Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[albin]

Also, the Todd tweet is definitely in-line with a worldview uncovered here brilliantly time and time again. Poor design = human beings act in ways out-of-band that he doesn't completely understand or control as robotic automatons within the system.

I think his concern might be either disingenuous or an unwillingness to explore very simple market dynamics. If you combine a very rudimentary understanding of the dynamics in Peter R's paper plus a willingness to go deeper than just viewing a mining pool as having some magically-privileged position to destroy Bitcoin, it becomes very obvious that BTCC is shouldering some kind of cost to provide priority service. This either means that their setup is lower impedance relative to competitors, so that this promotion shares some of their economic rent as value for their users, or with their verticals, they're willing to do mining as a loss-leader to promote their services.

In the case of the latter, there's additional dynamics because we're talking about pooled mining, as including transactions is obviously not free WRT orphan risk, so BTCC is accountable performance-wise to folks pointing their hashing power toward the pool. This thinking might however be far too sophisticated to a peanut gallery of devs bent on portraying pools as having inexplicable power to maintain hashing contributors who merely have to restart their cgminer with modified command-line arguments! (One could hardly imagine a more friction-free situation)

 

[Impulse]

for a core dev like Todd to say this, "Indeed, which suggests Bitcoin is poorly designed" is truly outrageous and suggests he should resign. these guys are the worst stewards of Bitcoin and only look to advance their own agendas. look at his shameless plug for his RBF & CPFP proposals.

Absolutely. Why is he even here? Why does he even bother to contribute to a project he believes is fundamentally flawed? His motivations are highly suspect.

 

[cypherdoc]

@Impulse

and the 2 DevCore video presentations by Corrallo and gmax had the same attitude; Bitcoin is fragile and flawed. gmax said Bitcoin is controlled by 3 ppl. imagine that. what a jerk not to mention poor steward of the code.

i'm outraged at these idiots.
[doublepost=1448080859][/doublepost]haha, just now when i went to review this tweet from Todd:


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the clown doesn't want to be scrutinized. i don't think he liked what i had to say here:

 

[albin]

His motivations are highly suspect.

Just intuitively, if I were to guess what elements in the space were agents tasked to disrupt, the top of my list would be Peter Todd, Btcdrak, and John Dillon. I.e., Todd and two obnoxious anonymous randos that regurgitate his talking points nonstop. Drak is in a class of his own though, as he's basically invented this position of fantasy RPG participation in development.

 

[Zarathustra]

i get this message:

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the clown doesn't want to be scrutinized. i don't think he liked what i had to say here:

All of 'them' seem to use the same strategy: Banning, blocking, censoring.
Those are children. The sooner they become marginalized the better.

 

[Inca]

They can see their vision for btc slipping away from them.

It will be fascinating to see which big miner jumps ship first..

Remember Peter Todd sold his coins during the bear market...

 

[awemany]

I have to admit I am becoming worried regarding the mining community's ability to make smart decisions for Bitcoin's long-term health.

What has happened is success in mining is not determined by a better ability to run a node/pool or a better understanding of bitcoin, but instead is determined by having access to the cheapest electricity available. If you look at the largest mining farms, they are all in very low cost electricity regions.

This is an artifact of the coinbase payout dominating fees. If the block reward was instead dominated by fees, then part of being a successful miner would require the ability to write or configure nodes to maximize the # of transactions included while minimizing orphan risk with other miners. This would result in miners developing concepts such as thin blocks, IBLT or weak blocks on their own, instead of waiting for core to get around to it.

But by having the coinbase payout negate fees, success in mining is reduced primarily to access to low cost electricity. This is a problem because now incompetent miners are not at a disadvantage to more competent miners, and as a result mining does not shift towards the most competent miners who figure out how to capture more fees. We end up with miners in China saying they can't handle 2MB blocks because they lack network, when all they have to do is run stratum on-site and connect to a remote node in a datacenter. "But hey, I'm just mining for the coinbase so I don't have to care."

What we are left with is hoping that individual miners will switch pools to the pools that make better choices out of personal preference not economic need, but I doubt >50% of miners care enough which makes this unlikely.

A much better situation would be if some pools made more money because they figured out how to capture more transaction fees. If this was the case most individual miners would quickly switch to the better pools.

TL;DR Because of the coinbase dominating fees, miners do not have an economic incentive to be more competent and include more transactions. We are left hoping miners make the "right" choices based not on economics but personal preference. That is not reliable and is a problem.

Thinking about it - most of the big miners must be well below break-even and must have lost a lot of money betting on the price?

Meanwhile their very (in-)action is keeping the price down but they don't see the connection.

 

[awemany]

@rocks

[...]

My sense is that Core will give itself a reprieve by raising the cap modestly soonish.

I hope they get tossed out of the loop completely now.

