Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

bluemoon

Active Member
Jan 15, 2016
215
966
The users can migrate, to Ethereum perhaps.

The miners, whether as pools or individuals can migrate too, to Classic perhaps.

When it happens change can be abrupt, like the fall of the Iron Curtain.

We still don't know what will actually happen nor do we know just how long its participants have to act, but Bitcoin still retains within itself the means to cast off Blockstream. Most importantly, there does exist a choice, an alternative to Blockstream always beckoning.

Ideally Blockstream is cast off sooner, but if Bitcoin continues along the Blockstream path and that proves a poor choice, then it may have to be later.

Edit: we are dealing with shysters and as time goes by that is increasingly recognised and they lose the trust of other important actors in the ecosystem, who tend to be better informed than casual participants. Eventually Blockstream's position must break down, the only question is when.
 
Last edited:

bluemoon

Active Member
Jan 15, 2016
215
966
@sgbett did you write to the mods?

It may be they simply want to cause you inconvenience and disrupt the flow of the discussion until your reply is lost.
 

Zangelbert Bingledack

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2015
1,485
5,585
@sgbett

I think some posters are flagged in /r/Bitcoin such that all their posts and comments require moderator review before they will show up. If they don't get around to it for a while your posts may not show up for a while. Also a link to a forbidden URL might trigger some kind of temporary probation like that. Who knows? Their mod rulebook probably resembles the US tax code by now.
 

sgbett

Active Member
Aug 25, 2015
216
786
UK
Well the posts are there and I don't think me kicking up a fuss will materially change anything so....

anyway I have some thing more interesting I just found!


I'll let the wild speculation begin :)
 

molecular

Active Member
Aug 31, 2015
372
1,391
'morning
The next killer app will not be on bitcoin. No sane investor / company would try to produce anything for bitcoin. Nor more than ever - core devs proofed they don't listen to the need of the economy and the community celebrates this.

It's like venezuela or some other country thinking they could raise taxes to eternity and regulate the economy to dead. The result has been and is always the same: the economy migrates.

Ethereum reaching daily new height and nearing to have 1/6 of bitcoin's value. Classic-Nodes pop up, but most on AWS, while nearly no Core-Node migrates. Miners don't care. The community of the "free money" shows an incredible amount of obedience to authority and sucks up every violation of logic.

Ethereum is raising rapidly not because it such a great system or because money is on the search for something stable. Ethereum is raising because it gives the economy what the economy needs
The community celebrates? I'm not sure, but I don't see this. Feels to me people are getting increasingly fed up with the shit fed to them by those core-block-stream-heads.

You're quite correct regarding where the anger/fear goes: we can track how fed up they are by looking at ETH/BTC pair.

Another poster (@bluemoon, I think) is also correct in saying that things can tip over and go the other way fast. It could be a violent move if miners move to classic, for example (this still is my big, possibly very naive hope, really).

So place your bets before it's "rien ne va plus", gentlemen... big moves ahead either way.
 

Zangelbert Bingledack

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2015
1,485
5,585
I imagine an alternate reality where most people were far less concerned about the blocksize issue, assuming it will obviously be raised fairly soon and there's no real rush. They would say...

"Fidelity Effect? Nah, any company that believes the 1MB limit will stay when tx demand substantially exceeds it doesn't understand how Bitcoin works. That's like worrying Bitcoin won't have a workable legal framework just because it doesn't have one now. Sure, it would be better if it already did, but believing in Bitcoin means believing in the economic incentives on governments to regulate it with a light touch, just like the Internet, lest they lose out on the great economic benefits and all the resulting tax revenue. Believing in Bitcoin means believing economic incentives will overcome piddling things like that temporary cap, even if it looks like it might become a fixture for a while before rubber really meets road. No one ever said Bitcoin would never look like it could be held down, just that it can't in fact be held down."

"Higher fees? Who really cares? We all know Bitcoin is mainly still in its store of value phase, and those who use it for commerce like the dark marketeers are totally willing to pay a premium because Bitcoin is the only way to pay. A few businesses here and there will complain and lose some money as some of their lines of business have to be modified or abandoned, but while this remains a minor current it will have negligible effect. I didn't sign up because I thought Bitcoin would respond to every tiny threat immediately; in fact it's probably better it doesn't do that. Once fees reach a certain level, we'll have action. If I thought this wasn't true I would never have invested. Nothing that happens in the meantime can change that until rubber hits road."

"Core isn't responding? A business with tons of investment is dominating Core? So what? If I thought Bitcoin was in Core's hands I never would have invested. The economic incentives either work or they don't. If they work, there is nothing Core can do to keep Bitcoin down. If they don't, there is nothing Core can do to save Bitcoin. Core is irrelevant, like the particular water that constitutes a wave is irrelevant. The wave is what is important. The pattern, not the people. If water refuses to keep waving, other water will takes its place. That is the only reason I invested; not because I judged the Core team to be sound."

