Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[albin]

It's finally happened, somebody is trying to argue that small blocks leads to higher valuation.

I would've imagined that this argument would've actually arisen from misunderstanding what velocity means in the equation of exchange, but this incoherent mess will do. It's hard to decipher exactly what the argument is, but I think it's a stab at the luxury goods argument from Rochard.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4bzvie/if_bitcoins_blocks_were_too_small_your_bitcoins/

 

[adamstgbit]

Which premise? Valuation of what? Can you elaborate or give links on this formula?
What does it mean to say "aggregate real value of transactions"?
I think you tried to say "If fees are high, price is high", but I am not sure...

Bahahahaha!
newbies gotta love'm

 

[cypherdoc]

That is just sad.

And i don't think pokertravis is a newbie.

 

[Norway]

Corey Fields is probably scaring the shit out of chinese miners with his vague answers:

https://twitter.com/cnLedger

 

[BldSwtTrs]

@satoshis_sockpuppet
Yes. I suspect that the decline can be put down to the rise of ETH as much as the dissatisfaction with thermos domains.

I did not think of this until it was recently pointed out by @VeritasSapere, @Melbustus and others, that the limiting of tx volume can become like a self-fulfilling prophesy, or the proverbial frog in water which is slowly heating up. We are not seeing all the Bitcoin volume which is being turned away. New users and companies will already be sitting on their hands waiting for a cryptocurrency to arrive that they can leverage. Todd alone must have extinguished a huge amount of interest by telling companies to not use Bitcoin because it "can't scale", "is a settlement layer". Some listened to him because of his status as an expert. Some didn't and went ahead, but now, with no spare capacity, who is going to make a major investment in a new business case involving BTC?

Few weeks ago I drank some beers with a blockchain consultant in one of the biggest bank in the world. He is paid to make proof of concepts. He is a big blockist.

He told me "I can't present them a PoC with Bitcoin, it just don't scale right know... only 3 TPS. People who pay me want something which can do 1 000 TPS or 10 000 TPS right now, so I work on alternative blockchains."

I asked him "can't you tell them that Bitcoin will scale at some point in the future?", he replied "they don't care about that, they want something that works right now."

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

Sure, who care's about a blockchain that doesn't scale?

I mean, nobody knows if Ethereum scales properly. But at least the developers of it don't say categorally "it can't scale" and reject the idea to scale it with raising demand.

--

Something else: Small blockists mindset.

@cypherdoc - you had an interesting post about them thinking they are part of a dac and core is a board of managers.

I like this idea but I don't think it meets small blockist mindset, because it is easy to think this way and promote bigger blocks.

I'm in correspondence with a bitcoin journalist, well known for his preference of everything core says. I asked him "What do you mean with decentralization" and he linked me to an article of paul sztorc about the issue.

You might know paul, from all small blockists he is maybe the one with the highest grade of arrogance. ("You have two options: be with me or be clueless") - actually, he defends his position with such a high grade of aggression, that 1.) my dog would never ever take him serious and 2.) there is nearly no way around him being wrong.

I hated to do it, but I read the article. It made me angry, but at first I thought, ok, I hate this guy, but he is right, and that makes me angry. Later I realized that in this article lies a key to a small blockists mindset.

Here it is: Small blockists are strong in theory but don't understand reality. It's not that they are weak in understanding reality. They just don't do. They are unable to realize that reality is not the theory in their mind.

Everything Paul writes is good in theory and makes perfectly sense. But if you apply it on reality, it looses every gramm of sense. It's completely wrong.

For example: His whole post about decentralization is based on this assumption:

The process of “money” is “knowing you’ve been paid”. A process has greater “decentralization” as it “occurs more locally”. Thus “decentralized money” is the local cost of knowing you’ve been paid: the cost of running a full node.

Sounds good, nah? But - if you want to know if "you've been paid" - do you need to run a full node in reality? Just use an online-Wallet or an address and check you key on several block explorers. To "know you have been paid" a full node will ever be the most expensive and less private method.

But ... but ... that's not really knowing, na? You have to trust someone, nah? Yes. In theory only a node is completely secure. But if you need this security in reality, because the amount you got is so high, that you fear that 4 blockexplorers will cooperate to cheat you, than the cost of running a node is trivial forever.

In theory something is either secure or insecure. In reality things have a grade of security that's ok for your needs. If it's about millions, you can always run a full node. If it is about some bucks, running a full node is unnecessary (and only for your pleasurement)

If the world outlaws bitcoin, in reality, we will have small blocks, no matter how bit the limit is, because nearly nobody will use bitcoin any more. And so on and so on.

