Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Erdogan]

@cypherdoc @albin
But this got me thinking, what is the functional difference between a "mining cartel" and "consensus"? Fundamentally, there is no real difference.

Right. And when we are talking free market, there is no problem with either consensus or cartel. Consensus is what happens regularly when business organizations define standards. As we know from experience, if the standard does not suit a particular company, they go alone.

The only type of cartel that is negative for the market (producers and consumers) are those who use coercion, that is cartels supported by the force of the state. We don't have that in mining, we can't have, and that is the essence of this great invention.

 

[Norway]

@AdrianX
Agreed. It's a race to a market equilibrium for fees.

 

[Erdogan]

For anyone who doubts that bitcoin could run the world economy - it can. with the three mechanisms we already have:

• On chain transactions, that can easily scale from the current number of transactions per day to a thousand times more, just by extending the block size.
• Full reserve payment businesses, like localbitcoins and coinbase, we can have hundreds more just like them, making themselves popular within an area.
• Paper wallet notes. We have them, but although they are not popular, they could be for the need of local transactions of small value. Replacing face to face fiat transactions. For those who like to feel the money in their hands. The businesses supplying these notes, need not be trusted with money at all, all the trust that is needed is that they genuinely forget the secret key for each note. A long time commitment, years of operation without failure and some public relations work is necessary. These notes can be transacted with no network activity and disk space growth at all.

Then there is extensions: An obvious one is the payment services' cross business payments, where the net payments between customers of each business is cleared regularly. Then card systems denominated in bitcoin, they should logically have the same capacity as the current card systems. Then, stuff that has not been invented yet.

About microtransactions: The world works without them now, small things are packed together to ease the transaction cost. If packages have to be larger, or a monthly payment has to be bi-monthly, so be it. It does not fundamentally change the function of the market.

The total capacity is not a problem - bitcoin is able to take care of all trade. Why would people want that? Because it is money that is not continuously debased, because it is international in nature. One world, free market sound money is a dream for traders, investors and savers. It is wanted, and it will happen.

 

[Norway]

@Erdogan
About microtransactions: Changetip works like a charm

 

[Erdogan]

@Norway
Yes, supplied by a third party needing trust, but kept in check by the market. Which is ok. Basically a payment service business re the above.

 

[Norway]

@Erdogan Yes, microtransactions mean small amounts trusted with the third party. Not a high level of trust needed.

 

[solex]

Excellent news!

@theZerg on Let's Talk Bitcoin

https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-279-understanding-bitcoin-unlimited

 

[AdrianX]

Paper wallet notes. We have them, but although they are not popular, they could be for the need of local transactions of small value. Replacing face to face fiat transactions. For those who like to feel the money in their hands. The businesses supplying these notes, need not be trusted with money at all, all the trust that is needed is that they genuinely forget the secret key for each note. A long time commitment, years of operation without failure and some public relations work is necessary. These notes can be transacted with no network activity and disk space growth at all.

In not too fond of this idea as its not that viable, each note is only as trustworthy as the issuer. Notes would be like fiat with fractional reserves, just not as good. A note with out a private key would be subject to duplication. If notes were used with a private key and not redeemed on chain, then forgeries would be viable until someone redeems it. (then there would be a run on the proverbial bank and all notes would become valueless)

I actually think a system like LN could be used for this type of transaction but not for now or within the next 2 halving, I think on chain transactions should be encouraged. The next 8 years are essential for hard money main chain growth.

 

[Richy_T]

For microtransactions, I can see some kind of agent backed by time-locked funds. Your micro-interactions are logged with the agent and when your session is done, your account is reconciled. A session could last potentially from seconds to days or months.

 

[Norway]

@Richy_T
User-locked funds also works fine. Like Changetip. No time window.

 

[Erdogan]

In not too fond of this idea as its not that viable, each note is only as trustworthy as the issuer. Notes would be like fiat with fractional reserves, just not as good. A note with out a private key would be subject to duplication. If notes were used with a private key and not redeemed on chain, then forgeries would be viable until someone redeems it. (then there would be a run on the proverbial bank and all notes would become valueless)

I actually think a system like LN could be used for this type of transaction but not for now or within the next 2 halving, I think on chain transactions should be encouraged. The next 8 years are essential for hard money main chain growth.

