Author: Erik Aronesty 2021-03-17 00:24:35
Published on: 2021-03-17T00:24:35+00:00
The first discussion in the email revolves around a proposed hard fork for Bitcoin. The speaker suggests using proof of burn and burned main chain as a way of mining on the new chain, with Bitcoin as a reference point for calculating proof of work equivalence. The proposal faces criticism for its technical merit, with some pointing out obvious mistakes, confusing language, and lack of supporting evidence. However, the speaker is willing to submit a BIP pull request for a draft via GitHub and answer questions in the request's comments. Ultimately, the discussion provides insight into the potential benefits and challenges of a hard fork and various cryptographic elements and algorithmic structures involved.In another email conversation, Andrew discusses his goal of building a hybrid cryptography mechanism for Bitcoin that includes an NP complexity algorithm. He believes that the current cryptography used in Bitcoin needs updating and may become vulnerable to NP hardness or the halting problem. Andrew plans to build the cryptographic proof himself with the help of open-source contributors. Keagan responds by stating that it is critical for the work to be "useless" in order for the security model to remain the same. If the work was useful, it would provide an avenue for actors to have nothing at stake when submitting a proof of work, which degrades the security of the network. Keagan also argues that proposing a hard fork in the hashing algorithm would invalidate the enormous amount of capital expenditure by mining entities and disincentivize future capital expenditure into mining hardware that may compute these more "useful" proofs of work. Andrew counters by saying that a large portion of BTC is already mined through AWS servers and non-ASIC specific hardware anyways, so a majority of them would benefit from a hybrid proof. The email conversation goes back and forth on the benefits and drawbacks of upgrading the cryptography layer of Bitcoin. Ryan adds to the conversation by referencing a paper that demonstrates that the mining market will tend to expend resources equivalent to miner reward. It does not prove that mining work has to expend energy as a primary cost. Some argue that energy expenditure has negative externalities and that we should move to other resources, while others believe that the negative externalities will go away soon because of the move to renewables. Overall, the conversation suggests that upgrading the cryptography layer of Bitcoin would have both benefits and drawbacks, and it warrants further discussion within the BTC community.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T19:07:45.525676+00:00