Author: Peter Todd 2015-07-15 19:32:59
Published on: 2015-07-15T19:32:59+00:00
On the Bitcoin-dev mailing list, Matthieu Riou thanked Simon for reporting a bug, and said that ShapeShift would be protected from future attacks. He also encouraged Simon to return the funds he had taken. Responding to accusations made by Peter Todd on Twitter/Reddit/listserve, Riou said that they did not know why they were being targeted because Todd had never met their CEO, understood their business model or knew their objectives. Todd had accused BlockCypher of conducting a Sybil attack but Riou called this "completely unfounded and uncalled for", as it was more commonly used as a political tool rather than in professional or technical circles. Peter Todd raised concerns over BlockCypher's API docs, which stated that they were "always connected to a statistically significant number of nodes on the network". Todd argued that if BlockCypher was achieving that percentage via outgoing connections then it was using up too many network resources (600 to 1200 active outgoing connections) compared to the average default of eight outgoing connections. If it was achieved with incoming connections, it would place a large part of the relay network under central control. Todd highlighted how even unintentional configuration screw-ups could cause serious and widespread issues due to the large number of nodes that can fail in one go. Todd further added that BlockCypher's service wasn't compatible with decentralization because it simply doesn't scale. Todd asked if they had relationships with mining pools. In response, Riou stressed that BlockCypher offered useful services for many startups like themselves, and that they were good actors in this space, constrained by limited resources. They hope to do more to help decentralization in the future as well. BlockCypher is attempting to further the ecosystem with its small team, so the pot shots are puzzling.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T02:43:45.663593+00:00