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Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated

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Re: Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated

#161

Post by jimmydorry »

zaptrem wrote: post #57
gruez wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, if nothing happens on the Bitcoin network, then the funds aren't locked down, are they? they are locked down. the funds in a lightning channel are locked in a 2 of 2 multisig address, and can only be moved upon mutual consent (ie. by updating the state of the channel), or by one party after sufficient time has passed (in case of an uncooperative peer).

Don't LN channels require a (quite expensive) transaction to open and close?

Quite expensive, as in $1?

That $1 enables as many transactions as you want between party A and B, of which party B may have dozens of open channels with other nodes to facilitate routing from party A to C etc.

Re: Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated

#162

Post by endisneigh »

DantesKite wrote: post #158

I don't think the energy criticisms are that warranted. In my mind, it speaks more to a criticism of how poor our current energy infrastructure is. I don't think for example in 30 years it'll be a big problem when energy becomes more abundant and building nuclear reactors are easier. And this is coming from someone who believes Bitcoin is little more than a Ponzi scheme and most of the innovation in fintech is happen…

Your comment doesn't really explain why the criticism isn't warranted. What does this have to do with how poor the current energy infrastructure is?

Re: Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated

#163

Post by Analemma_ »

ulzeraj wrote: post #103
pyrale wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically, does that mean KYC/AML are officially dead in BTC's environment? The picture was not bright before, but with this kind of innovations, it seems impossible for this network to build banking systems that respect regulations.

Good riddance. I don't think KYC/AML are a force for good. Its just more box ticking laws that serve to give a false sense of security while poor people are being excluded from the banking system and normal people have their all their data stolen from centralized databases. Real dangerous criminals don't give a damn about KYC/AML laws and operate freely within the banking framework. The European Central Bank chairwom…

Good or bad, "no KYC/AML" is not an option. If governments decide Bitcoin can’t provide KYC/AML, Bitcoin will be nuked from orbit.

Re: Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated

#164

Post by wslh »

saurik wrote: post #135

I am pretty sure that this upgrade was the piece needed to "more legitimately decentralize" the currency bridge between Bitcoin and rsk (rootstalk), which is the EVM-compatible smart contract layer that uses Bitcoin (bridged as rBTC) as its native gas currency (and which is being "merge mined" by a majority of the current Bitcoin hash rate and thereby isn't some weird insecure underutilized side chain).

Typo: RSK was Rootstock: https://www.rsk.co/ and has a governing organization: https://www.iovlabs.org/

Re: Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated

#165

Post by Mengkudulangsat »

vkou wrote: post #157
ulzeraj wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good riddance. I don't think KYC/AML are a force for good. Its just more box ticking laws that serve to give a false sense of security while poor people are being excluded from the banking system and normal people have their all their data stolen from centralized databases. Real dangerous criminals don't give a damn about KYC/AML laws and operate freely within the banking framework. The European Central Bank chairwom…

> Good riddance. I don't think KYC/AML are a force for good If KYC/AML is not possible in the bitcoin world, you're not going to be getting a world with bitcoin that doesn't have KYC/AML. You're going to get a world with no bitcoin.

Finance without KYC/AML is like air travel without TSA. Everyone remembers those times fondly, but have lost the imagination to believe they are possible again.

Re: Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated

#166

Post by Gosper »

DennisP wrote: post #74
Gosper wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you were flagged, but if your question was in earnest: Bitcoin almost certainly won't move. Because those touted energy efficient protocols come at the cost of much weaker security guarantees which undermine a key point of Bitcoin. Proof of stake, the forerunner of energy efficient protocols, may work better for networks that have different aims, although smart contract oriented blockchains still nee…

Here's one of Ethereum's lead researchers talking about the attacks in that paper. The fixes are simple and not expected to delay the merge. https://blog.ethereum.org/2021/11/02/finalized-no-31/

Written for public consumption that post conveys a great deal of certainty while eliding over doubts:

"Change fork choice rule to mitigate balancing and reorging attacks"

https://ethresear.ch/t/change-fork-choice-rule-to-mitigate-b...

And more fundamentally at the heart of the matter

https://ethresear.ch/t/comment-on-three-attacks-on-proof-of-...

