ripper234



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Ron Gross







LegendaryActivity: 1358Merit: 1002Ron Gross Why I believe Mastercoin should be encoded on the bitcoin blockchain September 20, 2013, 06:18:58 AM #1



It is easier to implement Mastercoin on the blockchain. The entire concept of mining "vanishes", or actually is satisfied by Bitcoin miners. This means the security of Mastercoin is on par with Bitcoin (up to potential bugs) ... there is no way to 51% attack it.



The same could be implemented using merged mining, but no matter how you look at it, merged mining is technically a more complicated solution, because it requires an entirely new blockchain one needs to reason about. You need to think about the hashrate of this separate blockchain and to encourage miners to merge-mine it, things that are just not needed when you directly encode things into the Bitcoin blockchain. As far as software development goes, I'm super lazy - I do not like to do something complicated if I can do something simple that serves the same purpose.



Now, it is true that this "burdens" the blockchain ... in the same way that Satoshi Dice does.

However, this burdening is something that Bitcoin users and developers will just have to live with. Nobody is the boss of Bitcoin, and any standard Bitcoin transaction (like Mastercoin transactions are) are legitimate transactions that Bitcoin simply has to learn to deal with. There is just no feasible way that I see that Bitcoin developers could ban such transactions (please enlighten me if I'm wrong).



Bitcoin is the future of finance, resistant to hacking, government censorship and regulation. Do you really want to base that future on asking other people to pretty please "not abuse it for you own purposes"? This is not the answer. Bitcoin has to be made scalable enough to meet its role as the one major, global, world currency.



Mastercoin developers have no intention of disrupting Bitcoin, and will gladly adapt to any There have been several well known bitcoiners that tried to convince J.R.Willet to move Mastercoin to an altchain, instead of using the bitcoin blockchain. Willet's opinion is that Mastercoin should stay on the blockchain, and I fully concur. Here is my reasoning:It is easier to implement Mastercoin on the blockchain. The entire concept of mining "vanishes", or actually is satisfied by Bitcoin miners. This means the security of Mastercoin is on par with Bitcoin (up to potential bugs) ... there is no way to 51% attack it.The same could be implemented using merged mining, but no matter how you look at it, merged mining is technically a more complicated solution, because it requires an entirely new blockchain one needs to reason about. You need to think about the hashrate of this separate blockchain and to encourage miners to merge-mine it, things that are just not needed when you directly encode things into the Bitcoin blockchain. As far as software development goes, I'm super lazy - I do not like to do something complicated if I can do something simple that serves the same purpose.Now, it is true that this "burdens" the blockchain ... in the same way that Satoshi Dice does.However, this burdening is something that Bitcoin users and developers will just have to live with. Nobody is the boss of Bitcoin, and any standard Bitcoin transaction (like Mastercoin transactions are) are legitimate transactions that Bitcoin simply has to learn to deal with. There is just no feasible way that I see that Bitcoin developers could ban such transactions (please enlighten me if I'm wrong).Bitcoin is the future of finance, resistant to hacking, government censorship and regulation. Do you really want to base that future on asking other people to pretty please "not abuse it for you own purposes"? This is not the answer. Bitcoin has to be made scalable enough to meet its role as the one major, global, world currency.Mastercoin developers have no intention of disrupting Bitcoin, and will gladly adapt to any friendly encoding that the brilliant minds of these forums will propose , as long as it doesn't harm Mastercoin (using non-standard transactions that are relayed more slowly is not an option at the moment). The Bitcoin blockchain must and will remain neutral, and if Willet hadn't come up with Mastercoin encoding, someone else would have created something similar sooner or later.

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LegendaryActivity: 1064Merit: 1000 Re: Why I believe Mastercoin should be encoded on the bitcoin blockchain September 20, 2013, 09:09:27 AM #2 Quote from: ripper234 on September 20, 2013, 06:18:58 AM It is easier to implement Mastercoin on the blockchain. The entire concept of mining "vanishes", or actually is satisfied by Bitcoin miners. This means the security of Mastercoin is on par with Bitcoin (up to potential bugs) ... there is no way to 51% attack it.



The same could be implemented using merged mining, but no matter how you look at it, merged mining is technically a more complicated solution, because it requires an entirely new blockchain one needs to reason about. You need to think about the hashrate of this separate blockchain and to encourage miners to merge-mine it, things that are just not needed when you directly encode things into the Bitcoin blockchain. As far as software development goes, I'm super lazy - I do not like to do something complicated if I can do something simple that serves the same purpose.



