Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[awemany]

@torusJKL:

Trying to put myself into the shoes of an aware miner: I would do everything to stop blocksize increases on BTC. Because the people who have inserted themselves into key positions there have shown again and again that their incentive is to take market share (transaction processing) away from me. It is right in the Lightning Network whitepaper! Further, why should I want to make a deal with those who like to eventually undermine Bitcoin's whole security model?

In addition, I can get sweet transaction fees from the fee bidding wars going on every so often on BTC. That's income I would forfeit as well if I'd willingly enslave myself once more.

 

[torusJKL]

Trying to put myself into the shoes of an aware miner: I would do everything to stop blocksize increases on BTC

With some miners starting to use overt ASICBOOST on the BTC chain they have an incentive to give BTC the upper hand.
I guess for now they are a small minority but this could change.

 

[awemany]

@torusJKL: Why do you think so? Because they have a differential advantage over others not doing so on BTC?

But they can do ASICBOOST on BCH as well - which seems to make the situation quite symmetrical, and thus nulls any differential advantage that would further make a miner favor BTC because he can use it there.

Or am I missing something?

But I think you have a good point insofar as to be careful with updates to the header and coinbase format that might impact ASICBOOST on BCH.

 

[lunar]

This recent spate of 51% attacks has the Machiavellian in me, reaching for the popcorn.

https://news.bitcoin.com/proof-of-work-coins-on-high-alert-following-spate-of-51-attacks/

https://medium.com/@HusamABBOUD/the-realistic-lucrative-case-of-ethereum-classic-attack-with-1mm-today-8fa0430a7c25 (poor conclusion aside, a well reasoned cost benefit analysis, with some tempting numbers)

Perhaps this is the start of a much needed thinning of the pack? If it keeps up, Investors will be forced on a flight to quality and strength, rather than the latest, glossy, Shitepaper and media blitz.

Many will get burned on the way, but with some massively overpriced scam and vapourware chains, it finally appears there is more money to be made destroying a thing, rather than building a thing. Let the death dance begin.

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.

Martha Graham

I feel a Highlander meme coming on ​

 

[cypherdoc]

it's a good thing. i'm all for culling the herd.

 

[cypherdoc]

actually, what i'm hoping is this is the dawn of a new era of miner enlightenment, vs the monolithic Stockholm Syndrome blockade blindly following BTC for the last few years. if these attacks represent the beginnings of independent miner thinking beyond what we've seen to date, this could be a really good thing in breaking down the final barriers to an all out flippening back to the original Satoshi vision. 51% attacks have always been a part of Bitcoin since the early days of BitcoinExpress & Artforz on needless wannabe altcoins. they helped support BTC's ultimate dominance. bring 'em on to cull the herds of today. i sincerely doubt this will include BCH whose only aim was ever to support and protect long term miner incomes as rewards dwindle away. i only wonder if one day, as the market share has withered, whether or not they would attack BTC.

 

[cypherdoc]

"Pretending to Care"--->lol

 

[awemany]

@cypherdoc: I disagree on various things with Rick. First, I he's quite wrong on Satoshi saying that the vast majority of transaction should be free. He indeed said:

Another option is to reduce the number of free transactions allowed per block before transaction fees are required. Nodes only take so many KB of free transactions per block before they start requiring at least 0.01 transaction fee. The threshold should probably be lower than it currently is. I don't think the threshold should ever be 0. We should always allow at least some free transactions.

Second, his "we have to care only after 2140, because the block reward will last until then", is quite weak as well: It is exponentially decreasing and the point where fees need to make up for block reward is approaching in at most a decade, realistically.

This depends on the price movement as well, of course, but we're in a major turbulance now, with us expecting for BCH to take the lead. I don't see $100k Bitcoin, neither BCH nor BTC in the next few years.

However, contrary to the Core detractors, of course, the miners need to grow the shit out of the transaction volume on BCH, to actually become self-sustaining in the long term. The well-tested, proven high volume low unit cost model.

Gladly, the majority of miners gets that now. And with BTC and BCH diverging, they can keep on choking BTC and extracting income until BCH becomes long term self-sustaining and really starts to fly.

 

[torusJKL]

Second, his "we have to care only after 2140, because the block reward will last until then", is quite weak as well: It is exponentially decreasing and the point where fees need to make up for block reward is approaching in at most a decade, realistically.

We don't know if fees have to make up for it already in a decade.
Up to today the Bitcoin price was able to compensate for the decrease in block reward. Is there any indication that this can't be true in the near future?
Someone might be able to sum the value of all the money of the world and calculate how often we could compensate until all of it would have been consumed.

What we certainly need today is optimization (e.g. processing more tx in parallel) to allow for more adoption and thus driving the Bitcoin (BCH) price up.
And of course adoption does not come by itself. Everyone in the community can help with this.

Gladly, the majority of miners gets that now.

Some do, I do hope it is the majority.

