Wrote this in another thread:
That's the thing about economies. It's always surprising how well they adjust to even very foolish market interventions. Of course there's a limit to it, but we as prognosticators really have no way of knowing how close we are to that limit, due to the very same Calculation Problem issues central planners faces.Just note that there may be an unexpectedly large range for fees to climb before most people even notice (it may be that only the heaviest transacters will notice, and probably just curtail/consolidate their usage).
Despite the rightness of all the big blocksize cap arguments, this could still draw out for another year. Let's not set ourselves up for a smackdown on that point by claiming slightly higher fees ("slightly" from an average user pain perspective may be a lot from a percentage perspective, since they're so low now) are going to cause users to leave in droves and transactions to be stuck left and right. It may, but I see the main risk as being if we have a sudden adoption spike, or a price rally.
Beware the Peter Schiff syndrome of calling the disaster way too early because of not seeing all the little adjustments people can make to hold down the fort.
Yikes! for sure, this signals the end of profitable mining for my 3rd generation ASICs. The last time this happened I was mining with GUPs, mining rewards had halved and out of the blue price started rising fast enough to keep GPU mining profitable for some time.Yikes!
it was a great time to be mining with newish equipment. The exponential growth couldn't continue with the current efficiency in my mind it was totally predictable. It was an opportunity for almost 300% return on a bitcoin investment.Remember all those bitcoin-critics last January saying there'd be a death-spiral in mining due to those couple hash-rate down-ticks on that chart? Are they apologizing now?
@Melbustus
TBH, i don't remember them. i also can't remember the name of that wacky Boston U professor who said we'd be @ $10 before the Spring after the NYDFS hearings.
at any rate, the dead list is too long to remember. we just had our 7th anniversary yesterday and i'd say that is pretty darn good. i used to read every last detail and event in the space but find myself not feeling the need or urge to know *everything* anymore. it's becoming much less urgent despite the blocksize debate.
if anything, the price chart is indicating that we'll get some sort of breakthrough in this issue in 2016.
Unfortunately, the people to which you refer suffer zero negative consequences because they are doing their job perfectly.Sorry, but it still bugs me that people can be so profoundly and arrogantly wrong in their quantifiable predictions, *in their supposed domain of expertise*, and yet suffer zero consequences
Or "Laughing all the way from the bank.""laughing all the way to the [non]bank."
And he was clearly told off by Maxwell:Stefan Thomas proposed a user-adjustable blocksize cap back in June 2012. He made a lot of the same arguments, implicitly referring to Schelling points and Keynesian beauty contests (what block miners think other miners/nodes will find acceptable).
http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2012-June/001551.html
By itself letting the [block size] size float has non-trivial existential risk. A Bitcoin with expensive transactions due to competition for space in blocks can be front-ended with fast payment systems and still provide the promised decentralized currency. Bitcoin with a very large blockchain and blocks does not.
Some things never change. This "float" misunderstanding keeps coming up. People theorize that miners would be adjusting the limit all over the place. What they should understand is they're theorizing about Bitcoin, not specifically BU. As @albin just said, BU just makes it more convenient. The ease of people adjusting their blocksize settings was inevitable; Core's stalling is just what motivated people to actually do it. They were never going to be able to lock it down. Most likely it would not move very often, but if it does in BU that then is the future Bitcoin must face in general soon enough.And he was clearly told off by Maxwell:
By itself letting the [block size] size float has non-trivial existential risk. A Bitcoin with expensive transactions due to competition for space in blocks can be front-ended with fast payment systems and still provide the promised decentralized currency. Bitcoin with a very large blockchain and blocks does not.
Nice find. I always respected him. Too bad be went off with Ripple.Stefan Thomas proposed a user-adjustable blocksize cap back in June 2012. He made a lot of the same arguments, implicitly referring to Schelling points and Keynesian beauty contests (what block miners think other miners/nodes will find acceptable).
http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2012-June/001551.html
@cypherdoc you're not helpingcatching down baby, catching down:
hey, i've been trying to help by warning everybody all year.@cypherdoc you're not helping