Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[awemany]

How does lifting the blocksize cap affect F2pool whatsoever in the first place?

The can make their own blocks as small as they want.

They're already mining off headers by spying on block hashes from other public pools via stratum.

Also why does development have to coddle the rent-seeking behavior of Chinese pools/farms, when there is essentially zero addressable market in China for Bitcoin the payment system?

So damn true. The question for core is:

"Why do you care about the miners at all when you don't care about the users?"

 

[cypherdoc]

Core dev has never cared about miners. All they've ever been is highly suspicious and degrading towards them. So any concern arguments core might make on their behalf should be disregarded.

 

[awemany]

@cypherdoc: Yeah, and I can't point to a specific post of any of the devs right now, but the sentiment on reddit sometimes kind of is 'see the Chinese do not want BIP101, therefore Core shouldn't implement it'.

I don't know where that's coming from, whether it is the usual trolls, or whether it is something originating (as a manipulation tactic) from Blockstream.

Because it would make a lot of sense to simply ignore the Chinese miners when you're oh-so-concerned about centralization, as Greg & the others are.

 

[bitsko]

@awemany

My impression is that most of the core devs against BIP101 aren't building their arguments from conviction, but are just generally piecing together whatever they find at the moment to support their counterarguments, which is just a continuation of their stalling tactics.

 

[cypherdoc]

Gold collapsing. BitcoinUP. even i should have been more bearish:

[doublepost=1449076121][/doublepost]look at that mofo go:

[doublepost=1449076187][/doublepost]oh so close. i can taste it:

[doublepost=1449076687,1449076060][/doublepost]

If setting up a block assembling node outside the GFC becomes the difference between losing 1800 BTC/day and earning 1800 BTC/day, they'll figure out how to make it work.

as an experienced user of vpn's and tor, i can tell you latency is a big issue. not to mention you'd have to trust the outside of China datacenter node you're connecting to for the block construction. i think that is such an unacceptable risk for the Chinese that this is the reason they haven't done it this way.
[doublepost=1449076834][/doublepost]

I don't know and I am not saying there's a big conspiracy here, but maybe the Chinese goverment steps in when someone, especially a business, so blatantly ignores their censorship^Wconsensus system?

that is definitely a risk and is always a looming threat to a Chinese mining pool. which is probably why they chosen to keep their full nodes inhouse.

 

[Mengerian]

Interesting article by Steve Sokolowski: "Why a single exchange can trigger adoption of BIP101" http://forums.prohashing.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=664

Quote: "We support BIP101 not because it is technically superior to any other solution, but because its activation is the easiest way to purge the bitcoin community of negative actors. If BIP101 succeeds, theymos and his censorship will be discredited, criminal activity by hackers and DDoS will have been proven to be ineffective at preventing progress, and the stonewalling Core developers who repeatedly ignore this problem will be marginalized by more effective leadership. Imagine if a different solution backed by the Core developers is implemented, like the much-hyped Lightning Network. With the same people in charge up to the same tricks, would you be willing to increase your investment in bitcoin then?"

 

[cypherdoc]

this looks to be it. the break below 1000 is coming:

[doublepost=1449077517][/doublepost]

Interesting article by Steve Sokolowski: "Why a single exchange can trigger adoption of BIP101" http://forums.prohashing.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=664

Quote: "We support BIP101 not because it is technically superior to any other solution, but because its activation is the easiest way to purge the bitcoin community of negative actors. If BIP101 succeeds, theymos and his censorship will be discredited, criminal activity by hackers and DDoS will have been proven to be ineffective at preventing progress, and the stonewalling Core developers who repeatedly ignore this problem will be marginalized by more effective leadership. Imagine if a different solution backed by the Core developers is implemented, like the much-hyped Lightning Network. With the same people in charge up to the same tricks, would you be willing to increase your investment in bitcoin then?"

i couldn't have said it better.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

as an experienced user of vpn's and tor, i can tell you latency is a big issue. not to mention you'd have to trust the outside of China datacenter node you're connecting to for the block construction. i think that is such an unacceptable risk for the Chinese that this is the reason they haven't done it this way.

