Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

cypherblock

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Nov 18, 2015
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SV / ABC thoughts.

I don't know why people think that SV is locking the protocol anymore than others. Changing to 128mb, then 500mb, etc is a change. Adding op-modes that were disabled is a change. Disabling p2sh is a change. Allowing miners to claim coins as fees if Txs use particular op-codes is a change. And really I have no conviction that the changes will stop there. Whether some of these changes are a reversion to the original protocol to me doesn't matter, they are still changes.

Additionally if they refuse to make changes that are needed, for instance for securities sake, then that would be a concern. Privacy: I'm mixed on whether bitcoin needs more privacy or not. But this is another area where SV may refuse to change. Is that good or bad?

I do have some belief that SV is more interested in Bitcoin Cash as cash instead of using it for other things, and yet from this camp we see things like the Bitcoin Token protocol by Clemens Ley (and for which nChain may have a relevant patent). So really we don't know where they are headed.

On the ABC side they are behaving a bit like Bitcoin is an early project with few participants. To me this is their biggest flaw. I feel like they are doing things they think are needed to both scale and protect the coin. But they do this without that much community involvement at times.

The reorg protection recently added was only done because of the adversarial environment they are in because of nChain/Coingeek. So while I don't like it, I understand it. When you have deep pockets (Calvin) dedicated to attacking your chain, extreme steps may be necessary. Although personally I would prefer if they were able to protect the chain by increasing the hash power even more than they have.

The CTOR change really seems unnecessary, and should have been debated more. No one has convinced me this will have a huge effect on validation times, the case needs to be simple. But largely I don't see this a major "protocol' change. It is just an optimization really.

OP_CHECKDATASIG and OP_CHECKDATASIGVERIFY also were not communicated well to the larger community even if these were discussed between dev groups for a longer period. They seem like things that will help some people launch cool projects, but I'm unaware of the larger need for these.

Largely they are correct that we may not be ready for 128mb yet, but the last thing we need is to be stuck at a fixed block size for years.

ABC needs to communicate their philosophy on op-codes as well as other changes. What will they add or do next? Without this, they are sort of lost. They need to get their message down clearer.

--
Ok, now I've covered all the points. What else is there to discuss :)
 
@molecular

I don't see a huge "divide" anyway in terms of goals or paths. It's more of a power struggle, it seems. Or somehow 3rd-party-induced.
I don't know how regularly you follow this thread. Or crypto-twitter. Or the BU slack. It is full of this divide. Dozen aspects of it have been discussed over and over.

In the last days I scanned deep through my twitter followers, searching for journalists I can nerve with DMs to market my book. When I found people with "BCH" in the account (following me longer than BCH exists), I klicked on them, curious where they stand. Most of them are on the SV side.

When ABC released the fork version, it became immediately and without doubt clear that it would cause vast harm for BCH: That it will hurt what BCH needs more than anything else - community support / adoption - for improving what it needs least - processing very very big blocks. Some people thought this is ok, they argued mostly along the line of "there is no (valid) technical criticism of CTOR" (remember SegWit?). Some thought it is not ok, independently of technological properties of the changes.
 
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theZerg

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Aug 28, 2015
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@freetrader

I believe Bitcoin was very carefully designed from the start. (satoshi paraphrased - much more effort went into design than implementation) I don't think it's a coincidence that it subtly threads itself through the worlds legal systems as Money (cash) it is appears exempt from nearly all the legal pitfalls of regular securities. In other words, there doesn't appear to be any legal precedent that can be used to shut it down. If so we surely would have seen attempts by now?
I think that you are correct in cryptocurrencies broad strokes, but in the details this seems to be retroactive reasoning. First off, Bitcoin has been declared illegal in many jurisdictions and then sometimes reversed, and Bitcoin's creator chose to be anonymous -- likely due to the risk.

Secondly, the right to engage in commerce and the freedom to publicly post uncopyrighted information is generally protected by governments that recognize individual rights. A lot of activity falls under those rights, including buying and selling securities, and a miner cannot be expected to look at blobs of binary data and magically determine which are individuals exercising their rights and which are individuals engaged in money transmission.

Note that the WRT tokens, the SEC is simply saying that issuers need to register them if they are securities, etc. This should have been obvious to anyone (and I'm sure it was). If you don't you should better be ready to prove your token is a coupon or something, not a security. the SEC is not saying that a blockchain token representation of a security is illegal, or that any information about such tokens or the transmission of them are illegal.

Its a dangerous fallacy to pretend that bitcoin was a perfect threading of technology through myriad laws (which its history of being declared illegal in many jurisdictions refutes) because it makes you think that what we have now is the only possible threading.
 
@theZerg

Maybe it would have helped to get reviews by lawyers about the concerns Craig raised about DSV? I don't know how valid these issues are (I think they are not, but ANAL), but it would be good to have it adressed ... it is already happening that coins with built-in privacy are excluded from more and more exchanges and investment indexes.

