Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[sickpig]

@Justus Ranvier

what's the reason why genesis block reward is black listed?

 

[cypherdoc]

Last time I checked the genesis output is unspendable due to being blacklisted.

i thought the genesis block coinbase couldn't be moved for technical reasons, not political.
[doublepost=1462309849][/doublepost]The first 50 BTC block reward went to address1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa,[1] though this reward can't be spent due to a quirk in the way that the genesis block is expressed in the code. It is not known if this was intentional or an accident.[3][4][5]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block

 

[Justus Ranvier]

The initial release of the Bitcoin client did not add the genesis output to the utxo database.

Maybe this was intentional, maybe it was accidental.

Treating the genesis output as spendable is a hard fork change, because a transaction that spends the genesis output would be seen as invalid by clients which have preserved the original behaviour (all current clients).
[doublepost=1462310035][/doublepost]Newer clients do make the genesis output unspendable via a different mechanism than the original release of Bitcoin: the code that scans the blockchain and builds the utxo set now explicitly blacklists that output to make sure it's not included.

 

[Peter R]

@go1111111 :

Agreed. To me the strongest evidence against Craig Wright being Satoshi is the difference in their writing. Satoshi was a clear thinker who wrote succinctly; Craig comes across as a scatterbrain who techno-babbles incoherently.

Take Wright's blog post you linked to. In the opening paragraph he claims that selfish mining is a fallacy:

"Many common but false beliefs in the bitcoin community have led to common misunderstandings, such as the ‘selfish miner attack.’"

And that this fallacy stems from the community's misunderstand "about the bitcoin block":

"Simply put, there is no such thing as a consistent block before it is mined and included within the chain."

Although I personally believe that selfish mining is not the serious threat some make it out be, I am quite certain that Eyal and Sirer's "Majority Is Not Enough" paper is correct and that selfish mining is NOT a fallacy (instead, it is just not worth doing for a number of reasons [1]).

Selfish mining relies on holding back block solutions at certain times, and then publishing block solutions at other times, according to Algorithm 1 defined on page 6 of Eyal and Sirer's paper. But Wright appears to be claiming that selfish mining doesn't work at all "because there is no consistent block before it is mined," which doesn't make any sense at all to me. He doesn't even address the Selfish Mining attack as outlined by Eyal and Sirer, as though he hasn't actually read the paper.

Wright then goes into a long explanation that if a miner wants to make a 3000-transaction block--because nearly all possible orderings would result in valid blocks--that there are about 3000! = 4 x 10^9130 possible orderings for that block. Yeah, this is true but what does it have to do with Selfish Mining? Furthermore, no one would deny this claim, yet from Wright's tone it comes across as though he thinks it is an important insight the community has been overlooking.

He also makes a similar argument regarding the block's time stamp (there are lots of possible time stamps that could be accepted). Once again, we know this, but what does it have to do with Selfish Mining?

Anyways, this blog post reads to me as technobabble that is partly true, contains no novel insight (that I can identify), and is entirely irrelevant to the Selfish Mining attack. It does not come across as something produced by the same mind who wrote this.


[1] You lose money until after the difficulty retargets; it is obvious that the attack is happening and you may be ostracized; it requires that only one selfish miner exists, etc.

 

[freetrader]

https://dankaminsky.com/2016/05/03/the-cryptographically-provable-con-man/

What would interest me, while we wait for Wright's further publications, is whether any of the others who have had private proof sessions mentioned any similarities in the procedure.

i.e. not using hardware/software known by them to be good, perhaps not using multiple different ways to verify mathematical assertions, etc.

A consistent procedure would be hard to pull off (imo) and thus be a red flag, given that these individuals might well react very differently to such suggestions.

 

[Dusty]

I suspect this revelation is the real reason Blockstream/Core went into full damage control/attack mode yesterday.

That's what I thought when I saw Corallo post a bip proposal for "Compact Block Relay":
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2016-May/012624.html
They now want to show that core too, is developing the features that BU already has...

 

[Melbustus]

@Peter R - Fully agree. Satoshi the online persona was always concise, clear, accurate, direct, egoless, and all around sharp. As you note, CW's writings are inarticulate, almost completely tangential, ego-centric pieces which have no discernable purpose, and many of which contain outright deception (back dated posts & pgp keys, his academic creds, etc).