Maybe I should be more clear. The notes in question have a visible address, and a hidden secret key. The secret key can be revealed, but it will be obvious that it has been revealed. So i goes hand to hand until someone "scrapes" it. It is not like fiat money, because you can check all the time that the address is loaded. It is the real bitcoins, they are in the secret key. The trust needed is that you believe that nobody else knows that key.

 

[theZerg]

The future physical note could be a piece of electronics...

 

[awemany]

@theZerg:

So instead of pieces of paper, we exchange hardware security modules with Bitcoins on them then?

Interesting idea. There would then still be trust needed in the vendor of those HSMs.

 

[cypherdoc]

this morning's Chinese announcement effectively kills Blockstream's offchain products:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/42fggm/chinese_community_has_voiced_consensus_opinion_to/
[doublepost=1453650821][/doublepost]@sickpig
looks like our efforts over at the f2pool thread worked; 1.35.

 

[Erdogan]

@theZerg:

So instead of pieces of paper, we exchange hardware security modules with Bitcoins on them then?

Interesting idea. There would then still be trust needed in the vendor of those HSMs.

Only trust that the secret key embedded on the device is completely forgotten by the producer.

 

[cypherdoc]

from Slack Core channel yesterday. i wonder how this morning's announcement from the Chinese will effect this?:

sysman 21:41:34 UTC
btcdrak: today we take decision to officialy move forward and support "Bitcoin Classic". I know this will rise a lot of questions. But this is a break point for bitcoin society, decision should be taken today

[doublepost=1453654914][/doublepost]here Todd admits they have no idea how BW tech evolves:

petertodd 21:42:21 UTC
bendavenport: I think that's a fair point; it's a hard one to address, because we genuinely don't have a clear idea how scaling will be accomplished going forward, because the on-chain limits are a matter of technology that's not neccessarily under our control.
[doublepost=1453655117][/doublepost]soft forks can be used to change anything:

bendavenport 21:48:28 UTC
in your guys' opinions: are the proposals to do block size increases via generalized soft forks legit? or just a hard fork in soft fork's clothing?

petertodd 21:49:36 UTC
bendavenport: From a technical point of view, I think they have the potential to be a lot safer. From a social point of view, they're scary things, as they can be equally used to change any rule at all. I'm not sure if promoting them for less controversial changes is a good idea or not.

petertodd 21:50:04 UTC
bendavenport: E.g. a forced soft-fork can change the inflation schedule.

bendavenport 21:50:38 UTC
yeah, that's why they seem so crazy

 

[BldSwtTrs]

I have noted that small blockists don't want to make an assumption about technological improvement but they happily postulate an exponential increase in demand.

Whereas if we let them in control the opposite will happen: increase in technology and flat demand.

 

[cypherdoc]

sysman 22:07:32 UTC
for survival security of the bitcoin network should not rely on the use of just a single client by all full nodes...

http://slack.bitcoincore.org/logs/general/2016-01-23/

 

[cypherdoc]

brg444 22:22:02 UTC
brucefenton: I will respectfully agree to disagree. I think theymos is a hero
[doublepost=1453657994][/doublepost]darkmatter 22:26:54 UTC
brg444: eh, I disagree. Have similar viewpoints to Theymos, but he ended up coming across as increasingly toxic.

brucefenton 22:27:03 UTC
tracemayer: in Corp. world, public capital markets dishes tires, spin offs and splits almost always yield higher....this is a different animal, uncharted territory --

brg444 22:27:19 UTC
darkmatter: I don't see it? Do you read his posts? To me he sounds like one of the most reasonable guy out there.

aleph0 22:27:43 UTC
i have never heard of a currency block splitting to get two stronger currencies.

brg444 22:27:49 UTC
It's an unfortunate situation by hardliners like him are necessary

 

[VeritasSapere]

speaking totally for myself here and not as part of Core, but if Core did decide to hold the line and Classic got enough support to fork the currency. It sounds like you think that is an acceptable outcome and might be wiling to work with the other fork to make things as smooth as possible for both users?

the plan has always been to switch PoW, not checkpoints

Seems like Core is intending to go down with the ship so to speak. Do not get me wrong I do actually respect their right to self determination, they can have their own small chain if they want, more power to them.

Luke Jr. going off into the deep end again, I am always surprised by how disconnected with reality this guy always seems to be.

Bitcoin has no investors

HODLers don't matter either; they're current owners, not future owners

I guess your logic holds if we assume miners matter, but again they don't.

changing the PoW is literally no harder than changing the block size