BCH miner donation plan update

43 6261

I apologize, the East-Asia region is currently on Spring festival holidays, and Wuhan has been experiencing a severe coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, we have spent a lot of time tracking this epidemic and purchasing medical supplies, as the result, I could not respond to your discussion in a timely manner and I apologize once again.

Firstly, there is a culture misunderstanding in communication, "No debate" does not mean : "I refuse to discuss with you" or "I do not accept your opinion", but rather "let us stop debating and give it a try, if the test turns out positive, we continue, otherwise we stop".

As I answered in the AMA, many parts of the donation plan have not been fixed but are under discussion. Here are some fruit of the recent discussion: my views are as the following (I need to exchange ideas with other mining pools):

1、Donate mechanism

Let's start with the final step: the miners will donate directly to the development projects. The miners will directly send part of their coinbase to the projects they wants to donate, for example, miner X can direct n% of his coinbase to address of the project A, direct m% of his coinbase to the address of the project B.

The benefit of this approach would be the removal of the companies--the donation receipients may lead to the centralization. Indeed, I still recommend setting up one (or various) foundation(s), we may refer to the ETH foundation that I think they are working well. If the miner does not know to which project to donate, he can donate to the foundation, or direct to each project by refering to the foundation's fund allocation ratio.

2、Fundation will run for a pilot period

Before the donation plan kicks off, the BCH Miner Fund will be established and be ready to accept the donations from miners, as well as from other non-miner individuals and corporations. The Foundation will run for a pilot period to show the effect to the community, while the decision-making power of the Foundation will be determinated by the votes of donors in proportion to their donated funds.

Therefore, a sound competition mechanism has been established, all the projects (including more than one foundation) must work hard, ensure the full public disclosure and transparency of their business finance, in order to earn more support and donation from the community(miners and non-miners).

3、No donation option

What if some miners believe that none of these projects are good, or they don't have willingness to donate, or some projects don't accept donations? To avoid the tragedy of the commons, they has the right to send this part of coinbase to BCH Black Hole address to destroy these coins -- this is in fact a donation to all BCH holders.

4、Decide the donation approach

One of reasons for the objection of the previous plan was that many people thought that plan was the secret decision without public discussion. Hence, I hope that the plan could start in another way -- Hashrate voting. Some people may argue that miners do not have the right to vote on the matters that concern the whole community, but I think that the miners have at least the right to vote on how to spend their coinbase production.

I wish a 3-month miners vote could be conducted and completed (miners can use bmp.virtualpool.com to vote), if 2/3 of the hashpower votes are in favor of the donation plan, then I hope that developers can include the donation plan (sending to project or sending to BCH Black Hole address) as part of the protocal upgrade in May 2020, if there is not enough time, then include the plan in the protocal upgrade in November 2020. This funding will last for 6 months until next upgrade.

5、How to vote through the plan

Certainly some people may doubt that how the one third of the hashpower get a two-third majority vote? It is not difficult, it depends on how many people are willing to pay a price for BCH.

At present, there are a lot of anonymous BCH miners whose hashpower sometimes account for half of the total network, however most of these anonymous miners actually come form the Poolin (Poolin.com), they mine BCH only when its profit is higher. Therefore, as long as we mine at a loss and control the BCH mining profit slightly lower than BTC mining profit, those anonymous miners who thinks of nothing but making money will not mine BCH.

6、What will I do

I personally hold 3500 P hashpower, and I can also influence almost 10,000P hashpower, so that the total hashpower amount will be sufficient. In consideration of that BCH mining may sometimes loss money, and I am one of the shareholders of BTC.TOP mining pool, I can not ask the company to loss money as I wish. As a result, I will allocate my personal hashpower to a new mining pool (D.TOP), please do not suprise when you see this new mining pool appears and accounts for a higher percentage : )

In addition, if there is a next vote, I will vote against the donation to ensure that the donation will stop at the next version 6 months after the donation. Further development will be decided by the community.

