Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Christoph Bergmann]

One downside I see is that it makes more data storage and processing for SPV wallets.

Since SPV wallets process the header chain, faster blocks means more block headers for them to store.

Another one is that it increases the number of orphans. Ethereum has 13 sec. blocks, and invented uncles to pay for the increased number of orphaned blocks.

I personally don't like the idea of decreasing blockintervalls. It is obvious that it has advantages, but imho it is too much of a change. It's already too much trouble to convince people to give up the stupid 1mb limit.

I can't explain it rationaly why I don't like the idea. But my feeling is that it is bad, if there is no urgent need for it.

 

[Snokkom]

@satoshis_sockpuppet Lol, I love the fights between Charlie Lee vs Luke Jr.

Charlie Lee likes actually big blocks but he is afraid that big blocks makes his Litecoin worthless

)

Segwitcoins Collapsing. Bitcoin Cash UP.

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

recently I had a funny twitter conversation (click it!):


While arguing for fun I realized something:

The no2x node fetish core fans fight blood and honor against everybody who tries to change Bitcoin with a hardfork. Independently if they like the change or not. You must not change Bitcoin - except when you do it with a soft fork, like core does. Then they simply say: "ok, it is backward compatible, I don't mind."

But if you ask them, who sets the rules, they say: "Me, my node, and nobody else."

But ... a softfork is backward compatible. My node can't resist any new rule imposed by a soft fork. I can't resist the miners activating segWit, I can't resist the blocksize dwarfed to 1mb, I can't resist a rule that the imperator of China has to personally sign every transaction to get them in a block. As long as it is done with a soft fork, my node thinks everything is ok.

Basically the no2x-node-softfork-guys hold their node's participation in the definition of Bitcoin by rules for the most important thing in the world, but at the same time they beg for not being asked when Core and miners decide over new rules. No2x is a movement of nodes against their holy participation in the definition of Bitcoin.

This is even more irony than No2x people saying "By itself, I think we really need 2mb and I hope we will get it ... BUT NOT THIS WAY."

People fighting against their own interest. A specific genre of tragic comedia.

 

[79b79aa8]

let's complete the syllogism:

1. nobody has trouble discovering what their interests are when their money is on the line
2. certain people in the scaling debate have trouble discovering what their interests are
3. ...

 

[albin]

I think that's an illicit major if I'm symbolically constructing it correctly just mentally. Sorry, I was a huge syllogism geek in my early 20's.

I'm thinking of it as

No person with money the line | has trouble discovering his interests

Some people in the scaling debate | have trouble discovering their interests

Therefore, Some people in the scaling debate are not people with money on the line

I get what you're saying though, just being the worst!

 

[awemany]

I personally don't like the idea of decreasing blockintervalls. It is obvious that it has advantages, but imho it is too much of a change. It's already too much trouble to convince people to give up the stupid 1mb limit.

I can't explain it rationaly why I don't like the idea. But my feeling is that it is bad, if there is no urgent need for it.

It is the status quo argument, of which I am also in general an adherent. Blockstream and the affiliated assholes spun the situation so that 1MB is supposedly the status quo. Which it simply isn't.

As I have said earlier, I think Satoshi decided to implement this limit as a designed breaking point where the interests of pro-Bitcoiners vs. contra-Bitcoiners collide and also to create a healthy political landscape. He was well aware of politics and human nature when designing this. Others saw that the limit would get problematic back then in 2010 (caveden). Is it in any way a stretch to assume that Satoshi saw exactly what he did when he put in the 1MB limit?

Does it look healthy right now? No fucking way. But I heard somewhere that supposedly, when the U.S. was founded, some of the founding fathers ended up hating the guts of each other. Might this be similar?
What should come out of this - if the incentives work out - is governance with a sense of proportion on all sides and all regards by those having a say. Which would clearly mean that the 1x-ers are going to be rightfully left behind.

The no2x node fetish core fans fight blood and honor against everybody who tries to change Bitcoin with a hardfork. Independently if they like the change or not. You must not change Bitcoin - except when you do it with a soft fork, like core does. Then they simply say: "ok, it is backward compatible, I don't mind."

And their own rhetorics will be their undoing. Empty blocks are just a soft fork.

But ... a softfork is backward compatible. My node can't resist any new rule imposed by a soft fork. I can't resist the miners activating segWit, I can't resist the blocksize dwarfed to 1mb, I can't resist a rule that the imperator of China has to personally sign every transaction to get them in a block. As long as it is done with a soft fork, my node thinks everything is ok.