So your entire reasoning is that, while merged mining is in fact a solution, you are too lazy to do it? You need a specialized client already, so why not mastercoin-qt. Sheesh. It takes almost zero effort to start an altchain, evidenced by the rash of them already.



Your argument is weak. Let's face it, Willet just wants to do it this way, there is no other reasoning other than, "I want to, I can, so I will". So your entire reasoning is that, while merged mining is in fact a solution, you are too lazy to do it? You need a specialized client already, so why not mastercoin-qt. Sheesh. It takes almost zero effort to start an altchain, evidenced by the rash of them already.Your argument is weak. Let's face it, Willet just wants to do it this way, there is no other reasoning other than, "I want to, I can, so I will".

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Ron Gross







LegendaryActivity: 1358Merit: 1002Ron Gross Re: Why I believe Mastercoin should be encoded on the bitcoin blockchain September 20, 2013, 03:43:37 PM #7 Quote from: btcdrak on September 20, 2013, 02:06:05 PM The altchain part is not a bottleneck. It takes a few hours to make the alterations and launch. And yes, Gavin *has* said there is a strong possibility of making changes that will embedding of arbitrary data. It's just not his focus yet, but it is very much on his radar.



It's not a matter of a spending the few hours - the design as an altchain is very different, and will require miners, which the current design does not. Ergo, the current design is simpler and was chosen as the implementation.



We do not want another altchain, mining, block rewards ... all these needlessly complicate the design.

Mastercoin just doesn't require these elements to function.



In the future, if there is a pressing need (remains to be seen), then we might adapt to it by introducing a sort of mining, but it will definitely not be mining in the traditional sense (e.g. it can't create additional mastercoins or bitcoins). It's not a matter of a spending the few hours - the design as an altchain is very different, and will require miners, which the current design does not. Ergo, the current design is simpler and was chosen as the implementation.We do not want another altchain, mining, block rewards ... all these needlessly complicate the design.Mastercoin just doesn't require these elements to function.In the future, if there is a pressing need (remains to be seen), then we might adapt to it by introducing a sort of mining, but it will definitely not be mining in the traditional sense (e.g. it can't create additional mastercoins or bitcoins).

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LegendaryActivity: 1246Merit: 1000 Re: Why I believe Mastercoin should be encoded on the bitcoin blockchain September 20, 2013, 06:38:11 PM #14 Quote from: dacoinminster on September 20, 2013, 03:48:39 PM One important reason I'm not moving to an alt-chain is the distributed exchange between bitcoin and MasterCoin, which isn't possible if we are on an alt-chain, since it requires using data from standard bitcoin transactions AND MasterCoin transactions to work.



I don't think I've mentioned that reason anywhere else, but it is probably the primary reason I'm not even willing to consider it. There are other reasons, like total cost of development, and even the dirty stink of starting yet another alt chain (For instance, bitshares is doing it "right", but they were banished to the alt section with all those scam coins, which they of course bitterly resent).



I am totally convinced that building on top of bitcoin is the right way to go, for all the reasons here and above in Ron's posts.



It would be easy enough to build a client that could do atomic cross-blockchain txns... essentially the txn in mastercoin-chain would reference a bitcoin txn and maximum block and be invalid if that bitcoin txn "pair" is not in the bitcoin chain before that block. A subsequent mastercoin-chain "txn" could set a marker that explicitly validates or invalidates the mastercoin-txn so mastercoin-only clients could exist.



None of your mining, minting etc. arguments hold water because its just a fork of the existing OSS bitcoin code.





But really none of these arguments matter. Its great that MC txn fees encourage bitcoin use/velocity. And if it becomes an issue for bitcoin, Bitcoin txn fees will rise to the point where you will move.



I think you are really feeling a backlash because you advertised MC as a service on top of Bitcoin rather than a competing alt-coin. But in truth it is a competing alt-coin that uses the bitcoin infrastructure. Its like you said you are going "sailing" but are actually just sitting in your car on a ferry. MC is technically a service on top of Bitcoin but in essence it is a separate coin.



In contrast, Casascius coins are technically not a service on top of Bitcoin (to transfer them you don't use the blockchain). But they ARE in their essence.





But the reality is that an alt-coin is an easy way to raise money without going to VCs. And projects (especially those about money) lose steam without some funding as we are seeing with colored coins.



