Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Justus Ranvier]

RES tagging is starting to pay off. Now I'm seeing instigators who were previously trolling in one direction change sides and start trolling in the other direction.

 

[AdrianX]

Now I'm seeing instigators who were previously trolling in one direction change sides and start trolling in the other direction.

@Justus Ranvier That's an interesting statement what conclusions could you draw from your observed behavior?

And do you consider many of your tags to be sock puppets? (It's so funny that last question probably doesn't make scene to half of those reading it)

 

[Justus Ranvier]

@Justus Ranvier That's an interesting statement what conclusions could you draw from your observed behavior?

Someone is trying to stir up as much conflict as possible. They don't have any preference for < 1 MB blocks or for >1 MB blocks - they only care about maximising drama.

It's not possible to know whether they are doing it as a job, or as a hobby.
[doublepost=1451352413][/doublepost]

And do you consider many of your tags to be sock puppets? (It's so funny that last question probably doesn't make scene to half of those reading it)

I don't even attempt to guess in most cases. I'd be nice to set up a Baynesian classifier, but I don't have that kind of time.

 

[theZerg]

@theZerg

Surely the following is from something I must have read somewhere, but I can't place it? At the risk of sounding stupid, here goes anyway.

I was thinking about partial chain validation and reducing the size of the blockchain for home nodes. Would there be a way for a node to provably only validate say only 50% or 25% of the blockchain? (in each case including all related local transactions). There might even be a relay network amongst other nodes so 4 x 25% nodes could cryptographically confirm they held a 100% validated blockchain?

This idea would obviously reduce the pressure on locally stored data and remove the issue of loosing home nodes. Suppose if it were possible it could even be extended to 1000's of nodes so each could validate 5% of the chain?

Am I thinking of treechains and is there any mileage here?

Read this, which I call a distributed trustless merkle tree.
https://bitco.in/forum/threads/soft-fork-bip101.461/#post-5603


Probably not treechains. I tried to understand it this summer when I was working out the above but gave up when I read other devs joking that Peter Todd's Treechains are completely incomprehensible...
https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04388.html

For example (and this is just the quickest at the beginning)

So how can we do better? Start with the "big picture" idea and take the
linear blockchain and turn it into a tree:

┌───────┴───────┐
┌───┴───┐ ┌───┴───┐
┌─┴─┐ ┌─┴─┐ ┌─┴─┐ ┌─┴─┐
┌┴┐ ┌┴┐ ┌┴┐ ┌┴┐ ┌┴┐ ┌┴┐ ┌┴┐ ┌┴┐

How do you efficiently take the 60GB linear blockchain and reorganize it into a balanced tree, rebalancing as each new block comes in?

 

[solex]

What!
Has the most Unbelievably Bad Headline of the Year Award been made yet?

Bitcoin XT Discussion: “Have Wallets Refuse To Send To Known-Non-Compliant Wallets”

http://bitcoinist.net/bitcoin-xt-discussion-have-wallets-refuse-to-send-to-known-non-compliant-wallets/

This isn't an XT discussion, this might be a Core discussion, or just a bitcoin.org discussion, but NOT an XT discussion. Jeez.

 

[albin]

@solex

That's a real testament to how poor alot of the Bitcoin journalism out there is, that a single weird trollish online comment can justify an entire misguided article!

On the bright side, that very same laziness in journalism surely will help the BU buzz, which seems way stronger than I would've anticipated.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

How do you efficiently take the 60GB linear blockchain and reorganize it into a balanced tree, rebalancing as each new block comes in?

Might be worth reviewing why we have a blockchain at all.

The hard problem to solve is proving the inputs to all transactions exist and are not already spent.

The first sub-problem is actually not too hard. It wouldn't be a big deal to wrap the existing transactions messages inside another message that also includes a merkle proof that the inputs exist, putting the responsibility for tracking that data on the owners of coins.

The really annoying problem is proving that an input has not been spent.

Right now nodes do this by performing on an exhaustive search on the blockchain. They make this process easier by keeping a running index called the utxo set. Utxo sets are not transferable between nodes. You can only really trust a utxo set you produced yourself. Requiring miners to commit a utxo set to their blocks is fraught with peril in terms of the trust model.

The blockchain is basically a journal optimized for easy writing, but performs terribly for searching.

If you want to change the way the blockchain is represented, the goal should be making it easier to search for unspent outputs. Even better would be to build the basis of a proof system that makes it possible to bootstrap a node without viewing the entire blockchain, with better security than "trust a majority of miners to not print themselves unlimited bitcoins."

 

[Peter R]

When I was preparing my "Top-10" list of research papers for 2015 for CoinDesk, I read an interesting paper co-authored by @Andrew Miller. The paper identified three components of Bitcoin’s design that can be decoupled and analyzed individually: (1) transactions and scripts, (2) the peer-to-peer communication network, and (3) consensus and mining. This made me think that perhaps we can extend this categorization beyond just these three technical topics to include all of Bitcoin knowledge. I propose the two new categories: (4) money, and (5) the impact of cryptocurrency on society.

I noticed that if I write them in this order, then they form a linear domain progressing from what I'll call "left-brain intensive" thought to "right-brain" intensive thought. These categories also cover a wide range of disciplines, as shown below:

Obviously I've taken some liberties with this diagram, and there is overlap in many places, but I think it reveals some truth as well.

It might also help us understand our irresolvable debate with the Blockstream Core folks. For example, if you wander on over to one of their clubhouses, you'll see that they're usually talking about Topics #1 and #2. Over at our forum, we're normally talking about Topics #3 and #4. In other words, our expertise and knowledge of Bitcoin covers quite different areas.

Anyways, food for thought...

Dedicated thread: https://bitco.in/forum/threads/the-five-sectors-of-cryptocurrency-knowledge.680/

 

[Roger_Murdock]

The name "unlimited" looks at first like "Let's just make the blocksize infinite". I know, it's more behind, but most people will think "Infinite blocks? Ha. There is not even a consensus about 8 MB blocks. This is madness".

So your claim should more be like "Let the user set the block limit".

Yeah, this was my concern too, so I think we have to be careful with the messaging. I think "Bitcoin Unlimited" is a great name because of all the positive connotations of "unlimited" ("unlimited potential!" "unlimited data plan!" "unlimited breadsticks!"), but when people hear it they'll also tend to think in terms of "unlimited block size" which sounds scary ("oh noes, how would the network handle 1 TB blocks?"). So it's important to present BU in terms of something that allows for an "emergent block size limit" or a "market-determined block size limit." (And contrast this with a block size limit that's determined by the Core committee of central planners.) I don't even like the term "big blocker" for similar reasons. I'm not really pro-big blocks. I'm pro-block choice. I know that if miners really want larger blocks, they're going to get them. I'd prefer they do so safely through the most heavily secured blockchain there is, and not through some dangerous back-alley altcoin.

 

[Peter R]

@Roger_Murdock, @Christoph Bergmann

Completely agree...however...the fact that the name provokes an emotional response is--I think--to some degree responsible for the attention that Bitcoin Unlimited has received.

 

[Peter R]

Original chart (May 2015):

Current chart (Dec 2015):

 

[Zarathustra]

A first attempt to compress this down to meme size.

Great, but replace the Dino. We are the zerg! Hired by the Overmind, the zerg of the zerg.

"The zerg are coming. The zerg are nature in all her fury"

 

[Inca]

/r/bitcoin have begun deleting Bitcoin Unlimited posts and links.

There is something very wrong with that place.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I thought I hit a pretty nice point here:

[doublepost=1451384673][/doublepost]

BU doesn't remove that but adds channels to express it in better and hopefully more productive ways. I think some of it is real concern, but a lot of is the broken communication channel that is Bitcoin Core. I think a decentralized approach like BU will at least help in creating additional and better communication channels for determining the effective block size limit.

That's is another interesting approach. I would unite it with my reddit comment above and say BU will help smooth communication channels for converging on consensus Schelling points by removing the noise introduced by Core's having its hand on the scale, which is making it inconvenient to express preferences in the Schelling consensus process. (Which ironically (or not?) reminds me of how the /r/Bitcoin censorship has made it difficult to have this debate.)

 

[awemany]

@Zangelbert Bingledack : That is indeed a nice post you made there.
I am wondering now whether I should go and make this build script to create up-down blocksize adjusted Bitcoin builds, just to show the futility of being in the way by not letting users express their options.

 

[molecular]

sorry if it has been mentioned, there's a reddit thread on r/btc: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/3ym1tr/bitcoin_unlimited_info/ asking "who are the BU devs".

@Peter R already dropped by.

 

[Inca]

@Zangelbert Bingledack : That is indeed a nice post you made there.
I am wondering now whether I should go and make this build script to create up-down blocksize adjusted Bitcoin builds, just to show the futility of being in the way by not letting users express their options.

I have approached AnarchyStar to ask if he wishes to support BU. He previously offered to spin up 1000 XT nodes. If he supported BU we could rapidly gain a % share of the network and start an avalanche.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@Justus Ranvier or someone wanna give an explanation of what having 1000 nodes would and wouldn't do for BU?

 

[awemany]

I just PM'd /u/anarchystar (I try to refrain from posting to /r/Bitcoin) and sent him the earlier proposal draft that I and @Peter R. made and tried to get some discussion on on reddit.

Back then, most people didn't understand the whole idea of decentralized consensus behind BU.

However, it feels that the 'community mindset' shifted a bit into our direction and many seem to be at least BU-curious now

So hopefully he'll not fall onto deaf ears with his proposal. I am not optimistic with the current core team, though...

 

[Inca]

And the hammer drops..

subreddit message via /r/Bitcoin[M] sent a minute ago

you have been temporarily banned from posting to /r/Bitcoin. this ban will last for 7 days.

note from the moderators:
spamming non-consensus implementations
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