The schizophrenia that is hating the miners but loving soft forks.

 

[79b79aa8]

somehow i missed this last week. the magnitude of it is sinking in: CME (the chicago mercantile exchange), and CBOE (the chicago board options exchange) will begin trading bitcoin futures, ASAP. they will trade USD-settled contracts (traders will speculate on bitcoin price, but stay in fiat).

lack of a regulated derivatives market was the main reason an ETF did not get approved earlier this year. with the world's largest exchanges trading bitcoin-denominated instruments, an ETF will most likely follow suit.

this means, in all likelihood, no hyperbole, no real way around it, that bitcoin price will grow by at least an order of magnitude, relatively soon. anyone -- institutional investors, plus everyone else -- will have a ready-made ramp to enter the market for the fastest-growing asset class out there, which is uncorrelated to all others, to boot.

the underlying asset of the new derivatives is bitcoin. which bitcoin? good question. who knows. the beautiful part is that this is essentially getting resolved in a matter of days, not a second too soon, as if part of a grand choreographed dance (which maybe, just maybe, as @awemany suggests, was long ago foreseen).

my position has been: (i) hold on to BTC (except for small scheduled sales to pay off the initial investment and eliminate all risk), because it has its own tremendous inertia; (ii) buy as much BCH as possible with fresh fiat, because i think BCH is bitcoin, the soundest instrument out there, which will by financial necessity impose itself; (iii) OK, i have turned a little BTC to BCH, because at <10% it is just too tempting, holdings grow fast that way; (iv) i will stay put if there is a SW1X/SW2X fork, i will have equal holdings of both and am agnostic between them, whatever happens on that front is OK with me (but i have hard evidence BCH scales better than SW-LN).

this, if i ever saw one, is a win-win.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

this, if i ever saw one, is a win-win.

It's the most dangerous time for Bitcoin since the first block was mined.

The success case for Bitcoin is the formation of a closed loop economy that does not involve exchange, successful competition with other currencies that eventually kills the exchange industry entirely.

Blockstream successfully killed early efforts to bootstrap a closed loop economy and we don't yet know if it was a fatal blow.

 

[awemany]

@Justus Ranvier : Time for some Bitcoin maximalism again IMO. One only hopes that the miners collectively understand this as well.

IMO, there has to be one surviving chain coming out of this battle. Yes, that might be Cash (though I certainly do NOT hope it will be). But there's a certain craziness visible, some submission on reddit said sth. along the lines of "Why should miners stop SegWit or Cash? Why kill any of the golden gooses?".

So then... how about creating dozens of Bitcoin Cashes and Golds and thus increasing the value of Bitcoin to $100000 per Bitcoin now?

Yeah, right.... /s

If we don't move forward with 2x, I think we'll indeed see a big bubble popping.

 

[79b79aa8]

The success case for Bitcoin is the formation of a closed loop economy that does not involve exchange, successful competition with other currencies that eventually kills the exchange industry entirely.

i do not see evidence for this.
if by "success case" you mean taking over the economy, perhaps. but you know full well that there are degrees of success. some of them are success enough.
i do not think it at all likely that the upcoming events will cause crypto to disappear. if crypto does not disappear, and in fact goes mainstream -- the gist of my post -- bitcoin will surely be part of the mix. indeed, most likely it will be by far and away the leader. which bitcoin? i do not care*, i hold them all, and i am poised to win-win.

* ok, i do, that's why i hold more of one than the others.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

@79b79aa8 Bitcoin is not an end in itself. Bitcoin is a tool for destroying the current economy and replacing it with a less-corrupt one.

If it fails to achieve this, then it is not fit for purpose.

 

[79b79aa8]

ok, that was easy to identify, we have different goals.
you are, as always, exceptionally clear.

 

[AdrianX]

If we don't move forward with 2x, I think we'll indeed see a big bubble popping.

I'm not sure if Peter said this but it summarizes my Bitcoin position. I'm not pushing any investments.

"Either we'll bring bigger blocks to the people (B2X), or we'll bring the people to bigger blocks (BCH)" - @Peter R
https://twitter.com/PeterRizun
I'm with the people. I'm going to move with them I have a solid anchor in BCH and if needs be I'll hold on and break from the herd before it runs off the cliff.