In this reality, BS/Core is proposing all this stuff, wining and dining miners, writing all sorts of propaganda pieces, and people are kind of going, "Meh." Uptake of new Core versions is disappointing for all the millions they have put into the marketing effort. And worse, competitors have already emerged and gained a strong foothold, all prior to fees even rising or anything particularly annoying happening to any bitcoiners.

Greg would solemnly survey this landscape and lament, "We tried, but interest seems to be minimal. Some people are giving it lip service, yet they are running Classic and Unlimited, software by completely new and untrusted teams - even one with a stoner guy as director of marketing vs. our $75 million. If this is all the traction we can get with all the advantages of incumbency and inertia, even theymos's formidable empire on our side completely, and even with all that investment money and coding power...perhaps we should just give up. Tightening our grip even a slight bit loses us tons of market share. Maybe we should shelve this and propose it again down the line somewhere."

"But Greg, what about that money? Hill and PWC will want a return. We have to do something. We have to keep going. Let's burn all the monies! At least we can say we tried."
 

sgbett

Active Member
Aug 25, 2015
216
786
UK
I tried to figure out what bandwidth & what cloud I'm looking at here, but failed.

Enlighten us please! :)
lol. google cloudwatch ;) first hit is AWS. bandwidth - its showing Network out, the left hand scale is bytes, the period is 1 hour, the date/time is along the bottom.

At about noon on 8th march, that nodes upload bandwidth jumped from about 2-3GB/hour (~7Mbps) to around 60GB/Hour (133Mbps). Lasted for about 12 hours. I'm pleased to report the node handled it fine of course - I don't run nodes on the free/cheap tier, contrary to what some people might claim.

~0.75TB in 12 hours is more than you would normally expect in the course of a month!

As its all upload, I'm guessing this is not a DDOS (or at least not *the* DDOS that we have seen yet).

I'm looking in logs now see if anything interesting is there
 

cypherdoc

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2015
5,257
12,998
@solex

Perhaps it incites early urgency on solutions and the inevitable backlash is worth it. From my perspective I only wish there were a way to impel solutions without the exaggerated rhetoric on both sides spooking investors.

@cypherdoc

BeautyOn (a.k.a. Irdial) was the guy whose essays got me to see the light on Bitcoin way back when. I've followed him off and on since then but he seems to have gone slightly off the deep end.
Wow, Irdial. That's disappointing. I read him alot in the early days too.
[doublepost=1457620023][/doublepost]
The community celebrates? I'm not sure, but I don't see this. Feels to me people are getting increasingly fed up with the shit fed to them by those core-block-stream-heads.

You're quite correct regarding where the anger/fear goes: we can track how fed up they are by looking at ETH/BTC pair.

Another poster (@bluemoon, I think) is also correct in saying that things can tip over and go the other way fast. It could be a violent move if miners move to classic, for example (this still is my big, possibly very naive hope, really).

So place your bets before it's "rien ne va plus", gentlemen... big moves ahead either way.
Yep. You can see it in the chart. We're still in that large bull triangle that terminates around April 11'ish. It's fascinating how that corresponds to the month that SW is due to be out. You can see the volatility damping down in preparation for a big move. Doesn't make alot of sense to me cuz Blockstream could always use the proverbial "just 2 more weeks" excuse to put it off but who knows. It would really make sense if it terminated in July with the halving. Either way, exciting times ahead the next few months.
[doublepost=1457620604,1457619583][/doublepost]
The terrible uptake of core 12 must really be hurting. It would be something if all the classic 0.11's upgrade to 12. It would be the #1 client. A hell of a message.
You'd think the Classic 0.11 guys would get off their asses and move soon. They're recent nodes so they should be paying attention. I'll admit though that I've wasted a significant amount of time the last few days with these things.
 

freetrader

Moderator
Staff member
Dec 16, 2015
2,806
6,088
lol. google cloudwatch ;) first hit is AWS. bandwidth - its showing Network out, the left hand scale is bytes, the period is 1 hour, the date/time is along the bottom.

At about noon on 8th march, that nodes upload bandwidth jumped from about 2-3GB/hour (~7Mbps) to around 60GB/Hour (133Mbps). Lasted for about 12 hours. I'm pleased to report the node handled it fine of course - I don't run nodes on the free/cheap tier, contrary to what some people might claim.

~0.75TB in 12 hours is more than you would normally expect in the course of a month!

As its all upload, I'm guessing this is not a DDOS (or at least not *the* DDOS that we have seen yet).

I'm looking in logs now see if anything interesting is there
Could this be a "sucking down the blockchain from various nodes" attack, I wonder?

Trying to bust peoples' bandwidth limits?
 

theZerg

Moderator
Staff member
Aug 28, 2015
1,012
2,327
@theZerg

the way i think of it is that the pool is working on a certain block when this long validation block's header arrives. the pool drops the block it's working on and starts SPV mining off this new header solution as it begins to DL and verify this header's long validation block contents. if this whole process takes longer than 30 sec, it abandons the block entirely. what it should do at that point is go back to mining it's own block that it was working on before until or unless another shorter validation block shows up. does that sound right to you?
Basically, yes. The 30 seconds is arbitrary of course, I'd be interested in hearing Gavin's thoughts behind that and whether it is a simple expedient (ala perfect is the enemy of good enough) with a more sophisticated approach in the works.