The same dismatching of theory and reality is in nearly every block of his post. Well thought in theory, but senseless in reality. Just read it, if you look for the difference between reality and theory it's quiet fascinating: http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/measuring-decentralization/

The same can be said about the endless discussions about RBF. You cold tell them 1000x that people use 0-conf in reality and do well. But they still say: rbf is ok, because 0-conf is not secure. Nobody should use it.

"They" are unable to compute that reality is no code. In code things are secure or unsecure, 0 or 1. In reality things are 0 or 0.75 or 0.2 or 0.99 or 0 and 1 and 0.5 at the same time. In reality something can be secure at one moment and insecure in another moment. In reality things are in a context and in a relationsship to other things.

Once Core had coders that had a sense for theory and reality. Mike Hearn, Gavin Andresen, Jeff Garzik. They had the ability to understand the theory AND reality. I think also Satoshi had this competence. If not he would have been unable to create such a crazy thing between code and reality.

Now it seems core development is in the controll of people that are brillant in theory, but don't understand that reality differs from their theory.

That's my theory

Happy Easter!

 

[Inca]

If you are a fan of bitcoin for it's sound money principles then there is a good chance you have a strong understanding of basic economic theory.

I would venture that most reading this thread do, and are perhaps a slightly older age group than the typical reader on /r/bitcoin, or the contributors to the Core camp, who clearly have very limited understanding of economics and are more interested in code, complexity and cryptography.

Whilst those aspects are important - in being the glue which holds bitcoin together - I am beginning to find this pretty frustrating as bitcoin only wins if it is better money than everything else. Enforcing a fixed upper bound to the blocksize very obviously damages a key monetary principle which bitcoin enjoyed previously - permissionless utility.

The economics of bitcoin at this stage are really the only determinant of it's long term success. And they are under threat by this governance attack.

 

[Norway]

Something is seriously wrong on r/bitcoin.

Look at the top post, 3454 upvotes! lol

 

[freetrader]

The amount of deception practiced by Blockstream and its circle of contracted developers (whether co-opted Core members or independents) is staggering.

Here is Luke-Jr sharing some more insights about the agreement - at least from his point of view:
Source: http://bitcoinstats.com/irc/bitcoin-otc/logs/2016/03/03

Some interjections by third parties have been removed for clarity in the following precis.

18:25 zveda if core and blockstream are separate entities, why does president of blockstream go and promise to chinese miners that core will release code for a HF in 2017 if they promise to only run core code? how can he even promise that?
18:25 Luke-Jr zveda: that isn't even true
18:25 zveda Luke-Jr: what's not true?
18:25 zveda we all read the letter that adam back signed
18:25 Luke-Jr also, Adam/Blockstream is on the other side of that agreement. They agreed not to run Classic.
18:26 Luke-Jr zveda: nobody agreed Core would release code
18:26 zveda Luke-Jr: in the letter it is agreed that there will be HF code no?
18:26 zveda in core
18:26 Luke-Jr zveda: Cory Fields, Matt Corallo, Peter Todd, and I will produce HF code, yes.
18:27 zveda and it will be merged into core ?
18:27 Luke-Jr tbd
18:27 zveda but adam back promised ?
18:28 zveda he signed as the president of blockstream
18:28 Luke-Jr zveda: Adam promised not to run Classic
18:28 zveda the miners took that as a concession from blockstream and core
18:28 zveda Blazed: yes
18:29 Luke-Jr zveda: no, we made it perfectly clear that nobody could represent Core
18:29 Luke-Jr zveda: in exchange for the four of us writing HF code
18:30 Luke-Jr here, read it: https://medium.com/@bitcoinroundtable/bitcoin-roundtable-consensus-266d475a61ff
18:30 zveda but whether it is merged is tbd lol. I am pretty sure that's not what the chinese miners are expecting
18:30 zveda I did read it
18:30 Luke-Jr "The Bitcoin Core contributors present at the Bitcoin Roundtable will have an implementation of such a hard-fork available as a recommendation to Bitcoin Core within three months after the release of SegWit."
18:31 Luke-Jr "…, and will only be adopted with broad support across the entire Bitcoin community."
18:31 zveda lemme guess, overwhelming consensuys
18:32 Luke-Jr and the part Adam, the exchanges, and the miners agreed to: "We will run a SegWit release in production by the time such a hard-fork is released in a version of Bitcoin Core. We will only run Bitcoin Core-compatible consensus systems, eventually containing both SegWit and the hard-fork, in production, for the foreseeable future."

