Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[VeritasSapere]

Bitcoin Unlimited is transcending this entire debate, a synthesis. A paradigm shift, a new awakening. A discovery of something that was already there. Something old and something new. I am exited to step into this new frontier, a new dawn. Bitcoin is growing up, it needs to shake itself lose from the paternalism of its past. It needs to realize itself and evolve into what it is meant to become. We are a part of this, humanity is a part of this great machine. The truth lights our path forward and exposes those that wish to block the stream of our future. Technological empowerment of volunteerism leading us towards freedom. The road of our salvation has been illuminated, as we travel towards our destiny and touch the stars, remember our history and our unlimited possibility.

 

[cypherdoc]

keybase is easy, btw:

https://keybase.io/cypherdoc

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[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I do feel we are in the thick of a metamorphosis.

 

[rocks]

The common sense of BU has them running. Don't stop, give the knock out punch, but olive branches are sacred

All of the avenues they used to attack XT have been taken away, because BU is a simple code fork.

It is a grass roots community project so no opening to attack personalities (such as hearn). It does not ship with an "unlimited" block size so no opening to attack there. It is definitely core code so no opening there either.

Then it has going for it the fact that it is putting decision making in the hands of all participants and has a real governing mechanism that is community led? How do you attack that if you are Maxwell or Back I don't know. Will be interesting to see what they come up with.

 

[JVWVU]

Bitcoin UP, China DOWN

 

[rocks]

One word: SegWit

The bitcoin-assets guys and gals don't like SW because of its soft-fork where old nodes can't verify SW signatures. If it means supporting a block-limit increase to stall SW take-up then it is worth it.

That's a great point.

It is an example of how much work, in multiple areas, has gone into building tools that use the main chain for all sorts of opportunities, and how the current leadership's path to force everyone off chain breaks so much of what many different people are building.

Most people building bitcoin services have been building them for the main chain. They are all going to resist the current nonsense once they understand it and it starts to effect them

 

[cypherdoc]

@rocks

in the case of Mircea et al, they are militants by running old original Satoshi code and refusing to upgrade out of fear of core dev straying too far away from Bitcoin as a settlement layer ala digital gold. which makes Rochards defection all the more interesting as he finally is getting my point that Bitcoin can't function as digital gold until and unless everyone in the world knows about, covets it, and uses it. that would be the greatest decentralization we could hope for resulting in the ultimate security.

 

[cliff]

Shower Thought 3 - RE: Bitcoin as a Settlement Layer is NO BUENO.

Let me lay out a few different hypothetical future scenarios and then explain why I think a settlement layer world is not so good - I think it will be obvious, though.

1. Bob has a small business along the seashore that generates its revenue during the summer in a tourist town. Bob takes out a business loan in the business' name, with a personal guarantee, to get the business through the winter months and for start-of-season inventory (this is common in the industry and in Bob's area). The business services the business loan with one payment at the end of the tourist season. The loan is secured with a deed of trust recorded against the business' building, which the business owns. The deed of trust (DOT) is recorded on block chain and the debt associated with the DOT is serviced via bitcoin payments.
2. Bob and Camilla are going to purchase their first home. The closing is in 3 days. The closing company is going to record the transaction on the blockchain and the downpayment will be via bitcoin. The closing company requires that the buyer's payment arrive no later than 24hrs prior to closing. Failure of payment to arrive will result in a default under the purchase contract and will result in Bob and Camilla losing their earnest money downpayment of $5,000 (personal check delivered to seller's realtor in drive way of home immediately after attending an open house).
3. USA must make an annual payment on Treasury Bonds owned by China. Payment must arrive by 12:00am 1/1/2021 or US will be in default, its credit rating jeopardized, etc. Payment is always made via Bitcoin b/c blockchain transparency etc.

In the three hypos above, settlement has to occur by a certain time period or the sender will be subject to something bad (but it could easily the payee experiences something bad as well due to settlement timing). Settlement delays and the possibility thereof raises the prospect of a few types of problems with the small block perspective.

First, currently in the US, wires (Fedwire) settle very predictably and according to clear guidelines: https://www.frbservices.org/files/regulations/pdf/operating_circular_6_07122012.pdf. With a data-cap fee market (that's what it is - a cap on the flow of information), payees do not have the certainty of cheap (or cheaper than fedwire) settlement in 10 min on average or 2 x per day etc.. In stead, Payees will have to pay a fee for a chance at riding the rails. This is way too unpredictable. Why use it? Furthermore, payments and fund transfer systems, including settlement times, are regulated generally (US). Are we sure bitcoin as settlement will be permitted? See here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/4/

Second, and related to the first point, it may be colossally arrogant to assume there will be a market for block space when sending bitcoin is subject to the sender successfully biding in a competitive fee market. This comports with nobody's experience to date in wiring funds? It will not compute.

