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Excellent explanation of how Bitcoin works and its shortcomings. Bit of a Bitcoin newb, but how are decisions currently made in regards to implementing new feat

by ebel 12y ago

Excellent explanation of how Bitcoin works and its shortcomings. Bit of a Bitcoin newb, but how are decisions currently made in regards to implementing new features? Are Alt-Coins similarly hard to change (mostly thinking about Litecoin) ?

bdcs 12y ago
Ultimately it comes down to every node defining what they consider a bitcoin or Xcoin. Suppose we're the only two nodes on the network and we disagree about what a bitcoin is (we're running different validation code, either intentionally or not). You'll mine some ebel-coins and I'll mine some bdcs-coins. We won't agree that they are bitcoins and so we'll have a blockchain fork. So yes, changing anything (hard-fork) is very difficult because it requires 100% consensus to be done well. Two-way pegging is technology that allows almost endless permissionless innovation on top of bitcoin WITHOUT requiring consensus. This is killer. I cannot wait to see what comes of this. There is now a huge space to be filled for dev APIs and useful abstractions for creating, running, and updating side-chains.
- patcon 12y ago
  > So yes, changing anything (hard-fork) is very difficult because it requires 100% consensus to be done well. I'm fairly certain this isn't the case. It needs 51% to be done (nevermind done "well"), and then in theory more and more miners will cut their losses and start operating under the winning chain's rules. Unless by "done well", you mean that transacting users and merchants aren't inconvenienced. Because a hard fork battle would be inconvenient for commerce if it wasn't a large majority. But miners don't necessarily need to care about that :)
  - maaku 12y ago
    There's a distinction here between soft-forks, which require majority mining hashpower and a definite super-majority to avoid possible transition risks, and hard-forks which absolutely require every node on the network to upgrade.

by ebel 12y ago

bdcs 12y ago

Ultimately it comes down to every node defining what they consider a bitcoin or Xcoin. Suppose we're the only two nodes on the network and we disagree about what a bitcoin is (we're running different validation code, either intentionally or not). You'll mine some ebel-coins and I'll mine some bdcs-coins. We won't agree that they are bitcoins and so we'll have a blockchain fork. So yes, changing anything (hard-fork) is very difficult because it requires 100% consensus to be done well. Two-way pegging is technology that allows almost endless permissionless innovation on top of bitcoin WITHOUT requiring consensus. This is killer. I cannot wait to see what comes of this. There is now a huge space to be filled for dev APIs and useful abstractions for creating, running, and updating side-chains.

patcon 12y ago
> So yes, changing anything (hard-fork) is very difficult because it requires 100% consensus to be done well. I'm fairly certain this isn't the case. It needs 51% to be done (nevermind done "well"), and then in theory more and more miners will cut their losses and start operating under the winning chain's rules. Unless by "done well", you mean that transacting users and merchants aren't inconvenienced. Because a hard fork battle would be inconvenient for commerce if it wasn't a large majority. But miners don't necessarily need to care about that :)
- maaku 12y ago
  There's a distinction here between soft-forks, which require majority mining hashpower and a definite super-majority to avoid possible transition risks, and hard-forks which absolutely require every node on the network to upgrade.