Features which would require/benefit from a Bisq hard fork

[chimp1984]

This is a Bisq Network proposal. Please familiarize yourself with the submission and review process.

There are several ideas around which come with rather large changes and it will be challenging to implement those in a backward compatible way. In fact to achieve that is often a considerable effort. Of course we want to avoid a hard fork as far as possible as it comes wich severe disruption for users. Bisq only had 1 real hard fork so far. There are severl shades of soft/hard fork and we have several tools at hand. But I consider a hard fork here that users basically need to switch to a new application, using a different network and cannot use the old local data (conversion tool can be provided).

Here is an uncomplete list of features/ideas which would be candidates to require or at least benefit from a hard fork:

• Remove maker and taker fee tx
• Use a dedicated signature and encryption key for each offer instead of using the same global keys which is a privay issue.
• Use EC keys instead of DSA/RSA keys as they are much smaller
• Use a new onion address for each offer (same as above reuse of onion leaks privacy)
• Use blinded data instead of account age witness in offer (privacy issue)
• Add proof of work for offers
• Add proof or work for p2p network messages (dos protection)
• Add atomic swaps for BSQ/BTC (can be done without hardfork but would make dev life easier)
• Use new key for local reputation instead of onion address as root for reputation
• Fix some minor crypto issues
• Change DAO state model

Some of those projects would be easier and some harder to implement in a backward compatible way. I am not arguing we should run for a hard fork, I just wanted to bring those ideas to attention and start a discussion about the pro and cons.

[RefundAgent]

These are important improvements. E. g. DDOS-attacks could kill Bisq and need to be prevented. Bisq is presently growing by about 5-10%/month by trades and any hard fork should be done early rather than late.

[ripcurlx]

I think those are all great ideas to improve Bisq, even if it requires a hard fork. But I think the bigger threat that is slowly approaching are the rising mining fees, that might make Bisq not feasible anymore for small trades. I do know that we ran into a dead end with the off-chain protocol, but I guess we have to put all our brainpower to alternative solutions sooner than later.