Are people really this ignorant of BitUSD?

[xeroc]

Has there been any discussion here about Stake Grinding? I know Nothing-At-Stake has been deeply discussed around BMs blog, I thought the conclusion was it was extremely unlikely.

Out of mere curiosity, can the history of a PoS chain be hashed to the bitcoin chain to remove the possibility of such attacks? (admitted dumb non-techie question, sorry)

If i understand your question correctly, in bts you dont need hashing blockchainstate into btc .. in bts you essentially have a checkpoint whereever 51 delegates have agreed on a block .. also, the client technically cannot revert changes older than 24h(?) or so

[starspirit]

Has there been any discussion here about Stake Grinding? I know Nothing-At-Stake has been deeply discussed around BMs blog, I thought the conclusion was it was extremely unlikely.

Out of mere curiosity, can the history of a PoS chain be hashed to the bitcoin chain to remove the possibility of such attacks? (admitted dumb non-techie question, sorry)

[xeroc]

I dunno if 'send funds to an address' is a good option for cold storage..
after transferred fund to an address you cannot transfer it out until you
take the client online, else you'll get 'insufficient fund' error.
Workaround: copy the 'chain' folder from an online wallet to the offline
wallet then the fund will be usable, but it also works with registered accounts.
Multi-sig is great for cold storage imho. Use an offline wallet for signing
only.

Agreed ... multi sig makes alot of sense .. but multisig with offline siging
makes even more sense, doesn't it?

I see no reason for copying the chain folder. Also, you can always take a look
at any address in the system. Imagine you have a cold private key 5xxx... that
corresponds to addres BTS..... and you funded it with say 1M BTS and $1M (hehe)
then you can just issue

Code: [Select]

blockchain_list_address_balances BTS.....
to see the balance(s) in BTS and USD. In order to get funds out, you can
construct a raw/unsigned transaction online and let it sign offline.
That's what my scripts in
https://github.com/xeroc/bitshares-pytools/tree/master/coldstorage
are doing .. keep in mind the are not yet well documented and not well tested.
Also I'd like to find a dev that can go over the code and check if it's all ok.
But - and that's the nice thing about not using bitcoin Script - you cannot
really mess with your funds, as the client will only accept transactions that
move funds from A to B with a valid signature and you can always take a look at
the clear-text transaction to get A and B

Afaik escrow works nearly perfectly. Just need someone to put it in use.

I haven't found the time to look into escrow. I will first add the voting_key
feature to my offline signing tool before looking into escrow.

[abit]

• Unreliable cold wallets, etc. (even though xeroc has put together a nice guide, last time I tried it with 2 BitUSD, it got lost, so I would not trust it, and you shouldn't either)
• TITAN is more hassle than it's worth it - would've been nice as an "optional" feature. Transactions details got lost in the process.

Agreed ... and the coldstorage mess is basically the fault of TITAN.
But I will rewrite that howto as we now have the option to send funds to an
address! .. Also I am currently writing a offline-signing tool in python ..
Though it is also still untested ..

Please give me some time, I am working on this in my spare time and my TODO list
is endless

I dunno if 'send funds to an address' is a good option for cold storage.. after transferred fund to an address you cannot transfer it out until you take the client online, else you'll get 'insufficient fund' error. Workaround: copy the 'chain' folder from an online wallet to the offline wallet then the fund will be usable, but it also works with registered accounts.
Multi-sig is great for cold storage imho. Use an offline wallet for signing only.

• No cool use cases and example implementations - e.g. Escrow. Most of the
  code out there is written with Bitcoin script in mind. BTS should have done one
  of these: 1) Implement Bitcoin script, so that existing engines can work. 2)
  Implement Ethereum and generate some noise in the process. 3) Implement its own
  form of scripting.

IMHO it's an advantage to not use Script because you cannot mess up your funds
and read your transaction in JSON/plaintext not having to interpret the stack
ops in the correct order!
Also, the client (and delegages) do not have to "interpret" Script, which makes
it MUCH faster which we need for 10k tps.

Afaik escrow works nearly perfectly. Just need someone to put it in use.

[bitmeat]

I totally agree with that. We certainly need to distinguish block signers and
business on the blockchain. But I do not agree with simply giving out bitUSD
(although it may arguable be one of the "strongest" FIAT currencies) but pay a
variable BTS (voted by stakeholders, or fixed rate to USD, CNY, EUR, ...