Also I think a deep review of Blockstream's patent policy would have been good before hardforking their code in ...

(it's also an extremely ironic turn that Blockstream code did not just split BTC, but also BCH ...)
 
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freetrader

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The hash war has shown that if you're a minority, going against a majority without replay protection is not a winning strategy.

The decision to include replay protection and make Bitcoin Cash a clean split in August 2017 has been shown to be correct.
 

cypherdoc

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Aug 26, 2015
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The geeks fail to understand that which Satoshi hath created.
 

Norway

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Sep 29, 2015
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I will support this if it turns into a BUIP. Because it would weaken the ABC chain further.
[doublepost=1543009781][/doublepost]@jtoomim, you have my support!
[doublepost=1543009939][/doublepost]The bar for changing consensus rules on the ABC chain is at an all time low now.
Devs, this is your chance to make history!

Click "like" if you support @jtoomim's idea! Pound that button!
 
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cypherblock

Active Member
Nov 18, 2015
163
182
Jtoomim just needs to stop. These changes will be endless. He will just keep going. New change everyday. That doesn't mean I'm dismissing his proposal, but the idea that his shower thought and 1 day of coding gets put into the next release without much thought or review is pretty frightening.
 

Norway

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Sep 29, 2015
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@cypherblock
His proposal can be used as a discardable token in negotiatons to get @theZerg's new (not yet defined) opcodes into the consensus rules. Could be swaped for a low priority proposal from ABC.
 

cypherdoc

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Aug 26, 2015
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Jtoomim just needs to stop. These changes will be endless. He will just keep going. New change everyday. That doesn't mean I'm dismissing his proposal, but the idea that his shower thought and 1 day of coding gets put into the next release without much thought or review is pretty frightening.
at this point I hope he keeps going. the ABC geeks will eat it up.
 
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Norway

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@Norway, I respect you greatly so please don't start using troll argument techniques like equating proposal A to a completely independent proposal B. My paper is about script, and what it can't do today. It is extremely relevant to anyone arguing (like Core did) that we should freeze the base protocol.

Additionally, I have never said that DSV was the only way to accomplish bets.

In fact in my original DSV proposal, I referenced the commitment technique that you wrote about (its been around for several years I think) so you certainly did not invent it and I certainly did not propose DSV as the only technique:

https://medium.com/@g.andrew.stone/...ications-decision-based-spending-8e7b93d7bdb9

"To avoid the on-chain verification of this metadata, it would be possible for the oracle to create and pre-publish a unique pubkeyhash for every piece of data it will produce (in the next year, for example). But this solution seems awkward…"


I focused on oracle bets for DSV in my SV conf speech because it could directly affect adoption, and was appropriate for that audience.
I respect you greatly too, and I don't want my arguments to come across as trolling.

I think we had different mental context. I was in the middle of trying to describe the way protocol changes happen and how to prevent an evolving protocol, while you had just finished your masterpiece on why you think bitcoin script is not touring complete (or something along those lines).
[doublepost=1543013761][/doublepost]
Unfortunately beyond my meager understanding to grok more than a small percent of it but just a heads up that I think you left out a link you intended to include:
Please elaborate.
 

freetrader

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People trying to use any node subjective information like "time something was received" for consensus rule proposals should take a minute to rethink.

And yes, rules affecting re-org *are* consensus related. Putting additional constraints about which circumstances make a re-org acceptable is a soft fork change to consensus. It has to be considered very carefully.

My view is that these latest changes were done a bit hastily - I can understand the reason they might be seen as necessary by the miners, and I hope they give the desired space to defend the chain, but it will be wise to put them on a list of things to deactivate by default once the threat has passed (e.g. once BCH has > 50% total SHA256 hashrate).
 

Norway

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Sep 29, 2015
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There are many many reasons to believe that its not real. nChain/CSW has a history of claiming but not delivering. This isn't a criticism of their development people... the team is relatively new and still ramping up.
They also have a history of delivering. Hashpower. Investment in companies. Signatures.
 

lunar

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Aug 28, 2015
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We can only speculate on this.

Bitcoin's creator chose to be anonymous -- likely due to the risk.
But, if i had to guess, Satoshi as a founder, would be the only one that might be liable here, as he would be the sole issuer? Charlie lee and Vitalik for eg might need a lawyer or two. Either way it was a smart move to distance themselves, whoever they were.


Its a dangerous fallacy to pretend that bitcoin was a perfect threading of technology through myriad laws (which its history of being declared illegal in many jurisdictions refutes) because it makes you think that what we have now is the only possible threading.
Citation required :)

Has Bitcoin ever been declared illegal? Or was it just the exchange of Bitcoin for national currency without a license?

I don't know the answer, but I certainly don't remember any examples of the former.
 
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cypherdoc

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Aug 26, 2015
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>They also have a history of delivering.

also a client, a blockchain, a hashwar, 64mb block (biggest in history) with more to come.

amazing how people ignore this.
 
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