Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

i've also said several times that i'm not against for-profits trying to innovate around the Bitcoin protocol. but when one of those for-profits tries to artificially cap the growth of Bitcoin itself, then yes, i have a big problem with that.

i'd be fine with offchain solns like LN & SC's if we just get rid of the limit entirely. then let all these platforms run free and compete. my guess is that the Bitcoin protocol would crush the others. i'm sure core dev and Blockstream believe the same thing; otherwise they'd lift the limit.

 

[freetrader]

@cypherdoc:

I agree that we should not let Core remain the favored software. There is of course nothing we can do but try to prove that open competition is successful, that they can be out-competed on choice of features ("freedom") by the wider community.

The roadmap is key, as is listening to (and meeting the requirements of) as many users and businesses (incl. miners).

And the best way is to put the project on a good solid standard footing (like RFCs boosted the growth of the Internet). But first we need to get this initial scaling obstacle out the way.

 

[cypherdoc]

Roadmaps, imo, are just selling points. Classic only needed to do it b/c Core made a big stink about it being such an important thing once they did it.

no one knows for sure where we're headed. i kinda like Mike's approach to this; project as far ahead as you can, make changes, see the effects, react/fix, make another change, repeat. but that strategy requires you have no COI's as baggage. and moreover, it could be that lifting the cap once and for all is the only major change we'll need to do until quantum computers get closer. who knows.

 

[Norway]

HTTP 404
(Sorry, couldn't resist)​

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

The greatest success Blockstream can hope for is to cow the community so long and so hard that they force people like us to fork the ledger with a non-BS protocol like Classic or Unlimited and do fork arbitrage to determine relative market caps. That's the worst they can do. That's the limit of their power. And that is actually success for us, in my book.

How does it play out after that? Well imagine that:

• Gavin had stayed in control of Core and removed the blocksize limit.
• Meanwhile Greg, Adam, Pieter, Matt - the whole Blockstream crew - had broken away and released an altcoin or spinoff instead, where they vowed to keep the 1MB limit and introduce LN, SW, SC, etc. They call it "SecureCoin" as a dig at Bitcoin's "insecure" lack of a blocksize limit.

Imagine now that Bitcoin is chugging along with an average of 3MB blocks and a 10x higher market cap, while this altcoin is...??? Perhaps at Litecoin market cap? Which do you think would enjoy more investment? Which do you think would suffer from the Fidelity Effect? Keep in mind that of course the original Bitcoin can incorporate any innovations Blockstream's coin comes up with as well.

Looking at it this way, it seems preposterous. It really shows that it is only momentum, history, and inertia BS is standing on. They are running on fumes and about to hit very rough terrain.

 

[freetrader]

@cypherdoc : Sure, the roadmap does not need to remain static.

The Classic project might consider whatever changes as necessary Point being : be quick to gather input and develop good governance model that hears the base voices as widely as possible ...

 

[cypherdoc]

@SysMan and core dev are of the mind that constant tinkering and optimization is needed for Bitcoin. i disagree. imo, in the >5y since i've been in Bitcoin, code is merely to enforce the ideology of the coder. if you let corrupt coder's code, you're gonna get corrupt code. the more you let these guys tinker with the code, the more opportunity you allow them to insert their own corrupt ideology into that code. when it comes down to cryptocurrency, that's a huge problem. esp one that tries to enforce a fixed supply SOV money function. look closely, every single coding change introduced by core dev over the years comes with an easy to understand ideology of what that change enforces what Bitcoin is and what it should do. according to them. like RBF for instance.

newbies seem to think there is some sort of higher level artificial intelligence going on here that can only be interpreted by geeks. some sort of AI myass (the initials really cause newbs eyes to open wide in awe). lol. i used to think that way too back in 2011. that these guys were operating at a level of higher intelligence that i could not possibly understand. hell no and no way as it turned out in my increasingly in depth discussions with them.

it's about money and greed. sorry to disappoint.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I'm glad it's all about money and greed. At least that I can understand. What people can understand, they can react to, and they can focus their investment monies in the most productive channels. We need another huge rally and/or shakeout to focus people's minds, to dispel these fallacies and nerdly dreamings.