Actually you are right - if it is becoming liquid it doesn't matter if it is a BitUSD or what, since the owner would convert to what they want.

That said - you could still give out a "going rate" in BTS. i.e. why not have delegates compete for how much they want to be paid. So that way the system adjusts based on its market cap automatically. Supply and demand.

i.e. if it costs you $100/month for a server, you would require at least that much in BTS (+ some premium for the services you offer). So delegates can put an offer and compete (They will still need to be voted, so that you don't get someone undercutting the market and taking all 100 positions of course).

Then development should have a separate slate.

[xeroc]

• It may be stable, but the software isn't. (although it seems to be getting incrementally better)

Agreed. Though with wallets.bitshares.org the devs made a HUGE step in the right
direction!

• Unreliable cold wallets, etc. (even though xeroc has put together a nice guide, last time I tried it with 2 BitUSD, it got lost, so I would not trust it, and you shouldn't either)
• TITAN is more hassle than it's worth it - would've been nice as an "optional" feature. Transactions details got lost in the process.

Agreed ... and the coldstorage mess is basically the fault of TITAN.
But I will rewrite that howto as we now have the option to send funds to an
address! .. Also I am currently writing a offline-signing tool in python ..
Though it is also still untested ..

Please give me some time, I am working on this in my spare time and my TODO list
is endless

• On-boarding new users has a horrible deadlock - in order to make sending and
  receiving "easy" you have to have balance to register. But to get balance out of
  an exchange you need to register. OK you say - there are existing faucets that
  will get you started, but those violate privacy in a way that most people in the
  space are not comfortable with.

On the webpage https://bitshares.org/deposit-withdraw we have
plenty of options on how to get BTS! .. maybe we should ask @monsterer to add
the ability to use plain address on metaexchange instead of already registered
account names.

• No cool use cases and example implementations - e.g. Escrow. Most of the
  code out there is written with Bitcoin script in mind. BTS should have done one
  of these: 1) Implement Bitcoin script, so that existing engines can work. 2)
  Implement Ethereum and generate some noise in the process. 3) Implement its own
  form of scripting.

IMHO it's an advantage to not use Script because you cannot mess up your funds
and read your transaction in JSON/plaintext not having to interpret the stack
ops in the correct order!
Also, the client (and delegages) do not have to "interpret" Script, which makes
it MUCH faster which we need for 10k tps.

• It is naive to think that developers/promoters/etc. "workers" should also be
  responsible for the network health by running a delegate server. This should
  have been decoupled (and still could). Make it so people can write proposals and
  business plans, but then allocated the necessary BitUSD or whatever they
  require. This would also have generated demand for BitUSD. Since you can make
  projects funded in BitUSD, but then that BitUSD would be locked in a DAC's
  account. Duh!

Let delegates be paid whatever a server costs/month + some premium in BitUSD -
that would also generate demand. i.e. you'd issue BTS and automatically purchase
BitUSD.

I totally agree with that. We certainly need to distinguish block signers and
business on the blockchain. But I do not agree with simply giving out bitUSD
(although it may arguable be one of the "strongest" FIAT currencies) but pay a
variable BTS (voted by stakeholders, or fixed rate to USD, CNY, EUR, ...

[/list]

[carpet ride]

This is a sad, sad thread. As ABL warned my similarly-minded friend, this will probably be pearls before swine, but I suppose I just can't resist the opportunity to do the right thing.

AB and GM are more than aware of Bitshares and DPoS, they just think that neither are any good, or even worth spending any time talking about. They laugh at 1:19:54 because all of the proof of stake ideas floating around today are just repeats of what was tried (and abandoned) in 2011 or earlier.

Having corresponded with Blockstream about this in particular, I know that at 1:21:28 Adam Back refers to "Working on What?" in my own anti-PoS blog post ( http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-and-mining/ or, more specifically, his post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=907157.0 ). Then they discussed Nothing-At-Stake, and finally 1:23:45 AB refers to stake-grinding (from Poelstra's paper). All of that is in my post, and, in fact, after writing my post, multiple early Bitcoin-wizards wrote to me to basically say "You seem like a smart guy, you shouldn't waste your time on this because we've all moved on a long time ago. No knowledgeable people care about proof of stake anymore. Try working on X instead."

It is as RH comments here ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/gt/a_fable_of_science_and_politics/ ). That "people who learn the answer leave the conversation".

At 1:25:05, and 1:27:08, GM is poking fun at Bitshares (among other things).

