drivechains are absolutely horrible. The risk is far higher than covenants. Putting shitcoins into bitcoin is bad, but the real risk becomes that these sidechains have enough value to incentivise miners to do things that are not in the interest of the main chain.
you should study more deeply. Drivechains are not good.
I haven’t seen any compelling arguments against #drivechains. You say that #drivechain would compel miners to do things that are not in the interest of the network. Can you give me one example of a “thing”?
Scenario:
Imagine a drivechain that has been implemented to enable a new feature on a Bitcoin sidechain, such as more complex smart contracts. This sidechain allows for more flexible and powerful programming capabilities compared to Bitcoin's main chain.
Issue:
In the drivechain model, the security and proper functioning of the sidechain rely heavily on Bitcoin miners, as they have the authority to validate and approve the transfer of bitcoins between the main chain and the sidechain. This creates a few potential problems:
Miner Centralization: If a small group of miners gains control over a significant portion of the mining power (which isn't uncommon in Bitcoin), they could potentially exert undue influence over the sidechain. This might include censoring transactions or manipulating the movement of funds between the main chain and the sidechain.
Misaligned Incentives: Miners are primarily incentivized by block rewards and transaction fees. If the sidechain does not offer sufficient financial rewards to the miners for their extra work and responsibility, they might neglect their duties related to the sidechain, leading to slow updates or lack of maintenance. Worse, they could accept bribes to act maliciously.
51% Attack Risk: In drivechains, the security of transferred assets relies on the honesty of miners. If more than 50% of the miners collude or are otherwise compromised, they could approve fraudulent transfers or enable the double-spending of bitcoins on the sidechain. This risk is exacerbated if the sidechain's operation is central to substantial financial activities but does not contribute significantly to miner revenue.
Consequence:
These vulnerabilities could lead to a loss of trust in the sidechain's security and, by extension, could damage the reputation of Bitcoin as a secure and decentralized currency. Users and businesses might lose funds, or the functionality promised by the sidechain might be undermined by the actions or negligence of miners.
Broader Impact:
The governance issues and potential for misuse of power could lead to regulatory scrutiny, further complicating the legal landscape for Bitcoin and potentially leading to restrictive measures that stifle innovation and the adoption of blockchain technology.
I know this argument and I don’t find it compelling. My initial point was that #covenants would mess up with the integrity of the base layer and that #drivechains wouldn’t. I maintain this view. The scenario that you outlined doesn’t show that the integrity of the base layer would be compromised. If you keep your #Bitcoin on the base layer you won’t by affected by whatever wrong thing could happen on a #drivechain.
In terms of impact, a drivechain is no different than wrapping your #BTC and sending them on another L1. Of course when doing so you’ll have to accept different security assumptions and it’s up to each of us to make this assessment.
When it comes to potential reputational damage followed by more regulations, these are second-order effects which can arise for a multitude of reasons and which are broadly out of control of the network. The strength of an unstoppable system like Bitcoin is that if it does what it’s supposed to do, it doesn’t have to worry about second-order effects as those wouldn’t directly impact the way it functions. I actually had the exact same concerns when researching drivechains (you can check out my previous posts if you want to verify) and came to the conclusions that I just discussed.
To sum it up I would say that what happens on the drivechain stays on the drivechain we can’t say the same about covenants which can profoundly change the nature of the base layer such as the emergence of parasitic on-chain KYC that would greatly impact the fungibility of your bitcoins even if you never interact with a covenant.
if you have not seem arguments against drivechains then you have not done your homework
the bottom line of drivechains is that you are fucking with miner incentives which is a delicate balance. Do not fuck up the existing ecosystem to put shitcoins into bitcoin.
I don’t disagree that it changes the incentives offered to miners but again it doesn’t compromise the security and integrity of the base layer because even if a miner participate in securing a #drivechain, he still has to secure the main chain.
It does potentially compromise the security and integrity of the base layer, that's my point. If for example it makes a miner more profit to reorg the base layer because of the ordering of transactions in a side chain then you have just incentivized a miner to reorganize the base layer block order which is literally an attack on the "security and integrity" of the base layer.
