Received: from sog-mx-3.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com ([172.29.43.193] helo=mx.sourceforge.net) by sfs-ml-2.v29.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1Yxjix-00004t-Sc for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Wed, 27 May 2015 22:22:55 +0000 Received-SPF: pass (sog-mx-3.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com: domain of gmail.com designates 209.85.213.182 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.213.182; envelope-from=gmaxwell@gmail.com; helo=mail-ig0-f182.google.com; Received: from mail-ig0-f182.google.com ([209.85.213.182]) by sog-mx-3.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtps (TLSv1:RC4-SHA:128) (Exim 4.76) id 1Yxjiv-000744-SI for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Wed, 27 May 2015 22:22:55 +0000 Received: by igbjd9 with SMTP id jd9so10423086igb.1 for ; Wed, 27 May 2015 15:22:48 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.107.7.84 with SMTP id 81mr44422100ioh.28.1432765368454; Wed, 27 May 2015 15:22:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.107.147.213 with HTTP; Wed, 27 May 2015 15:22:48 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: <5550D8BE.6070207@electrum.org> Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 22:22:48 +0000 Message-ID: From: Gregory Maxwell To: Mike Hearn Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Spam-Score: -1.6 (-) X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by mx.sourceforge.net. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. -1.5 SPF_CHECK_PASS SPF reports sender host as permitted sender for sender-domain 0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is commonly abused enduser mail provider (gmaxwell[at]gmail.com) -0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record -0.1 DKIM_VALID_AU Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from author's domain 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily valid -0.1 DKIM_VALID Message has at least one valid DKIM or DK signature 0.0 AWL AWL: Adjusted score from AWL reputation of From: address X-Headers-End: 1Yxjiv-000744-SI Cc: Bitcoin Development Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Long-term mining incentives X-BeenThere: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 22:22:55 -0000 On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 9:59 PM, Mike Hearn wrote: > I wrote an article that explains the hashing assurance contract concept: > > https://medium.com/@octskyward/hashing-7d04a887acc8 > > (it doesn't contain an in depth protocol description) The prior (and seemingly this) assurance contract proposals pay the miners who mines a chain supportive of your interests and miners whom mine against your interests identically. There is already a mechanism built into Bitcoin for paying for security which doesn't have this problem, and which mitigates the common action problem of people just sitting around for other people to pay for security: transaction fees. Fixing the problem with assurance contracts effectively makes them end up working like transaction fees in any case. Considering the near-failure in just keeping development funded, I'm not sure where the believe this this model will be workable comes from; in particular unlike a lighthouse (but like development) security is ongoing and not primarily a fixed one time cost. I note that many existing crowdfunding platforms (including your own) do not do ongoing costs with this kind of binary contract. Also work reminding people that mining per-contract is a long identified existential risk to Bitcoin which has been seeing more analysis lately: http://www.jbonneau.com/doc/BFGKN14-bitcoin_bribery.pdf