Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@Inca

I knew that was coming when I read your comment above

Technically BU is a consensus implementation by their definition, in that the user can set it to track Core consensus. It might be interesting to see the verbal contortions they have to pull off to ban BU if we push back on that point, but it may not be worth it.

"Banned for spamming implementations that let you break from consensus" doesn't sound good from a PR perspective for them. They'd probably go with "implementations that encourage breaking consensus," which is why I still think BU should default to Core settings, at least for now. That way they'd have to say the former one, AFAICT. Then we could counter, "Forced consensus is no consensus at all." (And they would counter, "Go use a different subreddit," we would counter, "Valuable namespace," etc.)

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

@Roger_Murdock @Peter_R

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.

@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.

Yes, the name is great, it's much better than "XT", since it raises emotions and allows multiple positive associations (unlimited success, unlimited growth, unlimited choice). BUT it's vulnerable to media attacks that maybe are already starting: "I don't want an unlimited blocksizes", which is a very valid claim but associates (wrongly) to Bitcoin Unlimited.

@Roger_Murdoch: I completely agree. I'm also a bit afraid of xt, since 8 MB now and an exponential forced growth of the blocks I'd have to accept seems dangerous to me and will make my node vulnerable to bandwrith-attacks. What people currently don't see is that BU can be far more conservative than XT. But here we are again on the name-issue.

 

[Erdogan]

Christoph Bergmann:

"BUT it's vulnerable to media attacks that maybe are already starting: "I don't want an unlimited blocksizes", which is a very valid claim but associates (wrongly) to Bitcoin Unlimited. "

This apparent absurdity is perfect to be left unresolved, perpetuating the discussion around Bitcoin Unlimited. It is a platform to start reasoning about the limit, and is an effective tool for public relations.

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

... yesterday we talked about cancer I found an analogy to the blocksize-debate. But maybe I'm just too obsessed with the issue.

Sorry, this post will be a bit offtopic and long.

In Munich (Germany) there is a doctor who startet a centre for proton-therapy against cancer. Instead of the full-body chemo-therapy he shots the cancer with protons. He raised millions for the idea (or took a deep loan) and he was strongly attacked by most other physicians to set the health of the patients on serious risks. If he had not been such a strong personality and to some degree an egomaniac, he would have capitulated.

The mother of some friend of mine enjoyed his therapy, it killed her lung cancer (which is mostly claimed to be incurable) and her body wasn't weakened by chemo-therapy. The proton-therapy is now known as one of the best and most-promising approaches against cancer. But by now it didn't hardfork cancer-cure, which is quiet miserable, cause there are compatiblity-problems with chemo: To enjoy proton, you have to cance chemo for at least three month. When the cancer has started to spread this is a very dangerous decision.

As a science-journalist I talked sometimes with scientists researching cancer cures. Most of them try to enhance chemo therapy, e. G. through the deployment of nano-capsules to transport the medicine directly to the cancer instead of pumping it through the whole body. I think most of them said in the early years of proton-therapy: "Enhancing chemo is the only way to really scale cancer therapy."

And here we are

In fact every scientific progress involves the resitance of the "old school" that claims the new approach to be a dangerous fork and that "the only real way to scale" is to go deep into details of the old modell and make them better. Thomas Kuhn believes that not new data or new modells are the mechanism to deploy scientific progress but the death or retirement of the old schoolists.

If you look at the debate about a heliocentristic perspective on the universum, there is a wonderfull example: the modell of Tycho Brahe. Some years after Kopernikus published his explicitly hypothetical helocentristic modell, this danish astronomer developed the most advanced geo-centristic modell to make it compatible with the new data found through the progess in astronomer's technology. In his modell the sun circulated around the earth, while other planets circulated around the sun. This modell made things unbelievable complicated, but it managed to solve most of the problems that have been arising from the incapabilty of the old modell to incorporate new empirical evidences.

It's my favorite example how old-school-science tries to comply with a changing world of data by over-complicating their modells instead of using new modells.

Sorry. I had this thought yesterday and I thought this thread would be the best place to write about it.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

What people currently don't see is that BU can be far more conservative than XT.

