100 sats \ 22 replies \ @timechain 17 Jan 2023
Just 5 minutes ago, I posted this in the daily discussion thread then this popped up, so I'll repost this here:
"I listened to a Twitter spaces on Drivechains yesterday. That guy Paul Sztorc is trying to push BIP 300/301. TBH, I am unqualified to know if Drivechains pose any threat to the Bitcoin network. I do know it is hard to make any changes to Bitcoin. The prospect of one last change that opens up many doors is pretty alluring.
The main thing I'd be interested in is a privacy sidechain. The Canadian Trucker incident, although it definitely could have been handled much better, shows, IMO the only thing that remains to be desired is more privacy. When CZ handed over the KYC info of Navalny"s donors to Putin, we realize that sometimes people might die due to these limitations.
The argument that it would kill all the shitcoins, however, may not actually end up working out. It implies the main reason for the existence of them is their usecase as opposed to something to gamble on. Their usecase is just an excuse to gamble on them, and they will still have that.
But, once again, I am beyond by depth trying to understand if Drivechains pose a threat to Bitcoin."
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189 sats \ 2 replies \ @lightcoin OP 17 Jan 2023
I am also mainly interested in a privacy sidechain. I hope the zSide (zcash-like) sidechain they are working on becomes a reality.
I agree that the "drivechains kill altcoins" narrative is overrated. Though I do also think there's a real possibility that a p2p sidechain protocol like Drivechain will further marginalize them and make it overwhelmingly clear that they are gambling tools, by killing the "bitcoin can't do x but we can" justification for their existence.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @timechain 17 Jan 2023
Yeah, that would be great. I saw Paul demoing a zcash sidechain at a conference. Looks great. Adam Back seemed supportive, but he's generally pretty positive with most things in the space.
On the subject of privacy, a project that should be dropping this year is Fedimint, promising a "Wallet of Satoshi-like" custodial Lightning experience with possibly reduced rugging potential due to custody of the Bitcoin being held by a federation. However, IMO, the more exciting part of the project is the privacy promised by Chaumian E-Cash. Any thoughts on this?
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189 sats \ 0 replies \ @lightcoin OP 17 Jan 2023
I'll share what I posted on twitter a few months ago:
Also worth noting that Chaumian e-cash has certain limitations that a Zcash sidechain (federated or drivechain or whatever kind of sidechain) would not have, such as:
- Ecash mint can arbitrarily inflate the ecash supply
- Ecash must be minted and redeemed in specific denominations
- Depending on the implementation details, it might be possible to link ecash redemptions to specific accounts (giving the server operator a sense of the user's balance)
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22 sats \ 4 replies \ @nerd2ninja 17 Jan 2023
Do you know how to code? We have a privacy solution in progress called "teleports" but it could use more developers
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15 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 17 Jan 2023
Are you talking about this: https://github.com/bitcoin-teleport/teleport-transactions ?
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @nerd2ninja 17 Jan 2023
Yes
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @timechain 17 Jan 2023
Me? No. Started working on it a few months ago though. Progressing slowly though. Are you working with Chris Belcher on teleports?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nerd2ninja 17 Jan 2023
I wish. I don't understand enough about cryptography. My programming ability is like a junior dev with 1 year of experience (at least that's what it feels like)
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21 sats \ 13 replies \ @demitasse 17 Jan 2023
If people would have listened to Paul ages ago when he first suggested drivechains, we may not have had a shitcoin proliferation because they would all be drivechain variations built on bitcoin. unfortunately, that didn't happen and here we are 20,000 shitcoins later
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22 sats \ 11 replies \ @nerd2ninja 17 Jan 2023
No, we would just have shitcoin side chains. Side chain tokens are not limited to Bitcoins supply cap
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0 sats \ 10 replies \ @timechain 17 Jan 2023
I assumed many would be limitedto the supply cap. Like if you peg in a bitcoin to Liquid (L-BTC) or a bitcoin to Rootstock (R-BTC). The Zcash-like sidechain they are taking about is definitely involves a similar method.
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1 sat \ 9 replies \ @nerd2ninja 17 Jan 2023
Who would ensure only that type of side chain is approved in the 256 possible side chains? Not node runners. Only miners would decide these sorts of things.
I also don't like a narrative wherein a scam or shitcoin or anything of a negative perception is associated as necessary for Bitcoins security or that it is part of Bitcoin itself.
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0 sats \ 8 replies \ @lightcoin OP 17 Jan 2023
scams and shitcoins can already be built on bitcoin, it cannot be avoided. so don't let the mere possibility of such turn you away from a new protocol that can add functionality that is valuable for bitcoin holders. otherwise to be consistent you have to condemn bitcoin itself for already enabling these possibilities.
