Author Topic: Sidechains paper released: The end of altcoins?  (Read 3491 times)

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Offline luckybit

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The concept of tree chains is FAR better than side chains IMO.

The concept does seem better but once again only Peter Todd at this point fully understands it well enough to implement it. So you have a technology which only he can implement. You have side chains which has several people who can implement it so even if it is inferior the amount of brain power backing the idea surpasses tree chains.

I think a good long term strategy for Bitshares might be to consolidate brain power through strategic crypto mergers and crypto acquisitions. If it's about innovation then it's about making stakeholders out of whomever has the brain power.

I still think they are a threat not because of their specific plan or technical idea but because they have a lot of brain power combined with financial resources. They have the ability to actually implement their ideas while in our community maybe only you have the ability to implement DPoS side chains.

They also have a community 1000x the size of ours to evangelize these innovations.

I don't think at this point community size matters. Their community is actually extremely small and it's so early on that there isn't much of a network advantage. Bitcoin might have 5 million people who use it but that doesn't even matter.

How many of those 5 million use it regularly and are active members of Bitcointalk? How many of those 5 million know Bitcoin well enough to contribute to development on any level? How many can explain what treechains is, side chains or any of that?

At the end of the day it's about brain power not network effect. Consolidate brain power so you win the innovation race and network effect could be achieved once the masses discover the technology which could be in a few years.

The first technology to have a few million users doesn't mean people are loyal to that technology. If you've been online for the past 20 years then you know most of the websites and technologies which were once popular lost popularity. First mover advantage doesn't seem to be very strong in technology.

Have a look at search engines and see that Google won the battle by getting the brain power necessary to innovate at a faster rate. Their algorithm was better, their marketing was better, and the most brilliant move from them was Gmail. If you look at instant message apps then you would see that Skype wasn't very popular 5 - 6 years ago, and that the most favored app keeps changing. Internet browsers it's the same story, there is a technology which leads for a few years until eventually they rest easy, stop innovating, and fall behind to something better.

Innovation and marketing seem to be what matters. If you lose your innovative lead then you only seem to be able to last until the competitor figures out marketing. Bitcoin as a community hasn't figured out marketing yet and they don't have an innovative advantage. They do have a brain power advantage though so this is something to make note of.

« Last Edit: October 22, 2014, 08:05:38 pm by luckybit »
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Offline Method-X

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I still think they are a threat not because of their specific plan or technical idea but because they have a lot of brain power combined with financial resources. They have the ability to actually implement their ideas while in our community maybe only you have the ability to implement DPoS side chains.

They also have a community 1000x the size of ours to evangelize these innovations.

Offline cryptillionaire

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The concept of tree chains is FAR better than side chains IMO.

Offline luckybit

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... there will be many opportunities for DPoS chains to merge with altcoins
And all of us can be happy .. because we will have the first-mover-advantage here :)
we already have our first merging happening in just a few weeks from now

In April I promoted the idea to merge. I did not expect Bytemaster to merge Bitshares DACs but it seems the intention is the same. Consolidation of resources and marketing.

When you create new stakeholders who would have been competitors it's how you win. Governments do this, large corporations do this, because it is effective.  I just wish more time was given to discuss this so that consensus could have formed neatly. The process was disordered and  rushed.

I think third party DAC developers need to develop a formal process for doing mergers. Maybe also  generate some philosophical and technical framework so people know the tools they have for doing mergers. Bytemaster, Stan and others should discuss what tools we have and promote development in the Bitshares toolkit of features to make formal mergers a smooth process.

I dont htink its totally worked out.. Peter Todd is still skeptical about the 2 way peg between the chains and how a 51% attack on the smaller sidechain can cause an attack on the main chain, thus giving incentive to attack a small chain at the to be able to gain access to the main chain (this is what I got from the quick read on reddit).

Suddenly Merge-mining never looked better for POW alts.

I think it is a significant threat because they have a lot of brain power and resources to keep grinding at it until it becomes a threat. It's their first whitepaper and you can be sure it will be revised until it does threaten the whole altcoin industry.

The altcoin industry is going to have to consolidate at some point. Crypto mergers is how consolidation will happen.

DPOS side chains are how we plan on scaling BTS.   

Our benefit is that the same delegates can sign all chains. 

This method is still dependent upon miners and side chains that use POW... it defines POW as a Dynamic Membership Multi-Party Signature and relies on SPV client validation rules and atomic cross chain trading.

Not really a threat in my opinion.

Interesting. What are DPoS side chains? can you describe this because this is the first I'm hearing of that. I think it's great if you have something planned.

I still think they are a threat not because of their specific plan or technical idea but because they have a lot of brain power combined with financial resources. They have the ability to actually implement their ideas while in our community maybe only you have the ability to implement DPoS side chains.
So could someone create a BitUSD sidechain for Bitcoin? Could a DPOS variant plug into Bitcoin?

