[Bitcoin-development] is there a way to do bitcoin-staging?

Mon May 20 06:34:06 UTC 2013

This is exactly what I was planning to do with the inappropriately-named 
"Ultimate Blockchain Compression 
<https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88208.0>".  I wanted to 
reorganize the blockchain data into an authenticated tree, indexed by 
TxOut script (address), instead of tx-hash.  Much like a regular merkle 
tree, you can store the root in the block header, and communicate 
branches of that tree to nodes, to prove inclusion (and exclusion!) of 
TxOuts for any given script/address.  Additionally, you can include at 
each node, the sum of BTC in all nodes below it, which offers some other 
nice benefits.

I think this idea is has epic upside-potential for bitcoin if it works 
-- even "SPV" nodes could query their unspent TxOut list for their 
wallet from any untrusted peer and compare the result directly to the 
blockheaders/POW.  Given nothing but the headers, you can verify the 
balance of 100 addresses with 250 kB.  But also epic failure-potential 
in terms of feasibility and cost-to-benefit for miners.  For it to 
really work, it's gotta be part of the mainnet validation rules, but no 
way it can be evaluated realistically without some kind of "staging".  
Therefore, I had proposed that this be merge-mined on a "meta-chain" 
first...get a bunch of miners on board to agree to merge mine and see it 
in action.  It seemed like a perfectly non-disruptive way to prove out a 
particular idea before we actually consider making a protocol change 
that significant.  Even if it stayed on its own meta chain, as long as 
there is some significant amount of hashpower working on it, it can 
still be a useful tool.

Unfortunately, my experience with merged mining is minimal, so I'm still 
not clear how feasible/reliable it is as an alternative to direct 
blockchain integration.  That's a discussion I'd like to have.

-Alan

On 5/19/2013 11:08 AM, Peter Vessenes wrote:
> I think this is a very interesting idea. As Bitcoiners, we often stuff 
> things into the 'alt chain' bucket in our heads; I wonder if this idea 
> works better as a curing period, essentially an extended version of 
> the current 100 block wait for mined coins.
>
> An alternate setup comes to mind; I can imagine this working as a sort 
> of gift economy; people pay real BTC for merge-mined "beta BTC" as a 
> way to support development. There is no doubt a more elegant and 
> practical solution that might have different economic and crypto 
> characteristics.
>
>
>
> On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 6:23 AM, Adam Back <adam at cypherspace.org 
> <mailto:adam at cypherspace.org>> wrote:
>
>     Is there a way to experiment with new features - eg committed
>     coins - that
>     doesnt involve an altcoin in the conventional sense, and also
>     doesnt impose
>     a big testing burden on bitcoin main which is a security and
>     testing risk?
>
>     eg lets say some form of merged mine where an alt-coin lets call it
>     bitcoin-staging?  where the coins are the same coins as on
>     bitcoin, the
>     mining power goes to bitcoin main, so some aspect of merged
>     mining, but no
>     native mining.  and ability to use bitcoins by locking them on
>     bitcoin to
>     move them to bitcoin-staging and vice versa (ie exchange them 1:1
>     cryptographically, no exchange).
>
>     Did anyone figure anything like that out?  Seems vaguely doable and
>     maybe productive.  The only people with coins at risk of defects
>     in a new
>     feature, or insufficiently well tested novel feature are people
>     with coins
>     on bitcoin-staging.
>
>     Yes I know about bitcoin-test this is not it.  I mean a real live
>     system,
>     with live value, but that is intentionally wanting to avoid
>     forking bitcoins
>     parameters, nor value, nor mindshare dillution.  In this way something
>     potentially interesting could move forward faster, and be les
>     risky to the
>     main bitcoin network.  eg particularly defenses against
>
>     It might also be a more real world test test (after bitcoin-test)
>     because
>     some parameters are different on test, and some issues may not
>     manifest
>     without more real activity.
>
>     Then also bitcoin could cherry pick interesting patches and merge
>     them after
>     extensive real-world validation with real-money at stake (by early
>     adopters).
>
>     Adam
>
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