I wouldn't expect them to do this before it's absolutely necessary. Why would they? It's an extra cost they can avoid right now.

But when the landscape changes, they'll either do what they need to stay in business or else go out of business.

Both options are equivalent from the point of view of the network as a whole. It's not as if the blocks won't get mined if the Chinese pools don't mine them - just means someone else will mine them.

 

[albin]

here's Pindar Wong's response to what Mike Hearn wrote about setting up a node in Taiwan

I'm wondering if an angle to this situation is Mike happening to make the mistake of mentioning Taiwan as an example, a suggestion to which a miner in the PRC I imagine would at least be obligated publicly to vigorously oppose.

 

[cypherdoc]

@Mengerian

just finished it. my favorite part:

"Right now, the decision of a single major exchange can tip the balance in any direction, and the first mover could end up as decisive. Exchanges involved in bitcoin need to look at the big picture and recognize that the character of the people who end up in charge after all of this is more important than the size of the blockchain in 2020."
[doublepost=1449078854][/doublepost]

I'm wondering if an angle to this situation is Mike happening to make the mistake of mentioning Taiwan as an example, a suggestion to which a miner in the PRC I imagine would at least be obligated publicly to vigorously oppose.

i seriously doubt they would be that nit picky.

but the broader point is that any location except inhouse represents a significant security risk.

 

[rocks]

@cypherdoc: Yeah, and I can't point to a specific post of any of the devs right now, but the sentiment on reddit sometimes kind of is 'see the Chinese do not want BIP101, therefore Core shouldn't implement it'.

I don't know where that's coming from, whether it is the usual trolls, or whether it is something originating (as a manipulation tactic) from Blockstream.

Because it would make a lot of sense to simply ignore the Chinese miners when you're oh-so-concerned about centralization, as Greg & the others are.

The sentiment they are using is essentially "we should limit Bitcoin because the Chinese government's firewall limits miners in China and mining is currently centralized in China"

This is exactly the type of perverse government censorship Bitcoin was designed to route around. Anyone who makes this argument and advocates that we should accept the censorship and limitations of the Chinese government (or any government, I'm not just picking on China here), should be tared and feathered for taking the most anti-Bitcoin stance imaginable. The core devs going with this Chinese miner argument while simultaneously saying we need to keep to 1MB blocks behind tor in order to fully be government resistant is beyond laughable. They really need to be called out for this.

 

[Mengerian]

@cypherdoc Yeah, I agree there's a lot more at play here than just blocksize.

The only caveat I'd add is that in the long run I don't want anyone 'in charge'.

As @Zangelbert Bingledack alluded to, we don't need to purge people, just remove the levers of power from their grasp. Eventually we want an ecosystem where competing ideas and implementations are advanced to duke it out in the market (both the market of ideas and the financial market).

 

[rocks]

@awemany

My impression is that most of the core devs against BIP101 aren't building their arguments from conviction, but are just generally piecing together whatever they find at the moment to support their counterarguments, which is just a continuation of their stalling tactics.

Exactly this. I have yet to see them bring a single comprehensive argument for small blocks. I have only seen them bring point-for-point counter points that do not lay out a counter argument, or fall back to "we are experts" and "bitcoin is a complex system that very few understand".
[doublepost=1449082008,1449081326][/doublepost]

@Mengerian
just finished it. my favorite part:

"Right now, the decision of a single major exchange can tip the balance in any direction, and the first mover could end up as decisive. Exchanges involved in bitcoin need to look at the big picture and recognize that the character of the people who end up in charge after all of this is more important than the size of the blockchain in 2020."

I could not follow the line of thought for this argument. How does this work in practice? If let's say coinbase, bitpay, bitstamp, gemini and a few others decide they want to force BIP101, how do they do so? They can't force miners to mine the blocks.