I think one of the following is most likely the case:

1) He's not Satoshi, but was indeed an early miner who either knew or was somehow associated with Satoshi, be Satoshi an individual or team. Would explain the early bitcoin knowledge, and potentially access to keys (eg, if he moves coins from early blocks or signs w/ genesis coinbase).

2) He was a part of the Satoshi team; a part which didn't post online.

3) He is indeed Satoshi, and has gone John Nash style crazy over the past 5 years.

Edit: forgot 4) He hacked Satoshi and combined with being involved with bitcoin early (as a miner), had enough social info/history to convince Gavin et al.

In any event...we'll see soon enough (maybe).

 

[79b79aa8]

John Nash was part of the Satoshi team, in flesh or in spirit.

 

[cypherdoc]

@go1111111 :

Agreed. To me the strongest evidence against Craig Wright being Satoshi is the difference in their writing. Satoshi was a clear thinker who wrote succinctly; Craig comes across as a scatterbrain who techno-babbles incoherently.

Take Wright's blog post you linked to. In the opening paragraph he claims that selfish mining is a fallacy:

"Many common but false beliefs in the bitcoin community have led to common misunderstandings, such as the ‘selfish miner attack.’"

And that this fallacy stems from the community's misunderstand "about the bitcoin block":

"Simply put, there is no such thing as a consistent block before it is mined and included within the chain."

Although I personally believe that selfish mining is not the serious threat some make it out be, I am quite certain that Eyal and Sirer's "Majority Is Not Enough" paper is correct and that selfish mining is NOT a fallacy (instead, it is just not worth doing for a number of reasons [1]).

Selfish mining relies on holding back block solutions at certain times, and then publishing block solutions at other times, according to Algorithm 1 defined on page 6 of Eyal and Sirer's paper. But Wright appears to be claiming that selfish mining doesn't work at all "because there is no consistent block before it is mined," which doesn't make any sense at all to me. He doesn't even address the Selfish Mining attack as outlined by Eyal and Sirer, as though he hasn't actually read the paper.

Wright then goes into a long explanation that if a miner wants to make a 3000-transaction block--because nearly all possible orderings would result in valid blocks--that there are about 3000! = 4 x 10^9130 possible orderings for that block. Yeah, this is true but what does it have to do with Selfish Mining? Furthermore, no one would deny this claim, yet from Wright's tone it comes across as though he thinks it is an important insight the community has been overlooking.

He also makes a similar argument regarding the block's time stamp (there are lots of possible time stamps that could be accepted). Once again, we know this, but what does it have to do with Selfish Mining?

Anyways, this blog post reads to me as technobabble that is partly true, contains no novel insight (that I can identify), and is entirely irrelevant to the Selfish Mining attack. It does not come across as something produced by the same mind who wrote this.


[1] You lose money until after the difficulty retargets; it is obvious that the attack is happening and you may be ostracized; it requires that only one selfish miner exists, etc.

i've never liked Sirer's SM paper.

for instance, i think this is an entirely incorrect assumption on his part which totally destroys his math, p.6:

In the first scenario where the honest nodes succeed in finding a block on the public branch, nullifying the selfish pool’s lead, the pool immediately publishes its private branch (of length 1). This yields a toss-up where either branch may win.

by the time the selfish miner finds out about a new block on the public chain, he's already lost. the public block will have propagated across much of the network making it impossible for the selfish miner to create a 50:50 situation by trying to immediately release it's private block. IOW, he loses the block he's held back and the revenue from it, which is an opportunity cost. more importantly, miners don't want to destroy confidence in the system which would cause the price to tank. i confronted Sirer about this at the Hasher's United Conference a couple of years ago, not only in the Q&A but also afterwards face to face. he didn't like me then b/c i publicly disagreed with him despite him trying to appeal to authority. he also hasn't liked me since as i have continued to disagree with his work publicly and privately. but i did get him to admit face to face in front of a small group that SM'ing is a huge risk and would be dependent on having full nodes widely scattered across the network that can "listen" for a new public block.

not only that, Sirer then goes on to assume even more disastrous behavior from selfish miners;

The selfish miners unanimously adopt and extend the previously private branch, while the honest miners will choose to mine on either branch, depending on the propagation of the notifications.

why would they do that, in effect, doubling down on a losing strategy which will cost them even yet another block on wasted hashing time? answer is, they wouldn't. history has born me out.

