📅 Original date posted:2021-07-04
📝 Original message:On Sun, Jul 04, 2021 at 11:39:44AM -0700, Jeremy wrote:
> However, I think the broader community is unconvinced by the cost benefit
> of arbitrary covenants. See
> https://medium.com/block-digest-mempool/my-worries-about-too-generalized-covenants-5eff33affbb6
> as a recent example. Therefore as a critical part of building consensus on
> various techniques I've worked to emphasize that specific additions do not
> entail risk of accidentally introducing more than was bargained for to
> respect the concerns of others.
Respecting the concerns of others doesn't require lobotomizing useful
tools. Being respectful can also be accomplished by politely showing
that their concerns are unfounded (or at least less severe than they
thought). This is almost always the better course IMO---it takes much
more effort to satisfy additional engineering constraints (and prove to
reviewers that you've done so!) than it does to simply discuss those
concerns with reasonable stakeholders. As a demonstration, let's look
at the concerns from Shinobi's post linked above:
They seem to be worried that some Bitcoin users will choose to accept
coins that can't subsequently be fungibily mixed with other bitcoins.
But that's already been the case for a decade: users can accept altcoins
that are non-fungible with bitcoins.
They talk about covenants where spending is controlled by governments,
but that seems to me exactly like China's CBDC trial.
They talk about exchanges depositing users' BTC into a covenant, but
that's just a variation on the classic not-your-keys-not-your-bitcoins
problem. For all you know, your local exchange is keeping most of its
BTC balance commitments in ETH or USDT.
To me, it seems like the worst-case problems Shinobi describes with
covenants are some of the same problems that already exist with
altcoins. I don't see how recursive covenants could make any of those
problems worse, and so I don't see any point in limiting Bitcoin's
flexibility to avoid those problems when there are so many interesting
and useful things that unlimited covenants could do.
-Dave
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David A. Harding [ARCHIVE] /
npub16d…x4wrd
2023-06-08 00:56:21
in reply to nevent1q…afhr
Author Public Key
npub16dt55fpq3a8r6zpphd9xngxr46zzqs75gna9cj5vf8pknyv2d7equx4wrdPublished at
2023-06-08 00:56:21Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2021-07-04\n📝 Original message:On Sun, Jul 04, 2021 at 11:39:44AM -0700, Jeremy wrote:\n\u003e However, I think the broader community is unconvinced by the cost benefit\n\u003e of arbitrary covenants. See\n\u003e https://medium.com/block-digest-mempool/my-worries-about-too-generalized-covenants-5eff33affbb6\n\u003e as a recent example. Therefore as a critical part of building consensus on\n\u003e various techniques I've worked to emphasize that specific additions do not\n\u003e entail risk of accidentally introducing more than was bargained for to\n\u003e respect the concerns of others.\n\nRespecting the concerns of others doesn't require lobotomizing useful\ntools. Being respectful can also be accomplished by politely showing\nthat their concerns are unfounded (or at least less severe than they\nthought). This is almost always the better course IMO---it takes much\nmore effort to satisfy additional engineering constraints (and prove to\nreviewers that you've done so!) than it does to simply discuss those\nconcerns with reasonable stakeholders. As a demonstration, let's look\nat the concerns from Shinobi's post linked above:\n\nThey seem to be worried that some Bitcoin users will choose to accept\ncoins that can't subsequently be fungibily mixed with other bitcoins.\nBut that's already been the case for a decade: users can accept altcoins\nthat are non-fungible with bitcoins.\n\nThey talk about covenants where spending is controlled by governments,\nbut that seems to me exactly like China's CBDC trial.\n\nThey talk about exchanges depositing users' BTC into a covenant, but \nthat's just a variation on the classic not-your-keys-not-your-bitcoins\nproblem. For all you know, your local exchange is keeping most of its\nBTC balance commitments in ETH or USDT.\n\nTo me, it seems like the worst-case problems Shinobi describes with\ncovenants are some of the same problems that already exist with\naltcoins. I don't see how recursive covenants could make any of those\nproblems worse, and so I don't see any point in limiting Bitcoin's\nflexibility to avoid those problems when there are so many interesting\nand useful things that unlimited covenants could do.\n\n-Dave\n-------------- next part --------------\nA non-text attachment was scrubbed...\nName: signature.asc\nType: application/pgp-signature\nSize: 833 bytes\nDesc: not available\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20210704/141168f5/attachment.sig\u003e",
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