That's the trillion dollar question, IMO.

Without yet reading or comprehending the significance of this - I would like to know if this pretty much simplifies the debate down to what we knew was coming:

PoW vs DPoS?

I think we need to re-open that debate. I'm still in favor of DPoS because it's a more efficient design but I think even if PoW is less efficient there are enough developers who will spend many many hours doing whatever they can to save PoW. Side chains to me seem like an overly complex solution which further centralizes not just mining but developer talent as well because so few people know how side chains work.

Tree chains are no better because so few people know how that works. These are exotic solutions which might work but which are very hard to explain.

I think we need at some point to make it known to the community what sort of tools DPoS chains have at their disposal. We also need to know that there is a long term strategy to maintain competitive and innovative advantages of DPoS chains. These advantages can be maintained by technical, political or marketing mechanisms.

« Last Edit: October 22, 2014, 07:56:32 pm by luckybit »
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Offline jsidhu

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I dont htink its totally worked out.. Peter Todd is still skeptical about the 2 way peg between the chains and how a 51% attack on the smaller sidechain can cause an attack on the main chain, thus giving incentive to attack a small chain at the to be able to gain access to the main chain (this is what I got from the quick read on reddit).

Suddenly Merge-mining never looked better for POW alts.
« Last Edit: October 22, 2014, 07:22:45 pm by jsidhu »
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Offline bytemaster

DPOS side chains are how we plan on scaling BTS.   

Our benefit is that the same delegates can sign all chains. 

This method is still dependent upon miners and side chains that use POW... it defines POW as a Dynamic Membership Multi-Party Signature and relies on SPV client validation rules and atomic cross chain trading.

Not really a threat in my opinion.
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Offline Rune

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That being said, I'm super excited for this. I've been waiting for those freaking side chains for 6 months and now they are finally out. Will be awesome to see what they come up with.

Offline Rune

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So could someone create a BitUSD sidechain for Bitcoin? Could a DPOS variant plug into Bitcoin?

That's the trillion dollar question, IMO.

Without yet reading or comprehending the significance of this - I would like to know if this pretty much simplifies the debate down to what we knew was coming:

PoW vs DPoS?

DPOS wins because "miners" do useful work (delegates competing for authority by developing, marketing, etc.). PoW miners burn work.

Offline Helikopterben

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So could someone create a BitUSD sidechain for Bitcoin? Could a DPOS variant plug into Bitcoin?

Yes using m of n oracle sidechains.  http://gavintech.blogspot.com

Offline bobmaloney

So could someone create a BitUSD sidechain for Bitcoin? Could a DPOS variant plug into Bitcoin?

That's the trillion dollar question, IMO.

Without yet reading or comprehending the significance of this - I would like to know if this pretty much simplifies the debate down to what we knew was coming:

PoW vs DPoS?
"The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
- Jack Handey (SNL)

Offline Method-X

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So could someone create a BitUSD sidechain for Bitcoin? Could a DPOS variant plug into Bitcoin?

Offline donkeypong

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Mergers can be good. When there's not that much capitalization to go around, it makes sense for marginal coins to merge. All the same, I'm not sure that plugging Franko into Mintcoin is necessarily going to solve everyone's problems. At least, those that continue may be more meaningful. And hopefully, BitShares will be the most meaningful of all, since it's far more than a coin.

I definitely think there is a perceived social need for many individualistic coins. Even if most of them are shit, they mean something to the creators and community. There's a lot more potential there. If someone really establishes a coin and can allow others to brand it themselves while using the same chain/market cap/exchange value, then we could see companies and individuals doing their own promotional coins as part of this.

But that's gimmicky and I'd rather focus on BitShares. There will be plenty of interesting assets and DACs here.

Offline xeroc

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... there will be many opportunities for DPoS chains to merge with altcoins
And all of us can be happy .. because we will have the first-mover-advantage here :)
we already have our first merging happening in just a few weeks from now

Offline luckybit

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http://www.blockstream.com/sidechains.pdf

This paper could be why the Bitshares technology may be merging.  The community divided is less competitive.

Personally I would have done the merger different. I proposed some merger ideas between the Bitshares community and other Proof of Stake communities. However it does make sense to unit DPoS over time as long as it does not hurt the investors of class 2013 and class 2014.

Stakeholder analysis is important and should be conducted prior to crypto mergers. The crypto-merger process is a way to unite stakeholders around a technology.

If you don't like how Bytemaster conducted this crypto-merger and you think you could do better there will be many opportunities for DPoS chains to merge with altcoins. In fact any third party DAC can do a sharedrop on any altcoin which agrees to sharedrop on it, and the vesting period could be set to a variable interval schedule so that no one can dump the price.

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