[andrewla]

I don't think the author realizes how uninteresting a decentralized transaction store is without the currency element.

The trick was to line up economic incentives so that securing the network and accepting transaction fees are the same thing.

The fact that bitcoin serves as a centralized document store is one of the biggest defects in bitcoin as it stands now, and when bitcoin does fall, it will fall to a system that treats the transfer of currency units as a first-class citizen rather than a side effect of a script.

[fragsworth]

The currency aspect has to remain, because mining would not exist without it. The devs know this, so they'll do their best to preserve this aspect. However, having the protocol support documents as well is pretty amazing:

Suppose it's 15 years from now. Many cars can drive themselves.

Suppose someone designs a mechanism that allows you to control your vehicle (remotely) only if you own a specific "ownership item" (colored coin, whatever people are calling it) on the bitcoin network. You prove this to the vehicle, and it goes to wherever you tell it to. The item on the bitcoin network means you "own" the vehicle.

Now you can tell your vehicle to go to a public place where someone might inspect it with the intent of purchasing it. That person tells you "OK, I'll buy it for 0.1BTC" and you perform an exchange of your ownership document for 0.1BTC over the bitcoin network.

You don't have to trust anyone with anything. The exchange happens atomically. You don't even have to go anywhere to perform the exchange.

[maxerickson]

The buyer has to trust that the mechanism is sufficiently tamper proof.

(and once you have that, escrow service anyway becomes cheap)

[bachback]

I strongly believe you vastly underestimate the power that lies in this system. Scripts are in fact one of the most exciting features, although some things have to be figured out yet. How are transactions not "first-class citizens"? That statement makes no sense. In fact the opposite is true. Currently everything is about 1:1 transactions, because higher order protocols have not been build out.

[andrewla]

That the system has power is without doubt. The extent to which the power detracts from the currency aspect of the system is what I question.

When I say that a transaction is not a first-class citizen, I mean things like the fact that the question "I have this address, how many bitcoins do I have" is not really answerable; redeeming existing incoming transactions may rely on information outside of your key pair.

You're correct that as it stands, 1:1 transactions are pretty much all we have to deal with, so long as IsStandard doesn't change. The fact that the script language exists is worrisome, as is the fact that IsStandard only applies to relying of transactions by clients, not transactions in blocks.

[bachback]

Interesting, I don't understand how this should be worrisome - the receiver has to know what kind of transaction he is engaged in. Sending BTC which is not redeemable is the same as sending no money at all. It is exactly analogous to signing a contract. If you don't understand the terms you shouldn't sign it. So a sender might trick the receiver into believing that the contract does something he didn't know. But if you have a network of trust you hope that the sender gets punished for this behavior. Most of these issues haven't been solved yet, but it's a bit like saying the internet is worrisome because its peer to peer. I mean its exactly this part that is the most fascinating about the network. Sending from A to B we can already do with paypal.