Make commit-reveal mandatory

[ppolewicz]

Not using commit-reveal allows weight copiers to operate and take a portion of dividends meant to go to holders and validators running the infrastructure.

Commit-reveal has a long history now. sn12 deployed CRv1 and has shown that it can kick weight copiers out, then CRv2 was deployed mostly to remove numerous issues with CRv1 implementation, but it was hard to use it. CRv3 was born to make it easier to use, but there have been security issues and finally now that CRv4 resolved them, we can see that the weight copiers largely gave up on subnets where commit-reveal is enabled.

The problem is that many subnets still don't use commit-reveal and it really is time to... disable the support for weight copying.

I propose the following changes:

1. Change the default value of commit_reveal for new subnets to Enabled
2. Make 1 the minimum for commit_reveal_interval
3. In a migration for all subnets which currently have commit_reveal_interval set to 0, change it to 1
4. In a migration for all subnets which currently have commit_reveal set to Disabled, change it to Enabled
5. Make commit_reveal hyperparameter sudo only
6. Remove support for CRv3 (breaking compatibility with bittensor python sdk < 9.9.0, but CRv3 is as secure as set_weights(), so...)

Schedule

Points 1, 2, 3, 4 to be done on 2025-08-25
Point 5 (and 4 repeated) to be done on 2025-09-01
Point 6 to be done on 2025-09-08

Why not remove set_weights() entirely

If drand ever breaks, we'd prefer to be temporarily vulnerable to weight copying, than not being able to set weights at all.

What about miner feedback?

After the last round of updates, the concealment period can be less than a minute (reveal happens 4ish blocks after epoch). So in CRv4 it's not really a problem anymore (unlike CRv1, CRv2, CRv3).

What about cooperative validation?

The concealment period is 4 blocks or so, so not a problem, but if you need to motivate validators to find a new leader quickly, use Yuma 3 + Liquid alpha 2.

[JohnReedV]

The name of the storage item CRV3WeightCommitsV2 should also change.

Edit: I did this here #1963

[surcyf123]

see here for my previous thoughts on creating more restrictions for subnet owners. The same applies for here.

#1949 (comment)

I could write another 4 paragraphs on why subnets owners should be allowed to set commit_reveal and commit_reveal_interval without restrictions. If a PR gets created for this, I will.

#STOPTAKINGAWAYSUBNETOWNERRIGHTS

[ppolewicz]

Pushing out weight copiers from the ecosystem is more important than the slight discomfort a few subnet owners may feel when they need to conceal weights for a few minutes.

[surcyf123]

no it's not

[urdof7]

Why not let subnet owners deal with weight copiers themselves. If it's useful for their subnet they can turn it on, but why add another sudo only hyperparam. Changing the default is ok, but I can see cases where It's a pain to have on, and the owner's ability to control their sn is more important than potential weight copiers imo.

[surcyf123]

we did a vote in the owners channel in bittensor and this was voted against.

[Swamination-Yuma]

we did a vote in the owners channel in bittensor and this was voted against.

Is that channel a governance measure? It is a mix of devs in subnets who may have differing opinions with the owners. I posted in Owners as well, opinion. Governance conversation may need to happen elsewhere.

[Swamination-Yuma]

Why not let subnet owners deal with weight copiers themselves. If it's useful for their subnet they can turn it on, but why add another sudo only hyperparam. Changing the default is ok, but I can see cases where It's a pain to have on, and the owner's ability to control their sn is more important than potential weight copiers imo.

Opinion: This is a protocol-level protection of the very weights the network relies on. Having them in plain values is known to directly contribute to others copying the weights and damaging incentives, dividends. This would allow a default base requirement of 1 interval of protection, after which the subnet would control the interval. In my mind, this is like requiring network encryption as default on sensitive data and would provide new participants a simple method of protecting weights without relying on external arbitrary solutions.

[ppolewicz]

CRv3 is being removed today, but commit-reveal is not going to be a mandatory setting yet