Published on: 2013-06-06T22:10:11+00:00
A discussion took place in a Bitcoin-development mailing list in June 2013 regarding the use of the blockchain for purposes other than payments. Andreas Antonopoulos argued for fixed fees to allow innovative uses of the distributed timestamping database, while Luke-Jr believed that non-payment storage violated the agreement to use the blockchain for payments. They also discussed the possibility of storing hashes of content instead of the content itself. Luke-Jr explained merged mining, which links the Bitcoin blockchain with other data through an extra hash in the coinbase.Antonopoulos clarified in an email conversation on June 6, 2013, that fees for storing data in the blockchain are only received by miners and not the majority of nodes. He argued that using other people's resources for non-payment storage violates the neutrality of the protocol and hinders future innovation. However, he suggested that if there was a legitimate use case for non-payment storage, it could be considered. He also explained merged mining as a solution.Antonopoulos raised the question of whether Bitcoin could function as a platform for various services while remaining neutral to payload. He compared this to the early days of the internet where there were debates about allowing video, voice, or images on the IP network. He proposed solving the issue of un-spendable outputs without limiting other transaction payloads that could enable layered apps above Bitcoin. Luke-Jr disagreed, stating that data does not belong in the blockchain and violates the social contract of nodes to store blocks for financial purposes. The discussion concluded with the idea that unexpected reuse should not be ruled out in the early stage of Bitcoin's development.The discussions highlighted the debate over using the blockchain for non-payment storage. Antonopoulos advocated for more flexibility, while Luke-Jr emphasized the importance of using the blockchain solely for payment transactions. Merged mining was proposed as a way to link the blockchain with other datasets.In another conversation, Jeff Garzik and Roy Badami discussed the difficulty of obtaining payments as a miner. Garzik argued that achieving the high difficulty needed to create a valid bitcoin block was challenging, while Badami suggested it was not difficult for pool operators or those buying hashing power. The conversation also touched on the vulnerability of mining fee sacrifices and the potential for large pools to create them cheaply.Other discussions included proposals for new standardized spend-to-fees for miners, the idea of zero-output transactions as proof of sacrifice, and the possibility of introducing new opcodes. There were also discussions about why someone would want to sacrifice their Bitcoins and the potential use of Fidelity Bonds. Technical details about implementing changes and ensuring security were also addressed.Overall, the discussions revolved around the use of the blockchain for non-payment purposes, the challenges of mining, and the potential for future innovation and flexibility in the Bitcoin network.A discussion has been taking place regarding the use of Bitcoin as a currency or commodity and the disincentives for using the blockchain for data storage and messaging. Concerns have been raised about the unlimited bloat caused by inefficient timestamping and the potential scalability issues it may create. One solution proposed is to sacrifice Bitcoins in a provably unspendable way, which is seen as an improvement for the long-term health of the Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) set. However, it is worth continuing to disincentivize the use of the blockchain for data storage and messaging, except for cases where there is a clear currency or data storage incentive.Gavin proposes a new opcode for the Bitcoin protocol, redefining op_nop1 as "verify depth." The discussion explores different options for sacrificing Bitcoins in a provably unspendable way without using complex announce-commit logic. Another option is to implement a rule where txouts ending in OP_TRUE are unspendable for 100 blocks, similar to coinbases. This would require a soft-fork with 95% support. It is suggested that anyone-can-spend outputs should be made IsStandard() to ensure they are relayed. While sacrificing to unspendable outputs is an alternative, it is considered less desirable compared to sending the money to miners to enhance the network's security.In another email conversation, Luke-Jr argues against storing data on the blockchain, as it goes against the social contract agreed upon by node operators. Peter Todd suggests a way to implement his zookeyv key-value consensus system using transactions that prove funds have been sacrificed, which is compatible with Gregory Maxwell's fix to data-in-chain storage. The suggestion is to make such transactions more expensive to prevent them from being blocked. The email concludes with Todd stating his opposition to increasing the blocksize.Overall, a new mechanism has been proposed for sacrificing Bitcoins without making them unspendable. The most compact option currently available is to create an anyone-can-spend output in the coinbase of a block.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T05:06:25.372092+00:00