SegWit hazards and how to avoid them - Bitcoin Forex Loans Insurance Busines

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Saturday, September 30, 2017

SegWit hazards and how to avoid them

Bitcoin worked smoothly for six years until Blockstream managed to gain control of the client founded by Satoshi Nakamoto using a tactic that will likely be remembered as "the blitzkrieg on Bitcoinlandia". In 2014, after this sudden breakthrough, many still believed that Blockstream, far from being the spearhead of financial elites fiat world , as is obvious to those heights - it was a "Red Hat" Bitcoin coming to contribute to developing open source . However, the intentions of the Blockstream boys soon became evident when the chagrin of economically alfabetizados- bitcoiners were erected in central planners of Bitcoin .

Today it is very easy to predict movements Blockstream / Core -only one wonders what he would do under the same circumstances - Stalin, but at that time the organization had not yet begun to show teeth at anyone who dared to question his " sheet route ", and it was natural that people grant him the benefit of the doubt.

Today we know that the only thing that satisfies the Blockstream boys is total and absolute control over the protocol; otherwise they could not impose their new system. Here's why we call cryptoleninistas , or bitcomunistas-; not only because of their ignorance of the most basic concepts of economics, but mainly by the methods totalitarian with those seeking to maintain the forced integration ( "if you like, bad luck'm in charge here") against supporters the independence ( "if you do not like, you're free to escindirte").

If we had the posibildad rescue, fork using the original idea of ​​Bitcoin, we would be condemned by Blockstream / Core to pay ever higher rates until the limit of 1 MB requires us -as well as has already forced many users- to abandon the block chain.

Each motivated by discontent with the effects of planning fork centralized looking unfurl the sails of Bitcoin to build on the momentum of economic forces repressed by Blockstream / Core. But the problem of the roadmap Blockstream / Core is not only the imposition of a limit arbitrary size of the blocks; even worse effects could lead to the adoption of SegWit , the new format intended transaction ( intended ?) force us to use, and that would enable the construction of gardens walled on the ruins of Bitcoin. Let 's see why.

Dangerously distorted incentives SegWit

Although, in general terms, the agreement SegWit2X had me excited, SegWit failure has stated Peter Rizun (formerly discussed by Peter Todd) makes it unacceptably dangerous. As I fear that the community has not yet realized the full extent of the problem, I want to explain it from a different angle.

Why the miners verify the signatures?

Miners verify the signatures to eliminate the risk of building your block on an invalid block.

We should note that this risk is incredibly low. Create an invalid block is a waste of money, so generally invalid blocks are rare (order of magnitude of 0.001%).

Fortunately for Bitcoin, the cost of verifying signatures is also incredibly low. Using  libsecp256k [N. T .: function that accelerates the validation of signatures] and modern hardware, it only takes a few microseconds per signature.

The reason why the cost of verifying signatures is so low is that anyway necessary download. This is because until you have not downloaded all firms no way to verify which transactions were already included and therefore it is not possible to know which transactions can be included safely in the next block. So you can only undermine an empty block, no fees.

The effect of this can be seen in the mining strategy called first header-mining, mining or SPY. When they find a header (header), miners obtain an empty block, and only start to include transactions MemPool once downloaded all bytes in that block.

¿Que cambia followed?

With SegWit transactions, firms are indirectly included through Coinbase [N. T .: Coinbase is the field of the first transaction included in a block that serves the miners to claim his reward]. This means that miners do not need to download the signatures to verify which transactions are included in the block.

This unbalances the incentive system to verify signatures.

Needless to say, this description is not accurate. It is not possible to quantify the costs and risks so easily, and there is no reason to suppose that SegWit alter that balance for all miners. In fact, there are several mitigating factors to consider:

Minar an invalid block is not only a direct cost for the loss of rewards, but also the indirect cost for the damage that this causes both as investment Bitcoin miners.

Since signatures are required for transactions that are in the MemPool (awaiting confirmation), gains from not download signatures are limited to the set of unrelated transactions MemPool.

In many cases, the total bandwidth is less limited than the maximum bandwidth. Miners may employ a strategy three stages: start with empty blocks (header-first); Then, as they are including transactions, collect fees; and then continue downloading signatures in the background.

However, it is undeniable that (with SegWit) have been distorted incentives. Even worse, we can expect that over time are distorted even more.

This is because the cost of downloading signatures increases as the blocks grow, while the risk of an invalid block decreases as the price increases.

Why is this dangerous?

Because if in the future the balance is broken for some N> 0 percent of the miners, they are the ones who will benefit from not download signatures.

Consequently, transactions SegWit be less secure than non-SegWit transactions. A non-SegWit transaction is safe provided that no attacker to control 51% of computing power, while a transaction is secure SegWit provided that no attacker to control the 51-N% of computing power.

Therefore, if we have a disadvantage for 20% of miners (say smaller, many of which have a restricted bandwidth) A miner who controls 31% of the computing power could start stealing transactions SegWit!

The problem is much greater than the attack itself. We can not easily estimate the value of N, so even before N becomes too large and an attack occurs, it is likely that the security of a transaction involving SegWit is less than that of a non-SegWit transaction, and therefore will be less valuable. Although only a few companies stop accepting transactions SegWit for this reason, this would destroy one of the most important properties of Bitcoin: fungibility.

We must not play with the delicate balance of incentives that sustains Bitcoin.

And how do we solve the problem of malleability ? [N. T .: SegWit supporters argue that one of its advantages is that solving the problem of malleability.]

Said failure is not related to the solution of the problem of malleability. It is not caused by the solution of the problem of malleability by a softfork. Not caused by standard update mechanism-can-spend anyone "anyone-can-spend."

For example, this fault is not in the proposal BIP 140 Christian Decker to solve the problem of a softfork malleability, or a simple solution by a hardfork.

This fault is a simple but disastrous side effects caused by SegWit attempt to solve the problem of the malleability incorrectly.

And it's completely preventable.

Tomás van der Wansem, desarrollador de Bitcrust

Then do not say no we will advise.

If you're a depositor with an eye on the long run, you do not have to do anything. You can re-take a look at 2, 5 or 10 years to see if there is a single chain or more than one, and sell coins of any chain that will not serve. Meanwhile, you have the option of using different alternatives which you will be automatically invested (could be Bitcoin Cash , or chain arising from the agreement NY, or some other, if none of these initiatives were to succeed).

The spawn of SegWit, with faces and unpredictable transactions have made much damage Bitcoin only be inevitable in the chain controlled by Blockstream / Core. But no one can force you to use it.

The main chain blocks release of disability imposed by Blockstream, or a chain will be a product of a fork. Either way, Satoshi chain will live .

Remember that Bitcoin is not a sprint, it's a marathon .