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10 sats \ 3 replies \ @demitasse 17 Jan 2023
regardless of your opinion on altcoins, bitcoin by its very nature of being an open source project will always enable these possibilities, as the code can be forked an repurposed in any way anyone sees fit. the difference is this would have been carried out in a way which strengthened bitcoin adoption rather than weakening it.
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1 sat \ 2 replies \ @nerd2ninja 17 Jan 2023
My instinct says it would not strengthen adoption at all. Shitcoins are a result of a failure to understand the "why" behind Bitcoin
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1 sat \ 3 replies \ @nerd2ninja 17 Jan 2023
I'm against LND because taro was built on it. "Get your shitcoins off my lightning node"
And its not the mere possibility, it seems to be the main feature of BIP 300. To fund Bitcoin mining with shitcoins.
I think part of this misunderstanding is "really useful features" that do not exist in shitcoins but claim to exist. "Web 3" was the latest example that got shot down with the development of nostr. Here, less text
Web 3 => nostr
Smart contracts => if a block chain needs an oracle why does an oracle need a block chain?
Privacy => teleports
DAOs => multi-sig with irc (you can even call each multisig participat an Oracle if you must)
Bitcoiners just build things differently. Stick around and you'll see how.
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20 sats \ 2 replies \ @lightcoin OP 17 Jan 2023
I've been around for over a decade and have been following bitcoin developments closely throughout this time. Many improvements are possible with drivechains that aren't possible on bitcoin today. For example teleport and other coinjoin/coinswap based protocols are far less private and more expensive on a relative basis than Zerocash-style protocols, smart wallets provide much more flexibility in programming the spending conditions for a wallet which makes self-custody easier and more secure, I could go on and on.
That said, it doesn't really matter what you or I think about the value of these other use cases. What matters is that out there in the market there are things people want to be able to do with their coins that currently they can't do on bitcoin or existing L2 protocols, so they turn to altcoins instead. You and I might dismiss or dislike those use cases but that is irrelevant. Choosing to turn away customers, simply because we are obstinate in our opinion of their desires, when we could instead work to solve their problems is a losing strategy and artificially limits bitcoin's potential. Drivechains can bring that business back to bitcoin and help bitcoin get closer to achieving its greatest potential as p2p electronic cash.
This is not to mention future use-cases that we can't even imagine right now, that bitcoin does not support, and we will wish it did once the need arises. Drivechains can "future-proof" to some degree and give bitcoin developers the flexibility to address these future problems without needing to make any other changes to bitcoin L1.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @timechain 17 Jan 2023
Yeah, imagine how different the world would be if even 25% of the money that went into crypto went into Bitcoin. Like... we would be in flying cars. Ok, we wouldn't have flying cars but omg so much money has been wasted in crypto. So much money.
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0 sats \ 7 replies \ @NorthKoreanHostage 18 Jan 2023
I say no to every change. Bitcoin is already perfect. Don't fuck it up.
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0 sats \ 6 replies \ @lightcoin OP 18 Jan 2023
Many changes have happened in bitcoin's history. Are you suggesting we wind the clock back on bitcoin to before there were any changes? If no changes happened ever then bitcoin would have no block size limit and the bitcoin supply would be like 184.5 billion BTC because the value overflow bug would have never been fixed. Or are you suggesting that bitcoin is perfect now that all of the changes that you find acceptable have happened already but no further changes can happen?
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0 sats \ 5 replies \ @NorthKoreanHostage 18 Jan 2023
You seem to have confused now with the past. Did you think I said Bitcoin was always perfect? It's perfect (now).
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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @lightcoin OP 18 Jan 2023
I'm not confused, I asked two questions for clarification. Thanks for clarifying. So before the taproot fork a little over a year ago you'd have said that bitcoin was not perfect then, and just needed that one more change to reach perfection?
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @NorthKoreanHostage 18 Jan 2023
Yup.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @lightcoin OP 18 Jan 2023
That's suspiciously convenient and seems rather arbitrary to me, but ok. I think we need one more change: validity rollups. Then I'll be content :) https://lightco.in/2023/01/03/meta-problem/
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @NorthKoreanHostage 18 Jan 2023
Rollups don't solve anything.
The Bitcoin blockchain already grows slower than the growth of hard drives.
It is as if the blockchain is relatively shrinking despite it's growth.
Rollups aren't needed at all and trying to add them might break Bitcoin. So that's a big no from me.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @lightcoin OP 18 Jan 2023
We'll have to agree to disagree here. I pointed out the most important problem they solve in the blog post I linked above, and have elaborated further on other problems they solve in my report at https://bitcoinrollups.org
Taproot/Schnorr could have broken bitcoin. Why didn't you oppose those?
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