It would be easy enough to build a client that could do atomic cross-blockchain txns... essentially the txn in mastercoin-chain would reference a bitcoin txn and maximum block and be invalid if that bitcoin txn "pair" is not in the bitcoin chain before that block. A subsequent mastercoin-chain "txn" could set a marker that explicitly validates or invalidates the mastercoin-txn so mastercoin-only clients could exist.None of your mining, minting etc. arguments hold water because its just a fork of the existing OSS bitcoin code.But really none of these arguments matter. Its great that MC txn fees encourage bitcoin use/velocity. And if it becomes an issue for bitcoin, Bitcoin txn fees will rise to the point where you will move.In contrast, Casascius coins are technically not a service on top of Bitcoin (to transfer them you don't use the blockchain). But they ARE in their essence.But the reality is that an alt-coin is an easy way to raise money without going to VCs. And projects (especially those about money) lose steam without some funding as we are seeing with colored coins.

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MemberActivity: 70Merit: 10Expert Computer Geek Re: Why I believe Mastercoin should be encoded on the bitcoin blockchain September 20, 2013, 06:48:04 PM #15 Quote from: thezerg on September 20, 2013, 06:38:11 PM Quote from: dacoinminster on September 20, 2013, 03:48:39 PM One important reason I'm not moving to an alt-chain is the distributed exchange between bitcoin and MasterCoin, which isn't possible if we are on an alt-chain, since it requires using data from standard bitcoin transactions AND MasterCoin transactions to work.



I don't think I've mentioned that reason anywhere else, but it is probably the primary reason I'm not even willing to consider it. There are other reasons, like total cost of development, and even the dirty stink of starting yet another alt chain (For instance, bitshares is doing it "right", but they were banished to the alt section with all those scam coins, which they of course bitterly resent).



I am totally convinced that building on top of bitcoin is the right way to go, for all the reasons here and above in Ron's posts.



It would be easy enough to build a client that could do atomic cross-blockchain txns... essentially the txn in mastercoin-chain would reference a bitcoin txn and maximum block and be invalid if that bitcoin txn "pair" is not in the bitcoin chain before that block. A subsequent mastercoin-chain "txn" could set a marker that explicitly validates or invalidates the mastercoin-txn so mastercoin-only clients could exist.



None of your mining, minting etc. arguments hold water because its just a fork of the existing OSS bitcoin code.





But really none of these arguments matter. Its great that MC txn fees encourage bitcoin use/velocity. And if it becomes an issue for bitcoin, Bitcoin txn fees will rise to the point where you will move.



I think you are really feeling a backlash because you advertised MC as a service on top of Bitcoin rather than a competing alt-coin. But in truth it is a competing alt-coin that uses the bitcoin infrastructure. Its like you said you are going "sailing" but are actually just sitting in your car on a ferry. MC is technically a service on top of Bitcoin but in essence it is a separate coin.



In contrast, Casascius coins are technically not a service on top of Bitcoin (to transfer them you don't use the blockchain). But they ARE in their essence.





But the reality is that an alt-coin is an easy way to raise money without going to VCs. And projects (especially those about money) lose steam without some funding as we are seeing with colored coins.





It would be easy enough to build a client that could do atomic cross-blockchain txns... essentially the txn in mastercoin-chain would reference a bitcoin txn and maximum block and be invalid if that bitcoin txn "pair" is not in the bitcoin chain before that block. A subsequent mastercoin-chain "txn" could set a marker that explicitly validates or invalidates the mastercoin-txn so mastercoin-only clients could exist.None of your mining, minting etc. arguments hold water because its just a fork of the existing OSS bitcoin code.But really none of these arguments matter. Its great that MC txn fees encourage bitcoin use/velocity. And if it becomes an issue for bitcoin, Bitcoin txn fees will rise to the point where you will move.In contrast, Casascius coins are technically not a service on top of Bitcoin (to transfer them you don't use the blockchain). But they ARE in their essence.But the reality is that an alt-coin is an easy way to raise money without going to VCs. And projects (especially those about money) lose steam without some funding as we are seeing with colored coins.



no worries, if someone creates a mechanism that operates on top of the existing Bitcoin blockchain just expect to be at the mercy of Gavin and crew pulling the plug on you!



LOL no worries, if someone creates a mechanism that operates on top of the existing Bitcoin blockchain just expect to be at the mercy of Gavin and crew pulling the plug on you!LOL ✰ If You Risk Nothing, You Risk Everything | PrimeDice.com | The New Way To Roll | *Thread*



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