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One of the most interesting things in this experiment was the speedy trial imo. We now have an agreed way to change/improve consensus rules. It's very difficult

One of the most interesting things in this experiment was the speedy trial imo. We now have an agreed way to change/improve consensus rules. It's very difficult to get a handful of people to agree on something, let alone all the different participants in this global/borderless system.

323 5y ago
That's because bitcoin is so centralized these days, that you can get all the people that matter in a room and hash things out. Note how half of the Bitcoin network nodes don't support taproot yet, but it's irrelevant. The few nodes that matter do support it.
- rawtxapp 5y ago
  > That's because bitcoin is so centralized these days Citation badly needed. For taproot to rollout, you need wallet providers, exchanges, nodes and miners to agree. There are hundreds/thousands of different participants in each one of these categories across the world. Specifically, 90% of nodes need to signal for it.
  - 323 5y ago
    It says right in the article that wallets don't support taproot either at the moment. > Specifically, 90% of nodes need to signal for it. Wrong, 90% of mined blocks need to signal it, not 90% of nodes. Big difference: > at least 90% of the blocks mined in any of the designated two-week difficulty periods "signal" their support for the upgrade, then the activation process can begin. To be more precise: 1,815 out of 2,016 blocks mined within a period have to include a little piece of encoded information that indicates that the miners who mined those blocks are in favor of the upgrade. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/06/12/locked-in-bitcoins-taproot-upgrade-gets-its-90-mandate/ https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/06/12/locked-in-bitcoins-...
    - Jach 5y ago
      There are a number of ways to achieve consensus, rawtxapp is right in general that many decentralized parties need to agree. For Taproot in particular, it uses BIP 8 (see https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0008.mediawiki https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0008.mediawi... and https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0343.mediawiki https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0343.mediawi... and more generally https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/bip-8-bip-9-or-modern-soft-fork-activation-how-bitcoin-could-upgrade-next https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/bip-8-bip-9-or-modern-...) with LockinOnTimeout=true. The effect of this is that miners cannot block the upgrade so long as the (eventual) majority of nodes wishes to have the upgrade, they can only hurry things along and mostly protect the minority of older clients who have yet to upgrade.
  - fijiaarone 5y ago
    In other words: "La la la, I can't hear you". Either admit that bitcoin is centralized, or contend that it isn't. Don't just ask for a footnote.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  You don't strictly need mass consensus for a softfork. Taproot is a softfork, which means a tightening of the rules. There are basically a set of placeholder script types, that are currently undefined by the network ruleset. By being undefined, you can basically add whatever garbage you want, and it will technically be valid. So, blocks that are mined now with taproot transactions are still considered valid by nodes and miners that haven't upgraded or don't support the change. Their nodes just see these transactions as unintelligible garbage, but still permissible. However, the risk these nodes take on by not upgrading support, is that they might receive a block, assume it's valid even though there are transactions they don't understand, but in fact are invalid taproot transactions and rejected by the upgraded network. This is a much greater concern for miners than regular nodes, because miners have severe economic risks associated with incorrectly assuming an invalid block is valid, whereas non mining nodes don't have as great of a risk, because they generally wait for several confirmed blocks before assuming their transactions were confirmed.
vmception 5y ago
Interesting take, I found the trial to be aggravatingly slow because the bitcoin community is too risk averse and also inattentive, whereas people (person) disagreeing with you basically have no idea how long it actually took and use it to bolster their view that bitcoin is centralized and amorphous.
aantix 5y ago
Bitcoin is centralized. If you want any chance at mining, you'll need an ASIC miner. And the few companies that sell them, are sold out. Or there's some shady dealers that only will accept Bitcoin for payment, so you basically have no insurance if they don't deliver the miner.
wmf 5y ago
Taproot was proposed 2.5 years ago; maybe that's speedy in "Bitcoin core time".
- tradertef 5y ago
  It is a feature, it is not a bug.
- nullc 5y ago
  The specification and software was finished a year ago: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/19953 https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/19953
Tepix 5y ago
It's not a hard fork, is it?