 

[Epilido]

. If Wright moves old coins, it will be because Gavin give him some old private keys (which Satoshi / Hal / Kleiman gave to Gavin before he died).

If Gavin had such keys it would be far easier to just send a message as Satoshi stating the need for big blocks and calling foul on blockstream's current plans. No fan fare just a single msg then retire the key until needed.

 

[JVWVU]

How many times does it have to be said, CSW was the head "initiator", Dave Kleiman appears to be a BIG part of it, and appears there is more to be possibly named later, and some you will stay in shadows.

We are being told coins will move - more than likely from Block 9, I believe it.

Anyone willing to be me 1 BTC on it shall do so. I know there is trustworthy people here to escrow if you don't think I would pay out.

 

[freetrader]

I hadn't read this up to now but it goes into more detail about the team behind Satoshi.

http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001593.html

From the comments:

I should perhaps say a little more about CARS than is on that website seeing as people are keen. CARS stands for CAcert Assurer Reliable Statement. The import of it is that if the CAcert community finds the statement unreliable they can file a dispute into the forum of dispute resolution to seek some relief.

It's never been tested - but it has formed a basis for serious statements within the community.

Posted by: Iang (on CARS) at May 2, 2016 03:25 PM

 

[lunar]

Wow that AMA turned ugly FAST.

 

[freetrader]

The fact that I believe I've found a set of tools which would stop it is the primary reason that I didn't sound an alarm over this as well.

Source: [1]

This sounds very responsible. Right? Right?

Because if there is ever an existential risk to Bitcoin, there can be only one person in the world to trust with coming up with the solution.

I have now come to appreciate what a gigantic ego this man has. Black hole sized.

[1]
I just skimmed the AMA responses and was a little horrified. But then I thought, fuck that.

 

[Kupsi]

Satoshi can spend coins sent to the address in the genesis block. If Wright moves some of these coins or coins from block #9, I will believe him. I don't think we will see it happen.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@freetrader

Quite a compelling narrative in that link. Craig being just the tip of the iceberg, the one who enjoys the spotlight enough because he has a bit of attention whore in him, would explains why his writing is different than Satoshi's as @Peter R has been noting. Also, after all the buildup of ego people do strange things and they often write with less sympathy for the reader, not minding if they sound inscrutable. A nobody like Satoshi originally was could not have afforded that luxury back then.

In any case it is very hard for me to imagine the Satoshi experience happening to me or anyone I know and not changing them immensely over 7 years. Especially a researcher so interested in recognition as Craig Wright.

Doesn't mean it's him, but I don't see any solid reason to rule him out of the picture entirely. And like people keep pointing out, he himself claims to be only part of the team. We're not evaluating the claim "CSW=SN" here, because that claim wasn't ever made as far as I know, at least by Wright himself.

 

[freetrader]

@Zangelbert Bingledack : Indeed, if true it might place Wright into a supremely tricky position, having to explain his potentially limited ability to perform SN magical tricks on demand, while at the same time striving to protect the rest of the team and drawing as much fire on himself as possible.

That popcorn is starting to taste a little bitter.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

This would explain Satoshi's alternation between American and British English in forum posts. I could see Craig's more scattered genius and Dave's perhaps methodical staid character making a good combination.

 

[johnyj]

I don't think the writing style matters, it is different when you write a public facing blog and casual talk on a private forum. But again, it does not matter a lot, the manage-by-blockchain approach so far seems worse than manage-by-law in western or manage-by-human in eastern

So if he is real we are back to manage-by-human mode then chinese miners will find their party leader to follow, but as a social experiment it still does not achieve what it promised

 

[Justus Ranvier]

The best tool for stopping ChainAnchor is economic, not cryptographic.

Grow Bitcoin usage as rapidly as possible to maximise the amount of miner revenue which would be lost if ChainAnchor was implemented, until ongoing bribe requirements reach levels unpalatable to the attacker.