Author: Adam Back 2013-07-15 00:14:37
Published on: 2013-07-15T00:14:37+00:00
In this email conversation between members of the Bitcoin community, Adam argues that bi-directional sacrifice is not necessary to ensure a close to 1:1 bi-directional peg. Bi-directional sacrifice involves converting a zerocoin to a bitcoin by sacrificing a zerocoin and modifying bitcoin to accept the sacrifice. Adam explains that users who want zerocoins can obtain them at a 1:1 exchange via sacrifice, so it is of no cost to them to buy them from someone who previously obtained them via sacrifice for bitcoin rather than sacrificing a new bitcoin. He suggests that people would buy rather than sacrifice where there is availability, presumably for goodwill or a small discount. John Dillon responds to Jorge Timón's argument in favor of zerocoin's point of view, stating that Peter has described a system that requires no changes to the Bitcoin codebase and thus has no costs. John is confused by the concept of "bi-directional sacrifice" and asks if there exists only a sacrifice in one direction. He proposes that selling a zerocoin should be a matter of giving zerocoin a rule so that the zerocoin tx moving it to the new owner only happens if a specific form of bitcoin tx happens too. The group also discusses merged mining and its costs. Gregory Maxwell's writing on the topic of crypto-coin theory is recommended as he has written about the issue before. The marginal cost of merge mining an additional coin is important, and unless there is a cost to mining an invalid block, the merge mined coin has little protection from miners who mine invalid blocks, either maliciously or through negligence.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T19:47:39.409698+00:00