As for BitUSD, there is no clear documentation of the constantly-shifting, constantly-ridiculous technical and economic methods by which BitUSD is constructed. There are too many examples of this to list, try https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4692.msg59823 and note that "Howard" at http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/bitusd/ couldn't even source the BitUSD interest rate after several days of searching. All kinds of new, untested stuff (delegate feeds, market-matching algorithms) has been thrown together in an essentially embarrassing way.

Out.

This actually some of the most constructive criticism I've read on this forum. Thank you AI


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Really? Constructive? I read it several times to try and find something constructively critical and all I found was someone with an axe to grind and a blog to advertise.

He quotes with approval: "because we've all moved on a long time ago" and yet here he is again apparently still reading our forum for a chance to, ah, exactly what? Obsessed much?

"AB and GM are more than aware of Bitshares and DPoS, they just think that neither are any good, or even worth spending any time talking about."  That's constructive criticism? Is he a a fly on their wall, or lives in their brains that he knows what they think when they don't state it?

The post is largely a sour grapes advertisement for his own blog and project and consists almost entirely of name-dropping and speculation.

Constructive criticism my ass.

Fully agree with this. I suspect that Carpet Ride was just sarcastic.

Yes - I was being sarcastic.  The AI post is just short-sighted criticism.  I boil down his objections in an update to my post.  The result?  I just see lack of vision / lack of ability to wrap his mind around the future outcomes of the bts innovations and developments

To his point, he and others will gain clarity as more documentation is published.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bitmeat]

Issues I see with BitUSD:

• It may be stable, but the software isn't. (although it seems to be getting incrementally better)
• Unreliable cold wallets, etc. (even though xeroc has put together a nice guide, last time I tried it with 2 BitUSD, it got lost, so I would not trust it, and you shouldn't either)
• On-boarding new users has a horrible deadlock - in order to make sending and receiving "easy" you have to have balance to register. But to get balance out of an exchange you need to register. OK you say - there are existing faucets that will get you started, but those violate privacy in a way that most people in the space are not comfortable with.
• TITAN is more hassle than it's worth it - would've been nice as an "optional" feature. Transactions details got lost in the process.
• No cool use cases and example implementations - e.g. Escrow. Most of the code out there is written with Bitcoin script in mind. BTS should have done one of these: 1) Implement Bitcoin script, so that existing engines can work. 2) Implement Ethereum and generate some noise in the process. 3) Implement its own form of scripting.
• It is naive to think that developers/promoters/etc. "workers" should also be responsible for the network health by running a delegate server. This should have been decoupled (and still could). Make it so people can write proposals and business plans, but then allocated the necessary BitUSD or whatever they require. This would also have generated demand for BitUSD. Since you can make projects funded in BitUSD, but then that BitUSD would be locked in a DAC's account. Duh!

Let delegates be paid whatever a server costs/month + some premium in BitUSD - that would also generate demand. i.e. you'd issue BTS and automatically purchase BitUSD.

Then business plans should be funded separately and according to their needs. BTS stakeholders can vote on whether a project has a good potential to increase the value of BTS. If someone makes a proposal that will cost $1M but would increase value of BTS 10x, wouldn't everyone vote for it? i.e. lock 1M in BitUSD and distribute slowly as long as they meet milestones.

[oco101]

This is a sad, sad thread. As ABL warned my similarly-minded friend, this will probably be pearls before swine, but I suppose I just can't resist the opportunity to do the right thing.

AB and GM are more than aware of Bitshares and DPoS, they just think that neither are any good, or even worth spending any time talking about. They laugh at 1:19:54 because all of the proof of stake ideas floating around today are just repeats of what was tried (and abandoned) in 2011 or earlier.

Having corresponded with Blockstream about this in particular, I know that at 1:21:28 Adam Back refers to "Working on What?" in my own anti-PoS blog post ( http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-and-mining/ or, more specifically, his post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=907157.0 ). Then they discussed Nothing-At-Stake, and finally 1:23:45 AB refers to stake-grinding (from Poelstra's paper). All of that is in my post, and, in fact, after writing my post, multiple early Bitcoin-wizards wrote to me to basically say "You seem like a smart guy, you shouldn't waste your time on this because we've all moved on a long time ago. No knowledgeable people care about proof of stake anymore. Try working on X instead."

It is as RH comments here ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/gt/a_fable_of_science_and_politics/ ). That "people who learn the answer leave the conversation".

