Author: Jeremy Rubin 2022-10-17 19:10:18
Published on: 2022-10-17T19:10:18+00:00
The discussion is centered around the concept of honesty in the context of Bitcoin mining, particularly in relation to the proof-of-work system. The Bitcoin white paper suggests that an honest majority is required for the chain to function properly, with honesty being defined as following a pre-specified rule, rational or not. There are different behaviors that can be described as honest, and economically rational or optimizing is not necessarily rational. The controversy over Replace-by-Fee (RBF) arises from the desire to make honest behavior also rational behavior, which may weaken the assumptions of selfishness maximizing a parameter. However, Satoshi did not particularly bound what aspects of honesty are important for the network because there isn't a spec defining exactly what is honest or not. In terms of the longest chain, it has the greatest proof-of-work effort invested in it, and mining on tips is less rational than taking the highest paying transactions that fit. Building on the most work chain is perhaps not rational in many normal circumstances that can come up today. In addition, the safety of 0conf isn't assured given the potential of race conditions in the mempool, even in the presence of an honest majority. Therefore, it's not clear whether 0conf working well is something that can be driven from the Honest Majority Assumption.Overall, it may be nice to more tightly document what bitcoins assumptions are in practice and what those assumptions do in terms of properties of Bitcoin, as well as pathways to weakening the assumptions without compromising the behaviors users expect the network to have, an "extended white paper" if you will. It's somewhat clear that we shouldn't weaken assumptions that only seem local to one subsystem of Bitcoin if they end up destabilizing another system.
Updated on: 2023-06-16T01:50:44.519688+00:00