Author: Trey Del Bonis 2019-02-12 17:27:32
Published on: 2019-02-12T17:27:32+00:00
The discussion in this email thread revolves around the concept of extension block as a "soft fork" or an "evil soft fork", and its impact on older nodes. Some argue that since extension blocks are invisible to pre-extension-block fullnodes, they no longer have an accurate view of the UTXO set, making it impossible for them to perform their intended functionality. As a result, older nodes are forced to upgrade, making extension block no better than a hard fork. The email also discusses the safety benefits of Confidential Transactions (CT) and highlights concerns about a future quantum computing breach of the algorithms used to implement confidentiality. It is suggested that implementing a globally-verified publicly-visible counter could prevent inflation even if a future QC breach allows confidential transaction value commitments to be opened to any value. However, it should be noted that this approach would require a definite hard fork.Finally, the email notes that while CT transactions increase the maximum number of transactions per block by storing the CT signature in the extension block, it also increases network capacity usage globally on all fullnodes.
Updated on: 2023-06-13T17:03:56.790318+00:00