At 1:25:05, and 1:27:08, GM is poking fun at Bitshares (among other things).

As for BitUSD, there is no clear documentation of the constantly-shifting, constantly-ridiculous technical and economic methods by which BitUSD is constructed. There are too many examples of this to list, try https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4692.msg59823 and note that "Howard" at http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/bitusd/ couldn't even source the BitUSD interest rate after several days of searching. All kinds of new, untested stuff (delegate feeds, market-matching algorithms) has been thrown together in an essentially embarrassing way.

Out.

This actually some of the most constructive criticism I've read on this forum. Thank you AI


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Really? Constructive? I read it several times to try and find something constructively critical and all I found was someone with an axe to grind and a blog to advertise.

He quotes with approval: "because we've all moved on a long time ago" and yet here he is again apparently still reading our forum for a chance to, ah, exactly what? Obsessed much?

"AB and GM are more than aware of Bitshares and DPoS, they just think that neither are any good, or even worth spending any time talking about."  That's constructive criticism? Is he a a fly on their wall, or lives in their brains that he knows what they think when they don't state it?

The post is largely a sour grapes advertisement for his own blog and project and consists almost entirely of name-dropping and speculation.

Constructive criticism my ass.

Fully agree with this. I suspect that Carpet Ride was just sarcastic.

[onceuponatime]

This is a sad, sad thread. As ABL warned my similarly-minded friend, this will probably be pearls before swine, but I suppose I just can't resist the opportunity to do the right thing.

AB and GM are more than aware of Bitshares and DPoS, they just think that neither are any good, or even worth spending any time talking about. They laugh at 1:19:54 because all of the proof of stake ideas floating around today are just repeats of what was tried (and abandoned) in 2011 or earlier.

Having corresponded with Blockstream about this in particular, I know that at 1:21:28 Adam Back refers to "Working on What?" in my own anti-PoS blog post ( http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-and-mining/ or, more specifically, his post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=907157.0 ). Then they discussed Nothing-At-Stake, and finally 1:23:45 AB refers to stake-grinding (from Poelstra's paper). All of that is in my post, and, in fact, after writing my post, multiple early Bitcoin-wizards wrote to me to basically say "You seem like a smart guy, you shouldn't waste your time on this because we've all moved on a long time ago. No knowledgeable people care about proof of stake anymore. Try working on X instead."

It is as RH comments here ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/gt/a_fable_of_science_and_politics/ ). That "people who learn the answer leave the conversation".

At 1:25:05, and 1:27:08, GM is poking fun at Bitshares (among other things).

As for BitUSD, there is no clear documentation of the constantly-shifting, constantly-ridiculous technical and economic methods by which BitUSD is constructed. There are too many examples of this to list, try https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4692.msg59823 and note that "Howard" at http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/bitusd/ couldn't even source the BitUSD interest rate after several days of searching. All kinds of new, untested stuff (delegate feeds, market-matching algorithms) has been thrown together in an essentially embarrassing way.

Out.

This actually some of the most constructive criticism I've read on this forum. Thank you AI


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Really? Constructive? I read it several times to try and find something constructively critical and all I found was someone with an axe to grind and a blog to advertise.

He quotes with approval: "because we've all moved on a long time ago" and yet here he is again apparently still reading our forum for a chance to, ah, exactly what? Obsessed much?

"AB and GM are more than aware of Bitshares and DPoS, they just think that neither are any good, or even worth spending any time talking about."  That's constructive criticism? Is he a a fly on their wall, or lives in their brains that he knows what they think when they don't state it?

The post is largely a sour grapes advertisement for his own blog and project and consists almost entirely of name-dropping and speculation.

Constructive criticism my ass.

[carpet ride]

This is a sad, sad thread. As ABL warned my similarly-minded friend, this will probably be pearls before swine, but I suppose I just can't resist the opportunity to do the right thing.

AB and GM are more than aware of Bitshares and DPoS, they just think that neither are any good, or even worth spending any time talking about. They laugh at 1:19:54 because all of the proof of stake ideas floating around today are just repeats of what was tried (and abandoned) in 2011 or earlier.

