[Cryptography] Decentralized, global, irreversible, transaction database...

ianG iang at iang.org
Sat Dec 21 01:52:58 EST 2013


On 21/12/13 01:48 AM, Robert Christian wrote:
> “It also might be possible to refactor and restructure Bitcoin to separate
> out the key new idea, a decentralized, global, irreversible transaction
> database."
>
>
> This was referred to sometime back in 2008, shortly after Satoshi
> announced the first release of BitCoin.  Is anyone aware if this is
> being worked on?



Google on 'colored coins' ... the general idea is to layer a protocol 
over the top of Bitcoin transactions using the inbuilt smart contracts 
feature, and in particular to use the transaction database to handle 
other currencies and to extend its capability to do more of the heavy 
lifting in the formation of contracts, especially atomic trades.

The idea is basically plausible because Bitcoin implements smart 
contracts already, this was how zerocoin was implemented to add blinding 
to Bitcoin.  The smart contracts idea was pioneered by Nick Szabo in the 
1990s, and was not credited in the original paper.  It's now credited by 
Mike Hearn in a wiki post:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Smart_Property

It's early work so far, they are concentrating on the technicalities of 
getting the information flowing.  Once that happens, there is still a 
vista of work to do.  E.g., the idea runs slap-bang up against Gresham's 
Law, and little work has been done on the semantics of each new unit 
(shameless plug for Ricardian Contracts).



iang



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