Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Roger_Murdock]

This is exactly why I've been saying that there is no block size limit. It's just a figment of our collective imagination.

Boy: Do not try and raise the block size limit. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Boy: There is no block size limit.

Neo: There is no block size limit?

Boy: Then you'll see that it is not the Core devs that must bend, it is only yourself.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I posted my paper up on reddit...

...getting lost in the coinbase mess I think.

This kind of thing needs to be given a headline and explanation in the comments that is geared toward a lay audience in order to do well on reddit. A low percentage of readers are going to read an academic paper. A comment explaining the big block attack with quotes from Core/BS devs to really motivate the reader would be ideal. Then various offshoot posts can be made showing perhaps individual images in the paper and looking at various aspects of it to make it more "bitesized" for redditary consumption.

Taking it to /r/Bitcoin can also be successful if done properly, but for that you may not get multiple chances.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

If you think that "miners can't be trusted to set their own block size limit because they'll set it 'too high' in a selfish but ultimately short-sighted 'race to the bottom' as they seek to drive their competition out of business, destroying Bitcoin's entire value proposition -- decentralization -- in the process," then I don't see how you can think that Bitcoin isn't already irreparably broken. Because miners do set their own block size limit. It's just that, for the time being, the limit set by Core is a convenient and (again, at least for now) acceptable Schelling point. If you're convinced that the emergent limit of a BU-type approach would "run away" in some profoundly unhealthy manner, then why do you expect Core to be able to hold the line? In other words, if miners' incentives, once BU is widely-adopted, would be to ratchet up the block size to "unhealthy" levels, why isn't their incentive right now to abandon Core and move to an implementation like BU that would allow them to pursue that strategy?

Well there it is. This forms the "big guns" argument that would go in a persuasive essay backing Bitcoin Unlimited. The argument against BU is fundamentally self-defeating, and this should be hammered on relentlessly.

As a more academic point, it also may provide a clean rationalist complement to the empirical argument @Peter R raised here. Here's the gist:

Without a priori knowledge of the Bitcoin source code, it is trivial to empirically determine that Bitcoin's inflation rate is 25 BTC per block (and 50 BTC prior to the first halving). From the following animation of real Blockchain data, it is clear that Bitcoin strictly adheres to a particular inflation schedule.

However, it is very difficult to empirically determine whether Bitcoin has a block size limit. Instead we first see evidence of some sort of "obstruction" at 250 kB, giving way to a new obstruction at 350 kB, followed by 750 kB and today an obstruction near 1 MB. A reasonable guess could be made that the present obstructions at 1 MB may give way to new peaks at a higher block size.

 

[AdrianX]

I do think, though, that the concept of "security ratio" is coherent, and exists even if we can't know its value.

I've though about this too and I think this is Satoshi's big breakthrough. I haven't read much from him on this but it makes me think he is smart with a broad and profound general knowledge.

I imagine the security ratio to be some what dynamic and requiring network growth until it hits a sustainable equilibrium drawing on many types of security.

That's why I think he felt bitcoin would either be worth a lot or nothing in he future.

The inflation schedule is designed to disrupt as much as it's designed to secure the network more during the early growth stages and diminish over time.

It seems that the security ratio would affected by time, the network size as much as by the number of miners and and competing interests of node operators.

It's my opinion that many small block proponents actually don't understand security and probably weight disproportionately the block subsidy to be the only secures capable of sustaining network.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

In other words, if miners' incentives, once BU is widely-adopted, would be to ratchet up the block size to "unhealthy" levels, why isn't their incentive right now to abandon Core and move to an implementation like BU that would allow them to pursue that strategy?

A first attempt to compress this down to meme size.

Verbose version:

And preference or suggestions?
[doublepost=1451288944][/doublepost]Extra verbose:

 

[Peter R]

Aha the philoso-raptor! I would go with the first one, but I might change "BU" to "Bitcoin Unlimited" because I'm not sure how many people recognize "BU" yet.

 

[solex]

I don't get this. Miners can't mod Core because their "bloat" blocks would be rejected by everyone else's 1MB. Or do you mean by "bloat" a carefully crafted block that takes minutes to verify but is <1MB?

 

[Peter R]

@solex: I took it like this:

Bitcoin Unlimited doesn't allow any node or miner to do anything they can't do already by mod'ing the code--it just makes it easier. Is "convenience" all that is stopping the network from falling into centralized bloat block obliteration?

