33 ms·

Satoshi's largest error was not making Bitcoin private by default and it strikes me as out of character given his/her level of commitment to being anonymous.

WHATDOESIT 4y ago
Perhaps it was a tradeoff they knowingly made to not have it become illegal immediately.
- rorrim 4y ago
  Nope: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770.msg8637#msg8637 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770.msg8637#msg8637
- cowtools 4y ago
  No, it wasn't.
  - TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
    The BTC core team was highly concerned with the legality of the network due to previous failed currency's (eCash, B-money, Bit Gold, and Hashcash) that ended up driving certain decisions in architecture. The original btc had a networked pokergame along with the wallet, but was taken out for a couple of reasons, including regulatory issues. I'm not saying parent is right, or wrong but to dismiss it and to speak for the core team out of hand is folly.
  - WHATDOESIT 4y ago
    Please share your reasoning - as the sibling comment mentions, there was a series of high profile online cash cases at the time, KYC being the biggest problem. It'd be weird if they didn't think hard about avoiding the same fate and perhaps this was they way they've chosen.
wyre 4y ago
>Privacy for me, but not for thee
SkyMarshal 4y ago
I don’t recall why that decision was made, but there could be a couple reasons. First, it isn’t easy technically. Especially back when you’re designing the very first decentralized cryptocurrency and have no prior experience informing your design. ZCash, Monero, MimbleWimble and others came later after learning from Bitcoin, and there’s zero chance they could have come first. Second, shielded transactions risk undetected inflation bugs, which actually happened to ZCash some years ago. Third, Bitcoin was designed shortly after the Liberty Dollar founder was arrested and jailed, and everyone in Bitcoin was concerned about that too, including Satoshi. He may have decided just not to push his luck.
- cowtools 4y ago
  Let's not speculate: https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/quotes/privacy/ https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/quotes/privacy/ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770 It seems like satoshi thought pseudo-anonyminity was sufficient. The integration of zero-knowlege proofs into cryptocurrencies was not really well understood at the time.
  - rorrim 4y ago
    Quit it with this revisionist history nonsense, your second link contains where Satoshi specifically mentioned that a ZK-based version of bitcoin would be better, he just didn't know how to do it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770.msg8637#msg8637 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770.msg8637#msg8637
    - SkyMarshal 4y ago
      I wouldn't call it revisionist, he's referencing the source.
  - SkyMarshal 4y ago
    Thanks, I knew there were discussions of it back then on bitcointalk and probably bitcoin wizards irc, just not where to find them. The bitcointalk thread seems to confirm #1 - it was just technically difficult to do back then.
wickoff 4y ago
He wanted to, but blockspace-efficient privacy cryptography wasn't discovered back then.
TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
its not an error or oversight but a feature. Being anonymous to the 'Real world' but carry an identity in the "BTC world". Wallets, mining, interactions are all public within the network and significantly contributed to it's 'Community', 'make btc wallet size go up', and increase account nonce with use. Early in the community, these metrics where your 'leaderboards'. BTC never was anonymous, but rather a 'seperate idenitity'.
imdsm 4y ago
Bitcoin may not be private but it's pseudonymous, multiple public keys per private key. I think if it had have been private though, it never would have taken off. The transparency and exploitability of blockchains is key to their success. Without Bitcoin & other prominent open source blockchain-based crypto-currencies and crypto-assets, private crypto-currencies and crypto-assets wouldn't stand up.
- cowtools 4y ago
  I couldn't disagree more. Without the silk road, bitcoin would have never taken off. monero has seemingly displaced bitcoin here. The transparency of the ledger is key to the censorship, control, and abuse of the network. >open source Are you implying that the cryptonote/zerocoin projects like monero aren't open source?
beauHD 4y ago
So is it safe to say Monero is a sort of Bitcoin 2.0? I mean if Bitcoin had 'versions' that would be great. Then we wouldn't have to invent entirely new cryptocurrencies, we could just iterate on existing ones, and have our userbase intact without having to 'gain traction' for an entirely new alt-coin.
- grappler 4y ago
  many cryptocurrencies do have 'versions' of a sort. See ethereum's recent one known as "the merge" which moved that currency to a completely different consensus algorithm!
- cowtools 4y ago
  I suppose the monero userbase has similar attitudes as the early bitcoin userbase, but monero/cryptonote is not a bitcoin fork in the same sense that zcash/zerocoin is. >we could just iterate on existing ones, and have our userbase intact without having to 'gain traction' for an entirely new alt-coin. I think there are some fundamental limits to the throughput of a single cryptocurrency due to network latency and bandwidth. Perhaps the solution to scalability is simply to have multiple cryptocurrencies and to facilitate atomic swaps between them. So in this sense, the creation of new cryptocurrencies with minor feature changes (litecoin, bitcoin cash, wownero, cheapeth, etc.) is actually good for network diversity. That being said, the owners of existing "big" cryptocurrencies will usually want to make changes that increase its usability to compete with these "trivial forks" Bitcoiners have been soured by the idea of a hard fork since the XT dispute, while the monero userbase has commited itself to regular hard forks every 6 months to upgrade the network.
- tromp 4y ago
  No; Monero is not an improved Bitcoin; it just makes different tradeoffs [1]. [1] https://phyro.github.io/grinvestigation/why_grin.html https://phyro.github.io/grinvestigation/why_grin.html
earnesti 4y ago
Dude, he was the inventor of cryptocurrency, did you except him to get everything right at once.
- olalonde 4y ago
  "Alexander Graham Bell's largest error was to not build end-to-end encryption by default in the telephone."

