Author: Peter Todd 2014-03-22 19:34:35
Published on: 2014-03-22T19:34:35+00:00
In this email conversation, Peter Todd and Jorge Timón discuss proof-of-publication and the reduction of OP_RETURN length to 40 bytes prior to the release of version 0.9. Todd suggests that he is not against miners accepting transactions with longer data in non-utxo polluting OP_RETURN than what is specified as standard. He also argues that non-validated proof of publication will be very expensive in the long run since they will have to compete with transactions that actually use the utxo, which is a more valuable feature. Todd suggests moving towards a system like TXO commitments where storing the entirety of the UTXO set for all eternity is not required. Regarding the limitation on OP_RETURN at the protocol level, Todd is strongly opposed to it, and he wouldn't mind if they're removed from isStandard. Meanwhile, Timón suggests that maybe this encourages miners to adopt their policies, which could be good for things like replace-by-fee. Todd thinks the real issue is making it easy to get those !IsStandard() transactions to the miners who are interested in them. The service bit flag he proposed + preferential peering seems simple enough, but it is vulnerable to sybil attacks if done naively.Todd argues that there's also a lot of the community who thinks proof-of-publication applications are bad and should be discouraged. Unfortunately underlying all this is a real ignorance about how Bitcoin actually works and what proof-of-publication actually is. Todd advises Mastercoin, Counterparty, Colored Coins, etc. on how they should design their systems, saying that if they do proof-of-publication on the Bitcoin blockchain, it may cost a bit more money per transaction, but the security is very well understood and robust.
Updated on: 2023-06-08T15:33:53.090107+00:00