bitcoin-dev Digest, Vol 31, Issue 22

Reply to dead man's switch,

Since this topic as gone un-technical,

People can already place a timer on transactions with the script to send funds if not moved for a given period,

And people are responsible adults, trying to take ahead of every possible future human error from the protocol perspective looks more like french socialism than bitcoinism

Le 11 déc. 2017 19:32, <bitcoin-dev-request@lists•linuxfoundation•org> a écrit :

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: BIP - Dead Man's Switch (Radoslaw Biernacki)
   2. Re: BIP - Dead Man's Switch (Pieter Wuille)
   3. Re: BIP - Dead Man's Switch (Chris Riley)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 19:13:26 +0100
From: Radoslaw Biernacki <radoslaw.biernacki@gmail•com>
To: Teweldemedhin Aberra <teweldemat@gmail•com>,        Bitcoin Protocol
        Discussion <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP - Dead Man's Switch
Message-ID:
        <CADp3C4vfL8yE4C8T5nU_qpOOLkDP+eMwM_pXmbdB0Nj0vbJHUg@mail•gmail•com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Aside from that such change would require a hard fork it also violates one of basic rules of bitcoin, which has long term consequences for miners and for whole Bitcoin economy. In short, after altering the supply limit it would not be "bitcoin" anymore.

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 6:30 PM, Teweldemedhin Aberra via bitcoin-dev < bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> wrote:

> It is estimated that about 4 million of the about 16.4 Bitcoins ever mined
> are lost forever because no one knows the private keys of some Bitcoin
> addresses. This effectively mean there are actually only 14.4 million
> Bitcoins in circulation even though 16.4 million are mined. There is no

way

> of eliminating the human errors that cause these losses of Bitcoin from
> circulation, while the number of Bitcoin that will ever be mined is capped
> at 21 million. This means the total number of Bitcoins that are in
> circulation will eventually become zero, bringing the network to an end.
>
> The solution this BIP proposes is to implementing a dead man's switch to
> Bitcoin addresses. The dead man's switch causes the Bitcoins assigned to
> dormant addresses to automatically expire. A Bitcoin address is deemed
> dormant if it is not used in transactions for some fixed length of time,
> say ten years.
>
> The calculation of the miner's reward should take into account the
> Bitcoins that has expired. This means there is a possibility that miner's
> reward can increase if sufficient number of Bitcoins expire.
>
> Ref:
>
> http://fortune.com/2017/11/25/lost-bitcoins/
>
>
>
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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2017 10:26:40 -0800
From: Pieter Wuille <pieter.wuille@gmail•com>
To: Nick Pudar <nick@pudar•com>,        Bitcoin Dev
        <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP - Dead Man's Switch
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        <CAPg+sBi9nYHCcN8ct=_iqWuxDFU1cPwBfbfF8WPX-w+kf6hzfQ@mail•gmail•com>
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On Dec 11, 2017 10:23, "Nick Pudar via bitcoin-dev" < bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> wrote:

This topic has come up several times in recent years. While it is well intentioned, it can have devastating outcomes for people that want to save long term. If such a system were implemented, it would force people to move funds around in order to not get nullified. In that process, it introduces multiple opportunities for errors. Cold storage should be able to stay cold. I personally would be apprehensive about implementing this kind of a system.

Furthermore, if it rewards miners with funds that are expired, it creates terrible incentives. Miners in their best interest could choose to censor transactions that move funds close to their expiration time, to increase their own future rewards.

Cheers,