Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@awemany

Indeed Satoshi's lack of response to caveden is interesting. I tend to think very few people would have the foresight and sheer daring to deliberately include an obstacle in order to motivate the precedent of the ecosystem getting through contentious hardforks early on. More mundanely he may have just thought, "If Bitcoin becomes so ossified so fast that something as trivial as this can destroy it, the project won't be nimble enough to succeed anyway."
[doublepost=1448354202,1448353339][/doublepost]Having read Paul Sztorc's post I understand clearly why Greg initially thought Bitcoin could never work and said that the blocksize cap is the only reason he changed his mind. I also understand clearly why Adam insists that meta-incentives are not reliable. This post cleared up a lot for me.

Of course I disagree with it and believe I have solid refutations of every point raised, but the arguments are more subtle than I had given them credit for. I again picture Greg standing by smirking as people debate a small blockist points that "aren't even my true form." Big blockers end up wasting time trying to argue surface-level things like node count when the true small blockist argument goes deeper. That way just when you think you've slayed all the dragons, the final boss emerges to put you in your place with the real argument, the one that "real cypherpunks" silently nod in agreement with because of the impeccable logic that this is the only provable path to true security.

Or course it is so narrow that it has little relevance in the real world, where things like meta-incentives rule.

 

[sickpig]

that looks pretty positive to me:

last increase difficulty/hash rate was about 10%. it was quite a while since this kind of jumps happen. current hashrate estimate is 549 peta hash (source: bitcoinwisdom.com).
[doublepost=1448356734][/doublepost]

@sickpig Did you see this?


https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/3tyxyb/bitpay_the_original_vision_for_bitcoin_was_the/

Yes I did. I suppose that your question should be directed to "The Guardian", though.

Even without taking into account the last BitPay's twitt the aforementioned article is so full of inaccuracies that someone could think they are discrediting Bitcoin on purpose

 

[lunar]

That way just when you think you've slayed all the dragons, the final boss emerges to put you in your place with the real argument, the one that "real cypherpunks" silently nod in agreement with because of the impeccable logic that this is the only provable path to true security.

Or course it is so narrow that it has little relevance in the real world, where things like meta-incentives rule.

This is the crux of it, the argument is sound. In face of overwhelming coordinated global attack by governments users should be able to run a node anonymously over TOR and carry on regardless.

What is not taken into account is that it's a completely illogical stance. (Core are playing Reductio ad absurdum) I picture living in a bunker full of guns and tinned baked bean, last man standing scenarios.

Bitcoin already has the momentum and the moral high ground, sound money and the ability to transact globally and freely P2P without the burden of debt from banks is enough. Western governments can't fight this in the open, there are too many virtuous arguments defending it. Combine that with the positive affect - tragedy of the commons. (Governments fighting over monetary sovereignty and reserve currency status, will never come together) The Neutral ground (Bitcoin) is the only point where global consensus could happen.

When you understand this is easy to see the userbase and network effect are the primary things that matter. Core/Blockstream are falling the 'perfect is the enemy of the good' aphorism. This is not bad thinking, (in fact it's essential) but it's better suited as a the last resort position of a sidechain - zerocoin, shapeshift, monero combos.

@AdrianX It is indeed an unrealistic and weak reason to hobble network growth.
[doublepost=1448365324][/doublepost] @cypherdoc on Gold

it peaked in 2011 and i believe will be heading much lower into triple digits. as we've talked about many times in this thread, gold is the Armageddon play

How do you foresee the outcome WRT the massive disconnect between physical and paper gold? Its common perception that the paper gold is being used to artificially keep physical gold prices low, and that this disconnect can't last much longer 'Schiff, Maloney Keiser etc' If these guys are correct gold will explode higher and paper becomes worthless. Surely it doesn't take armageddon for this to happen, just realization or fear that western vaults are empty.

 

[awemany]

This is the crux of it, the argument is sound. In face of overwhelming coordinated global attack by governments users should be able to run a node anonymously over TOR and carry on regardless.