Third, even were there to be a fee market, the fees may be too cost prohibitive and the timing of settlements may be too unpredictable for it to make sense for important transactions. I wouldn't expect any big non-bitcoin companies to use it its consumer offerings (e.g., title companies, closing companies, payroll companies, etc.). See my earlier post on Race Notice jurisdictions in the real property conveyance context. Therefore, I'm not sure a fee market would be sustainable over the long-term. I would expect long-term equilibrium in this market to reflect less than 1MB in block space demand. This would mean bitcoin has stagnated or remains a fringe thing for geeks and libertarians. Who exactly is Bitcoin being designed for in a fee market world? It can't be for businesses that are concerned about cash flow, which is like all businesses.

Finally, and worst of all, a fee market can be manipulated. In hypo 3 above, what if an adversary knew approximately when a payment was going to be made etc. (based on cash flow cycles, spies, etc)? For example, what if NKorea hired a bunch of hackers to spam the network to artificially pump the tx fee or to just make it impossible for the US' TBill interest payments to arrive in time (assume NK can fill the blocks for a full month prior to the US' payment's settlement date (this would effect everyone trying to use bitcoin during that time period). This type of attack could be used by a variety of actors and at various scales.

Overall, the only way I could see a fee-market settlement layer working for Bitcoin is with a bunch of complicated side products or counter-operations that hedge the risks associated with payments not settling in time. The market for these products, and therefore bitcoin, will be small. For example, people/businesses/banks/govts may need to buy transaction insurance (or an endorsement on some other policy) for non-settlement of payments due to block size - I can't see insurance companies covering these losses and not making them subjection to a coverage exclusion as a default option in a standard insurance policy. These products are cool and all, and I look forward to working with them, but they shouldn't be a primary thing Bitcoin brings with it (Hmmm, would this change fungibility? My BTC is only worth that amount in my wallet less tx fees, which are variable - i.e., what I can buy with it, excluding fees).

 

[lunar]

@Inca @ladoga

"Donate a Node" button on the Bitcoin Unlimited site, which would request a Bitcoin payment and automatically launch a node on a VPS that accepts Bitcoin.

Yes, that would be nice.

Something like this could be set up with Olivier Janssens. and his recent pledge to sponsor a 1000 nodes. Perhaps people who are willing to verify their identity, could use this method to provably setup a node BU or XT, each could then use a 2 of 3 multisig address to pay for the future months hosting, that Oliver could fund and control.

Both parties could simply cancel the contract at the end of each month by not signing. Plus Oliver would get his 1000+ verifiable individual node operators.

 

[Peter R]

@cliff

Interesting post (and your last as well). Until I started reading your work, I didn't realize how important it is to be able to control the time that the transaction is written to the Blockchain--even for very large payments and for Blockchain-as-notary transactions.

Like you said, imagine Bitcoin is being used by countries to pay interest on treasury bills, register fillings with the courts, or to close on your new home. With an inflexible 1 MB cap, you'd have no idea at all what the cost/byte would be to get a TX mined in (e.g.) 12 hours. Instead you'd have some probability distribution function (PDF) based on empirical data!

If I tried to buy my house during the same period that it "just so happens" that a bunch of countries are making interest payments on their treasury bonds, and if those countries all start RBFing each other to avoid default, then perhaps there's actually no reasonable fee I could pay to ensure that the payment for my house arrives on time.

I suppose I could just post everything *super* early, or buy insurance to avoid the "tails" in the PDF, but probably Bitcoin would just die instead.
[doublepost=1451450110][/doublepost]Man, when everyone wakes up from the spell of Blockstream Core, we're going to look back at this "1 MB settlement layer" nonsense as the stupidest thing ever. We'll be like "WTF we're we thinking back then?!?"

 

[Aquent]

All of the avenues they used to attack XT have been taken away, because BU is a simple code fork.

It is a grass roots community project so no opening to attack personalities (such as hearn). It does not ship with an "unlimited" block size so no opening to attack there. It is definitely core code so no opening there either.

Then it has going for it the fact that it is putting decision making in the hands of all participants and has a real governing mechanism that is community led? How do you attack that if you are Maxwell or Back I don't know. Will be interesting to see what they come up with.