 

[Norway]

Comming up at MIT BITCOIN EXPO live streaming in about 2 hours:

"Why bitcoin needs a massive block size increase" by Bradley Kam

 

[cypherdoc]

the safest and most conservative strategy is to remove the limit and let the free market of open participants and the collective knowledge of all human beings worldwide figure out what's best. they are certainly brighter than Adam Back and Greg Maxwell. now there, you might actually find a form of AI that is greater than the sum of us. imo, blocksize will settle on a natural free mkt equilibrium which the most efficient and brightest of all miners, merchants and users will determine. all the other inefficient and corrupt economic actors be damned.

of course, you have to be an optimist to have this view. and 2MB looks to have to be the first babystep towards this goal.

 

[cypherdoc]

of course, SW may be the greatest thing since sliced bread. but the same logic applies there; lift the limit and see if the free mkt prefers a +2000 LOC change that preferentially favors LN MS's and forces miners/users to pass around all this extra data up to 4MB at a 75% centrally planned discount so that Blockstream can make money on it's offchain products. rather than transacting securely, cheaply, and reasonably fast using 0 confs on the blockchain, as it has done over the last 7y. i know which i'd pick.

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

@SysMan and core dev are of the mind that constant tinkering and optimization is needed for Bitcoin. i disagree. imo, in the >5y since i've been in Bitcoin, code is merely to enforce the ideology of the coder.

Can't agree more with that.

Apart from the Blockstream takeover attempt, imho we have a huge problem with the way some CS people look at Bitcoin:

• Some are seeing Bitcoin as 'incomplete' and see it as their duty to finish it.
• Some are seeing Bitcoin as their personal toy to play with to get their CS degree / to write a Phd thesis.
• Some are still confused why Bitcoin is working (cough cough, Greg Maxwell) and are trying to create the "better" Bitcoin which doesn't need to use all these "unpredictable probabilistics".
  
• Some CS'ers are afraid of forever growing data (the blockchain) and they see it as their duty to find a system that is more elegant.
• They see it as a merely CS project.

Bitcoin is so great b/c it is relatively 'simple'. It is fucking elegant and ingenious (excuse my French) in it's simplicity and the straightforwardness. And it's definitely not an only CS problem.
Of course these people don't like on chain scaling. It is too easy. We need something more complex, and while we are at it, we need to introduce 27 layers of abstraction into the code.
Combine these ways of thinking with the feeling of "you're one out of a million" who can work on Bitcoins code and you get the arrogant idiots we now have in charge of bitcoin.

If Core forks to 2 MB and doesn't get stopped we are as doomed as we are without 2 MB.
We will still get unnecessary complicated hacks and idiot miners accepting them. If this happens I will still support a PoW fork. Kick the idiots out of the cockpit. I don't see where this (edit: keeping Core) could be an option at all.

Gavin's KISS is exactly the right approach for Bitcoin. To be honest, I don't know an engineering application where that shouldn't be your first priority.

I don't want to see Adam Back, Greg Maxwell, Luke Jr. and Peter Todd near any relevant Bitcoin implementation. Never.

 

[freetrader]

My next dumb question:

Why shouldn't Classic (or BU) have a "fork-now" contingency hardfork version which either immediately activates the 2MB limit, or somewhere within the next 3-7 days?

Is it because that would somehow reward miner stupidity?
Is it because they have to take the responsibility, and it would be foolish for a project (e.g. Classic) to take the flak (or maybe: credit)?

I will not accept a counterargument that it would be "dangerous" or "irresponsible" to release such software. If you believe it makes the world a better place, you should release it and put your faith in Nakamoto consensus. Everyone is able already to modify and run whatever they want at any time. There has to be a better counterargument.

I don't really see how it would be worse than a PoW fork, because at least it would give miners an emergency solution they could apply in reaction to market pressure.
Some unforeseen things might happen on the road to Bitcoin working smoothly again, or not - perhaps it is anti-fragile enough already that there wouldn't really be much of a problem at all (provided majority of miners switch over quickly but don't immediately start generating >1MB blocks)?

Someone please tell me I'm missing something (I usually am).

Oh btw this is not me panicking about current market reaction. I don't expect a reaction unless the price drops significantly. I don't know what's keeping it up right now, but I think it will be a gradual, bumpy decline over weeks, months until something gives.

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

of course, SW may be the greatest thing since sliced bread. but the same logic applies there; lift the limit and see if the free mkt prefers a +2000 LOC change that preferentially favors LN MS's and forces miners/users to pass around all this extra data up to 4MB at a 75% centrally planned discount so that Blockstream can make money on it's offchain products. rather than transacting securely, cheaply, and reasonably fast using 0 confs on the blockchain, as it has done over the last 7y. i know which i'd pick.