What's confusing to me is that normally Luke-Jr claims he works for Blockstream, not for Core.
How odd that he plays on the side of Core for this meeting, and not the side of his boss.

https://np.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/49ovh3/technically_blockstream_is_my_customer_not_the/

I can only say to the miners: beware the HF code you receive from these fellows.
I suggest you have it independently audited by security experts.

 

[cypherdoc]

there are still small blockists who seem to deny that SW is to facilitate LN. listen again here:

 

[cypherdoc]

jstolfi killing it again:

 

[cypherdoc]

Sure, who care's about a blockchain that doesn't scale?

I mean, nobody knows if Ethereum scales properly. But at least the developers of it don't say categorally "it can't scale" and reject the idea to scale it with raising demand.

--

Something else: Small blockists mindset.

@cypherdoc - you had an interesting post about them thinking they are part of a dac and core is a board of managers.

I like this idea but I don't think it meets small blockist mindset, because it is easy to think this way and promote bigger blocks.

I'm in correspondence with a bitcoin journalist, well known for his preference of everything core says. I asked him "What do you mean with decentralization" and he linked me to an article of paul sztorc about the issue.

You might know paul, from all small blockists he is maybe the one with the highest grade of arrogance. ("You have two options: be with me or be clueless") - actually, he defends his position with such a high grade of aggression, that 1.) my dog would never ever take him serious and 2.) there is nearly no way around him being wrong.

I hated to do it, but I read the article. It made me angry, but at first I thought, ok, I hate this guy, but he is right, and that makes me angry. Later I realized that in this article lies a key to a small blockists mindset.

Here it is: Small blockists are strong in theory but don't understand reality. It's not that they are weak in understanding reality. They just don't do. They are unable to realize that reality is not the theory in their mind.

Everything Paul writes is good in theory and makes perfectly sense. But if you apply it on reality, it looses every gramm of sense. It's completely wrong.

For example: His whole post about decentralization is based on this assumption:



Sounds good, nah? But - if you want to know if "you've been paid" - do you need to run a full node in reality? Just use an online-Wallet or an address and check you key on several block explorers. To "know you have been paid" a full node will ever be the most expensive and less private method.

But ... but ... that's not really knowing, na? You have to trust someone, nah? Yes. In theory only a node is completely secure. But if you need this security in reality, because the amount you got is so high, that you fear that 4 blockexplorers will cooperate to cheat you, than the cost of running a node is trivial forever.

In theory something is either secure or insecure. In reality things have a grade of security that's ok for your needs. If it's about millions, you can always run a full node. If it is about some bucks, running a full node is unnecessary (and only for your pleasurement)

If the world outlaws bitcoin, in reality, we will have small blocks, no matter how bit the limit is, because nearly nobody will use bitcoin any more. And so on and so on.

The same dismatching of theory and reality is in nearly every block of his post. Well thought in theory, but senseless in reality. Just read it, if you look for the difference between reality and theory it's quiet fascinating: http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/measuring-decentralization/

The same can be said about the endless discussions about RBF. You cold tell them 1000x that people use 0-conf in reality and do well. But they still say: rbf is ok, because 0-conf is not secure. Nobody should use it.

"They" are unable to compute that reality is no code. In code things are secure or unsecure, 0 or 1. In reality things are 0 or 0.75 or 0.2 or 0.99 or 0 and 1 and 0.5 at the same time. In reality something can be secure at one moment and insecure in another moment. In reality things are in a context and in a relationsship to other things.

Once Core had coders that had a sense for theory and reality. Mike Hearn, Gavin Andresen, Jeff Garzik. They had the ability to understand the theory AND reality. I think also Satoshi had this competence. If not he would have been unable to create such a crazy thing between code and reality.

Now it seems core development is in the controll of people that are brillant in theory, but don't understand that reality differs from their theory.

That's my theory

Happy Easter!

you're absolutely right. my post about my DAC theory is just one of a few valid ones. i thought it was nice for the day b/c it doesn't force us to think they're either crazy cultists, out to destroy Bitcoin, irrational, or just plain stupid. but hey, yeah, they could be just plain unrealistic.

i've watched Paul Stzorc for a while now and he really came onto the scene when the SC's WP came out. in SC's, he sees a great opportunity for profit, imo. initially, through Truthcoin. he took great offense when i challenged him about it on Twitter in late 2014 just after the SC's WP came out in Oct 2014.