Such a scenario would need to be evaluated more in depth with actual numbers of what a malicious miner could earn vs what it could loose but still it would require taking of the majority hash-power. But here, you also assume that if a new incentive is created only one miner would go after it which is not how it would work from a game theory perspective. Although, it may be a fair concern that’s one that requires more analysis to either be uphold or ruled out.
nostr:npub1w72nkwnrhncuwjxmmmh3px74dhjgcv8de5nayzfygrp6mj33e96sumwyhg I’m curious if you have heard of this concern and if it had been addressed regarding #sidechains.
The biggest danger of any softfork is the unknown shit that you've just added that won't be fully understood until it's live. The spamming of witness data was not the intention of taproot, but that's what we got.
Drivechains and covenants are both potentially ways that the centralized powers in the works can use to attack bitcoin.
Keep it simple. We don't need shitcoins on bitcoin.
As far as I'm concerned Bitcoin is feature complete. Maintenance must continue forever but the feature set should be a lock. Working as intended. Anything you do to try to improve it is a bigger danger than benefit.
Name one software that has ever been feature complete. Software only reaches EOL.
cat
Cat is bash command.
No it's not. It's a compiled command part of GNU. You can execute it with a bash command, but it is a normal piece of software that has been feature complete for what, 50 years or more, thereby giving you an example.
I'm surprised that a software engineer of your caliber didn't understand what 'cat' was.
How ? How would a miner profit from a reorg ? Give an explicit scenerio.
(Yes, this has been answered many times)
👆@BitcoinStu It would be great if you could provide more details on the attack scenario you mentioned.
👆 nostr:npub1uavkq2z6vqczd772ple0p0k44ncjcxv5lg4sq6r069aagvra47uq2dx9cn It would be great if you could provide more details on the attack scenario you mentioned.
This subject has been debated at length in the mailing list, refer to that
You made the claim and have read BIP 300/1, to speak so confidently about it. You're not hand shoveling poop from other miscreants, so, just summerize a scenario. If it's such a likely and intrinsic outcome , it should be quite simple to do.
nostr:npub1fl7pr0azlpgk469u034lsgn46dvwguz9g339p03dpetp9cs5pq5qxzeknp nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6 
More fud as real world pressures knock former narratives down and only DC remains.
imagine the fee incentives on a sidechain are higher than the mainchain. You have just incentivized miners to abuse the mainchain to make increased revenue from a sidechain.
How is this a bad thing? It seems it would help securing the base chase over the long run.
No, you've missed the point. Miners may abuse the base layer. For example, a reorg attack on the base layer may make a miner more profit in a drivechain which would incentivize reorgs on the base layer.
That wouldn’t change the security assumptions on the base layer. Of course if you break this assumption, all sort of attacks are possible.
It does change the security assumptions. Currently reorgs do not help miners, ever, at all. They are rare and an unfortunate result of the decentralization. If you add those shitcoin chains where value is being passed around in sidechains then you can potentially incentivize miners to intentionally reorg the base layer. That would be very bad.
But again I really suggest you study more and talk less because you do not know enough about what you're discussing to have such strong opinions, both of covenants and drivechains.
Since you seem to have studied #Bitcoin a lot more than me, maybe you can point me to a resource that goes in depth with the particular risk that you’re describing. I haven’t seen any such analysis but if it’s such a concern, I’m sure the critics have posted a write-up on it.
bitcoin should be used to transfer value, not as a shitcoin network for fiat-pegged bullshit and meme coins and all the rest of the degeneracy. Having dick-butt jpgs in the witness data is bad enough. Drivechains are an abomination.
I actually think that #drivechains would exactly prevent “degeneracy” from happening on the main chain. It would isolate it to drivechains and anyone would be free to partake or not in it without messing up with the primary use case of the base layer which is as you said, transfer of value. Don’t you think it’s a safer option than adding a bunch of additional OP codes on the base layer?
You realize drivechains require new opcodes, right?
I think you should spend less time posting and more time studying bitcoin.
Of course, not all opcodes would enable attacks on the base layer and thank you for the advice but you haven’t answer my question regarding recursive covenants. So you have no problem with recursive covenants and what they can enable such as parasitic on-chain KYC?