Seriously, I now see losing gmax & ptodd (and adam didn't contribute any code anyways) and their certainly valuable contributions in the past as much less of a problem as their toxic demeanor of being the arrogant and centralized self-elected 'Bitcoin wizards' (bitcoin wizards is their choice of words, that's the name of their ivory-tower IRC channel away from all the 'lusers' !)

The problem isn't that they are keen but wrong on the blocksize issue, the problem is that they have shown (in the many interactions I had with gmax on reddit, for example) a very manipulative and broken way of debating. Their deafening silence on theymos' demeanor is just one data point out of many here. For example, I have also seen a discussion with gmax on #bitcoin redefining words such as saying that Mike never implemented an SPV client because, well, he's the self-declared arbiter on what SPV is.

I am also sure that the atmosphere in Bitcoin Core drove a lot of very capable people away. This is invisible damage and because it is invisible people assume it doesn't exist.

I also must say - coming from a 'techie perspective' - that I now see the value of entrepreneurship and being able to make sane business decisions as completely separate skill set from being good at math and code. Being still firmly in the latter camp (but with hopefully still a little bit of a wider perspective) I can see very clearly now that such a mindset is dearly needed. In the past, I mostly saw the MBA as those guys that talked a lot but didn't know how stuff worked. This is still to some extend my observation , but there is definitely also skill set that most tech people are lacking.

And if it would be only that they are just incapable to see the broader picture!

Bitcoin being led by people who have tech-tunnel-vision is extremely dangerous. Bitcoin led by people who are Machiavellian in nature, hide it behind 'socially inept nerd' but are extremely skilled at manipulating people is a sure path to desaster.

I once found a quote by TPTB_means_war (who's usually quite the troll) comparing Greg's and Gavin's personal style - and finding that you never want to let a guy like Greg at the controls, rather someone like Gavin who's interested in success and progress mainly for it's own sake and not to please his ego. I am paraphrasing, but it was a gem in a lot of not so sane writing!

 

[cypherdoc]

Yep, the Blockstream core devs have got to go. They've betrayed all of our trust. Yet they say when pushed we should trust them to withdraw from Blockstream if they are made to do things they don't want. Problem is we can't ever enforce that and the money paid to them too powerful.

Bitcoin is now a public good and a new form of money that can benefit the whole world, not just a niche group of corrupt techno geeks who fail to understand that which Satoshi has created. Blockstream is akin to the Federal Reserve only worse because it is a for profit entity. Bitcoin and its promise is too important and offers too much to be allowed to be corrupted by a small group of greedy devs.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

On "scaling theater" and other delay tactics by Core/BS...

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Bang, bang.

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/3tpkhw/checks_balances_in_bitcoin_governance_or_why/

 

[albin]

@Inca

From what I understand, Todd divested in protest that nothing was being done in core development to stop entities like ghash.io.

Peter Todd literally protesting himself. I could understand if maybe he had some outstanding BIP out there that had significant consensus and was ready to deploy that addressed the harm he was seeing, but was somehow stonewalled. But no, just a bunch of drama queen theater.
[doublepost=1448129639][/doublepost]@Zangelbert Bingledack

Why does eragmus have to run damage control on like every single thread?

 

[Melbustus]

...
When it does and there is widespread community perception that the cap is shackling the bull,
...

It'd blow my mind if people don't *already* understand this. The blocksize issue is the most serious threat to bitcoin's long-term potential that I've seen yet. Regulation, Mt. Gox, 90% price drops, etc, are all minor issues in the long-run, but a fixed blocksize, and more generally, bitcoin showing no ability to adapt, could be catestrophic.

I *think* that most rational people do understand this, and that therefore there's sufficient willingness across the community to change blocksize one way or another. Everyone's preference is clearly to do it with broad buy-in from nearly everyone, but if it looks like that's not going to be achieved, the rational majority will have to act. I think we're getting to that point, as shown by the increasingly public frustration of people like Brian Armstrong and Steven Pair.

...
My sense is that Core will give itself a reprieve by raising the cap modestly soonish.
...

If Blockstream is hell-bent on keeping a fixed blocksize and explicitly engineering on-chain tx-fee-economics, then yeah, their best strategy at this point would be get behind the 2/4/8 proposal (or similar) and hope that it's even *harder* a few years from now to change the protocol.

As an investor, I say f*rk that. I want to see a permenant (or at least, decades-long) solution to this issue *now*, and I also want empircally-derived confidence that bitcoin can change if it needs to.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@albin

My impression is that /u/eragmus is somewhat unique in being a leftist supporter of Bitcoin. Not really understanding the economics (thinking investors getting rich is bad, etc.), he is left feeling that nothing good will happen in Bitcoin automatically through incentives but that instead concerned and fair-minded citizens must constantly keep things from going off the rails. This leads to a behavior that reminds me of USA-democrat busybodyism with general good-faith pleasantness in dealing with opposition. When frustration gives way to indignation it tends to be righteous indignation.

