Feedback-ID: i525146e8:Fastmail
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2022 15:17:37 -0400
From: Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>
To: Keagan McClelland <keagan.mcclelland@gmail.com>,
 Bitcoin Protocol Discussion <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Message-ID: <YrS8URqD/BW4UrP0@petertodd.org>
References: <mailman.9.1654344003.14400.bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
 <CAHTn92zw_MaSKWiZGhGFqFYXJxv6kQ+7=XCHbRLim1jhtEsVVQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJowKgJ8GP4Ykzn5dMHZ7wsE04YmpOLgTpdc9tgfVng0qB0Jjg@mail.gmail.com>
 <YqVfTU0M7XN8+Ybu@petertodd.org>
 <Pwr9EFLSv2rU7nXRzqFuw2LPxpFo22g_qYy4reQzpMuSlgRzTG536uLjZCc9sI43olReGMA7BFgjnxJGKtZNtxU7qRy_-YYOnz6TeMy4h8Q=@protonmail.com>
 <Yq77CnxOhr615ip8@petertodd.org>
 <CAAxiura7-TTUOg=vuH8q+orX+LVED74f+NvaYqVve3j--CjTMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJowKgL=nVwnUrpSKmnsTxOfk3DEEZL7awG=HypyCXSR3XCLxg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALeFGL0CQC4_swZTt-=sbe=ZiCmRthZghGDtrWFx5bQCBeOJcg@mail.gmail.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha512;
 protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="4NEoio4n8h4XRnwt"
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <CALeFGL0CQC4_swZTt-=sbe=ZiCmRthZghGDtrWFx5bQCBeOJcg@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin covenants are inevitable
Precedence: list


--4NEoio4n8h4XRnwt
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On Tue, Jun 21, 2022 at 01:00:07PM -0600, Keagan McClelland via bitcoin-dev=
 wrote:
> > The PoW security of Bitcoin benefits all Bitcoin users, proportional to
> the
> value of BTC they hold; if Bitcoin blocks aren't reliably created the val=
ue
> of
> *all* BTC goes down. It doesn't make sense for the entire cost of that
> security
> to be paid for on a per-tx basis. And there's a high chance paying for it
> on a
> per-tx basis won't work anyway due to lack of consistent demand.
>=20
> FWIW I prefer the demurrage route. Having something with finite supply as=
 a
> means of measuring economic activity is unprecedented and I believe deeply
> important. I'm sympathetic to the argument that the security of the chain
> should not be solely the responsibility of transactors. We realize the
> value of money on receipt, hold *and* spend and it would be appropriate f=
or
> there to be a balance of fees to that effect. While inflation may be
> simpler to implement (just chop off the last few halvings), I think it
> would be superior (on the assumption that such a hodl tax was necessary) =
to
> keep the supply fixed and have people's utxo balances decay, at least at
> the level of the UX.

Demurrage makes protocols like Lightning much more complex, and isn't
compatible with existing implementations. While demurrage could in theory be
implemented in a soft-fork by forcing txs to contain an output with the
demurrage-taxed amount, spending to a pool of future mining fees, I really
don't think it's practical to actually do that.

Anyway, demurrage and inflation have identical economic properties. They're
both a tax on savings. The only difference is the way that tax is implement=
ed.

--=20
https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org

--4NEoio4n8h4XRnwt
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQEzBAEBCgAdFiEEFcyURjhyM68BBPYTJIFAPaXwkfsFAmK0vE0ACgkQJIFAPaXw
kfuuFgf/etzuBqQ0lEYQh9NMC4ngtKDIFasTgmHRtGENpnqVOvjPR9+zB+XyFSw1
TAHcw5OpgzCPUZ4xnuDMu2jUTYSqbzvexXOz5YxNQu3HpViV7Ot/eIH4SHd/j8lz
7pGRnybHUcjGT3spZgqjLWJ2ihffTbvIn5TVYPK3CSVU9fMPBIECwTFETKrggE2G
2W9E5oceseSGhaWxikumLlHby1gxGrmWHLzVGWq0OTJm32BLs7q5fgOnsDhgFIND
a0xoFVBxZjjDWdeXwVWjTYwC3LCY9okL5LM3dcjLg+UwFQecQJ007Zk/+HXAgEGC
1dChNu6POUrrLExaLR0WdRNciZs+sQ==
=c0Ef
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--4NEoio4n8h4XRnwt--