Author: Antoine Riard 2023-08-18 20:12:09+00:00
Published on: 2023-08-18T20:12:09+00:00
In this email, Antoine discusses the topic of oracles and their relationship to miners in the context of functions, sets of moves, rules of games, and patterns of information. He argues that oracles cannot be mathematically reduced to miners because miners compete to generate a proof-of-work on a set of transactions, requiring investment in hashrate capabilities and impacting their marginal gains in mining competitions. On the other hand, anyone can show themselves as a proof of a real-world state oracle without mining investment.Antoine acknowledges that it takes time for someone to build a reputation as a UTXO state oracle, and even if there is wrongdoing, laziness is difficult to prove. However, he notes that there is currently no complete and practical security model for "DLC-like" oracles, making it challenging to have an epistemological discussion on which assumptions should be considered valid or excluded from formalization.Additionally, Antoine brings up the matter of CLTV-timelock in LN-like protocols, stating that beyond CSV (CheckSequenceVerify), interactions with timewarp inflation attacks occur, which is still not fixed as a consensus-level vulnerability. He believes that the addition of cross-UTXO covenant inspection raises risks in the absence of further research and development on the security model and game theory of Bitcoin.Antoine emphasizes the importance of adhering to world-class standards of software engineering research and development when dealing with a $500 B ecosystem like Bitcoin. As the ecosystem grows, he suggests aiming to match best practices in aircraft software design or nuclear reactors.Overall, Antoine raises important points about the relationship between oracles and miners, the lack of a comprehensive security model for oracles, and the need for rigorous research and development in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Updated on: 2023-08-20T01:52:45.932898+00:00