WHATDOESIT 4y ago

Perhaps it was a tradeoff they knowingly made to not have it become illegal immediately.

rorrim 4y ago
Nope: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770.msg8637#msg8637 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770.msg8637#msg8637
cowtools 4y ago
No, it wasn't.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
  The BTC core team was highly concerned with the legality of the network due to previous failed currency's (eCash, B-money, Bit Gold, and Hashcash) that ended up driving certain decisions in architecture. The original btc had a networked pokergame along with the wallet, but was taken out for a couple of reasons, including regulatory issues. I'm not saying parent is right, or wrong but to dismiss it and to speak for the core team out of hand is folly.
- WHATDOESIT 4y ago
  Please share your reasoning - as the sibling comment mentions, there was a series of high profile online cash cases at the time, KYC being the biggest problem. It'd be weird if they didn't think hard about avoiding the same fate and perhaps this was they way they've chosen.

wyre 4y ago

>Privacy for me, but not for thee

SkyMarshal 4y ago

I don’t recall why that decision was made, but there could be a couple reasons. First, it isn’t easy technically. Especially back when you’re designing the very first decentralized cryptocurrency and have no prior experience informing your design. ZCash, Monero, MimbleWimble and others came later after learning from Bitcoin, and there’s zero chance they could have come first. Second, shielded transactions risk undetected inflation bugs, which actually happened to ZCash some years ago. Third, Bitcoin was designed shortly after the Liberty Dollar founder was arrested and jailed, and everyone in Bitcoin was concerned about that too, including Satoshi. He may have decided just not to push his luck.

cowtools 4y ago
Let's not speculate: https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/quotes/privacy/ https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/quotes/privacy/ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770 It seems like satoshi thought pseudo-anonyminity was sufficient. The integration of zero-knowlege proofs into cryptocurrencies was not really well understood at the time.
- rorrim 4y ago
  Quit it with this revisionist history nonsense, your second link contains where Satoshi specifically mentioned that a ZK-based version of bitcoin would be better, he just didn't know how to do it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770.msg8637#msg8637 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770.msg8637#msg8637
  - SkyMarshal 4y ago
    I wouldn't call it revisionist, he's referencing the source.
- SkyMarshal 4y ago
  Thanks, I knew there were discussions of it back then on bitcointalk and probably bitcoin wizards irc, just not where to find them. The bitcointalk thread seems to confirm #1 - it was just technically difficult to do back then.

wickoff 4y ago

He wanted to, but blockspace-efficient privacy cryptography wasn't discovered back then.

TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago

its not an error or oversight but a feature. Being anonymous to the 'Real world' but carry an identity in the "BTC world". Wallets, mining, interactions are all public within the network and significantly contributed to it's 'Community', 'make btc wallet size go up', and increase account nonce with use. Early in the community, these metrics where your 'leaderboards'. BTC never was anonymous, but rather a 'seperate idenitity'.

imdsm 4y ago

Bitcoin may not be private but it's pseudonymous, multiple public keys per private key. I think if it had have been private though, it never would have taken off. The transparency and exploitability of blockchains is key to their success. Without Bitcoin & other prominent open source blockchain-based crypto-currencies and crypto-assets, private crypto-currencies and crypto-assets wouldn't stand up.

cowtools 4y ago
I couldn't disagree more. Without the silk road, bitcoin would have never taken off. monero has seemingly displaced bitcoin here. The transparency of the ledger is key to the censorship, control, and abuse of the network. >open source Are you implying that the cryptonote/zerocoin projects like monero aren't open source?

beauHD 4y ago

So is it safe to say Monero is a sort of Bitcoin 2.0? I mean if Bitcoin had 'versions' that would be great. Then we wouldn't have to invent entirely new cryptocurrencies, we could just iterate on existing ones, and have our userbase intact without having to 'gain traction' for an entirely new alt-coin.

grappler 4y ago
many cryptocurrencies do have 'versions' of a sort. See ethereum's recent one known as "the merge" which moved that currency to a completely different consensus algorithm!
cowtools 4y ago
I suppose the monero userbase has similar attitudes as the early bitcoin userbase, but monero/cryptonote is not a bitcoin fork in the same sense that zcash/zerocoin is. >we could just iterate on existing ones, and have our userbase intact without having to 'gain traction' for an entirely new alt-coin. I think there are some fundamental limits to the throughput of a single cryptocurrency due to network latency and bandwidth. Perhaps the solution to scalability is simply to have multiple cryptocurrencies and to facilitate atomic swaps between them. So in this sense, the creation of new cryptocurrencies with minor feature changes (litecoin, bitcoin cash, wownero, cheapeth, etc.) is actually good for network diversity. That being said, the owners of existing "big" cryptocurrencies will usually want to make changes that increase its usability to compete with these "trivial forks" Bitcoiners have been soured by the idea of a hard fork since the XT dispute, while the monero userbase has commited itself to regular hard forks every 6 months to upgrade the network.
tromp 4y ago
No; Monero is not an improved Bitcoin; it just makes different tradeoffs [1]. [1] https://phyro.github.io/grinvestigation/why_grin.html https://phyro.github.io/grinvestigation/why_grin.html

earnesti 4y ago

Dude, he was the inventor of cryptocurrency, did you except him to get everything right at once.

olalonde 4y ago
"Alexander Graham Bell's largest error was to not build end-to-end encryption by default in the telephone."