BCAP extension: Consensus Monitor

[yashrajd]

Looking for feedback or thoughts on the concept, goals and approach. Happy to add further details or iterate as needed!

Rationale

Bitcoin protocol upgrades seem to be getting harder to execute, but their importance is only likely to go up over time. BCAP is a nifty framework for many reasons, but especially because it aims to model real-world behaviour and outcomes. However, in its current form, it is merely a text document. This limits its utility and accessibility. On the other hand, bitcoin stakeholders lack a holistic resource to learn about specific protocol-upgrade proposals, and make up their (state of) mind and take informed decisions. A solution is needed to bridge this gap.

Introducing

Consensus Monitor

Monitoring the (protocol upgrade) situation

Goals

• Create a limited implementation of BCAP that can be applied to specific proposals, in order to track and facilitate consensus
• Help proposers educate stakeholders and communicate value generally
• Help BCAP stakeholders form an informed opinion about proposals, and get off SOM3, SOM4

Approach

consensusMonitor (template, proposal) {...

• Convert BCAP framework into a implementation template that can be reasonably productised
• Apply the template to an existing protocol upgrade proposal, creating public resources (such as a website)
• Ensure resources are attractive, useful and accessible to various BCAP stakeholders through good design & communication
• Prioritise shipping and real-world impact over theoretical rigour
• Invite and incorporate community input, including through PRs and issues

Template components (WIP)

• Consensus dashboard – an at-a-glance view of proposal consensus status
• Proposal primer – detailed stakeholder-tailored material about the proposal, FAQs etc. (reference)
• State-of-mind reader – determining stakeholder SOM (reference)
• Agents – chat bot for site visitors, agent(s) to monitor public consensus signals
  ...and more

[yashrajd]

Here's a quick-n-dirty, vibe-coded concept of how the Consensus Dashboard might look like:

[yashrajd]

Approach

consensusMonitor (template, proposal) {...

• Convert BCAP framework into a implementation template that can be reasonably productised
• Apply the template to an existing protocol upgrade proposal, creating public resources (such as a website)

The above approach is as follows:

BCAP framework –-> BCAP template –-> Targetted BCAP resource for a proposal – a proposal-specific website for e.g.

–-

An alternate approach could be to manually apply BCAP to a proposal, and iterate over time. Once the proposal BCAP implementation is in decent shape, a template could be distilled from it.

BCAP framework –-> Targetted BCAP resource for a proposal –-> BCAP template

Look forward to thoughts on this as well!

[moneyball]

How would you measure this?

[yashrajd]

Hardest question first 🥶 – SOM measurement seems to be the most challenging aspect of consensus monitor.

TL;DR – we measure SOM, relative stakeholder powers and use them to calculate a consensus score. Lots of work to be done

SOM measurement

• Estimating SOM is the key to measuring consensus
• The measuring consensus section provides a blueprint for measuring SOM
• For different stakeholders/categories, SOM could be estimated through one or more methods mentioned in BCAP
  a) public signals (on-chain, public statements, bitcoin (futures) price etc.)
  b) surveys, questionnaires, interviews
• Assign a SOM score to each stakeholder/category based on these – heart of the matter; this is where subjectivity/bias could be introduced
• Requires ongoing effort to monitor and maintain (perhaps agents could be used here, some activities could stay manual)
• Transparency, community input/feedback could be crucial here

Relative power estimation

• Again, BCAP provides a guidepost to approach this.
• Requires outlining stages & milestones, then tracking status over time
• Identifying stakeholders with significant power putting out (or not) signals

Consensus score calculation

In its simplest form, consensus score == ∑ SOM*power

• SOM metric values could be [-2, -1, 0, 0*, 1, 2] for each stakeholder category
• relative power values [0,10] based on BCAP
• there is likely to be considerable nuance in devising appropriate scale and formula

It is important to mention that Consensus Monitor would be a valuable resource for proposals, whether or not we are able to boil consensus down to (set of) numbers (see Rationale in OP), given the lack of holistic alternative resources for any proposal at the moment.

[yashrajd]

cc @moneyball, is this worth pursuing further?

[moneyball]

My concern is that it would be a misleading dashboard due to weak data. However, I am open-minded! Perhaps a demonstration using a real-world example would be persuasive.