That argument still doesn't really count, though: Regardless of what happens to Bitcoin, they will be able to run a variant of the Bitcoin protocol (an Altcoin) through TOR. Maybe just Bitcoin/2010 with a fixed 1MB limit, yes.

But that shouldn't preclude real Bitcoin from filling the other 'niche', that is the scenario of the worldwide P2P cash system.

Small blockists arguments at some point boil down to trying to hinder Bitcoin's success. Some might genuinely fear that the success is what will kill it, but all are afraid of Bitcoin's success.

I say: It is an experiment still. If we don't try to be sucessful, we will never be successful.

And, again, Altcoins will always be viable as alternatives, should Bitcoin fail due to centralization.

This is, by the way, another angle why this whole small blocks because 'we worry about our cypherpunk money' (as they are self-described 'pesky cipherpunks' - Greg's own words) thing is complete and utter bullshit: If Bitcoin gets regulated and fails because it got too big and banks and goverments and other supposedly evil entities control it - and they wouldn't if it would have stayed small - they would not be able to control small altcoins in either scenario or would be able to control all coins in both scenarios, now wouldn't they?

 

[lunar]

The world's top bank weighs in on digital currencies
Bravenewcoin article - very good summary

24 page PDF - Official BIS report on digital currencies Nov 2015

 

[theZerg]

This!
The people who wrote the GTK+ toolkit implemented some kind of (very ugly) object orientation on top of C, so that doesn't necessarily follow.

Maybe I'm reading too much into one line, but I would imagine the GTK people would say that they philosophically agreed with C++, but had issues with its linguistic constructs, portability, efficiency or some other implementation detail.

If you are rejecting c++ philosophically it means you are rejecting the whole concept of some key element like OOP, exceptions, or templates.

@awemany You make an excellent point in your subsequent post. What bitcoin has going for it is adoption -- the first mover advantage. Other cryptocurrencies have additional features, etc. Although I believe that the submit-txns-and-efficient-blocks-via-TOR solution would work fine, if you had to choose Bitcoin should grow to be universally adopted and some other cryptocurrency like Monero should fill the privacy-is-paramount role.

 

[awemany]

If you are rejecting c++ philosophically it means you are rejecting the whole concept of some key element like OOP, exceptions, or templates.

Good point. Muddy waters, though, as 'philosophy of a programming language' pretty much only appears in usenet flamewars
[doublepost=1448374944,1448374224][/doublepost]

@awemany You make an excellent point in your subsequent post. What bitcoin has going for it is adoption -- the first mover advantage. Other cryptocurrencies have additional features, etc. Although I believe that the submit-txns-and-efficient-blocks-via-TOR solution would work fine, if you had to choose Bitcoin should grow to be universally adopted and some other cryptocurrency like Monero should fill the privacy-is-paramount role.

Two things: a): I hope and think that Bitcoin can eventually usurp any nicer features from Monero - after all, it is upgradeable money and there is nothing opposing this in principle. Maybe this should be priority when we finally get that other %$##@!#! roadblock out of the way... and thank you so much for all your work here

And b): Any limitation on user growth that isn't actually endangering the system necessarily means that Bitcoin is 'voluntary' kept from maximum potential and thus also maximum price!

You cannot, with a sane mind, argue that you are working for price increases because you're working on pigeon-holing Bitcoin into an expensive and unusable settlement system. Quite the contrary.

Greg, Adam and consorts have argued that they take the high road in terms of cypherpunk ethics. But that is utter frickin' bullshit because the high road can be easily taken with any small Altcoin that they design for tor-compatibility right from the start.

I am, as probably most people around here, interested in Bitcoin's price and also see that as the main incentive to scale that beast.

With this above reasoning, it is clear to me that anyone proposing blocksize limits being more important than Bitcoin's price is thus someone not having Bitcoin's incentive system, and thus Bitcoin itself as one's most important interest.