 

[Aquent]

My opinions change by the second so never take them as conclusive, but I wanted to express some thoughts. Now that winter is over and the great battles have subdued, we enjoy spring, with its sunshine and flowers.

This is a time for a bit of relaxing, smelling roses, stepping back and perhaps contemplating.

I said to Adam long ago that even if "he" "wins", it would be a Phyric victory. I still believe that. Both sides have strong arguments and at this point I think proponents from both sides are starting to see the arguments of the other side and, at times, appreciate them.

Any sparkle can change the opinion of all to one side and in my view time alone is a factor which will decide, not arguments, not smearing, etc, etc. Everyone who is anyone is fully aware of the arguments from both "camps". Few of them are 100% certain of either path. Hence the spring.

Antagonism brings out defence. At this point we'd rather disarm them, give them no excuse to attack, give them no excuse to be militaristic, take away all the subjective nonsense, give them a bit of rope.

So, relax. The attacking on whatever and whoever, that's all done now. What is to be known is known by anyone who is of any relevance.

So, relax. Enjoy spring. Smell the flowers. Shift towards a new world where there are two competing thoughts. Accept the other "side" and focus less on humans, and more on ideas.

Much of what needed to be said has been said. The theory is all laid out. Now we wait for the verdict of reality. Give them no excuse. An attack on them is an acknowledgment they matter at all.

 

[Norway]

No Classic blocks from Slush in the last 480 blocks. I'm calling shenanigans!

 

[Justus Ranvier]

I'm flabbergasted that this class of actor gets so wrapped up in esoteric, overcomplicated, half-baked speculative security attacks that have no relevance in any organized threat model methodology, yet fairly straightforward non-technical (or at least tangentially informed by the technical characteristics) failure modes of economics or business are not only summarily dismissed, but then villainized and connected to "conspiracy theory".

http://phk.freebsd.dk/_downloads/FOSDEM_2014.pdf

 

[AdrianX]

jstolfi killing it again:

my favorite theymosian twist of logic. I need an explanation as to how the community is being subdued to allow this hijacking to bitcoin.

 

[solex]

Something is seriously wrong on r/bitcoin.

Look at the top post, 3454 upvotes! lol

Something is seriously rotten on r/bitcoin. Thermos is waging a negative publicity campaign against Coinbase by adopting the same approach which allowed XT & Classic #rekt threads on BCT.

The reddit post even has a "please upvote" in the title, and the problem was reportedly resolved by the time it had 13 upvotes. Looks like bot usage to increase the vote count too.

 

[AdrianX]

@Justus Ranvier - Blockstream fits this modus operandi only too perfectly given Eric Schmidt has a history of such diplomacy. The Google Talk - Gizmo5 squishing is the same as the Microsoft - Skype the fit is also uncanny. I can't believe the Nokia (Stephen Elop) trojan horse when thinking communication and Microsoft.

Apple seems like the last public bastion for communication privacy - probably just a public show.

The future of Bitcoin is definitely to become the most simple and a base money kernel.

 

[rocks]

Few weeks ago I drank some beers with a blockchain consultant in one of the biggest bank in the world. He is paid to make proof of concepts. He is a big blockist.

He told me "I can't present them a PoC with Bitcoin, it just don't scale right know... only 3 TPS. People who pay me want something which can do 1 000 TPS or 10 000 TPS right now, so I work on alternative blockchains."

I asked him "can't you tell them that Bitcoin will scale at some point in the future?", he replied "they don't care about that, they want something that works right now."

On one hand it is great new concepts are being developed on crypto currencies, on the other it is telling which way things are trending if the focus is not on the bitcoin chain.

Did your friend say which chains they are building proof of concepts on top of? An alt, their own internal chain? My understanding is no altcoin chain could handle 10,000 tps today.

 

[Peter R]

Something is seriously rotten on r/bitcoin. Thermos is waging a negative publicity campaign against Coinbase by adopting the same approach which allowed XT & Classic #rekt threads on BCT.

The reddit post even has a "please upvote" in the title, and the problem was reportedly resolved by the time it had 13 upvotes. Looks like bot usage to increase the vote count too.

Yes and they're no longer hiding the vote results for comments either. Perhaps they've assembled an army of vote-bots and believe it's now to their advantage to show the comment scores (evidence of a vote-bot army is the 3000+ up-votes the Coinbase problem report received).