Sick of the price threads? - [bitcoin-dev] Two Drivechain BIPs

This was already submitted but amidst the price posts it may have never received proper attention.

Direct Link.

Modified:

Hello,

First, Drivechain has vaguely escaped vaporware status. If you've ever thought "I'd like to take a look into Drivechain when there is code", then now is a pretty good time. (Unfinished items include M1, and M8_V2.)

http://bit.ly/2ADaPCq

Also,

Site: http://bit.ly/2iAp3Nu

Blank sidechain: http://bit.ly/2ABcZlZ

Second, I think drivechain's documentation / BIP-Drafts are tolerably readable.

Here they are:

1. http://bit.ly/2iCU3wn
2. http://bit.ly/2AD9k7p

cc: /u/luke-jr , I think they are ready to be assigned formal BIP Numbers.

This is also a request for code review. The most helpful review will probably take place on GitHub.

Regular review is also welcome. Although, please read our recently-updated FAQ, at: http://bit.ly/2khz3eT .

And also see major earlier discussions:

http://bit.ly/2iDBxUq

http://bit.ly/2ABvmaB

Have a nice weekend everyone,

Paul

Hashrate Escrow

Abstract

A "Hashrate Escrow" is a clearer term for the concept of "locked to an SPV Proof", which is itself a restatement of the phrase "within a sidechain" as described in a famous Oct 2014 paper written partially by some Blockstream co-founders.

The concept resembles a 2-of-3 multisig escrow, where the 3rd party (who will arbitrate any disputes) is the set of Bitcoin Miners. However, miners do not sign the transaction with a private key. Instead, they sign it by directing hashpower over it for a period of time.

This project has a website which includes a FAQ.

Motivation

In practice these escrows are likely to be "asymmetric sidechains" of Bitcoin (such as Rootstock) or "virtual chains" within Bitcoin (such as proposed by Blockstack in mid-2016).

Sidechains have potential benefits, including:

1. Protect Bitcoin from competition from altcoins and spinoffs. Safely allow competing implementations (of sidechains).
2. Protect Bitcoin from hard fork campaigns. (Such campaigns represent an existential threat to Bitcoin, as well as an avenue for developer corruption.)
3. Help with review, by making it must easier for reviewers to ignore bad ideas.
4. Provide an avenue for good-but-confusing ideas to prove their value safely.

Blind Merged Mining

Abstract

Blind Merged Mining (BMM) is a way of mining special extension blocks, ie "sidechains". It produces strong guarantees that the block is valid, for any arbitrary set of rules; and yet it does so without requiring miners to actually do any validation on the block whatsoever.

BMM actually is a process that spans two or more chains. For an explanation of the "whole picture", please see this post. Here we focus on the modifications to mainchain Bitcoin.

To support BMM, the mainchain is asked to accomplish two goals:

1. Track a set of ordered hashes (the merged-mining).
2. Allow miners to "sell" the act of finding a sidechain block (through the use of a new extended serialization transaction type). These goals are accomplished by forcing nodes to validate two new messages (M7, M8), and track data in one new database (D3).

Motivation

Regular "Merged-Mining" (MM) allows miners to reuse their hashing work to secure other chains (for example, as in Namecoin). However, traditional MM has two drawbacks:

1. Miners must run a full node of the other chain. (This is because [while miners can effortlessly create the block] miners will not create a valid payment to themselves, unless the block that they MM is a valid one. Therefore, miners must assemble a valid block first, then MM it.)
2. Miners are paid on the other chain, not on the regular BTC mainchain. For example, miners who MM Namecoin will earn NMC (and they will need to sell the NMC for BTC, before selling the BTC in order to pay for electricity). Blind Merged-Mining (BMM) attempts to address those shortcomings.

Submitted December 02, 2017 at 07:07AM by StopAndDecrypt http://bit.ly/2kggHLo