They'd prob attack on elitist grounds - something like it has no developers or no experienced developers. They even used that line with XT which has Gavin and Hearn! We need Jeff to take the lead, then really there is not one thing a human can possibly utter and BU would prob become a foregone conclusion.

theZerg has really done an amazing job here getting this thing out, leading all this process with the articles of federation the BUIP process the website and on and on and getting us to here... but with Jeff in the lead theZerg would be rewarded with commit access which is huge if this becomes the primary client.

Maybe that's what Gavin was hinting with his comments about experience of leading open source? @theZerg took it a bit at heart as is human with any criticism but Gavin was prob hinting at theZerg being juniour to Jeff's lead. Which is huge for theZerg, for Jeff, for us, for bitcoin, for the entire world.

"Ideally Bitcoin Unlimited would be lead by somebody who has a track record in projects that produce very high quality, reliable code (on time and under budget ) (and no, I'm not volunteering....)"

Who is volunteering @Gavin Andresen ?

Go get him guys. Go get Jeff... let's bring in the bedazzaler and the knock out punch

Jeff Jeff Jeff Jeff Jeff

DO excuse me. It is 4am here and I should have gone to sleep loooong ago.

 

[solex]

@Peter R
That was always the trade-off with block-space being artificially limited:
Either confirmation times are predictable (over hours) and mined block sizes are unpredictable, or vice versa. Can't have both at once.

 

[cypherdoc]

@cliff

Interesting post (and your last as well). Until I started reading your work, I didn't realize how important it is to be able to control the time that the transaction is written to the Blockchain--even for very large payments and for Blockchain-as-notary transactions.

Like you said, imagine Bitcoin is being used by countries to pay interest on treasury bills, register fillings with the courts, or to close on your new home. With an inflexible 1 MB cap, you'd have no idea at all what the cost/byte would be to get a TX mined in (e.g.) 12 hours. Instead you'd have some probability distribution function (PDF) based on empirical data!

If I tried to buy my house during the same period that it "just so happens" that a bunch of countries are making interest payments on their treasury bonds, and if those countries all start RBFing each other to avoid default, then perhaps there's actually no reasonable fee I could pay to ensure that the payment for my house arrives on time.

I suppose I could just post everything *super* early, or buy insurance to avoid the "tails" in the PDF, but probably Bitcoin would just die instead.
[doublepost=1451450110][/doublepost]Man, when everyone wakes up from the spell of Blockstream Core, we're going to look back at this "1 MB settlement layer" nonsense as the stupidest thing ever. We'll be like "WTF we're we thinking back then?!?"

several redditors have described a similar attack on LN channels needing closure by a specific time. spam the 1MB until the deadline has passed. profit.

also, yes, Rochard and Mircea have been in the same ideological camp.

 

[chriswilmer]

Hey everyone.

A thought occurred to me the other day and I would appreciate your feedback. If there are miners with a lot hash power but low bandwidth... and presumably that low bandwidth is not easily fixable... (so goes the story about many Chinese miners)... doesn't this present a *tremendous* opportunity for an American/European miner to essentially go "long" on hash power and get a highly leveraged return?

Standard mining investment calculus assumes that you if you build a large data center with X PH/s and the network total was Y PH/s, then the new hash rate is (X+Y) PH/s (i.e., you don't assume that other people will shut off their rigs just because you turn yours on). This is an approximation, but probably a reasonable one under *normal* circumstances.

But now there's an opportunity that didn't exist before. If a high bandwidth (i.e., American/Eurpoean) miner (or mining collective) builds enough hash power to activate a big blocks, in a such a way that low bandwidth miners can't keep up, then instead of adding to the total hash rate, they will simply replace the hash rate previously contributed low bandwidth miners. As a result, the potential returns on investment would be *much* greater: a capital investment that might have previously given you 20% of the network hash power might now give you 30% or 40% of the hash power (depending on how many low bandwidth miners drop off).

Since I don't trade on margin, I probably shouldn't use such metaphors, but the above feels to me like a kind of "short squeeze": you need to invest enough capital to trigger the margin calls, but once you do, you reap an enormous reward.

 

[cypherdoc]

@chriswilmer

i think i'm on record at least a dozen times saying Western mining will explode with bigger blocks leveraging their superior BW.

 

[Windowly]

Who is volunteering @Gavin Andresen ?