7、Miners' donation ratio

The 12.5% is the opinion of other mining pools. From my prospective, this ratio is too high, considering the incoming bull market in 2020-2021/22, the BCH price will rise sharply. Therefore, I believe by the middle or the end of 2020, the 2-3% of the donation ratio is sufficient, the 1% probably be sufficient in 2021.

8、Welcome to vote and donate

I hope all miners who care the long-term development of BCH to participate in the voting, only those votes having cost (the BCH mining profit is slightly lower that the BTC mining during the vote) will be truely valid. If the final result is negative, I'd be happy to accept.

9、Why BCH needs miners donation plan

It's very simple, each project developed by BCH requires funds, and the donations from the BCH companies are not enough which may cause the slow development of BCH. For example, the ABC mainly relies on donations from a few companies, and these companies wish that the BCH projects could be sustainable and they intend to gradually reduce the funding.

A decentralized community, cannot rely on centralized companies' donation for a long time, the Blockstream and Core are the best counter-example. If the BCH can sucessfully realize the decentralized donation, permitting the decentralized miners to donate different development teams according to their wish, then the BCH will be ahead of other coins.

10. I am glad to see that everbody makes comments on the donation plan

I have been reading everyone's opinion, for instance, this article was publiched on read.cash(rather than on medium.com). I hold a lot of BCH, and I hope the future of BCH is better.

Above is my statement for my opinion, there are many things that need to be discussed by the community. Again, thanks to all of you for reading and sharing opinions : )

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Comments

Thank you for re-opening and continuing the dialogue. I believe there is a lot to be gained by exchange.

Please give serious opportunity for large holders to present their crowdfunding solution based on Dominant Assurance Contract which they are working on. It has a very good chance to establish an open development funding model that is voluntary and would result in YOU having more money to invest into stronger mining.

If the compulsory donation/burning plan goes ahead, it will have a detrimental effect on the voluntary initiatives that might otherwise grow solid roots.

Now to your article - I will tell you on what points I differ, philosophically, and why I think we differ there, so that maybe we can come closer.

It's very simple, each project developed by BCH requires funds

Yes, but I think you mean every project that demonstrates real performance or potential. Because in general, no, not every project can receive funding. Otherwise the funding would never be enough even while not reaching our roadmap.

Projects (companies) which do not perform the work right MUST improve or fail so that everyone can learn from the mistakes. The sector which does this extremely badly is banking, where failure is often subsidized by the taxpayer. Let us never follow this example.

To best allocate funds, the spending decisions should be made by more independent actors/observers, not fewer. You already propose the good idea of multiple foundations being better than one.

The missing ingredient now is the voluntary donation aspect.

The most sustainable model is payment in return for value received. I believe holders have taken your earlier proposal as a wake-up call that there is a serious need to invest in development. And that they realize they would be able to gain the most by investing in a risk-reduced way to make sure the roadmap is fulfilled.

To avoid the tragedy of the commons, they has the right to send this part of coinbase to BCH Black Hole address to destroy these coins

Under the proposed plan, it is an obligation, not a right. This would be a huge difference and economic principle change to Bitcoin Cash. This is the problem I and some other have with the proposal. We are not comforted by promises that this will change after some months, because we are realistic that development needs to go on after it - so the funding cannot just stop.

$ 40.00
User's avatar btcfork
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4 years ago

Dear Jiang,

Can't believe you continue to push this terrible plan. Did you donate on the recent fundraise that collected 1000 BCH?

If no, did you ever donate anything to infrastructure development? If yes, how much percent does that represent of your total BCH? (For example, I donated 2% of my holdings to that fundraise.)

You talk about tragedy of the commons, but if you did not donate anything yet, you are the freerider you so strongly want to fight.

Why not donating (more) from your own pocket, if u feel there is not enough donated, instead of trying to force all miners to donate, thereby lowering security of bitcoin cash, thereby changing the voluntary nature Bitcoin Cash donation based business model is build on, thereby starting to use block reward / inflation to pay for bills other than security, a slippery slope that lead to the terrible current fiat currencies we have today that go down in value instead of up, and the whole reason why we are building Bitcoin (Cash) in the first place?

When we donate we all lose money that we could have used to reinvest and make more money. I understand as a miner this is serious problem as economies of scale make that you may lose your business if you don't reinvest all profits in expansion. So don't feel guilty if you donate little to infrastructure development as it is not expected from miners, we understand with thin margins you have little room for that, and benefits go, not to miners, but to coinholders anyway if there is good infrastructure as it will show in higher BCH price.

So let this terrible plan go, and let's focus on getting more donations from coinholders, as we all agree that funding to infrastructure development needs to go up, but in a voluntary manner of course by embracing and incentivizing donations and investments in infrastructure, not by forcing it via block reward / inflation, so that we keep the spirit of Bitcoin Cash alive.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Marcdemesel & https://twitter.com/MarcDeMesel

$ 46.85
4 years ago

Chinese have been the main group funding infrastructure at this point as far as I'm aware.

$ 1.10
4 years ago

Never heard this before. How did chinese fund infrastructure, to whom, how much? Jiang is not answering, so he likely donated nada.

$ 1.00
4 years ago

Can't believe you continue to push your terrible opinions. I've looked at your YouTube page and would be appreciative if you could do more videos on lambos and girls. Or perhaps you could write a read.cash article on how to be an anti-peer-to-peer electronic cash shill. Because my BCH holdings are down so much I am looking for some online work. Perhaps you or your friends would be willing to pay me to also spread FUD.

Jiang,

Do not pay any heed to swaggering blowhards like Marc.

The improvements Jiang offers do a lot to assuage legitimate concerns. Still not a perfect plan by any means. The idea of a Dominant Assurance Contract offers a lot of benefits. It would be reasonable to see how the work of the developers working on that turns out. If it works, it might be preferable to Jiang's plan.

$ 0.00
4 years ago

Agreed 👍

$ 1.00
4 years ago

you propose fundamental changes to the coin and then you say things like

let us stop debating and give it a try

I hope the future of BCH is better.

this is not very reassuring

also, if you want to "try", please try with a new coin or look at the coins already trying this kind of thing for years like DASH and so on. You can even hard-fork BCH to create this new coin.

$ 11.01
4 years ago

Forking is a way to certain doom. We need to measure what the majority wants before the fact, not after.

$ 0.00
4 years ago

We need to measure what the majority wants before the fact

historically that didn't keep the minority from forking

$ 1.00
4 years ago

Historically it was never done.

$ 0.00
4 years ago

that's because we have no reliable way to do it

$ 0.00
4 years ago

That's because we were not building tools to do it. We must build such tools. We must not fork the chain again.

$ 0.00
4 years ago

I agree

edit: actually I'm not sure I agree. what kind of tools?

$ 0.00
4 years ago

tools to measure what coin holders want. https://bmp.virtualpol.com/voting, but for BCH holders.

$ 0.00
4 years ago

sorry if I'm mistaken, but the BMP (Bitcoin Miner Parliament) is about voting with hashrate, not coin holdings?

and we were talking about

We need to measure what the majority wants before the fact

and I thought you meant "majorit of holders"?

$ 0.00
4 years ago

yes, thats why i said something like BMP, but for bch holders (instead of being just for miners)

$ 0.00
4 years ago

ok, I see. sorry, that took a while

$ 0.00
4 years ago

‪Why not make the protocol stable so no developers are needed or can be phased out? That’s what is being done with Bitcoin BSV. They are doing really well.

$ 0.00
User's avatar kj
4 years ago

Miners who wish to fund developers should go ahead and DO IT THEMSELVES rather than forcing all miners to contribute. In doing so, the people who put in the funds get to decide the direction of the roadmap, while those who did not contribute funds will have no choice but to accept that roadmap.

If you force everyone to contribute, then you'll have more parties fighting over the roadmap going forward.

The more you try to "fix things" using coercion, the more unintended consequences will arise.

$ 10.02
4 years ago

I appreciate your efforts and your willingness to discuss whatever solutions can support our developers. Let's not give up on getting them funded.

$ 0.10
4 years ago

Thanks, it's nice to notice the updated BCH donation mechanism.