> Moreover, there is a general argument that the attacker will always be able to keep the consensus from finalizing nomatter what the fix is.

> The argument simply comes from the fact, that mathematically provable binary consensus algorithms known in this universe have n2 behavior, and ETH2 is linear in n .

> Therefore, the only way to really fix ETH2 is to make it n2 . Otherwise it is unfixable from the math point of view. There will always be another attack.

> It may be that by continuing patching a fix after a fix after a fix one can end up with something that will work from an engineering point of view.

> This will be security by obscurity.

> But it will not be secure from the math point of view.

So while bodging in patches might work one day, it's an immature approach and a scary place to try store value.

The sheer number of moving parts create a scary amount of emergent complexity and complexity is the enemy of security.

Disclosure: I'm an early but now uncomfortable ETH holder.

Re: Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated

#167

Post by coolandsmartrr »

pyrale wrote: post #79
TekMol wrote: post #6

A crazy thing with Taproot is: A company could create a virtual bank to handle all transfers with its suppliers by doing a single onchain transaction. From the outside, it would look like a normal "Someone sent some coins from address A to address B" transaction. But internally, a key needed to spend the funds is only valid if the company and all of its suppliers sign it. This means every time there is a transaction…

So basically, does that mean KYC/AML are officially dead in BTC's environment? The picture was not bright before, but with this kind of innovations, it seems impossible for this network to build banking systems that respect regulations.

It may be dead if you run bitcoind or your own wallet, but the majority of users would avoid the complexity of running your own wallet and instead use an exchange to obtain Bitcoin. Opening an account at an exchange would enforce KYC/AML rules anyways, as the operators have to compliant of local laws (which are usually based on guidelines by FATF, a global financial regulation group).

Re: Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated

#168

Post by phone8675309 »

vb6sp6 wrote: post #100
bigdubs wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's going to be weaponized to launder money and be made illegal eventually.

> Then it's going to be weaponized to launder money We should stick with USD. No one does anything illegal with USD

Holy fucking strawman, Batman!

Way to skip over the different potentials for abuse and just dive to the cryptonerd's handwaive argument.

Looking forward to your insights about rubber and glue.

Re: Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated

#169

Post by Gosper »

baby wrote: post #86
Gosper wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you were flagged, but if your question was in earnest: Bitcoin almost certainly won't move. Because those touted energy efficient protocols come at the cost of much weaker security guarantees which undermine a key point of Bitcoin. Proof of stake, the forerunner of energy efficient protocols, may work better for networks that have different aims, although smart contract oriented blockchains still nee…

> Because those touted energy efficient protocols come at the cost of much weaker security guarantees which undermine a key point of Bitcoin That's FUD. Protocols like Bitcoin can fork, whereas others don't. Thus, Bitcoin, and proof-of-work, are less secure protocols.

You can fork endlessly and each fork won't matter one whit because they don't follow the longest chain secured with the most hashing power.

Or your fork can follow the longest chain and abide by the rules so your transactions are accepted by the rest of the network, in which case you're using Bitcoin and haven't forked.

Re: Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated

#170

Post by rabite »

MerelyMortal wrote: post #159
throwaway55421 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no future tense here. Bitcoin is designed to be fungible - it's digital cash.

Maybe it was "designed to be", but in reality it isn't. BTC has a history, so if I had 1 BTC, and you had 1 BTC, they wouldn't be equivalent. When you deposit BTC into a Coinbase account from a gambling site, CB shuts down your account. That is irrefutable proof that BTC is not fungible. Compare it to cash which is fungible. If you win money at a casino and deposit it at a bank, the bank doesn't know where you got th…

> If you win money at a casino and deposit it at a bank, the bank doesn't know where you got the cash from.

You're off base here. There's serial numbers on money and many databases maintained both public and private meant to track those and flag inflows of marked bills. The bank absolutely might know where you got the cash from -- the difference is that there are legal guarantees for the fungibility of cash. It is enforced by law that if someone pays you a dollar, you are legally obligated to accept that as tender. For all debts both public and private.

The fungibility of the dollar is not rooted in lack of ability to track dollars, it is rooted in state violence.

Anyways everyone should use Monero. BTC is obviously far less fungible than a dollar.

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