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@solex

See the extra-verbose version. In BU the small miners could easily defend against a huge block attack by keeping their settings low.
[doublepost=1451290076][/doublepost]@Peter R

Yeah I'd only use "BU" for /r/btc since people recognize it there now I think. For /r/BitcoinXt and /r/Bitcoin I'd use "Bitcoin Unlimited." EDIT: Nevermind, you're right because it gets popular someone else may link it elsewhere. I'll modify the original comment.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Is this relevant to @theZerg's finding on 1-txn blocks?

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

[doublepost=1451299548,1451298530][/doublepost]
J. Toomim went around China and did an informal census of mining pools (r/btc, r/bitcoin).

I was thinking, BIP101 forces miners to accept a 8MB block right away if one were to be mined. That has to be a concern of these pools. I wonder if they would find BU more palatable because it doesn't force them to accept anything; they can set their acceptance size lower if they don't like "parachute base jumping" as Alex Petrov (Bitfury) called it.

 

[Erdogan]

@solex: I took it like this:

Bitcoin Unlimited doesn't allow any node or miner to do anything they can't do already by mod'ing the code--it just makes it easier. Is "convenience" all that is stopping the network from falling into centralized bloat block obliteration?

That is why I think we (the large-blockers) have already won. The 1 MB limit is only an inconvenience, a bump in the road.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Reddit thread here.

 

[sickpig]

@Peter R

your new avatar and text @ BCT made my day, I lol'ed so hard that people around me thought I was crazy.

if you're curious check Peter's profile on the other forum

edit: grammar

 

[VeritasSapere]

Yeah your new avatar and text on bitcointalk rocks Peter R, love it.

I had an idea for a meme, which might throw a wrench in some peoples perceptions, not sure what a good accompanying image would be, maybe someone here has a suggestion. Though the text would read "Bitcoin is an altcoin".

 

[Inca]

With rabid small blockers like mmeijeri on /r/bitcoin openly asking for a truce it seems there are likely heavy political undercurrents going on behind the scenes.

What a fabulous time for Bitcoin Unlimited to burst forth into existence. Onwards to the brink I say. Let us bring this fracture in the community to its final, logical and eventually inevitable conclusion. Bitcoin emerged as the first and best attempt to separate money and State for generations. It is time to cut the umbilical cord tethering this nascent currency to it's development origins and release governance of the bitcoin protocol into the network consensus layer once and for all.

Steel yourselves, gentlemen. The ride is about to get bumpy.

 

[VeritasSapere]

Aha the philoso-raptor! I would go with the first one, but I might change "BU" to "Bitcoin Unlimited" because I'm not sure how many people recognize "BU" yet.

I agree, the first one just replace "BU" with Bitcoin Unlimited.

 

[tynwald]

I would not accept any compromise that leaves current dev team in place, with commit rights. Either BIP101 or Bitcoin Unlimited, none of these 2MB hacks (in system terms) which guarantee the same stalling and BS by BS/Core in 12 months time.

 

[cypherdoc]

no one seems to care:

[doublepost=1451324473][/doublepost]+11.82% today. Bullish:

[doublepost=1451324670][/doublepost]i totally agree with this analysis:

"A majority of financial market participants applaud this strategy. In fact, it is a dangerous mistake. The Fed is borrowing a page from the script of its last normalization campaign – the incremental rate hikes of 2004-2006 that followed the extraordinary accommodation of 2001-2003. Just as that earlier gradualism set the stage for a devastating financial crisis and a horrific recession in 2008-2009, there is mounting risk of yet another accident on what promises to be an even longer road to normalization."

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/perils-of-fed-gradualism-by-stephen-s--roach-2015-12
[doublepost=1451324749,1451324135][/doublepost]Japan just won't stop deflating. this is where we're headed:

Japan output, retail sales slump, dampen recovery prospects

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-output-idUSKBN0UA0ON20151228
[doublepost=1451324845][/doublepost]Merry Christmas and all but time for the catch down:

[doublepost=1451325236][/doublepost]this doesn't look good:

[doublepost=1451325413][/doublepost]this is quite elegant:

 

[lunar]

@cypherdoc

Have you ever considered porting the old parts of this thread over here? Would be nice to have the whole history in one place.