of relativity is too mindblowing for you to accept. As a social animal, you want all the animals to agree on a single reality. So you choose to simplify your perspective and ignore the uncomfortable truth that reality is relative.

Dude, I was trying to hint that I had academic qualifications in physics. And not a one-year correspondence course either. This one required me to turn up every day and drink huge quantities of alcohol uh, I mean study and perform experiments for years.
[doublepost=1553726876][/doublepost]
And when two dependent TXs appear in the same block, LTOR can change their chronological order.
To me, the cronological order of transactions is such that for any given utxo, if I look back to its history in the blockchain, with all the blocks stitched together, I see it in chronological order (but there's not a unique chronological order). This order is lost with LTOR.
That order is only there due to an accident of implementation, not because of the fundamental design of the blockchain method. It does have its benefits and makes things more convenient for some software but other implementations also have their benefits. It's OK to prefer it but you can't really claim any primal cause on it being the "right" implementation.
[doublepost=1553727106][/doublepost]
The theory of relativity is too mindblowing for you to accept.
Do you have a kindle? I'll lend you that book.
 
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Norway

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Dude, I was trying to hint that I had academic qualifications in physics. And not a one-year correspondence course either. This one required me to turn up every day and drink huge quantities of alcohol uh, I mean study and perform experiments for years.
@Richy_T
Nice. But I don't think you embraced the unpleasant truth of relativity.

PS. I had a two week correspondance course in physics, but I'm a fast learner.
 

Norway

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Sep 29, 2015
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[doublepost=1553727984][/doublepost]
@Norway, do you understand the cone of causality? (concepts also covered in that book but not explicitly named as such).
Why don't you explain to me what the cone of causality is, and why it's relevant?
[doublepost=1553728610,1553727576][/doublepost]@Richy_T
You can't go full Andreas Brekken on me and point at a book while refusing to debate. It's very easy to point at books.
 
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cypherdoc

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Aug 26, 2015
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What justice can some foreign corporations and their CEOs, one among them an outspoken critic of the US government and some other anarcho-capitalist-leaning foreign nationals expect in a US court?
yes. from an impartial jury.
Was justice well served in the suit against you by Greg Maxwell?
absolutely. and yes, it was frivolous.

I didn't even know Maxwell was involved.
 
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Norway

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I get so inspired by talking physics and relativity in a bitcoin context, I have to share an epiphany we had at the office a while back.

(We're making tiny contactless payment devices and the protocol to make it work. Our base product is JavaCards, the same hardware VISA and MasterCard use.)

We were thinking about time rate limits for funds.

The card doesn't have internet or a clock. It has electricity when you hold it inside an oscillating EM field.

So how can this isolated computer know for sure that time has passed?

It couldn't before bitcoin. But now, it can. The card can get blockheaders from the merchant, and verify these SPV style. Assuming low fluctuations in difficulty adjustments, the time-blind card can actually know that a certain amount of time has passed.

Bitcoin provides proof of elapsed time!

(We scrapped the idea because we achieve much of the same with limits of spending before PIN-code, and the bandwidth for a card sending and receiving APDU packages is too slow if your card was dormant for 6 months and have to upload 6 months of block headers. Too slow at the counter - but not that slow. We're talking a few minutes.)
[doublepost=1553731697][/doublepost]And yeah, KaChing got it's own international RID number today! We're on this list along with VISA, MasterCard and a ton of banks!

We're number A000000819.

https://www.eftlab.com/index.php/site-map/knowledge-base/212-emv-rid

Bitcoin Cash: The choice of anarchists
Bitcoinˢᵛ: The choice of professionals
 
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attila

Member
Mar 27, 2019
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Satoshi's paper defines an inter-block ordering of transactions, not an intra-block ordering. Within a block transactions can come in any order as long as the entire block of transactions as a whole are valid.
Can you quote where in the Bitcoin paper cites what you are saying? I'm reading the exact opposite of your statement.

Mind reading Satoshi about "being easier to code" is a fallacy and has no relevance here, let's leave that out and focus on the actual behaviors and evidence. Of course it's easier to code because it is the ONLY ordering that preserves the nature of being a "distributed timestamp server" (based on PoW).

Obviously it's easier to code because causality is not violated. When you order transactions out-of-causal/chronological ordering then by definition you must do more processing and it's more complicated of course.

Imagine coming to this forum and everything is laid out in lexicographical ordering of a hash of the post content. That would be absurd and impose a processing overhead on all agents seeking to access the data in causal/chronological order.

Let's dive into the specific quotes and evidence that Satoshi really did intend to build the system in the manner he did.

Primary source used: https://www.bitcoin.com/bitcoin.pdf

From Abstract:

"The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work."

It clearly says "into" and not "outside of". Minor and pedantic, but it's supporting my point nonetheless.

From Page 1, Section 1: Introduction

"In this paper, we propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions."

This is where it gets interesting. Bitcoin system is fundamentally a timestamp server. If you read many of Szabo's writings you will realize that the double-spend problem is intrinsically linked to the question of the agreement of "time".

The transaction ordering is itself the ordering of spacetime events. There can be no appeals to outside time because all those timestamps are not supported by PoW and can be faked.

Bitcoin transaction ordering is the global consensus time in this region of smooth spacetime.

“The most valuable property of the bell tower time was not its accuracy, but its fairness. Even if it broadcast the wrong time, it broadcast the same wrong time to everybody.”

“The productive synchronization of human relationships funded the bell towers; the bell towers would provide a ready market for public clocks. Thus did in Europe emerge a“virtuous circle” that would advance both its timekeeping technologies and time-dependent institutions beyond those of the other continents.”
— Nick Szabo, "A Measure of Sacrifice", 2002,2005
http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/CDROM/Literature/LOTwinterschool2006/szabo.best.vwh.net/synch.html

On "chronology" and its importance:
https://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/writing/history/considerations/chronology.html

From Page 2, Section 2: Transactions:

"To accomplish this without a trusted party, transactions must be publicly announced [1], and we need a system for participants to agree on a single history of the order in which they were received. The payee needs proof that at the time of each transaction, the majority of nodes agreed it was the first received. The payee needs proof that at the time of each transaction, the majority of nodes agreed it was the first received. "

The key is 'single history of the order in which they were received'. Each miner is it's own inertial frame of reference and as long as causality is preserved (ie: dependent child tx's come after their parents) then chronological/causality is not violated.

From Page 2, Section 3. Timestamp Server:

"The solution we propose begins with a timestamp server. A timestamp server works by taking a hash of a block of items to be timestamped and widely publishing the hash, such as in a newspaper or Usenet post [2-5]. The timestamp proves that the data must have existed at the time, obviously, in order to get into the hash."



From Page3, Section 5. Network:

The steps to run the network are as follows:
1) New transactions are broadcast to all nodes.
2) Each node collects new transactions into a block.
3) Each node works on finding a difficult proof-of-work for its block.
4) When a node finds a proof-of-work, it broadcasts the block to all nodes.
5) Nodes accept the block only if all transactions in it are valid and not already spent.
6) Nodes express their acceptance of the block by working on creating the next block in the chain, using the hash of the accepted block as the previous hash.


Read step 5) again:

5) Nodes accept the block only if all transactions in it are valid and not already spent.

Let me ask you: Can you spend a transaction (ie: is it "valid") where the inputs do not exist yet? Remember, we cannot appeal to "outside" or "true time" because any other timestamps are faulty and not backed by PoW.

All we have are the Tx's backed by PoW. We must use the transaction ordering itself to track time - it's the only thing we can rely on.


Page 8, Section 12: Conclusion:

To solve this, we proposed a peer-to-peer network using proof-of-work to record a public history of transactions that quickly becomes computationally impractical for an attacker to change if honest nodes control a majority of CPU power

The key here is
"public history of transactions". The key word is "history" because it relates the cause and effect of events to each other.

See "History" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_History?#IV:_Causation_in_History
Quote:

"Carr talks about causation in history. He believed that everything that happened in this world happened because of cause and effect."

Cause and effect are important at the non-quantum scales to make sense of things. Cause and effect is fundamentally about chronology.


In summary...

Satoshi set out to build a "distributed timestamp server", one that does not need a trusted third party. Any appeals to "outside" or "real time" is appealing to clocks that are not backed by PoW.

In Bitcoin, the transaction order itself (inside and between blocks) is the consensus time. The only thing we can trust since it is backed by PoW.

With Bitcoin Cash, we lose this very precious property of being able to tell what time it is on inter-planetary and inter-solar scales. Bitcoin Cash cannot be used to solve the double-spend problem efficiently at these scales.

Here are the most eye opening sections on 'geometric proportions' and 'time' from Einstein that will help in thinking about this problem:

Physical Meaning of Geometrical Propositions
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5001/5001-h/5001-h.htm#ch1

On the Idea of Time in Physics
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5001/5001-h/5001-h.htm#ch8

The Relativity of Simultaneity
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5001/5001-h/5001-h.htm#ch9

On the Relativity of the Conception of Distance
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5001/5001-h/5001-h.htm#ch10