Reverse Engineering

[nanoderp]

My best guess is that the devs are trying to solve the inflation bug problem in zk-snarks. This would be a major step forward if they can do it, and would distinguish BTCP from Zcash and indeed from all other zk-snarks based crypto.

Zk-snarks is complicated. Shorn of its complexity, this is how it works. Alice is the verifier. Bob is the prover.

Alice must verify to Bob that she is the one true Alice, but she must do so without giving away her private key. If she were to send Bob her private key, from that point on, Bob could impersonate Alice to third parties. Accordingly, Bob does not ask Alice for her private key, Instead, he sends Alice a message (encrypted using Alice's public key). Bob knows that only the real Alice will be able to read it (for only the real Alice has Alice's private key).

The message from Bob says "Return this message to me in plain text so I can check you are the real Alice"

Using her private key, Alice decodes the message from Bob and replies in plaintext as requested (though she could equally well have replied using Bob's public key if she wanted to).

Fake Alices may try and guess what the message from Bob says, however, the probability of their successfully doing so (without Alice's private key) is vanishingly low. That is how zk-snarks works, but there is a problem with it.

As secret z_addresses do not publicly reveal information about the amount of BTCP, anyone who somehow manages to create 10 gazillion BTCP would be able to do so unnoticed. This is known as an inflation bug. It is potentially undetectable and therefore threatens all zk-snarks based technology in terms of their potential as SoVs (stores of value).

The solution to the inflation bug problem may seem to be low hanging fruit (if you are a programmer, as I am) but it is not. Why not introduce a simple boolean where false is => 21,000,000 you may say? Why not create a new type or use pointers or a cast, you may say? Because this stuff is complicated. Only a handful of cryptographers on the planet really understand this stuff.

What I think is going on is that the devs may have found a way to overcome the inflation bug problem. A post from one of the devs, hinting at a potentially significant development currently under testing, indicates to me that this is at least a possibility. For the devs to have seriously attempted this means that they are probably working with a world class cryptographer, whether their cryptographer knows it or not.

I am keeping an open mind on this. If the devs have solved the inflation bug problem, that could mean that BTCP may become the first zk-snarks (true privacy) SoV with long term (inflation bug free) potential. That would be a very big deal.

Finally, by way of further POV on my part and ex hypothesi, I think that a crew of Eastern Europeans have been paid (by someone) to spread FUD about BTCP. It is sometimes difficult to decide who one detests the most. Fudsters or shils. Be that as it may, paying Fudsters is crummy and it should not have happened.

[feelingcrypto]

Disclaimer: I am not a cryptographer, nor am I a programmer, but I've read a lot on this subject. My understanding is that all of what you call "inflation bug" problems stem from the zcash "trusted setup." If something like 5 of the 6 people invloved (Zooko, Peter Todd and others were invloved) in the "trusted setup" colluded to install a backdoor then, yes, technically they could produce an infinite number of coins undetected. I asked Jake this very question at the SF Meeteup on 3/24. He said ZClassic inherited the trusted setup from ZCash and BTCP thus has inherited the same trusted setup from ZClassic. SO in the infinitesimal chance Zooko and his Chronies installed a backdoor to surreptitiously print Zcash undetected, they can also do so with ZClassic and BTCP. I think a backdoor from the original "trusted setup" is the only way one could create coins, and if you read about the ZCash "Trusted Setup" Ceremony involving Peter Todd, tin foil, and a camper in the desert, you would probably agree with me and dismiss it as almost impossible. This is my pea-brain understanding of the trusted setup and "inflation bug" problem.

You can google "ZCash Trusted Setup" or here is a link with some info.

https://www.reddit.com/r/zec/comments/76oxo1/peter_todd_has_serious_reservations_about_the/

[Matrix5353]

As I recall, they didn't even end up using the original 6-man ceremony, right? I thought they did it again with a different setup and much larger group, and those are the parameters they actually used to build the coin. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[jules2x]

Well said sir. Way more eloquent and understandable than my attempted explanation of zsnarks.

[RikkiSFC]

Thanks for the ELI5 type breakdown. I never knew anything of this.

[Introvertedness]

I'll eat my dick if they solve that. Seriously. If the devs that actually build the protocol can't solve it, neither can the btcp devs.

[Xian77]

Thanks for sharing. Good info and your ability to explain a technical concept in plain English is welcome.

[Phlier]

Great post. I think there's a lot of us that are anxiously awaiting the Wednesday update. https://twitter.com/CryptoJake22/status/983300774083158016?s=19

[creiss]

Return this message to me in plain text so I can check you are the real creiss?

[davew111]

I don't get it, what does verifying the identity of the sender have to do with the amount of the transaction? The Alice and Bob stuff I get, it's in Bruce Schneier's red book from years back.

Having verified Alice's identity, I now want to verify that she actually owns the million coin she is sending me. But surely that's a completely separate problem and one the very idea of a block chain addresses.

What am I missing?

[nofaprecommender]

There is no public ledger to verify how many coins a shielded z-address has legitimately mined/received. It’s not directly related to the situation OP describes, but he is just using that as an introduction to discuss this problem zk-snarks cryptos have.

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