I'd imagine that the 30 second cutoff is to ensure that the sender (attacker) does not lie about a block, send the beginning of it, but then never send you the rest. Without the 30 second cutoff, the attacker could divert your hashing power until the next block arrives... (I haven't looked at the source because I am more interested in construction than destruction so this is a total guess but I'd imagine that the current Relay Network is so full of holes like this that the only reason it survives is because nobody has attacked it).

Of course with a 30 second cutoff, the attacker can do so by giving you junk blocks every 30 seconds... a system where the block headers is signed by the miner is probably needed here.

So given the above thought (that the 30 second cutoff is solely to stop partial block send attacks), a 2 phase cutoff might be "better" -- 30 seconds to receive the full block, and then estimate validation time by counting nSigOps and go back to mining a sibling if that time is > 10 minutes.
 

Richy_T

Well-Known Member
Dec 27, 2015
1,085
2,741
The community of the "free money" shows an incredible amount of obedience to authority and sucks up every violation of logic.
This was likely always the risk with increasing adoption. I'm a big supporter of liberty but sometimes I think most people are just too dumb ignorant to have it. Of course, that's also the belief of those who wish to take control.
 

cypherdoc

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2015
5,257
12,998
Basically, yes. The 30 seconds is arbitrary of course, I'd be interested in hearing Gavin's thoughts behind that and whether it is a simple expedient (ala perfect is the enemy of good enough) with a more sophisticated approach in the works.

I'd imagine that the 30 second cutoff is to ensure that the sender (attacker) does not lie about a block, send the beginning of it, but then never send you the rest. Without the 30 second cutoff, the attacker could divert your hashing power until the next block arrives... (I haven't looked at the source because I am more interested in construction than destruction so this is a total guess but I'd imagine that the current Relay Network is so full of holes like this that the only reason it survives is because nobody has attacked it).

Of course with a 30 second cutoff, the attacker can do so by giving you junk blocks every 30 seconds... a system where the block headers is signed by the miner is probably needed here.

So given the above thought (that the 30 second cutoff is solely to stop partial block send attacks), a 2 phase cutoff might be "better" -- 30 seconds to receive the full block, and then estimate validation time by counting nSigOps and go back to mining a sibling if that time is > 10 minutes.
i'm sure 30s is an arbitrary cutoff related either to your paper or the 27s f2pool single tx.

yeah, it seems to be an approach that takes care of 2 attacks; the blk witholding attk and the sigops attk ala f2pool for a 2MB blk.

an attacker can't give junk blks every 30s b/c an invalid header would be detected instantly as not having enough POW so that attack won't work.

yeah, a sigops estimator would be even better so as not to have to waste 30s before the miner figures out that he's dealing with an attack blk.
[doublepost=1457624714,1457624006][/doublepost][doublepost=1457625582][/doublepost]The measures, including the decision to cut the main interest rate, were more radical than investors had expected.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35774629
[doublepost=1457625814][/doublepost]The bank now expected inflation to be just 0.1% this year - substantially lower than the previous estimate of 1% and underlining the need for the bank to go further than expected.

Inflation should rise to 1.3% in 2017 and 1.6% the following year, according to its estimates.

"We are not in deflation," Mr Draghi stressed.


DID YOU HEAR ME!
 
  • Like
Reactions: majamalu and Norway

theZerg

Moderator
Staff member
Aug 28, 2015
1,012
2,327
Haven't looked at his code but I was considering the attack where you could make up a hash and dribble just enough bytes at the target that he doesn't disconnect but can't validate pow yet... however maybe the target does not initiate headers only mining at that pt either... but theoretically u only need hash of block not full headers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Norway

cypherdoc

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2015
5,257
12,998
i doubt miners do spv mining like that cuz THAT would be really risky ;)

how many fractions of a second difference can there be btwn just receiving a proposed block solution hash (insecure by itself) vs the entire header (secure)? not much.
 

albin

Active Member
Nov 8, 2015
931
4,008
The LN devs are scaring me more and more as time goes on. What happens when they saturate the crippled network with these transactions? Do they start using 10x the 10x as fees?

I once asked Poon on reddit if maybe CPFP is a solution, letting you add fees after the fact that miners can associate to the pre-signed tx, and while he admitted that this issue is the biggest open problem with LN, he reacted as though I'm some kind of space alien for even bringing up CPFP.

Now this is a long shot, but since the only actual blockchain tx that exists while the channel is open is the 2-of-2 multisig anchoring the funds, which has to be confirmed to get the channel going, is it possible that we're going to start hearing about multiple hypothetical channels at the same time in parallel? Like an LN in multiple universes? This is what I mean: there's nothing to stop you from simultaineously exchanging multiple sets of channel tx's against the same anchor anticipating different fee levels to confirm closing the channel, so long as your highest fee set of channel tx's has adequate anchor funds, as in the end only one gets confirmed. A convoluted mess, but I can't wait for somebody to suggest this, it's no more crazy than freezing timelocks at the protocol level!
 
Last edited: