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144 sats \ 6 replies \ @SimpleStacker 8 Oct \ on: Consensus rules are enough for Bitcoin to succeed or Bitcoin fails bitcoin
I... sort of agree?
But aren't we going to need social layer decisions at some point or another? Lopp once gave a presentation about this, which I wrote about: #875560
Just to give the most obvious scenario: At some point Bitcoin might need to upgrade to quantum resistant encryption. That is obviously a change to the consensus rules. Isn't some social layer decision making going to be required to do that?
So, I agree with your overall sentiment, but I'm not sure we can really say that the consensus layer is all that's needed ever
I agree, but it seems to me that the social layer plays a role in determining what consensus rules a coin will follow. Once you accept the coins, the social layer has played its part and consensus is all there is.
If we decide we want different consensus rules, that means we want a different coin. We can fork, and in that case we actually end up with two sets of coins and we choose to sell one or the other (or we keep both, in which case we are saying we value both sets of consensus rules).
The social layer definitely plays a role, but it seems to me that role is in determining what the consensus rules are.
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plays a role in determining what consensus rules a coin will follow
Which softfork restricted freedom on the consensus layer? The only restriction I remember is the early hard forks satoshi did on script and on block size (basically what GSR is trying to restore.)
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Haven't all of them restricted freedom on the consensus layer? At the very least, something everybody used to agree was "anyone can spend" now will get you forked if you mine it that way.
At first I did have a paragraph about soft forks in my reply above, but I took it out, because it seems to me that soft forks are a different set of rules just like hard forks, only soft forks have this clever property that if miners agree to only mine the new set of rules, it looks like we are all still following the same rule set as before.
Certainly the way I have learned about Bitcoin, the popular opinion is that hard forks are dangerous and bad and soft forks are lovely and good because hard forks are real actual rule changes while soft forks are...something else.
But soft forks are rule changes and they are forks. Wouldn't any one of the soft forks in Bitcoin have lead to a chainsplit if the significant amount of miners didn't go along with it?
In my comment above, I was hazarding that when a person accepts a coin in payment or trade, they are agreeing to the consensus rules followed by the coin they accept. If a person later decides they don't like those rules, they can attempt to convince people to accept a new set of rules (fork). At the end of the day, if they convince lots of people to accept their new rules, the coins will have value -- so that's where the social layer plays its role.
But saying they don't want to follow the rules they previously agreed to without trying to fork is nonsensical.
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At the very least, something everybody used to agree was "anyone can spend" now will get you forked if you mine it that way.
Everyone also has agreed, on
OP_SUCCESSx since inception, and OP_NOPx since almost forever, that this is extension space. So if you're doing this you're kind of retarded and asking for trouble, on top of being kind of retarded to do "anyone can spend" in the first place. Can just spend to OP_TRUE if you want to donate your coin to greedy bots, or OP_RETURN if you want to burn your coin.Wouldn't any one of the soft forks in Bitcoin have lead to a chainsplit if the significant amount of miners didn't go along with it?
Could have if a significant amount of miners at the same time did go along with it, yes, and someone exploited it (very easy.)
At the end of the day, if they convince lots of people to accept their new rules, the coins will have value -- so that's where the social layer plays its role.
If there will be 2 chains as a result, then it's a hardfork though. We call that shitcoining.
But saying they don't want to follow the rules they previously agreed to without trying to fork is nonsensical.
Agreed. With forking it is also nonsensical in 99.99% of the cases. And UASF without sacrificing your coin on the non-fork side is a nonsensical virtue signaling sybil attack, so that too is dumb.
while soft forks are...something else.
Soft forks (especially if done right, with very high activation criteria, like the 95% we are used to) are consensus-building. Hard forks are consensus-breaking and the only reason for them to be successful is because there happened to already be consensus. That's the difference, I'd say.
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Yeah, the social layer should determine (slowly and conservatively) changes to the consensus layer. Once the consensus rules are agreed upon, bitcoin needs to be able to operate and fulfill its purpose without social input, except for the next rare change to consensus rules.
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