Author: Jeremy Rubin 2022-04-17 20:57:28
Published on: 2022-04-17T20:57:28+00:00
The conversation between Jeremy Rubin and Peter Todd on the bitcoin devs mailing list touches on various topics related to Open Time Stamps (OTS) and its implementation. In response to Todd's comments, Rubin argues that the confusion regarding blockchain schemes as "world computers" is an appeal to authority that doesn't exist and suggests that if there is something that sponsors does that could make a hypothetical OTS-like service work better, in a way that would be opaque to clients, then we should just change what OTS is rather than committing ourselves to a worse design in service of some unstated design goals. Rubin also expresses his confusion about how OTS can both support RBF for updating to larger commitments and not have an epoch based re-comitting scheme and still be correct. He assumes that OTS probably is not formally correct and has some holes in what is committed to or relies on clients re-requesting proofs if they fail to be committed. He suggests that Todd would be greatly aided by having an actual spec for OTS since he is not interested in the specifics of OTS software, but he is willing to look at the protocol. Todd responds by stating that the technical spec of OpenTimestamps is of course the normative validation source code, currently python-opentimestamps, similar to how the technical spec of Bitcoin is the consensus parts of the Bitcoin Core codebase. The explanatory docs are linked on https://opentimestamps.org under the "How It Works" section. Todd further clarifies that OpenTimestamps proofs don't even have the concept of transactions: the proof format proves that data existed prior to a merkle root of a particular Bitcoin block, not a Bitcoin transaction. Rubin's model is wrong as there is no reason to have a linearized transaction history. In conclusion, the conversation highlights the importance of having a proper specification for protocols like OTS and the need for clarity in technical discussions to avoid confusion among readers.
Updated on: 2023-06-03T07:08:23.177980+00:00