323 5y ago

That's because bitcoin is so centralized these days, that you can get all the people that matter in a room and hash things out. Note how half of the Bitcoin network nodes don't support taproot yet, but it's irrelevant. The few nodes that matter do support it.

rawtxapp 5y ago
> That's because bitcoin is so centralized these days Citation badly needed. For taproot to rollout, you need wallet providers, exchanges, nodes and miners to agree. There are hundreds/thousands of different participants in each one of these categories across the world. Specifically, 90% of nodes need to signal for it.
- 323 5y ago
  It says right in the article that wallets don't support taproot either at the moment. > Specifically, 90% of nodes need to signal for it. Wrong, 90% of mined blocks need to signal it, not 90% of nodes. Big difference: > at least 90% of the blocks mined in any of the designated two-week difficulty periods "signal" their support for the upgrade, then the activation process can begin. To be more precise: 1,815 out of 2,016 blocks mined within a period have to include a little piece of encoded information that indicates that the miners who mined those blocks are in favor of the upgrade. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/06/12/locked-in-bitcoins-taproot-upgrade-gets-its-90-mandate/ https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/06/12/locked-in-bitcoins-...
  - Jach 5y ago
    There are a number of ways to achieve consensus, rawtxapp is right in general that many decentralized parties need to agree. For Taproot in particular, it uses BIP 8 (see https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0008.mediawiki https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0008.mediawi... and https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0343.mediawiki https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0343.mediawi... and more generally https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/bip-8-bip-9-or-modern-soft-fork-activation-how-bitcoin-could-upgrade-next https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/bip-8-bip-9-or-modern-...) with LockinOnTimeout=true. The effect of this is that miners cannot block the upgrade so long as the (eventual) majority of nodes wishes to have the upgrade, they can only hurry things along and mostly protect the minority of older clients who have yet to upgrade.
- fijiaarone 5y ago
  In other words: "La la la, I can't hear you". Either admit that bitcoin is centralized, or contend that it isn't. Don't just ask for a footnote.
anonporridge 5y ago
You don't strictly need mass consensus for a softfork. Taproot is a softfork, which means a tightening of the rules. There are basically a set of placeholder script types, that are currently undefined by the network ruleset. By being undefined, you can basically add whatever garbage you want, and it will technically be valid. So, blocks that are mined now with taproot transactions are still considered valid by nodes and miners that haven't upgraded or don't support the change. Their nodes just see these transactions as unintelligible garbage, but still permissible. However, the risk these nodes take on by not upgrading support, is that they might receive a block, assume it's valid even though there are transactions they don't understand, but in fact are invalid taproot transactions and rejected by the upgraded network. This is a much greater concern for miners than regular nodes, because miners have severe economic risks associated with incorrectly assuming an invalid block is valid, whereas non mining nodes don't have as great of a risk, because they generally wait for several confirmed blocks before assuming their transactions were confirmed.

vmception 5y ago

Interesting take, I found the trial to be aggravatingly slow because the bitcoin community is too risk averse and also inattentive, whereas people (person) disagreeing with you basically have no idea how long it actually took and use it to bolster their view that bitcoin is centralized and amorphous.

aantix 5y ago

Bitcoin is centralized. If you want any chance at mining, you'll need an ASIC miner. And the few companies that sell them, are sold out. Or there's some shady dealers that only will accept Bitcoin for payment, so you basically have no insurance if they don't deliver the miner.

wmf 5y ago

Taproot was proposed 2.5 years ago; maybe that's speedy in "Bitcoin core time".

tradertef 5y ago
It is a feature, it is not a bug.
nullc 5y ago
The specification and software was finished a year ago: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/19953 https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/19953

Tepix 5y ago

It's not a hard fork, is it?