$ 0.00
4 years ago

I think introducing the plan into the protocol is a mistake. Miners can do with their hashrate what they think is convenient (orphan blocks if they wish), but the protocol must remain neutral (accept blocks with and without donation).

$ 0.00
4 years ago

Thank you for at least trying to improve the plan.

But don't you see that this is still going to piss off a lot of idealists and possibly set a questionable precedent?

Why not just get with as many miners as possible, and agree under legal contract to simultaneously donate, without touching the protocol?

$ 3.15
4 years ago

Bitcoin needs to be able to operate anonymously. Legal contracts are not anonymous.

$ 0.10
4 years ago
$ 1.05
4 years ago

假如你愿意花三个月的时间亏本挖矿来投票,把这钱扔进海裡,不如就把这要亏的钱直接拿出来,也是笔不小的金额,这事不就结了?

$ 10.10
4 years ago

No need to mine at a loss for BMP voting. All chains count.

$ 0.20
4 years ago

Google translate of im_uname's post: If you are willing to spend three months mining at a loss to vote and throw this money into the sea, it is better to take out the money that is going to be lost directly, which is not a small sum. Will this end?

$ 0.10
4 years ago

Solid response, if implemented, it would change the future of BCH to a structured decentralized organization, different from today where any mining group enters/leaves after a few seasons of short-medium term profit collection. Bitcoin focussed foundations have a history of collapsing when there is no solid plan, this miner plan with diminishing donation plan might just work..

$ 0.00
4 years ago

Hi Jiang,

I'm the lead developer of the Bitcoin Verde full node. Surprisingly, you and I have never talked, even indirectly.

Communication, especially between node developers and miners, is fundamental to the success of just about everything these days. Would you be open to talking more directly in the future? For instance, I'd love your opinion on my mining diversity discussion (https://read.cash/@joshmgreen/the-road-to-mining-diversity-4d49f8a6).

If you're open to chatting some time, send me an email. josh@softwareverde.com

Thanks.

$ 6.05
4 years ago

Good on you Jiang for not only taking on feedback from the community, but for also continuing on with the donation plan. We need to fund developers in more certain terms. Furthermore, the success of this donation plan will make future necessary protocol upgrades possible.

$ 1.20
4 years ago

I'd like to thank the honest miners for getting more involved in the BCH ecosystem. There are people here, like myself, that have been waiting for this moment for a long time.

Thank you again!

$ 29.56
4 years ago

Until now I'd been on the fence about the "donation plan", but the proposal in this state is hard to fault. I'd very much like to see this plan executed. While it may not be perfect, I think there aren't really any downsides and it's really worth trying. It's simple, gives the power to the individual miners affected and in line with the philosophy I love about bitcoin, keeps incentives well aligned. I believe we should implement the plan without wasting more time discussing and fighting over it -- the voting for the plan is a good way to give people with skin in the game a last chance to show where they stand before doing this. And if it isn't working after 6 months, let's try something different.

Thanks for the clarifying update, Jiang, and for considering everyone's opinions.

$ 0.50
4 years ago

And if it isn't working after 6 months, let's try something different.

I don't understand how people view things like playing with consensus rules like it's a game. It's really not a game. Unless you are sure that what you are doing is not going to be dangerous, you should stay away from orphaning blocks and taking money from people. You can't just experiment with different rules regarding the fundamentals of an active blockchain. When you want to experiment with different fundamentals, you make a new coin, you don't 51%-attack (well... "66%-attack") an existing currency to enforce your opinion on it.

$ 12.05
4 years ago

I agree with the sentiment of your comment, though I fail to see the 'danger' in this proposal. A 6-month period of sending 12.5% (or potentially less) of the mining reward to fund development isn't inherently dangerous.

you should stay away from orphaning blocks and taking money from people

I think that's a little disingenuous - no one will be actively orphaning any blocks, no more than miners currently do if blocks are mined that don't follow the mining rules. Same with "taking money"; no one's BCH is going to be taken away from them (nor can it be). If you're a miner that continues mining BCH, yes you'll be affected, and you'll have to decide if you're willing to mine with the rules of the majority of BCH miners or whether you'd prefer to mine a different SHA256 chain.