Take away the discount and the softfork and I think it's not a bad idea.
But it isn't crucial, it can be done in a few months or years. We don't need it, Bitcoin would work nicely without it, but if it's deployed some day it would be a nice improvement. Again, as a hardfork.
And most important: It isn't a god damn "scaling solution"*. We have more fucking internet traffic for less transactions and they sell it like it's some stroke of genius that makes a bigger blocksize obsolete.

*"scaling solution" is already manipulative wording. Bitcoin never had a problem to scale where we need a solution. They created a problem that never existed and still not exists outside of miners heads.

 

[VeritasSapere]

My next dumb question:

Why shouldn't Classic (or BU) have a "fork-now" contingency hardfork version which either immediately activates the 2MB limit, or somewhere within the next 3-7 days?

Is it because that would somehow reward miner stupidity?
Is it because they have to take the responsibility, and it would be foolish for a project (e.g. Classic) to take the flak (or maybe: credit)?

I will not accept a counterargument that it would be "dangerous" or "irresponsible" to release such software. If you believe it makes the world a better place, you should release it and put your faith in Nakamoto consensus. Everyone is able already to modify and run whatever they want at any time. There has to be a better counterargument.

I don't really see how it would be worse than a PoW fork, because at least it would give miners an emergency solution they could apply in reaction to market pressure.
Some unforeseen things might happen on the road to Bitcoin working smoothly again, or not - perhaps it is anti-fragile enough already that there wouldn't really be much of a problem at all (provided majority of miners switch over quickly but don't immediately start generating >1MB blocks)?

Someone please tell me I'm missing something (I usually am).

Oh btw this is not me panicking about current market reaction. I don't expect a reaction unless the price drops significantly. I don't know what's keeping it up right now, but I think it will be a gradual, bumpy decline over weeks, months until something gives.

I agree, that is exactly what I am planning to do here now, hoping to combine the project with @largerblocks initiative so that both chains can split at the same time. I suppose I did not want the first genesis fork to have a POW change so I think it is fitting to do both simultaneously since there is this division of opinion on the matter, and what better way to exemplify the spirit of volunteerism by simply just putting both options on the market simultaneously in cooperation.

https://bitco.in/forum/threads/announcement-bitcoin-project-to-full-fork-to-flexible-blocksizes.933/page-2#post-13994

 

[freetrader]

@VeritasSapere :

Q: why do I like your "put it all out there" initiative?

A: Because I hope it will encourage exchanges to set up proper fork arbitrage mechanisms. Dreaming perhaps...

 

[VeritasSapere]

We can make this happen, it is an expression of the very freedom Bitcoin represents. We only need one exchange to accept the alternative genesis fork for that chain to gain value. The security of the alternative chain will always equal the value of the block reward, miners will simply just chase profit, this will both be true for the ASIC resistant chain and the chain with the original sha256 POW algorithm.

 

[Norway]

Pure gold from MIT Bitcoin Expo! Watch the questions after "Why bitcoin needs a massive block size increase" by Bradley Kam.

The smallblockers getting crushed by Bradley Kam!!!

EDIT: You gotta see it guys! Almost physical fight! Just go to the live stream and rewind!

 

[freetrader]

@VeritasSapere :

Run the "alternative genesis fork" concept by me again please - it would just be branching off the current chain at a defined block, right?

In other words, preserving everybody's coins at that time, but not restarting the whole chain from scratch (which would make arbitrage impossible, or am I misunderstanding) ?

 

[VeritasSapere]

That is correct. A split occurs, and what was once one would now be two, or in this case three. I have always thought that this in Bitcoins future since there is not anything that can be done to prevent it. I like to imagine that the future of Bitcoin might look like the branches of a tree. This certainly does give us another reason for us to hold on to the pre-fork coins.

Not sure what you mean by arbitrage in this sense exactly but I do not see any reason why this would not be possible in the same way that it is possible now between different cryptocurrencies.
[doublepost=1457301522,1457300790][/doublepost]I hope will see Bitcoin classic fork the network before such a split becomes necessary. Reading this article gave me much hope that the miners can still turn around and vote for Classic before this becomes necessary.

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/495866/the_rbtc_china_dispatch_11_summary_selected/