 

[cypherdoc]

oh yeah baby, this looks like this could be the real turn. that's a pretty deep reversal we've got going on in the $DJT from a small poke over the previous high with an immediate reversal. the $DJI is forming a short term daily swing high today which most likely will result in a sell signal unless the PPT gets it's act together before the end of day. i had hoped we could clear the early Nov high and at least 18000 for max pain to bears (like me) before setting the other half of my short but i won't complain if we fail here as i'm still holding a big chunk of DXD:

DXD skating around a double bottom:

[doublepost=1448380925][/doublepost]if the $DJI does fail here and we get a intermediate term sell signal, that would be extremely bearish given the market structure that we currently have leading up to this point (lower highs, weak internals, that kinda stuff).

 

[rocks]

In hindsight, it does indeed look like Satoshi put the blocksize in place on purpose, as a designed breaking point.

It is a change that is so blatantly in the way of Bitcoin's sucess. Satoshi was talking about and answering questions about the scalability from early on. A significant fraction of his emails concern scalability. He must have known back then.

That all said, caveden was one of the people who was also somewhat active earlier in the blocksize debate. Maybe he'd be interested in joining BU?

As far as I have been able to see, Satoshi constantly worked to remove potential barriers to bitcoin's success. It seems doubtful that he would intentionally put something in that creates a serious point of failure early on that Bitcoin has to overcome and that would cause Bitcoin's failure if it didn't.

Without the blocksize issue Bitcoin would have the opportunity to grow without any impediments. Even if the developers start to take an anti-Bitcoin approach, there is a limit to what they can do.

I think Satoshi just assumed that either he or Gavin would be able to remove the cap. And then unfortunately didn't before giving up control.

Satoshi is a brilliant person, but not an oracle. I don't think he could have foreseen the blocksize cap becoming the issue it is today, I don't think he thought anyone supposedly aligned to Bitcoin would want to keep it as a way to limit Bitcoin.

 

[AdrianX]

In

That argument still doesn't really count, though: Regardless of what happens to Bitcoin, they will be able to run a variant of the Bitcoin protocol (an Altcoin) through TOR. Maybe just Bitcoin/2010 with a fixed 1MB limit, yes.

But that shouldn't preclude real Bitcoin from filling the other 'niche', that is the scenario of the worldwide P2P cash system.

Small blockists arguments at some point boil down to trying to hinder Bitcoin's success. Some might genuinely fear that the success is what will kill it, but all are afraid of Bitcoin's success.

I say: It is an experiment still. If we don't try to be sucessful, we will never be successful.

And, again, Altcoins will always be viable as alternatives, should Bitcoin fail due to centralization.

This is, by the way, another angle why this whole small blocks because 'we worry about our cypherpunk money' (as they are self-described 'pesky cipherpunks' - Greg's own words) thing is complete and utter bullshit: If Bitcoin gets regulated and fails because it got too big and banks and goverments and other supposedly evil entities control it - and they wouldn't if it would have stayed small - they would not be able to control small altcoins in either scenario or would be able to control all coins in both scenarios, now wouldn't they?

In all reality if governments the world over worked to shut down all nodes (controle all nodes) the network would notice and Bitcoin will be affected. It would probably result in fewer transactions and blocks could shrink to a size that you could run a node on TOR.

 

[cypherdoc]

i don't think our core devs have this kind of imagination; or creativity:

Li-Fi has just been tested in the real world, and it's 100 times faster than Wi-Fi

http://www.sciencealert.com/li-fi-tested-in-the-real-world-for-the-first-time-is-100-times-faster-than-wi-fi
[doublepost=1448387659,1448386718][/doublepost]

