Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[theZerg]

Looking at my connected node list, I'm suddenly thinking that xtnodes.com might be completely misrepresenting who has upgraded to XT.

What I want to know is "of those people who upgraded, how many chose core vs xt?" In other words, old versions of core should be discounted. Presumably, these are either unattended systems or have modifications that make conversion difficult.

Anyone know who build xtnodes.com?

 

[Georg Engelmann]

How old is too old tho?

Some nodes don't even advertise that they are supporting BIP101 to avoid attacks...

Anyone know who build xtnodes.com?

https://www.reddit.com/user/hellobitcoinworld

 

[Peter R]

I just want to say that the more I talk with anti-XTer the more I am convinced XT (or even better, no blocksize limit whatsoever) is the right solution...

Glad that you could join us!

I agree with your sentiment (however, I wouldn't say engineers are dumb [although I know that's not what you meant]). I think part of the problem is that Bitcoin's original "base" was mostly coder/hacker-type personalities. The culture that has grown up around that is one where "if you don't GitHub" then you're opinion isn't really valuable. It's completely ridiculous (especially nowadays); really understanding Bitcoin requires broad interdisciplinary knowledge--perhaps only a quarter (being generous) relates to code and the bit-level protocol. The other three quarters are economics, game theory, sociology, law, and--as we're seeing from the block size debate--political science.

I believe Bitcoin would benefit greatly from more diversity at the leadership level. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the days of "authorities on Bitcoin" as primarily coders is coming to an end.

 

[cypherdoc]

given the amount of investment monies going into Bitcoin companies announced just this week and for the larger part of 2015 and along with the large lineup of heavy hitters attending Consensus 2015, you've got to stay bullish on the coin.

as i keep saying, the 200 DMA continues to turn up after the longest pullback int Bitcoin history with the usual 90% pullback and a classic double bottom. i know the block size debate appears hopeless but the debate has progressed beyond that we need an increase; it's just a matter of how big and how fast.

keep your chins up.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@Peter R

I think a lot of the benefit of such a proposal is in the discussion it could generate. The bottleneck on this issue seems to be more raising the sanity waterline than anything else. Presenting it as a serious, coded proposal would be ideal, but that isn't necessarily required to get people thinking.

 

[theZerg]

I think there was a core release just a week or 2 b4 the first xt release with bip101...

 

[Peter R]

@Peter R

I think a lot of the benefit of such a proposal is in the discussion it could generate. The bottleneck on this issue seems to be more raising the sanity waterline than anything else. Presenting it as a serious, coded proposal would be ideal, but that isn't necessarily required to get people thinking.

We'll call it BitcoinU. U for Unlimited. U because it puts you in control.

 

[cypherdoc]

looking good:

 

[sickpig]

about "decentralization", some food for thoughts:

mike hearn's "a threat model for Bitcoin": https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/bitcoin-xt/zbPwfDf7UoQ (fwiw Adam Back forward the message to the bct dev ml)

truthcoin's Paul Sztorc about measuring decentralization: http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/measuring-decentralization/
​

ps while looking for the latter I stumbled upon www.augur.net (a prediction market - reputation system), they're currently crowdfunding and at this time they collected: 14930 BTC and 1078158 ETH (i.e $5 milion) and I thought it's worth sharing the info with the community.

 

[awemany]

In that spirit, whatever happened to the user-adjustable blocksize limit idea born from the insight that the blocksize is a feature of the transport layer that has errantly crept into the consensus layer?

I went and made it a BIP draft together with Peter R. I didn't get around to updating it yet, I think a Q & A section might be good, covering about the feedback from reddit. See here. Further feedback appreciated.

EDIT: There is also the long thread by @Peter R. on reddit.

 

[awemany]

[...]
EDIT: and the logic behind "3" should really be more like:
Don't forward blocks bigger than X that build on the longest chain. But if a block bigger than X is > N deep in the chain then accept it. This logic discourages blocks larger than your limit but does not fork you off if the rest of the network chooses to use them.

Yes! Kind of a reflection of the laziness and unwillingness to switch chains unless it is really needed. I think I argued the same before somewhere on reddit.

 

[Jose Perez]

There is a Nash equilibrium solution to this game - a neutral, free market money which nobody controls.

This is a nice insight, but it just takes replacing the word "government" in what you say for "person", "region" -- or even "country" or "state" within the existing monetary unions -- and looking at the way people, regions and states have solved the problem of political competition in order to see it's fallacious. Governments have had international solutions to prevent widespread betrayal since World War II at least. If the Nash equilibrium does not take place in an "all against all" society, but cooperation and trust in a centralised monetary issuer, then why would it ultimately take place in a world scale?

All it takes is for them to learn the lesson of what happens when they do not cooperate enough at the level of money, for which Bitcoin is certainly invaluable. But after that it will simply be the end of Bitcoin's aspirations as world currency: http://moraluniversal.com/en/why-bitcoin-cannot-win/

 

[Ivanhoe]

I can see DJI breaking 16K today..

 

[sickpig]

about "decentralization", some food for thoughts:

truthcoin's Paul Sztorc about measuring decentralization: http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/measuring-decentralization/​

this guy sure has strong opinions:

If Bitcoin were a bank, Mining would be the clock on the wall.

 

[molecular]

more:

http://qntra.net/2015/09/qntras-mascot-dixie-visits-consensus-2015/

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@awemany

Nice writeup. I really felt like the implications of that user-selected blocksize cap system and the whole paradigm shift it entailed in terms of what we mean by consensus was cut short by the thread lockdown on BCT.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@Jose Perez

I read the article and I think the possible end result scenarios of an attempted government co-option are mostly fine for bitcoiners, as you maybe partway acknowledge at the end. I break it down case by case here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68655.msg11236117#msg11236117

A few more loose ends in response to the article:

Network effect rules *in its sphere* and *if competitors are not too terribly superior* (or cannot be assimilated). Bitcoin is already highly superior to fiat in limited domains (which will expand as it grows), and Bitcoin - the ledger, not the protocol - can take on whatever upgrades to its maintenance system become available if something (a ledger-maintenance protocol) highly superior comes along.

 

[Peter R]

Although I'm confident the Bitcoin majority wants larger blocks, it still feels like people are uneasy about the idea of leaving Core behind and moving to a "multiple-implementation" future:


We need to work on convincing people that the implementations all have a very strong incentive to remain fork-compatible. And that if they all fork from Core, that the concern for "bug-for-bug compatibility" is small.

 

[cypherdoc]

grrrrrrrrrrr........

 

[cypherdoc]

this is one of the most interesting charts to me at the moment. if i'm right, this crisis the USD won't be so lucky: