The reason to push for it now is that it takes time to reach consensus and then even more time to develop UX. There’s a delay of potentially years between when a protocol improvement rolls out and when wallets offer the ability to use it.
Custodial “alternatives” have always been there in the form of exchanges and lots of people are satisfied with holding their IOUs instead of real Bitcoin, even at 1 sat/vB fees.
As nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg says every time he gets interviewed, eCash is just a better alternative to custodial accounts. Plus, fees are now pretty reasonable again.
All to say there is no looming crisis here. Let the galaxy brain protocol developers reach consensus amongst themselves on a proposed soft fork with reasonable activation parameters, support from app developers in the form of prototypes, and guarantees of no unintended consequences.
No need for us noderunners to start agitating for the latest thing right now.
Discussion
We've been discussing them for years. Covenants are probably coming and I'm generally pro CTV, but there's not a burning need for it right now.
The burning need is to start building consensus on a UASF. This will take time. It is not prudent to wait until there’s a “burning need” to get the ball rolling. That’s a recipe for a rushed rollout.
Plus, I’m looking to reduce the likelihood of more big custodial collapses like Mt. Gox and FTX. If we wait, the next one could be Coinbase, or some as-yet-unknown custodian that’s even bigger.
Getting the UASF ball rolling now is capacity planning for the “suddenly” rush that’s around the corner.
I remember your man on livera a long time ago and the height of his argument pro-CTV was to benefit coinbase ... Made me a pretty hard no myself ... CTV does nothing to prevent all the digital identity prisons being erected, no? That is a way bigger issue IMO... in terms of maintaining the p2p electronic cash vision of bitcoin
Posted from grapheneOS
Coinbase is historically bad at adopting technology that’s good for them. Look how long it took them to batch transactions. They’re only just now starting to implement Lightning. Even after CTV activates, I wouldn’t expect Coinbase to take advantage for years.
I would go further than "bad adopters" ... Anyway, like others said, the persuasion is poor ... Specifically, does CTV or other option allow coins to be encumbered by adversaries of bitcoin ? I.e. creating a wedge to force digital identity into bitcoin use , non-fungibility, etc
The bar for significant change is very high at this juncture (crack up of incumbent systems and "proposal" of new systems at global levels)
Your keys, your coins, both with and without covenants. Your addresses encode your spending conditions—the spending conditions you opted into (single sig, multisig, etc.) None of the covenant proposals alter this.
What covenants allow is construction of an address that pays out to pre-specified list of one or more other addresses. So someone who owes you coin could wrap it in an address that aggregates coins to you and others. That’s the point of it, in fact, to create density so that more than one beneficiary can share a UTXO.
Whether you accept this as payment is up to you.
On the question of whether an adversary could use covenants maliciously. Current multisig would be a better adversarial tool. That is, adversary sends the coin to a 2-of-3 where your address is just one, so you have to get permission from another signer to spend. You would be within your rights to refuse this as “payment” since you’re not in full control of the coin. (I would refuse)
If a State wanted to enact spending controls, inserting themselves as signers in multisig is superior to trying to negotiate covenant addresses that encode spending criteria. With the multisig, they can approve or withhold approval arbitrarily over time. With a covenant, they’d have to decide up front how the coin could be spent and work with you to create that script. An adversarial despot would much prefer the flexibility and ease-of-use of mandatory multisig.
For this reason, on the point of adversarial encumbrance, I do not see any of the proposals to be worse than the status quo.
Ok but push for what exactly? And how? I hold a bag and run a node. I can geek out on applied cryptography and game theory on my free time, but I’m not equipped to evaluate all of the proposals from first principles. So I will just watch from the sidelines until there is a UASF client that is widely supported by those qualified to evaluate it. If, and only if, I find it credible and useful, then I will upgrade my node. If its malicious and they try speedy trial, then I will run the URSF client.