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Show HN: Instant confirmation via Bitcoin payment protocol

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Re: Show HN: Instant confirmation via Bitcoin payment protocol

#31

Post by contingencies »

BrokenPipe wrote: post #2

Hello:) Author of the BIP draft for the Instant Confirmation Payment Protocol aka BIP70 extension and founder of GreenAddress. You can find the draft here https://github.com/greenaddress/bips/blob/bip-payment-reques... Bitcoin dev mailing list discussion http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.bitcoin.devel/5628 Reddit discussion http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/284me8/instant_conf... The aim of this extension i…

Last night, at the city-that-shall-not-be-named Bitcoin meetup, we specifically discussed this sort of BIP, and I raised the opinion which was initially posted in response to Gavin's support for BIP70, which is that the last thing Bitcoin needs is more complexity.

Fundamentally, Bitcoin is trying to be a settlement network and an asset and a UI and a platform for developing future financial services and now a half-baked business-oriented transaction layer on top of the settlement network. Unix philosophy[1] says this is insane, and as someone involved with one of the largest exchanges, I'm inclined to agree.

Most of this stuff boils down to using Bitcoin to try to solve things it's not well-suited to solving, eg. instant payment.

I mean .. adding X.509 & SSL[2] to Bitcoin clients to 'simplify' payments? Really? Do you guys have any idea what that does to an implementation's risk model?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy [2] https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0070.mediawi...

Re: Show HN: Instant confirmation via Bitcoin payment protocol

#32

Post by BrokenPipe »

mikemoka wrote: post #29
BrokenPipe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't provide instant confirmation but that does not mean you can't spend your funds without it. The minimum is 1 day or 144 blocks, default to 90 days, max is max block size.

Hi Lawrence, probably that is the right step toward solving the transaction speed,albeit by a slightly more centralized workaround,it reminds me of a comment I made almost a year from now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6130813 great job ;)

cheers!

Re: Show HN: Instant confirmation via Bitcoin payment protocol

#33

Post by BrokenPipe »

contingencies wrote: post #31
BrokenPipe wrote: post #2

Hello:) Author of the BIP draft for the Instant Confirmation Payment Protocol aka BIP70 extension and founder of GreenAddress. You can find the draft here https://github.com/greenaddress/bips/blob/bip-payment-reques... Bitcoin dev mailing list discussion http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.bitcoin.devel/5628 Reddit discussion http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/284me8/instant_conf... The aim of this extension i…

Last night, at the city-that-shall-not-be-named Bitcoin meetup, we specifically discussed this sort of BIP, and I raised the opinion which was initially posted in response to Gavin's support for BIP70, which is that the last thing Bitcoin needs is more complexity . Fundamentally, Bitcoin is trying to be a settlement network and an asset and a UI and a platform for developing future financial services and now a half-b…

To answer to your question, I think your points have already been raised and while I may even share them BIP70 is by default using SSL and X.509 and it seems natural to use it for extensions too.

Other than that, instant confirmation is also done via our own API (which is via wss, ssl) and there is no reason as to why it couldn't be done with ECDSA instead, issue as usual is key management.

You think arbitrage&liquidity between exchanges via instant confirmation is not well suited for exchanges?

Re: Show HN: Instant confirmation via Bitcoin payment protocol

#35

Post by BrokenPipe »

abrkn wrote: post #34

"...or analysing transaction network propagation." Haven't we already agreed this is meaningless?

I think we did, good point.

It should be removed imho. Especially since the instant confirmation with a monitor couldn't really be synchronous without .. wait for it, waiting.

good catch!

Re: Show HN: Instant confirmation via Bitcoin payment protocol

#36

Post by dublinben »

mike_hearn wrote: post #23
dublinben wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin users are an even more privileged class of the already privileged population. They have regular access to a private computer, and robust internet access. That is not the case for most people in the world.

Lots of people in developing countries have access to cheap Android smart phones but no computer these days. Fortunately that's all you need to use Bitcoin.

Only with a thin client, defeating the purpose of Bitcoin. The Blockchain is currently over 18 GB, more storage than any cheap phone I've ever seen, and takes days to download.

Re: Show HN: Instant confirmation via Bitcoin payment protocol

#37

Post by Natanael_L »

dublinben wrote: post #22
BrokenPipe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the banking industry will support the unbanked faster than a stable and accessible internet will reach them?

If the wild success of M-Pesa is any indication, then the traditional finance industry will reach the next billion consumers well before an obscure technology like Bitcoin will.

So, simultaneously? Look up bitpesa and the SMS based hosted wallets.

Re: Show HN: Instant confirmation via Bitcoin payment protocol

#38

Post by Natanael_L »

dublinben wrote: post #36
mike_hearn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people in developing countries have access to cheap Android smart phones but no computer these days. Fortunately that's all you need to use Bitcoin.

Only with a thin client, defeating the purpose of Bitcoin. The Blockchain is currently over 18 GB, more storage than any cheap phone I've ever seen, and takes days to download.

Even Satoshi said it is likely most people will use lightweight clients. Even the original paper describes how to make a lightweight wallet that don't need the full history.

Re: Show HN: Instant confirmation via Bitcoin payment protocol

#39

Post by contingencies »

BrokenPipe wrote: post #33
contingencies wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last night, at the city-that-shall-not-be-named Bitcoin meetup, we specifically discussed this sort of BIP, and I raised the opinion which was initially posted in response to Gavin's support for BIP70, which is that the last thing Bitcoin needs is more complexity . Fundamentally, Bitcoin is trying to be a settlement network and an asset and a UI and a platform for developing future financial services and now a half-b…

To answer to your question, I think your points have already been raised and while I may even share them BIP70 is by default using SSL and X.509 and it seems natural to use it for extensions too. Other than that, instant confirmation is also done via our own API (which is via wss, ssl) and there is no reason as to why it couldn't be done with ECDSA instead, issue as usual is key management. You think arbitrage&liquid…

You think arbitrage&liquidity between exchanges via instant confirmation is not well suited for exchanges?

With all due respect, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe you run a major exchange. There are loads of factors that need to be considered including legal, fraud, security, timezones, multi-hop settlement times (transactions that involve crossing assets) for which we are perhaps one hop and which rely on speed and precalculable latencies, etc. Basically, if anything at all to do with running and exchange seems 'obvious', you probably don't have the whole picture.

Furthermore, most of these issues are better solved in a manner that is not asset-specific or intimately connected to an asset-specific settlement network, ie. we really don't want Bitcoin to provide its own, half-assed solution for what is not a Bitcoin-specific problem.

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