Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Christoph Bergmann]

This is why I am starting to think that the best chance we have of having being part of a real cryptocurrency which reflects the principles of sound money is through the alternative cryptocurrencies.

Having a singular dominant cryptocurrency might not be the path forward if the majority within Bitcoin presently does not want sound money. The alternative cryptocurrencies at least do have very focused communities and are very clear on their vision and path forward. Instead of everyone attempting to push their own vision onto a single cryptocurrency, it makes sense that there should be several dominant cryptocurrencies reflecting different peoples ideologies and beliefs.

Not that I think BlockStreamCoin could even become one of the dominant cryptocurrencies of the future, however the small blockists would still have their obscure, limited and centrally controlled cryptocurrency, I suspect some might even be happy with such an outcome according to their own peculiar ideologies.

Even though Bitcoin seems to be diverging from the origanol vision of Satoshi. This vision will survive through the alternative cryptocurrencies no matter what happens to Bitcoin. The alternative cryptocurrencies are an extension of the ethos of freedom and decentralization inherent within Bitcoin itself.

What do you mean with "sound money"?

I think - fear - the things will play out this way: Bitcoin remains what it is, small, but stable, used in Darknetmarkets and for speculation, but not more, and R3CEV or Hyperledger build the super-blockchain, that can scale, the monetary revolution does not take place, banks remain in power and everybody is lucky ...

Anyone notice how the new mantra "a decentralized blockchain can't scale" fits perfectly in the strategy of promoters of centralized bankchains? Isn't this strange?

 

[Norway]

@freetrader
LMAO!

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

While Core is busy blocking the stream, and while Ethereum is serving as a distraction, the bankster-industrial complex gets moving...

How ... WTF ... WTF ... how stupid can a community be?

But hei - all that has only the goal of making bitcoin better -- whoever thinks that it has something to do with building another blockchain must be a lunatic ...

 

[freetrader]

@Norway: that Wikipedia article is missing some critical details. This animal also doesn't just shit in the countryside, it buries its excrement like a cat, takes a daily bath, and once winter is over, it sheds its wool by itself, saving the farmer the trouble of shearing it.

It really has all the benefits without any of the drawbacks. I don't know why it's not replaced traditional farm animals already.

While Core is busy blocking the stream, and while Ethereum is serving as a distraction, the bankster-industrial complex gets moving...

These kind of moves make me wish the current codebase was under a stricter free software license, or at least that a free software license implementation was already available. Not that that has stopped evil corporations before, but I can dream...

 

[Norway]

 

[sickpig]

I really have to breath deeply to keep calm when I stumble in stuff like that:


fee market they said, fools.

 

[solex]

@Justus Ranvier
With BS involved too, and agreed the same month as the HK stalling conference.
These are people positioning themselves such that the fate of Bitcoin becomes irrelevant in the wider cryptocurrrency space.

 

[AdrianX]

@freetrader
The most provocative I hear about SegWit, is the bold part of this mantra:
"SegWit increases the effective blocksize limit to almost 2mb, solves the malleability problem and does a lot more great things!"

Is there a list of the other great things anywhere?

 

[Dusty]

The bitcoin code doesn't need two-way pegging, SegWit or any other alterations to work with a second layer

Actually, I think the only thing needed to build more layers upon Bitcoin is two-way pegging.
How could you build another layer otherwise?

 

[johnyj]

SegWit is not implemented yet.
No use in crying over milk which has not yet been spilled.
But we need to watch that pot before it boils over.

You don't really need to have the code to understand it is a bad idea, and by the time code is out, it is already too late, it will be fed into clueless mining pools and create unpredictable risk

The biggest problem with that soft fork change IMO is the dramatically raised level of complexity. Take that Dr. Lau's lecture as an example, even he does not fully understand segwit, how about the other people? Raised level of complexity will dramatically reduce the nr. of people who can understand a system, which create a high level of knowledge centralization, that is bad

 

[freetrader]

@johnyj : The time when it's too late is the not-entirely-known percentage of votes at which SegWit starts to activate. Currently it's set to 75%, but for safety we should assume they could release it with a lower percentage. At that threshold, SegWit starts to pollute the blockchain with its stealth transactions - potholes which are unverifiable by unadapted nodes.