The only way I can imagine this playing out is a decision to hard fork and say "by block X, we will only process on chains consisting solely of blocks with the BIP101 version" and then ignore all blocks not BIP101.

This is messy though because everyone of their users would have to change to a similar hard forked client, or they and their users would be on different chains. It is not clear how users would respond to this. Would all follow, a mix? What happens for all of the users who were using clients on the old chain and sent funds to the wrong place?

What if a major exchange acts as a hold out and continues to process the old chain. Now we have a real economic split with 2 versions of Bitcoin being bought and sold. Obviously one would win, but it would be chaotic and damaging to Bitcoin's reputation. Think of the millions of articles in the MSM on this one.

In the end though we only need 50.1% of mining hash rate on BIP101. A simple majority when reached could simply decide to only build on BIP101 blocks. The BIP101 chain becomes the longest change and all non-BIP101 blocks become orphaned. Miners quickly switch after that. The 75% hurdle was always nonsense, 50.1% is all you ever need.

 

[cypherdoc]

@rocks

yeah, at first i had the same trouble.

but i think he has a point; exchanges deal with multiple cryptocurrencies so they're diversified from that standpoint even if Bitcoin died. in fact, perhaps that wouldn't even affect them as everyone flees to their favorite altcoin.

SHA-256 Bitcoin miners, otoh, are wedded to mining BTC as their sole income source. if the price collapses, they'd be up a creek with their hardware and BTC investments, whereas an exchange simply has to software pivot.

so i think he's right.
[doublepost=1449083616,1449082720][/doublepost]looks like this is gonna be a definitive turn:

[doublepost=1449083953][/doublepost]btw, if we do get a short term top here, it'll line up with the already established intermediate term sell signal which would be extremely bearish, not only from multiple timeframes, but from a structural standpoint in it's translation.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

Of course there is danger in the regulated exchanges having so much control by acting as gatekeepers for so much of the liquidity.

The primary alternative to exchange-based liquidity is commerce - people selling products and services for btc.

We can't have that commerce, however, with 1 MB blocks.

The only way to get through the danger zone and emerge in a less vulnerable configuration is to have enough on-chain capacity for non-centralized liquidity sources to emerge.

 

[cypherdoc]

oh, this is great from /u/acoindr:

 

[Mengerian]

In the end though we only need 50.1% of mining hash rate on BIP101. A simple majority when reached could simply decide to only build on BIP101 blocks. The BIP101 chain becomes the longest change and all non-BIP101 blocks become orphaned. Miners quickly switch after that. The 75% hurdle was always nonsense, 50.1% is all you ever need.

Yes, I agree with this analysis. At the end of the day, the only power miners have is to orphan blocks, and 50.1% can do that.

The power of merchants and exchanges is to exert financial pressure to 'break the cartel' of miners. If they let it be known that they support larger blocks and will accept them, and there are sufficient transaction fees at the margin, then miners would have a hard time preventing each other from 'defecting' to BIP101.

 

[theZerg]

And let's not forget that at some point merchants and exchanges might realize that they have to build up a mine to preserve their original business model.

 

[solex]

@cypherdoc

I think you are right. This is just before a multi-year structural change. The question is timing, and major market corrections in December are like hen's teeth. We are only four weeks from the New Year which is a key date because bankster bonuses are usually determined on performance results to Dec 31st. The Squid has its fiscal year end. Old Yeller will do everything to avoid ruining the Christmas party so a Fed rate rise (fig-leaf 25 bps) triggering a bear-market is most likely mid-January when the Hamptons are emptying out.

 

[cypherdoc]

@solex

but major corrections in stocks can take years. i'm simply talking about the top. my analyses say the secondary top is very near. the real top may have been in May.

but i've been wrong about this for a coupla years (and still could be wrong) as it was my mistake in assuming the $DJI would top coincident with gold and silver. instead, what we're getting is a phase shift down across assets classes across several years.

and that's ok, i've made a bundle selling/shorting pm's by getting the gold/silver top right in 2011.