Naturally this view jives better with the Core/BS central planning perspective, but the empathy leads to more engagement and attempted softening of views when dealing with the opposition whereas most of the Core/BS people are more hands off or directly argumentative in that situation.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@Melbustus

I think most people already perceive the blocksize as being a yoke on a potential bull run, but many are distracted by things like LN and fee markets making the cap seem less pressing, as well as leading authority figures seeming unconcerned.

It's one thing to believe in principle that the cap will need to be raised soon. It is quite another to see a big mainstream adoption surge and price rise (say, into the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars) self-destruct as /r/Bitcoin is plastered with complaints of ongoing unconfirmed transactions and the front page of the New York Times is mocking Bitcoin as useless for its 3TPS cap.

Most people won't internalize it until it burns a hole in their wallet and the connection is unmistakable.

As for Core dev, I also think 2/4/8 or similar is likely. I think if they do something like that it will buy some renewed faith for the team because it will show they are not of Mircea Popescu's ilk and also that Bitcoin can hard fork, hopefully without a hitch, despite a few vocal people being "left behind" (it'll be interesting to see if Mircea tries attacking, walks away from Bitcoin, or finds a reason to continue with the higher cap version).

However, if successful, I can't really see why the debate wouldn't shift to, "That wasn't scary at all. Let's just fork again as needed." That goes double if full node count is RISING because the bull is allowed to run, along with other decentralization metrics. All at once, numerous nails will be pounded into the coffin of the miniblock paradigm and a sea change in community perception will be at hand. Most likely everyone will soon forget that miniblockism was thing and move on.

Because of course what may happen is that an upcoming price surge to something like $5000 or $50,000 could in a matter of weeks overwhelm even the new 2MB cap and we'd have to fork again and Core/BS would start to see that if it doesn't take a stand their war will be lost. Yet I think most hodlers will have nothing of it and will indeed tell Core to f*rk right off.

Then people will not only show sudden interest in BU for its flexible scaling even beyond 8MB, but more generally for those who say, "This is chaos, I don't know who is going to win and I just want a client that will stay in consensus come what may." Regardless of their previous position on blocksize. The last thing a business like Coinbase or Bitfinex wants is to have to download a new implementation every time sentiment shifts during a crazy bull run when the price is moving thousands of dollars in a day.

Serious nodes are big boys and will want the auto-determination and fork-tolerant logic that only BU offers.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Adam's latest. He writes like he's talking to himself.

 

[Peter R]

Reading Adam's comments (the one above and others), I get the feeling that he is firmly in the camp that the block size limit must be less than the equilibrium block size so that it acts as a policy tool. For this reason, my hunch is that Blockstream will push the "FlexCap" solution the hardest.

If Core is going to cave in, here are the things I'd be OK with:

1. BIP101
2. Simple raise to 8 MB
3. Simple raise to 2 MB

I would be moderately against the 2-4-8 proposal, and I would be strongly against the FlexCap proposal.

I would prefer a static raise to the 2-4-8 proposal because once we see how easily the network deals with a block size limit increase, people will be more willing to raise the limit again in the future. We might get a raise to 8 MB 6 months later instead. However, the 2-4-8 proposal will add Schelling points that we'd have to overcome.

I would be strongly opposed to FlexCap as it gives Blockstream a direct way to control the price of block space (it's literally the tuning parameter of the algorithm). This represents a very significant change to Bitcoin's nature.

 

[albin]

I'm starting to think that Vitalik's original suggestion (which is implemented in a lot of altcoins) might be the best thing: take some kind of moving average of recent blocksize and multiply by some factor to create headroom. Say for example take twice the average of the last x number of blocks. This is functionally unlimited blocksize, but there being some kind of ceiling appeases the concern that some shocking attack block will be unleashed on the network. I like this as second best to no blocksize cap at all because it's functionally unlimited except in very pathological edge cases.

 

[Melbustus]

...
I would be strongly opposed to FlexCap as it gives Blockstream a direct way to control the price of block space (it's literally the tuning parameter of the algorithm). This represents a very significant change to Bitcoin's nature.

Agreed. Anything which fundamentally changes bitcoin's free-market economics and/or adds complexity is a bad idea, given that there are solutions which *do not* do either of those things. Thus, I don't think the community should easily accept either BIP100 or Flexcap if either of those ends up the front-runner.

 

[cypherdoc]

I'm starting to think that Vitalik's original suggestion (which is implemented in a lot of altcoins) might be the best thing: take some kind of moving average of recent blocksize and multiply by some factor to create headroom. Say for example take twice the average of the last x number of blocks. This is functionally unlimited blocksize, but there being some kind of ceiling appeases the concern that some shocking attack block will be unleashed on the network. I like this as second best to no blocksize cap at all because it's functionally unlimited except in very pathological edge cases.

yeah, it's hard to argue this one.

it's mathematically derived and allows natural growth incentives. the exablock scenario gets short circuited and spamming attacks will still be excessively expensive. the only concern is a potential gaming towards smaller blocks but i fail to see how that happens given the natural growth incentives.