When you want to experiment with different fundamentals, you make a new coin, you don't 51%-attack (well... "66%-attack") an existing currency to enforce your opinion on it

Fundamentally there is no difference there really. If you have a majority of the hashpower and enforce rules, it's up to the remainder of the miners to decide what they want to do with their own hashpower - continue mining with the new rules or 'fork' and create a different coin. This is nothing new, and is how the mining rules are supposed to be decided. Unfortunately in the last few years, there have been a few contentious rule changes and forking has happened a lot, but ideally in most cases everyone ends up following the majority of miners even if they disagree with them.

Changing the mining rules without having 100% consensus is not the same thing as a 51% attack, 66% attack, 80% attack, 99% attack or any kind of attack! Especially when you consider how much Jiang's incentives are likely aligned with those of other BCH miners, HODLers, developers, hobbyists, etc. In my opinion, to claim this is an attack is similar to claiming that low-fee or coffee-priced purchases using BCH is 'spam'.

$ 0.00
4 years ago

A 6-month period of sending 12.5% (or potentially less) of the mining reward to fund development isn't inherently dangerous.

The period is not relevant because the danger comes from the fact that the nature of the coin is changed. Nobody was signing up for Dash-like governance when we bought BCH. If we wanted that kind of governance we'd buy Devcoin or Dash. It is dangerous to alter the fundamentals of the coin. The coins are supposed to be distributed in a specific way. Changing the way they are initially distributed turn this into a different coin in my opinion. Doing that with a soft-fork so that people cannot avoid it is even worse and I consider it a 51% attack on the network. Blockstream forced Segwit on us and we left, now miners here are trying to once more change the fundamentals of the coin by altering the distribution of coins.

no one will be actively orphaning any blocks, no more than miners currently do if blocks are mined that don't follow the mining rules.

That's not true. I never saw anyone suggesting to turn this dev fund into a hard fork. I have said from the very beginning (read my last two articles for proof) that if they decided to own up to it and do it as a hard fork, I would be fine with it. But they are suggesting to do it as a soft fork (and please forgive me if I misunderstood the current proposal) and orphan blocks of those that follow the hardcoded rules but don't follow the soft-forked rules. Hopefully BU can find a way to orphan blocks that follow the forced-donations rule in order to create a split so that we can see what miners actually want to follow. But it is not easy to do so, they will have to blacklist addresses and still be able to detect normal donations to the dev funds without orphaning blocks that contain them.

Same with "taking money"; no one's BCH is going to be taken away from them

Let me put it this way: Say one day someone from BTC moves a ton of hashpower to BCH and starts orphaning blocks that don't donate half the coinbase to him. Is he taking someone's BCH or not? I'd say he is. I'm saying the same here. The difference is that here the money is taken and given to devs for a good purpose, but that doesn't mean that the money is not taken from people against their will.

it's up to the remainder of the miners to decide what they want to do with their own hashpower - continue mining with the new rules or 'fork' and create a different coin.

Once more, I am sorry if misunderstood the new proposal but this is not what I understand that is being proposed. The changes will not mark the blocks as incompatible with the old rules. The proposal is to change the rules in a way that is not detectable unless we examine the coinbase transaction and blacklist addresses. If you actually wanted to let people decide whether they want to follow or not, you would mark the blocks with the new donation rule in some way that would cause a split with the old code, and leave behind everyone not interested in updating to your new coin distribution rules.

It is also good to point out that neither side of such a fork would have a right to be the only one called BCH.

If you're a miner that continues mining BCH, yes you'll be affected, and you'll have to decide if you're willing to mine with the rules of the majority of BCH miners or whether you'd prefer to mine a different SHA256 chain.

The market will decide in the end which side of the fork will still be called BCH. Although I doubt that either sides wants to fork. Yet, it is very clear which side looks more like Bitcoin as described in the whitepaper and which side looks more like Dash and Devcoin.