Go get him guys. Go get Jeff... let's bring in the bedazzaler and the knock out punch

Jeff Jeff Jeff Jeff Jeff

I am not sure either Gavin or Jeff want to be the main developer or even the president. (Although if they want to run for those positions, kudos to them. . the more running the better.)

I respect both of them; they've both done a lot for bitcoin. However, neither of them seem that interested. They both seem quite tired and worn out. (Which I don't blame them for being.)

I would rather they work hard on XT and make XT a really good implementation and let Bitcoin Unlimited attract a lot of new blood and developers. The whole idea of bitcoin unlimited is that it's a community effort with a bottom-up governance style. . . let's not ask for a messiah to come and save the day.

I've been pretty impressed with what @theZerg has done so far -- working on the code, releasing at this time (which seems perfect timing), and getting this thing going. It's his baby and I think he'd be able to carry us on to a much greater piece of the implementation pie and a break through of this block-size impasse.

 

[chriswilmer]

@cypherdoc

Yes, I realize now I should have prefaced my previous post with: "You guys probably already thought of this..."

 

[Windowly]

keybase is easy, btw:

-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

I've tried to get a code so I could signup. . . but I guess I'm still in the queue.

 

[cypherdoc]

@chriswilmer

imo, there's a huge amount of Western fiat sitting around trying to figure out where the next empty bucket is in Bitcoin. if we get a block size increase, Western mining would be a big opportunity. in fact, your question stimulated me to think of why Bitfury seems to be so small blockish, esp that guy Petrov on the mining panel at Scaling. i'm beginning to think that there was quite a bit of gamesmanship going on there. one theory of mine is that BF is playing for time. time to build out these 3 huge Georgian immersion mining centers. the more they get built on_the_Western_side_of_the_GFW while blocks are choked, the bigger lead they will have when we do go to big blocks. keep the wolves at bay strategy while they build their fortifications for the next global monetary system. then flip sides when they're ready and wield quite a bit of influence in opening the floodgates to bigger blocks and global tx's. KNC otoh, isn't hiding their strategy.

otoh, you got Wang Chun admitting that they have many full nodes outside of China where they could be constructing getblocktemplates. maybe the GFW isn't as big a deal as they are making it in an attempt to hold onto the lead?

in any case, crippling Bitcoin to the lowest common denominator of blocksize just isn't going to work in the long run.

 

[Aquent]

I am not sure either Gavin or Jeff would be could as the main developer or even the president. (Although if they want to run for those positions, kudos to them. . the more running the better.)

I respect both of them; they've both done a lot for bitcoin. However, neither of them seem that interested. They both seem quite tired and worn out. (Which I don't blame them for being.)

I would rather they work hard on XT and make XT a really good implementation and let Bitcoin Unlimited attract a lot of new blood and developers. The whole idea of bitcoin unlimited is that it's a community effort with a bottom-up governance style. . . let's not ask for a messiah to come and save the day.

I've been pretty impressed with what @theZerg has done so far -- working on the code, releasing at this time (which seems perfect timing), and getting this thing going. It's his baby and I think he'd be able to carry us on to a much greater piece of the implementation pie and a break through of this block-size impasse.

If Jeff does not take lead this thing is dead in my view. It will be some protest vote, but, the attack angle of inexperienced developers is pretty effective. Sufficiently so to ensure that no one who actually matters takes it seriously, thus keeping these stupendously brilliant concepts we have developed into some nice thoughts window while core keeps hold.

I personally want to see Satoshi's ideas implemented and permeated far and wide to the far corners of china and the ranches of Florida. I don't want this to be stuck at some protest vote and this constant bickering to continue. I want the client to become the most popular, but more importantly, and following from that, the underlying ideas to become dominant.

I wouldn't underestimate Gavin. He is fairly young and paid by MIT quite handsomely to do nothing else but work on Bitcoin. It's literally his job. Jeff is probably at the height of his career as well and a stable, trusted steward of the project for almost half a decade now if not more. We wouldn't be asking for a messiah. We would be demanding (very respectfully) the technical expertise and assistance of a highly experienced developer with some 20 years of experience in open source.

We're not doing this just for fun guys. We're not kids in the park here doing hippy stuff cus it's cool. We are changing world history and for that we need the highest level of coding experience and expertise especially in Bitcoin. That is, we need Jeff who has shown a very high regard for the users and would be subject to our constitution and we would like as many experienced developers as possible, new and old. They are deeply welcomed, as is everyone.

That's bottom up right there and we are about to launch the knock out punch.

And I think he probably would be interested. I mean, from one view, BIP100 is BU with training wheels.