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111 sats \ 2 replies \ @jimmysong OP 12h \ parent \ on: Non-Standard OP_RETURN transaction Data bitcoin
I'm not sure it can be measured at all and at the very least, there are lots of of outputs that are functionally the same in the form of lost private keys. And if they can't be measured, it's futile to make concessions to them, no? Imagine if a mafia don came to your place of business and started extorting you. You have to pay some amount that he says each month. If he suddenly says, if you do X for me, I'll knock of $50 from what you owe next month, you have no idea if he'll actually knock off $50 because he determines the amount each month anyway. That's what this seems like to me.
As far as I can tell, this is the argument that if you give them OP_RETURN, perhaps the bad guys will put stuff there instead of where it hurts. I don't trust the bad guys and have no interest in conceding anything to them, especially when there's nothing stopping them from doing what you're trying to prevent them from doing anyway.
What we know from the data is that non-standard OP_RETURN is cumbersome and costly compared to normal transactions. You have to wait longer and pay more. If you make the wait shorter and the cost less, it'll naturally mean more people will use it, not just the bad guys, but lots of people that weren't even thinking about using it.
That's a helpful metaphor. I only have questions (which is why I think some folks prefer the technical arguments).
How many of them are good (or ambiguous, e.g. OpenTimestamps) guys/txs doing harm because there's no easier/cheaper way, and how many of them are bad guys/txs doing harm because that's what they do? The quantity of each seems relevant because, at least from a utilitarian POV, we're concerned about net harm. There's no clear answer though.
Hypothetically, if we knew it meant less net harm to the network, is it worth conceding to the bad guys? If we don't know, is it worth it? What's the best way one can prove there might be less or more net harm?
I'm beginning to think McElrath has a point: it's a dilemma. That is, ignoring the technical arguments, it's bad either way.
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The answer to almost all of these if we're answering honestly is that we don't know. We have no idea because Bitcoin is not a centralized system and that's a good thing. We want people to make decisions based on their own values and profit calculations, and not on centralized dictates.
We have incentive guidelines based on economics. We know lowering the price means more people buy. We know that friction and bad user experience prevent people from adoption. But ultimately, playing with incentives to try to get a particular result is technocratic hubris. Particularly for the reason you point out. We really don't know what the second and third order effects will be. This is the main failure of central planning.
That said, I think the way to solve this is more decentralization. We should be encouraging nodes to be more self-sovereign and decide for themselves what they relay and encourage hashers to decide for themselves what they mine. Power to the people, I say.
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