Author: ZmnSCPxj 2017-09-10 05:32:42
Published on: 2017-09-10T05:32:42+00:00
In this exchange, Paul and ZmnSCPxj discuss the idea of sidechains with unifying merge mining and WT^ validity voting. Paul argues that this causes SHOM to regress to mere extension blocks and takes on many negative properties of extension blocks. He also disagrees that the power to decide the validity of a sidechain lies in the economic majority rather than in the miners, as 51% miner-group can pay bribes to themselves and orphan any block or transaction that disagrees with them. ZmnSCPxj explains that if a miner rejects a bribe from outside the miner-group in order to put their desired hash on the sidechain, it means that they value their desired hash more than the bribe, which is a loss of potential profit. They both agree that miner behavior on Bcash and Bitcoin suggests that a good portion of the miners are interested more in short-term profits than long-term.They also discuss the problem of theft attempts and how SHOM sidechains can be collapsed by a single theft attempt. Assuming potential thieves understand the dollar-auction irrationality, they may be disincentivized, but the problem is that this requires rational behavior from thieves. They discuss the weakness of SHOM, which provides only a very weak side-to-main peg, and Paul argues that capping withdrawals weakens the side-to-main peg, which weakens the reason for even using SHOM.They also discuss the possibility of deploying sidechains as federated peg first, then at some sidechain height, the federation may announce a move to drivechain/sidechain-headers-on-mainchain. The move from federated to economic-majority-controlled would involve the federation moving its controlled lockboxes to OP_WITHDRAWPROOFVERIFY lockboxes. Sergio likes this idea, but Paul thinks that this attitude represents a lack of faith in the design. They both agree that sidechains must never be hardforked, and only softforked.Finally, they discuss the mechanism that supports sidechains and how it supports any financial system, including centralized, non-blockchain ones. ZmnSCPxj explains that he is fine with some economic bond or proof-of-burn to start a sidechain, but he is opposed to any permissioned method of starting sidechains. They also discuss the spec for WT^ layout and some documentation.
Updated on: 2023-06-12T18:39:22.937411+00:00