Quote from: satoshi on December 09, 2010, 3:17:53 PMI also support a third transaction type for timestamp hash sized arbitrary data. There’s no point not having one since you can already do it anyway. It would tell nodes they don’t need to bother to index it.
Yes it is possible already. But it is disappointing to encourage main bitcoin chain to be used for generic data storage.
When a large amount of users are non-currency data users, currency users will face longer delays, higher costs, and decreased ability to send free transactions. Currency users will be discouraged by these factors from using bitcoin.
All these folks talking about the glory of the free market conveniently omit that there only one, monopolized market right now — the mainline chain. This implies decreased competition versus many markets (==many chains) and tragedy of the commons, as everybody shoves all their data onto the main chain.
An alternate chain that encourages data storage would better serve data users, leaving the main chain to better serve currency users.
Concerning using bitcoins as timestamps…
Right now gold can be mined and used as a currency. You can also you gold to make jewelry, build circuit boards, etc., because it has special properties. Therefore, gold has more than one purpose which increases its value. As of now most people believe that bitcoin can only be used as a currency. If people start using bitcoins to timestamp their work, then every bitcoin actually has more intrinsic value because it has more than one purpose! A bitcoin is actually not only useful as a currency but it has the ability to timestamp. If someone could use this special bitcoin property similarly to how scientists used the conductive properties of gold, then bitcoins could takeoff in a different tangent which could further increase its value. Is there a breakthough application waiting to be discovered using the timestamp property out there???