Interesting thread, @cypherdoc. It looks like Greg's pattern of having certain discussions censored and "reversing" the results of democratic processes that come out "wrong" is a longstanding one:

let us not forget that this was Greg acting out in an authoritarian way on a "political" issue, not a technical one. this is not his area of expertise but the behavior is the same as what we see now. and the reasons just as preposterous. and this despite the fact that a vote was held and the devs lost. nvm that the way they conducted that vote was ridiculous; forcing regular community members who'd never heard of Github to go and register an acct simply to vote on the Ver/Matonis inclusion issue.

kudos to Andreas (aantonop) who was all_over_this on BCT and github, documenting the controversy every step of the way and exploding to levels of anger i've never ever seen before or since. it finally got so bad that Andreas had to go code up a new press site to route around the damage that was called presscenter.org. the amazing thing is that to this day, Greg still doesn't get it. he says we all should be thankful for him standing up to the overwhelming majority of the community on this very issue that got routed around him. he has an amazing sense of reality denial.

 

[rocks]

GBTC has been holding up fairly well with a sizable premium over the Bitcoin spot price. Right now it is priced at $436 / BTC against a spot price of $312 for a 36% premium.

The twins need to get that ETF out. There is clearly demand.

 

[albin]

This article is kind of interesting:

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/how-the-magic-of-iblts-could-boost-bitcoin-s-decentralization-1448382673

“Gavin's original idea was that the miner would produce the IBLT, and send every node on the network the same one,” Russell said. “But when we started playing with the concept, it turned out it's very fast to generate IBLTs. So why not have every node do it? Generate IBLTs per peer, because each node has a much better idea of how close its mempool has been to a peer; they're sending this stuff back and forth all the time.”

Does this undermine Friedenbach's persistent naysaying that such a compression solution has to work in an adversarial situation? If that scheme works then clearly a malicious miner could only slow down the first hop.

 

[cypherdoc]

interesting take by Sztorc on sidechains and how to implement them. seems there is some disagreement by it's strongest proponents on how best to do it. Drivechains or Sidechains? i get the sense that he is getting impatient since his Truthcoin project has been put on hold waiting for SC's to actually materialize. it's a good read:

But, frankly, I don’t get it. It relies on “reorg” proofs (which are something of a contradiction, given that miners can [try to] filter these from blocks), and stochastic modeling (ie, an absence of very bad luck) to a degree that I feel is unnecessary.

http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/drivechain/#faq
[doublepost=1448395506,1448394357][/doublepost]The most curious things about it are:

1. Conceptually: it neglects to fully-exploit the ‘condensation’ of transaction-level security to chain-level security. Each transfer needs to re-prove its work, even if someone else just submitted a ton of similar work. This wasteful re-use of work creates an asymmetry (the theft-revenues of txns vary in size) that leads to a decoupling of incentives. Moreover, miners can “partially attack” the chain, and, on occasion, steal ~10% of the coins there, making it difficult and expensive for users to determine who is acting maliciously (and what the appropriate response should be).
2. Game-theoretically, it fails to capitalize on something called “consistent best-response functions”. (No matter what form the SPV proof takes, a malicious majority miner-coalition has a “best response” where they effortlessly steal all of the BTC locked in the SPV-address).
3. Economically, it avoids privileging the Bitcoin chain (or, rather, it does not discuss asymmetry vs symmetry at all, or any of the related economic details).
4. I, personally, am still trying to figure out if the proof actually still works if the difficulty is not constant. I mean, can you still skip halfway down the path of headers, if the difficulty follows big sinusoidal oscillations (which it very well might)? What if the miners manipulate the difficulty (which, of course, they are able to do through the timestamps)? If the proof is save for variable difficulty, how does it deal with diverging difficulty? How does the “parent chain” come to understand the difficulty level of the sidechain (unless all sidechains are forced to have the same difficulty-adjustment rules)?

