
Blockstore: A Key-Value Store on Bitcoin - muneeb
http://blog.onename.com/blockstore-bitcoin/
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kushti
Namecoin is around for years, and it's true key-value blockchain database, not
DHT with values hashes stored in chain within financial transactions(why?).
Another cryptocurrency, Nxt, has messaging ability giving possibility to write
up to 1K chars within message, up to 10K in messages chain, enough for many
kinds of documents.

~~~
rxl
Bitcoin technically has the capability to store at least 1K bytes per
transaction using multi-sig outputs. 66 bytes per output * 15 possible outputs
(for standard transactions) = 1K bytes. And you could do even more than that
with non-standard transactions, making transactions with 3K bytes or more.

That said, you probably don't want to do this, because it contributes to
blockchain bloat.

We made the decision of storing the data in a DHT because it's more efficient
and you can store much more data than a few thousand bytes.

~~~
alandarev
But BitCoin community is against abusing the financial block-chain for general
purpose [0]. Reducing bloat is good, but why bloat it in first place?

[0] -
[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Alternative_chain#Objective](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Alternative_chain#Objective)

~~~
chj
Good thing is that no one really controls block chain.

~~~
jafaku
No single entity controls it, but that doesn't mean you can do whatever you
want. If someone is abusing the blockchain by bloating it with useless
garbage, there will be consensus for fixing that. So don't build a business or
technology around abusing Bitcoin's blockchain, because you will be left out.

~~~
vbezhenar
Why not set clear rules? 1 byte of blockchain costs XXX millibitcoins. You
like it — you use it. You don't like it — you don't use it. It's clear that if
anyone can use blockchain as information storage, someone WILL do it, now or
later. I think it's better to set the rules sooner than fix things later when
they are out of control.

~~~
dragonwriter
Don't bitcoin transaction fees provide a means to handle that without resort
to fixed centralized policy?

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jafaku
No, because the miner who gets the fee isn't the only one who will have to
work extra. All full nodes will have to relay and store that transaction. And
there is no known way to pay full node operators in a way that can't be
abused.

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huntaub
I've been working on a Namecoin light-resolving client lately, and this looks
really intriguing. However, like with Namecoin (but more urgent because of the
need for Bitcoin blocks), how "fast" can a node come online to this system
(and how much data is needed to be downloaded)?

Are you aiming for the "light-resolver" marketplace, or is this solution
really for people who are already running full Bitcoin nodes?

~~~
kushti
Interesting. When your client will be released?

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ryan-c
Not sure who huntaub is - there's an hl involved in Namecoin already that I
know of but I don't think that huntaub is him.

Anyway, there's a somewhat detailed blog post that I helped write about light
client design up on the Namecoin blog.

[http://blog.namecoin.org/post/109811339625/lightweight-
resol...](http://blog.namecoin.org/post/109811339625/lightweight-resolvers)

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cplease
Seriously, this BUZZWORD meets BUZZWORD linkbait is getting old, especially
the blockchain variety. Bitcoin is not the hammer to every nail. This is not a
good idea and there is not even an attempt here to rationalize why this is a
good idea.

~~~
gojomo
But the cryptographic scarcity and consensus of Bitcoin may be just the thing
to solve certain longstanding issues with DHTs, by increasing the cost of
Sybil and DoS attacks.

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llSourcell
What incentive do blockstore nodes have to store data? Bittorrent nodes have
the tit-for-tat mechanism for faster downloads. IPFS nodes get monetary
compensation via 'filecoin' (in the works).

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geofft
Isn't Bitcoin already a key-value store? One private key can store millions of
dollars of value.... :)

~~~
mLewisLogic
It can store an integer value. Storing longer data requires partitioning it
across multiple transactions.

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asciimo
They're currently using Namecoin, and it works perfectly. The argument to use
Bitcoin seems to be that it's sexier. Is it harder to get funding for Namecoin
applications?

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borisjabes
Neat! So if I understand correctly, first you retrieve the "value" from the
blockchain, which acts as the index into the DHT you're running separately?

Are you seeding the DHT with your own machines right now? At web scale,
wouldn't the number of machines participating in the storage network (as
opposed to the blockchain) need to be huge?

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TruthSHIFT
Can anyone ELI5? Honestly, I'd settle for an ELI12 on this one.