 

[awemany]

AdrianX: Yes. One interesting thing to look at is to figure out why Bitcoin Cash has a large value to begin with.

And if one does that, I think it is unavoidable that one will reach the conclusion that the massive amount of hash power (compared to any other minor alt) that went into mining it is a large reason for its prominence.

One corollary here is that miners actually have a lot of say in what is Bitcoin.

And in the current situation they even collectively have the ultimate power to say what is not Bitcoin from the three options available.

They might not stop two out of three chains right away - but they'd be very wise to stop at least one.

The ones behind Blockstream and the smallblockism, they basically got us into the situation of "follow us, or we'll burn the house down". (I think @Zangelbert Bingledack noted this kind of "bargaining" tactic first with Greg)

The miners now got us into the situation (with Cash), of "Fine, if you don't do as we want, we'll burn your house down as well (and risk some unknown fire damage to our house)."

A large part of the answer is decided now whether the ones backing the smallblockism want to see Bitcoin crash and burn and turn onto itself - or just wanted to delay its adoption (for loading up or better positioning of themselves whatever).

I think this is essentially the bet that's going to be resolved in the next couple days.

Those who started the insane smallblockerism should also have the power to stop it, one would think.
[doublepost=1510076918,1510075851][/doublepost]

@79b79aa8 Bitcoin is not an end in itself. Bitcoin is a tool for destroying the current economy and replacing it with a less-corrupt one.

If it fails to achieve this, then it is not fit for purpose.

I would tend to agree but with a smaller scope: "supersede the current money system".

The real economy is much more than the money that it is built upon. If people are wise enough (stupid hope, I know), they could keep large parts of the economy intact while still replacing the money system.

Now, fancy "financial instruments" and contracts that are designed to rely upon non-features of the fiat system will certainly lose out.

 

[freetrader]

Those who started the insane smallblockerism should also have the power to stop it, one would think.

Create a monster, it has the tendency to run away from its creator(s).

Even then, those who started it might just recline and enjoy the show.

The miners now got us into the situation (with Cash)

I wonder if the alternative would have resulted in the much same game playing out on SegWit2 that the NO2X faction has stirred up. Personally I think so. It was widely predicted pretty much from the moment the NYA was published.

So far, it looks to me like without Cash the alternative would have been to accede to Core's plans, i.e. walk away with nothing in hand after years of trying to reach a solution.

https://mises.org/library/revolutions-eat-their-parents

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

And again, Bitcoins biggest competitor manages to shoot itself in the foot...

KISS

 

[awemany]

So far, it looks to me like without Cash the alternative would have been to accede to Core's plans, i.e. walk away with nothing in hand after years of trying to reach a solution.

No, the alternative would be to simply for the miners to use the tools that they have: Meaning to stop/disable/double-spend/whatever the 1x chain to make sure that everyone understands it is time to move on with 2x. Who knows, maybe they will still do that after all.

Hampering yourself by refraining from ever using these tools to give your enemies an advantage for free? Really, why should the miners do that?

And again, Bitcoins biggest competitor manages to shoot itself in the foot...

I think it was @ShadowOfHarbringer who quipped on reddit a while ago, paraphrasing and likely taking out of context: Ethereum not only has smart contracts like Bitcoin does, but actually genius contracts!

 

[Justus Ranvier]

I would tend to agree but with a smaller scope: "supersede the current money system".

The real economy is much more than the money that it is built upon. If people are wise enough (stupid hope, I know), they could keep large parts of the economy intact while still replacing the money system.

Now, fancy "financial instruments" and contracts that are designed to rely upon non-features of the fiat system will certainly lose out.

You're underestimating the degree to which financial instruments and monetary anti-features affect the behavior of economic actors and the resulting economy which they build.

If you change those things the economy that would result would bear little resemblance to the one that exists now.

 

[awemany]

@Justus Ranvier : Fair enough. I guess and hope we'll see soon enough how big that effect is.

 

[jbreher]

IMO, there has to be one surviving chain coming out of this battle. Yes, that might be Cash (though I certainly do NOT hope it will be).

@awemany. I find your wish that Bitcoin Cash not be The One True Bitcoin unsettling.

I am not going to berate you, nor argue, nor ridicule your position. I just see it as obvious that the Bitcoin that does not summarily invalidate large volume use cases is the rightful heir.

I guess I can see that others differ, but I don't quite understand the logic.

That is all.

Cheers!