It just seems so complicated, and no matter what form the SPV proof takes, it can only prove SPV! Miners can, for free, steal all the coins.
[doublepost=1448396469][/doublepost]from a strategic standpoint, Stzorc's Drivechain proposal is the worse thing that could've happened to Blockstream. one of it's greatest proponents is questioning.

i sense confusion/dissatisfaction.
[doublepost=1448396661][/doublepost]and Blockstream is failing to answer:

 

[Peter R]

Interesting. I've long been saying that the sidechains white paper presented only a hand-wavy "yeah we think compact SPV proof should be possible" without providing any real details on how it would actually work in practice. Seems there are many cans filled with many worms that we'll get to see opened.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

After all the hype that's been put into them, how bad is it going to look if it turns out that both sidechains and Lightning Network end up having intractable security problems?

 

[cypherdoc]

@Justus Ranvier

i'll just have to say i told ya so.

Bitcoin is fundamentally about Sound Money. no more, no less. i still maintain most Bitcoiner's don't want to go speculating on a bunch of SC's even if it does offer better anonymity or faster tx's. Bitcoin is good enough for those who want a reliable pmt network and a SOV. it addresses the most fundamental problem in the world today, central bank monetary devaluation. it wants to tap the biggest market out there; the Forex market. and it wants to replace gold. if it can do that (i'd submit that it's already started) that alone would be a huge success and cause the price to Moon. and all you'd have to have done it sit back and HODL. why risk speculating on some SC that is going to be insecure and where you can lose everything. it doesn't matter that perhaps in aggregate the rest of the coins might go up in value (that's questionable) b/c it won't help those who did in fact lose their coins on the SC from a 51% attack.

i'd bet none of the core devs nor Sztorc have ever invested in gold or silver. even if they have, they don't seem to ever talk about the monetary or SOV aspects of Bitcoin which are it's already built in killer app. too bad, most ppl are destined to lose money investing cryptocurrency related schemes.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

i still maintain most Bitcoiner's don't want to go speculating on a bunch of SC's even if it does offer better anonymity or faster tx's.

I'll take that a step further and say that we can and well get all the theoretical speed and privacy benefits that a sidechain could offer on the main chain, via client improvements alone.

On the privacy front, next year we should see us finally start to make progress on address reuse as bip47 implements start to roll out and as Joinmarket matures and gains wider usage.

We should be able to deal the blockchain analytic companies a fairly significant setback in any case.

 

[rocks]

After all the hype that's been put into them, how bad is it going to look if it turns out that both sidechains and Lightning Network end up having intractable security problems?

It doesn't even have to be that bad, what if they get LN to function correctly, but no one wants to use it?

LN requires relinquishing control of your coins to a 3rd party for a period of time, and then offers limited avenues to use those coins during the lock-up period. If you want to spend your coins with a counter party who doesn't use LN or who is on a different payment channel, oh well. And if you end up not using the coins during the lock-up period, well then you still generated large blockchain transactions and had to pay hefty fees. This does not appear usable to me.

Compare this to existing shared control solutions using multi-sig. Today you can have joint control with firms like Coinbase, and I am sure that will extend to exchanges, changetip, etc. Now you can keep coins with 3rd parties, with no lockup period, only generate fee paying transactions when you actually use the coins (and smaller txs than LN at that), and keep full control. Seems much easier to me.

The only way LN works from a usability standpoint is if 1) there is only 1 massive payment channel that the whole world uses and 2) the main chain is limited in size forcing people off chain who otherwise would prefer to stay on chain.

With this understanding it is obvious why BS is taking the approach they are.

 

[cypherdoc]

I'll take that a step further and say that we can and well get all the theoretical speed and privacy benefits that a sidechain could offer on the main chain, via client improvements alone.

On the privacy front, next year we should see us finally start to make progress on address reuse as bip47 implements start to roll out and as Joinmarket matures and gains wider usage.

We should be able to deal the blockchain analytic companies a fairly significant setback in any case.

and that would be fantastic. no one is claiming we don't want innovation in privacy or speed if we can get it on MC.

just don't distract us from the main goal of becoming the reserve currency of the world while you're at it. or by siphoning value off the MC via SC's or LN.