Right, it is an accident of history that BU was started by big blockers. It's only because Core happens to be obsessively small-block, possibly due to corporate takeover.

What if the situation were reversed, with Core perhaps threatening to raise the cap to 100GB (forced acceptance of giga-blocks!) and many of their devs had been hired by a giant mining company? Then BU would have likely been developed by small block advocates.

BU merely deprives Core of the special privilege to create a barrier of inconvenience supporting their setting of the Schelling point for blocksize consensus. It's not a big block client or a small block client.* It's a "let the market decide" client, and if we are wrong and the market likes smaller blocks than Core is pushing, BU will speed that along. By the same token, we can say to small block advocates: "If you are right, then BU is a much more guaranteed and decentralized way of keeping blocks small than trusting in Core. Today it's Blockstream in charge, but what if tomorrow it's BitGo?"

*so perhaps we should take some of the Satoshi "big blocks" quotes off the website, replacing them with emergent consensus quotes?

 

[theZerg]

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"

Bitcoin is the overmind blockchain its memory. We are the zerg.

 

[Roger_Murdock]

I thought I hit a pretty nice point here:

Yes! I was actually planning to come here and post it if you hadn't. I also really liked this reddit comment I saw from @Peter R:

BU is not really a block size limit proposal so there's really nothing to gain support for. Instead, it is a tool to achieve an emergent consensus--or an economic consensus--rather than a block size limit determined by Core's central planners. BU is designed to co-exist with other proposals and other implementations...or in fact even to implement those proposals. BU does not preclude miners coordinating block size limit agreements with each other to obtain the security that you suggest they want--in fact the very task that you undertook with your "census on consensus" is exactly the type of out-of-band negotiations that BU proponents imagine should unfold when negotiating changes to the protocol.

Miners can certainly use BU as a tool to set their limits to whatever they want once they are confident with their choice.

Bitcoin Unlimited helps nodes and miners realize their own power: the block size limit is a figment of our collective imagination. BU reduces friction to coming to this realization. We can set our own limit to whatever we want and we don't need to wait for anyone else. Most importantly, we don't need to wait for the permission of the Core Central Planning Authority.

 

[ladoga]

I think that these instructions were the main reason behind the sudden rise in Bitcoin XT and U node count (you can run up to 8 nodes in google cloud for 60 days without a fee): https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/3xwcnl/how_i_stopped_bitching_and_started_my_own/

The problem is that it drops quickly from the r/btc frontpage.

 

[Inca]

@ladoga:

Excellent link.

Perhaps it would be good if someone put together an automated script which took bitcoin payment and activated a vps running a bitcoin unlimited node. I would but I am not entirely sure how to activate the vps remotely..

apt-get -y update
apt-get -y install build-essential libtool autotools-dev autoconf pkg-config libssl-dev libboost-all-dev
git clone https://github.com/gandrewstone/BitcoinUnlimited.git
cd ./BitcoinUnlimited
./autogen.sh
./configure --disable-wallet
make
make install
printf "rpcuser=bitcoirpc\nrpcpassword=$RANDOM$RANDOM$RANDOM\n" >> ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf
bitcoind &

@Aquent :

Perhaps it is time to upload your version of the BU website live as it is a vast improvement on the page currently being served up..

 

[_mr_e]

What is the status of the BU mining pool? I think it would be great for BU to set up some kind of a cloud mining contract... I know these have ended poorly in the past but if this was targeted not to people who are looking to mine for a profit, but are instead wanting to put money towards growing BU hash power, this would be an amazing way to decentralize mining even at the disadvantage of running hardware at a slight loss.

I think ideological mining can work. I would buy contracts on such a platform providing the mining was at least able to reimburse a good chunk of my initial investment.

 

[freetrader]

Does anyone know what is going on with NiceHash here?


(times in UTC)

 

[lunar]

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.

Totally agree, the name is out there, it may not be perfect but it's attracting positive inquiry. I originally thought 'Bitcoin UnBlocked' would be a good name, but unlimited evokes a positive image, somehow uncontrollable. Most folk in this space realise the importance of not having a central point of failure.

