From: Tom Zander <tomz@freedommail.ch>
To: Bitcoin Protocol Discussion <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2016 13:17:39 +0200
Message-ID: <2381760.VTJ5BOIlGi@strawberry>
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	<22046ac7-df36-2e2a-759e-b3dd01601c59@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Start time for BIP141 (segwit)
Precedence: list

On Sunday, 16 October 2016 17:19:37 CEST Andrew C wrote:
> On 10/16/2016 4:58 PM, Tom Zander via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> > Lets get back to the topic. Having a longer fallow period is a simple
> > way to be safe.  Your comments make me even more scared that safety is
> > not taken into account the way it would.
>=20
> Can you please explain how having a longer grace period makes it any
> safer? Once the fork reaches the LOCKED_IN status, the fork will become
> active after the period is over. How does having a longer grace period
> make this any safer besides just adding more waiting before it goes
> active?=20

As Marek wrote just minutes before your email came in; companies will not=20
roll out their updates until it locks in. Peter Todd says the same thing.
So your assumption that the lock-in time is the END of the upgrading is=20
false. Thats only the case for miners.

The entire point here is that SegWit is much bigger than just full nodes=20
(including miner).
An entire ecosystem of Bitconin will have a need to upgrade.

I understand people saying that non-miners don't *need* to upgrade in order=
=20
to avoid being kicked of the network, but truely, thats a bogus argument.

People want to actually participate in Bitcoin and that means they need to=
=20
understand all of it. Not just see anyone-can-spend transactions.
I think its rather odd to think that developers on this list can decide
the risk profile that Bitcoin using companies or individuals should have.


> You said something about rolling back the changes. There is no
> mechanism for roll backs, and the whole point of the soft fork
> signalling is such that there is no need to roll back anything because
> miners have signaled that they are supporting the fork.

There are a bunch of really large assumptions in there that I disagree with.
=46irst of all, miners running the latest software doesn't mean the softwar=
e=20
is free from flaws. Everyone makes mistakes. People that see a way to abuse=
=20
the system may have found things and are not reporting it because they want=
=20
to abuse the flaw for their own gains. Which is exactly what happened with=
=20
Etherium.

The amount of code and the amount of changes in SegWit makes this a very=20
dangerous change in (of?) Bitcoin. I counted 10 core concepts in Bitcoin=20
being changed with it. We don't yet know how they will interact. We can=E2=
=80=99t.

You are asking people to create everyone-can-spend transactions that would=
=20
mean a loss of funds to everyone that used it if we do find a major flaw an=
d=20
need to rollback.

The gamble is rather uncomforable to many...
=2D-=20
Tom Zander
Blog: https://zander.github.io
Vlog: https://vimeo.com/channels/tomscryptochannel