{"id":20403,"date":"2019-03-26T16:35:03","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T16:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe76b00726c3"},"modified":"2019-03-26T16:35:03","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T16:35:03","slug":"veriblocks-bitcoin-backed-security-protocol-goes-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/veriblocks-bitcoin-backed-security-protocol-goes-live","title":{"rendered":"VeriBlock\u2019s Bitcoin-Backed Security Protocol Goes Live"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After a year on its testnet, the VeriBlock<\/a> blockchain went live yesterday on the Bitcoin mainnet, allowing exchanges, wallet providers, merchants and other crypto businesses to leverage Bitcoin\u2019s robust blockchain security.<\/p>\n

Now that it\u2019s live on the mainnet, VeriBlock\u2019s model extends the Bitcoin blockchain\u2019s security protection from 51-percent attacks to non-Bitcoin blockchains by linking them to the Bitcoin blockchain, offering it as a security backstop.<\/p>\n

How Does VeriBlock Work?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

VeriBlock allows any blockchain to inherit the full proof-of-work security of Bitcoin using a novel consensus protocol \u2014 proof of proof \u2014 which records snapshots of any given blockchain and embeds them (in an aggregated form) in Bitcoin transactions, allowing the former to inherit the latter\u2019s security characteristics.<\/p>\n

These snapshots can be automatically referenced by the protocol in the event of a 51-percent attack to determine the correct chain. The presence of conflicting snapshots for a particular \u201caltchain\u201d triggers early attack detection (EAD) metrics, which warns users about the potential rewrite before they confirm the transaction and updates them when the transaction is safe to accept.<\/p>\n

VeriBlock uses OP_RETURN<\/a> \u2014 a type of bitcoin transaction that is used for embedding data on the blockchain. It can be used for anything from proving the existence of some data at a specific point in time (proof of existence) to issuing new assets, all on top of the Bitcoin blockchain.<\/p>\n

\u201cA \u2018regular\u2019 Bitcoin transaction and one carrying a VeriBlock publication need not be mutually exclusive,\u201d VeriBlock CTO Max Sanchez said. \u201cIt would be a relatively simple engineering matter to add an option in a Bitcoin wallet that said \u2018Sending BTC? Secure the crypto-ecosystem with VeriBlock and subsidize your BTC transaction fee.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Does VeriBlock Create Problems for Bitcoin?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

There have been estimates of the percentage of the Bitcoin blockspace used by VeriBlock that range from 20 percent of the network to as high as 45 percent. This may raise some concerns about how VeriBlock will affect the network.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was widely reported right before the VeriBlock testnet was phased out,\u201d Sanchez said. \u201cHowever, the effects of proof of proof on the Bitcoin network are actually very small \u2026 As demand for bitcoin transactions increases and users are willing to bid higher fees, the amount of space VeriBlock consumes in Bitcoin will shrink \u2014 the two economic forces result in an equilibrium.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanchez also noted that VeriBlock\u2019s solution offers security regardless of Bitcoin\u2019s transaction frequency at a given time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe natural ebb-and-flow of VeriBlock transaction volume on Bitcoin does not affect the security characteristics of VeriBlock or VeriBlock-secured altchains, nor does it adversely affect Bitcoin,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Jameson Lopp, CTO of Casa<\/a>, has been observing VeriBlock\u2019s activity on Bitcoin\u2019s testnet for over a year.<\/p>\n

During an episode of the HSHR8 podcast<\/a> on March 20, 2019, Lopp said that he doesn\u2019t see the VeriBlock venture as an attack on the Bitcoin network, as some might, but he wondered about the economics of spending millions in fees to provide security.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re paying the fees to put it in the blockchain and you convince some miners to put it in, then there might be some economic rationality for this,\u201d he said. Lopp also noted that he can see \u201cthe value of having a data anchor\u201d for Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that VeriBlock elegantly expands Bitcoin\u2019s usefulness and does so in a way that doesn\u2019t result in a burden on the network,\u201d VeriBlock CEO Justin Fisher told Bitcoin Magazine<\/em>. \u201cIt drives demand for Bitcoin and also, in its own way, helps make Bitcoin more secure while maximizing the utility derived from Bitcoin\u2019s energy consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an announcement<\/a> on March 25, 2019, Matt Roszak, Bloq co-founder; Anthony Di Iorio, founder and CEO of Decentral; and Bill Shihara, co-founder and CEO of Bittrex, all commended VeriBlock on its innovative new protocol, expecting it to add a new level of security to the blockchain ecosystem.<\/p>\n

“Bloq is proud to have been part of the journey with VeriBlock over the past two years \u2014 and especially with a technology that helps any blockchain project thrive and benefit from the security that Bitcoin provides,\u201d Roszak wrote on his company blog. \u201cAs the multi-chain, multi-network, multi-token world emerges, we are confident that VeriBlock will continue to play a vital role as a security root for this new frontier.”<\/p>\n

The vice president of crypto exchange BitBuy<\/a>, Jordan Anderson, also praised the solution in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cVeriBlock is an excellent example of a proof-of-proof initiative to ensure altcoins are not susceptible to a 51-percent attack,\u201d he said. \u201cVeriBlock will promote security and stability within the altcoin ecosystem, and provide greater confidence to consumers looking to participate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, long-time bitcoin core developer Peter Todd<\/a> was more apprehensive, explaining that he needed time to look at the actual implementation of the VeriBlock project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe general idea of piggybacking on an existing consensus system is a good one,\u201d he said. \u201cBut VeriBlock is an unusually complex variant of that idea, so I’m not confident given what I’ve seen in the white paper that it is secure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a year on its testnet, the VeriBlock blockchain has gone live on the Bitcoin mainnet, allowing exchanges, wallet providers, merchants and other crypto businesses to leverage Bitcoin\u2019s blockchain security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2916,"featured_media":20404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1547,3426,2279,3427],"class_list":{"0":"post-20403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-bittrex","9":"tag-decentral","10":"tag-jameson-lopp","11":"tag-matt-roszak"},"author_data":{"id":2916,"name":"Jessie Willms","nicename":"jessie-willms","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/34e39b2d2b80d0f1b4eaf183ca23eff71d1e903536d749658f27936a80197dee?s=96&d=robohash&r=g"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/veriblocks-bitcoin-backed-security-protocol-goes-live.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2916"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}