 

[VeritasSapere]

What is the status of the BU mining pool? I think it would be great for BU to set up some kind of a cloud mining contract... I know these have ended poorly in the past but if this was targeted not to people who are looking to mine for a profit, but are instead wanting to put money towards growing BU hash power, this would be an amazing way to decentralize mining even at the disadvantage of running hardware at a slight loss.

I think ideological mining can work. I would buy contracts on such a platform providing the mining was at least able to reimburse a good chunk of my initial investment.

I do not think BU should setup a cloud mining contract, the articles of federation states that if donations for the mining pool exceed operational costs then that bitcoin should be used to pay the miners directly as a bonus proportional to their hashpower. I think that this is a great idea, this also would not stop anybody from purchasing cloud mining contracts themselves and pointing them towards the Bitcoin Unlimited pool and benefiting from the possible incentive due to donation, this is good.

I am very interested in the establishment of the Bitcoin Unlimited pool, I am a miner myself I do not have anywhere near enough haspower to make it viable by myself though. The problem with setting up a pool is that it is somewhat of a chicken before the egg problem. You need a large enough amount of hashpower to even make the pool viable and attractive for other people to then join it. If there are just a few larger miners that joined first then it would make it more attractive for greater adoption. It might be worth reaching out to some of the larger miners out there presently mining on some of the other public pools and convince them to join the Unlimited Pool at the moment of conception. I think it does make sense to wait a bit longer before we start up the pool, the word is still spreading and people still need more time to understand these new concepts.

 

[theZerg]

@Aquent :
Perhaps it is time to upload your version of the BU website live as it is a vast improvement on the page currently being served up..

I need to review and understand the work before I can put it up. That is going to take time given all the other things I have on my plate.

The efforts you guys make on Reddit, making memes etc is awesome! But this effort needs a bigger commitment from a few of you...

Who will bring it up a notch and run for Secretary?

 

[Inca]

The 'announcing bitcoin unlimited' posts I have scattered around seem to be piquing some interest. As I said earlier it cost me a 7 day ban for posting the same thing twice on /r/bitcoin (deleted both times).
Right, real life beckons : )

edit: i'd be happy to run in some secretarial role for BU, unless a bigger name such as Peter R fancied it.
edit2: scrap that folks.

 

[Peter R]

@theZerg

@Aquent said he would run for Secretary earlier today:

https://bitco.in/forum/threads/bitcoin-unlimited-ideas-arguments-and-proposals.123/page-6#post-7728

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

I do not think BU should setup a cloud mining contract, the articles of federation states that if donations for the mining pool exceed operational costs then that bitcoin should be used to pay the miners directly as a bonus proportional to their hashpower. I think that this is a great idea, this also would not stop anybody from purchasing cloud mining contracts themselves and pointing them towards the Bitcoin Unlimited pool and benefiting from the possible incentive due to donation, this is good.

I am very interested in the establishment of the Bitcoin Unlimited pool, I am a miner myself I do not have anywhere near enough haspower to make it viable by myself though. The problem with setting up a pool is that it is somewhat of a chicken before the egg problem. You need a large enough amount of hashpower to even make the pool viable and attractive for other people to then join it. If there are just a few larger miners that joined first then it would make it more attractive for greater adoption. It might be worth reaching out to some of the larger miners out there presently mining on some of the other public pools and convince them to join the Unlimited Pool at the moment of conception. I think it does make sense to wait a bit longer before we start up the pool, the word is still spreading and people still need more time to understand these new concepts.

You should get in touch with marco streng from genesis mining, one of the biggest cloud mining pools in the world. They did openly support bigger blocks.

 

[Peter R]

@Inca: please consider running for Secretary too! I think you would do a good job at this. Also, the more people who run, the more legitimate the process will become.

@theZerg: Question: Can the positions of President, Secretary, Developer or Mining Pool Operator be held pseudonymously?

 

[VeritasSapere]

I would actually volunteer to help with the moderation, or can this only be done by the secretary?

 

[Inca]

@Peter R

Thanks. Sure i'll run if it helps the project.