Having corresponded with Blockstream about this in particular, I know that at 1:21:28 Adam Back refers to "Working on What?" in my own anti-PoS blog post ( http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-and-mining/ or, more specifically, his post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=907157.0 ). Then they discussed Nothing-At-Stake, and finally 1:23:45 AB refers to stake-grinding (from Poelstra's paper). All of that is in my post, and, in fact, after writing my post, multiple early Bitcoin-wizards wrote to me to basically say "You seem like a smart guy, you shouldn't waste your time on this because we've all moved on a long time ago. No knowledgeable people care about proof of stake anymore. Try working on X instead."

It is as RH comments here ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/gt/a_fable_of_science_and_politics/ ). That "people who learn the answer leave the conversation".

At 1:25:05, and 1:27:08, GM is poking fun at Bitshares (among other things).

As for BitUSD, there is no clear documentation of the constantly-shifting, constantly-ridiculous technical and economic methods by which BitUSD is constructed. There are too many examples of this to list, try https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4692.msg59823 and note that "Howard" at http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/bitusd/ couldn't even source the BitUSD interest rate after several days of searching. All kinds of new, untested stuff (delegate feeds, market-matching algorithms) has been thrown together in an essentially embarrassing way.

Out.

This is actually some of the most constructive criticism I've read on this forum. Thank you AI

However, the only boiled down points I can find to take away is that you see the system as young and unproven, and that there is no way to move beyond that stage without documentation.  Can you give us any other boiled down criticisms that don't fit into those categories?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CLains]

I agree, people are aware of it, they just don't like it. People can't quite put their finger on what it is though, so they keep rationalizing it, arguing about this or that instead. It's like a pesky thing that's right outside the corner of their eyes that they can't quite catch hold of. What could it be?

[AsymmetricInformation]

This is a sad, sad thread. As ABL warned my similarly-minded friend, this will probably be pearls before swine, but I suppose I just can't resist the opportunity to do the right thing.

AB and GM are more than aware of Bitshares and DPoS, they just think that neither are any good, or even worth spending any time talking about. They laugh at 1:19:54 because all of the proof of stake ideas floating around today are just repeats of what was tried (and abandoned) in 2011 or earlier.

Having corresponded with Blockstream about this in particular, I know that at 1:21:28 Adam Back refers to "Working on What?" in my own anti-PoS blog post ( http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-and-mining/ or, more specifically, his post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=907157.0 ). Then they discussed Nothing-At-Stake, and finally 1:23:45 AB refers to stake-grinding (from Poelstra's paper). All of that is in my post, and, in fact, after writing my post, multiple early Bitcoin-wizards wrote to me to basically say "You seem like a smart guy, you shouldn't waste your time on this because we've all moved on a long time ago. No knowledgeable people care about proof of stake anymore. Try working on X instead."

It is as RH comments here ( http://lesswrong.com/lw/gt/a_fable_of_science_and_politics/ ). That "people who learn the answer leave the conversation".

At 1:25:05, and 1:27:08, GM is poking fun at Bitshares (among other things).

As for BitUSD, there is no clear documentation of the constantly-shifting, constantly-ridiculous technical and economic methods by which BitUSD is constructed. There are too many examples of this to list, try https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4692.msg59823 and note that "Howard" at http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/bitusd/ couldn't even source the BitUSD interest rate after several days of searching. All kinds of new, untested stuff (delegate feeds, market-matching algorithms) has been thrown together in an essentially embarrassing way.

Out.

[matthewmorganstein]

I get lots of criticism for my posts but I'm usually not shunned. They are at least effective in getting eyeballs in our direction. It would be really useful to have a list of rebuttals, especially towards all those negative articles.

[mdj]

One obvious useful task to put PR/marketing to, would be to contact all those central to blockchain tech development and suggest where BitShares is up to. Those people should be easy to find.. core devs of all the key projects etc. That would need to be done in a careful way that is not at all critical of others but a simple statement to pique their interest and perhaps also note a standing opportunity to work with BitShares, where that can be useful to all sides - perhaps there are devs with time to spare who might get drawn in. Such a statement could then be technical beyond the normal blurb. There must be devs out there looking for opportunities. Blatant selling re delegates perhaps would not go down well but a friendly handshake might work. Perhaps marketing can resolve the mailing list and bytemaster could be writing then to Sunny et al.

I expect there must be certain elements of many projects that could be made easier pooling experience, network stability might be one. Perhaps that's already happening behind the scenes but having seen other Bitcoin devs talk at the London conference, as if they are ignorant of BitShares, there might be a easy win to be had there educating them about BitShares.

 

One concern is the very blatant attempts at marketing by Bitshares users though - it just triggers people to shun it and call them shills.