 

[awemany]

Some do, I do hope it is the majority.

It is quite funny: Ever since the split, I am warming up to the BTC maximum decentralization position. Of course, that does not mean I think BTC has anywhere near the value proposition of BCH, as I value the risks that BTC can deal with due to smaller blocksize as extremely unlikely to happen and the risks that it invites by going the route it goes as much more grave.

For all that matters, I think a rational market would price BTC at something like 1% or less of BCH in the next couple years, and likely decreasing even, the more BCH would drip into every aspect of financial life, making the burden of fucking with it so extreme that a hostile takeover in the "govs around the world shut the servers off"-sense becomes truly unthinkable.

But honestly, I am not only in a "no BTC growth out of spite" mood anymore (though must admit that of course that part is still there, though quickly weaking. The best revenge is to get over it...).

But I am also in the "no BTC blocksize growth because I accept your (Core guy's) threat model for that coin"-camp now. BTC wants to position itself as the maximum security coin through minimum full node cost.

As unlikely as I think that is the right approach, and as small as my hedge in BTC might become down the road, I obviously still want that hedge to be meaningful and correspondingly represented in the coin's trajectory. Meaning small blocks and no further increase.

That is because I neither want to endanger BCH nor BTC!

Yes, I know this all reads like trolling given the past and the crypto-community's years long fights on this issue.

But why muddy the water for BTC by letting BTC deviate from its now-chosen path?

I accept the split.

 

[Norway]

for sure, a developer payment scheme should NOT be built directly into the protocol. it's simple enough for miners to independently contribute a portion of their block rewards to a development fund.

In the future, pools will hire devs to create the best node software and not give the code away to competitors. (This is a good thing.)

I hope we get rid of the blocksize cap while we can. The protocol can become ossified sooner than we expect.

This is making me as an investor worried.

 

[79b79aa8]

moving away from open source would be a vulnerability. what happens when you can't find the right devs to update or optimize your proprietary software?

 

[Norway]

@79b79aa8
Easy: Your mining pool lose, and the miners move on to a better pool.

I don't think closed source will be a vulnerability of the system. Competing pools is the way it should be.

The big difference is between the protocol and efficient transaction processing. Now, it's kind of blurred.

The BCH devs are also protocol devs at the moment. They need "consensus" on the protocol through discussions and politics in relation to miners. (Run my software!)

It's going well right now. We're all brothers in arms. But I see clouds on the horizon.

If we get rid of the max blocksize cap, we get rid of a potential and very real weakness.

If we can improve the protocol more before it's ossified, it's cool. But let's not walk into the same trap as Core.

 

[Dusty]

@cypherdoc: I disagree on various things with Rick.

I agree with your points, but the "pretending to care" argument is really, really spot on.

 

[awemany]

@Dusty: Absolutely, that was an astute observation by him.

 

[79b79aa8]

for those not inclined to watch, what's observed is the inconsistency between, on the one hand, arguing that the power of the miners needs to be kept in check, and on the other hand, "worrying" about where miner revenue will come from as the block reward diminishes (i.e., pretending to care).

and for those inclined to check, adam back explicitly and repeatedly claimed that dev control sets up a system of checks and balances vs. the miners, who can't be trusted to look out for the ecosystem's interests (or their own).

 

[cypherdoc]

lol, BCH's doing it right. these are times i regret staying away from things like this in an attempt to avoid bias :

 

[79b79aa8]

if you are still in the mood to debate educate BTC maximalists on twitter, r/bitcoin et al.: i think i have a pulse on the psychology of the situation. at least some of these are people who were on the fence about bitcoin as late as spring 2017, and finally FOMO'd after august. it took them a long time to make the decision, but when they made it, it came with the unbreakable vow to buy and hold (and not miss out on the groovy train yet again). a person like this, who sat skeptically on the sidelines during the original altcoin wars, will find it excrutiatingly hard to act on the new information saying that actually, what they want to hold is bitcoin BCH.

it is a thankless task to try and change the mind of someone like this. more importantly, there are diminishing returns in attempting to do so, as the amount of holdings involved must be low (bubble investors).

pre-fork holders who are still assessing the merits of the bitcoin forks, on the other hand, have lost nothing. those who flip BTC to BCH while BCH/BTC is still below .15 will get more or less what the rest of us got.

 

[cypherdoc]

and for those inclined to check, adam back explicitly and repeatedly claimed that dev control sets up a system of checks and balances vs. the miners, who can't be trusted to look out for the ecosystem's interests (or their own).

yep, and not only him. Greg, Luke, Peter, Jorge, and just about every other Blockstream boy took this position either overtly or covertly. and then spread it to high heaven.

 

[AdrianX]

In the future, pools will hire devs to create the best node software and not give the code away to competitors. (This is a good thing.)

The protocol will be open there is an incentive for maximum cooperation on common rules, where and how miners will compete is on fee policy, processing of private smart contracts, hashing optimizations.