I am not against all changes, nor do I take the whitepaper as the bible, but I don't like how people are proposing radical changes based on their personal priorities about whether development or marketing or whatever else is more important. The coinbase is to entice miners to mine blocks, period. If we start now, after so many years, to reporpose it with whatever each one of us thinks is important then we'll end up funding every single thing in the ecosystem. This is not Bitcoin... This is Devcoin, this is Dash, this is Zerocash.

Fundamentally there is no difference there really. If you have a majority of the hashpower and enforce rules, it's up to the remainder of the miners to decide what they want to do with their own hashpower - continue mining with the new rules or 'fork' and create a different coin.

From the beginning I've also said that if the majority of miners wants to do something, they have a right to do it. They make the rules. I am though against them that they are not owning up to it and doing it like a hard-fork. I am also against radical changes. The miners have a right to remove the inflation cap as well, and keep mining more and more coins if they want to. Does that mean that this is Bitcoin? They also have a right to enforce a 1MB limit on BCH as well, does that mean that it's still BCH? They are chainging the fundamentals, just like BTC changed the fundamentals twice, when they added Segwit and when they refused to remove the block size limit. They had every right to do it, it was a shitty decision and we split into another coin. If BCH does something that makes it less "Bitcoin" and more "Dash" then some will split again, at least own up to your proposed change, and do it as a hard-fork instead of taking the same path as Segwit did.

Changing the mining rules without having 100% consensus is not the same thing as a 51% attack, 66% attack, 80% attack, 99% attack or any kind of attack!

When you orphan blocks to alter what is allowed to be recorded as history, that's a 51% attack. It is not always bad because it may be a "defensive attack" that aligns clearly with Bitcoin's intented usage (like Avalanche orphaning blocks that try to let people steal with doublespends), but funding developers or anyone else is definitelly not clearly aligning with Bitoin's intented usage, everyone of us has a different opinion about what is currently more important: funding developers, funding marketing or funding miners to further secure the chain.

Especially when you consider how much Jiang's incentives are likely aligned with those of other BCH miners, HODLers, developers, hobbyists, etc.

Their incentives are so obviously not aligned. If they were, we wouldn't be having this conservation.

In my opinion, to claim this is an attack is similar to claiming that low-fee or coffee-priced purchases using BCH is 'spam'.

I don't see the parallel. But I should clear this up again: not all 51% attacks are necessarily bad. This one is because it is done to change the fundamentals. And it is not done as a hard-fork even though it can technically be done as a hard-fork, which demonstrates that those who do it want to force it on everyone unless BU (or, any other dev team which is against forced donations, writes code to detect the force-donation blocks by implementing blacklists etc.

$ 100.00
4 years ago

This is much more polished plan than before and I think the community has been well heard. Thanks for incorporating the various feedbacks as well as compiling into a workable plan. The option of the non-donation is intriguing, and makes sense. I have a reservation about the direct donation though, because the miner may choose to fund their own projects, essentially sending their money to their pocket. How are you going to address it?

$ 2.00
4 years ago

I have a reservation about the direct donation though, because the miner may choose to fund their own projects, essentially sending their money to their pocket. How are you going to address it?

excellent question

$ 0.00
4 years ago

The voting seems interesting as long as it leads to a hard-fork and not a sneaky orphaning of valid (according to the protocol) blocks. If you are still suggesting to do this as a soft-fork, I still think it is a bad idea. Get enough miners on-board, get most exchanges on-board in order to keep the BCH ticker and then hard-fork the obligatory donation change in the next protocol upgrade. If you can't do that, no.

I'm also afraid about the permanence of this plan. Yeah sure it's 6 months now, but if it goes well, I would bet it will become permanent, turning BCH into a Devcoin/Dash wannabe who is trying to disguise as Bitcoin by avoiding to hard-fork radical changes like the forced donation.

Overall, this is slightly better than the previous proposal but I don't think it addresses the core issues, like the fact that you are soft-forking in order to force a radical change upon everyone, just like Segwit did. And it is a radical change, otherwise why the fuss.

$ 10.00
4 years ago