We need to make sure there is a well signed-out offramp onto a road without potholes before this point is reached.

#CodeTheRoad

^ Bitcoin before it became the Superhighway of Money ;-)

 

[Justus Ranvier]

The trap was laid in 2013 with Maxwell and co. successfully captured the reference implementation and spent the next few years consolidating their power.

Then the venture capital flooded in to capture as many developers as possible.

Now that they've won the psychological and HR war, all of those resources will be pulled away from Bitcoin and used to build its establishment-friendly replacement. The only future expenditures on Bitcoin will be the minimal amount needed to keep it paralysed so that nobody is able to successfully step in and replace the defectors.

 

[freetrader]

A trap you say?

 

[Norway]

Actually, I think the only thing needed to build more layers upon Bitcoin is two-way pegging.
How could you build another layer otherwise?

I would do it like ChangeTip do it today.

1. The user send bitcoin to the layer 2 system's bitcoin address and loose the direct control over the funds. (A ChangeTip address, a two way pegged sidechain address, opening a lightning payment channel.)
2. The user use that other system to perform transactions. (Give tips, send sidecoins, perform a lightning transaction.)
3. Settle back to bitcoin from the other system (if needed).

The conversion from layer one to layer two (and back) is trivial, as bitcoin is programmable money. ShapeShift do this all day long, and you don't have to trust them very much because they hold your cash for a split second. And the day they start to steal, nobody will use them anymore.

You have to trust that second layer, just like you trust the bitcoin layer. That's the point.
[doublepost=1459294135][/doublepost]

Is there a list of the other great things anywhere?

I'm not sure if that list exist. But everybody's talking about it!

 

[Inca]

The trap was laid in 2013 with Maxwell and co. successfully captured the reference implementation and spent the next few years consolidating their power.

Then the venture capital flooded in to capture as many developers as possible.

Now that they've won the psychological and HR war, all of those resources will be pulled away from Bitcoin and used to build its establishment-friendly replacement. The only future expenditures on Bitcoin will be the minimal amount needed to keep it paralysed so that nobody is able to successfully step in and replace the defectors.

Have you diversified any of your holdings into other blockchains, @Justus?

 

[Golarz Filip]

Gavin's work list from 2011

source:

 

[Justus Ranvier]

Have you diversified any of your holdings into other blockchains, @Justus?

No. A larger percentage of my liquidity is in dollars rather than bitcoins right now than normal, but I don't hold any altcoins.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

https://np.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4aeepk/a_response_to_oleg_andreevs_bitcoin_maximalism/

very interesting read.

Yes. A mixed bag of great points and some big errors. I was moved to comment, though in mid-sleep:

 

[Golarz Filip]

Gavin's work list from 2011

Gavin in 2011:
"And then in general - embrace and encourage responsible implementation diversity. Encourage experiments, encourage different clients.
Because I expect specialization, I mean, the Satoshi Bitcoin client was the Windows executable that do everything. It accept the transactions, it sends the transactions, it could create the bitcoins, it was everything in one package. We should expect, and we are seeing, a lot more specializations, so we'll see more specialized versions of bitcoin for mining pools, for big merchants, even for endusers, I expect to see a lot of diversity of bitcoin they are using on their cellphones or whatever.
The general idea in "Core Bitcoin" is to make it smaller, to move towards really well defined (...?) that everybody will feel confident that it does everything correctly, and can be kind of the reference implementation that people can build on top of."

 

[johnyj]

1% vs 99% is true in today's world since those 1% first get money from central bank money printing. And that's the reason this also appears in slush's pool statistic:
https://slushpool.com/stats/

about 2% of the people owns 98% of hash power, so it totally depends on those 2% to decide the direction of bitcoin