Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

freetrader

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Dec 16, 2015
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@Bagatell : The connection to Bitcoin (supposed money laundering use) seems very tenuous, I was very surprised at it. And yes, the naming is so close it will confuse people if they only hear about it and not e.g. read the article to find out it's something very different.

I know I clicked on the article to find out if it's related or not.

BTW came across it here initially:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4i9gqp/liberty_reserve_creator_sentenced_to_20_years/

@Christoph Bergmann : Take care on the exact usernames that you quoted, otherwise some innocent bystanders could get in the crossfire (in this case, fortunately no conflicting usernames).
But I think you meant /u/SpontenousEmergence and /u/GratefulTony .
 
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Richy_T

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Dec 27, 2015
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Barring some extreme hardware hacks, I feel like CSW's laptop but live booting Tails Linux (with Electrum already in the Tails distro anyway) would've been pretty ok too (and preserving the inability to take any data with him).
Definitely this. Or an R-Pi even.
[doublepost=1462626973][/doublepost]
do you agree that this story will render the possibility of a hard fork to 2 mb (or more) almost impossible now?
No actually. The 2MB hard fork has its own story going on. It could possibly have happened in a more timely manner if CSW proven himself to be the real Satoshi but I think things are going to play out as they would have anyway now. Core relies on authority for maintaining their position but raising the limit is based on analysis of the facts (you can argue the analysis is incorrect but that's how things stand).
[doublepost=1462627751,1462626775][/doublepost]I think we need a Classic-CFU patch which activates at 60%, has 48 hours grace time and while we're about it, let's go to 4 or 8 MB. I don't think it needs to be pushed or endorsed by any team, just put out there.

Possibly it won't be needed but currently there's no game plan for a very problematic halving.
 
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freetrader

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Another article about the Liberty Reserve that can't resist mentioning Bitcoin:
The Costa Rica-based company used Bitcoin-like digital currencies in an attempt to evade law enforcement, and processed 78 million transactions — amounting to $8 billion — for cyber criminals, according to prosecutors.
Does anyone have more information about how the digital currency used scheme was in any way similar to Bitcoin?
 
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Justus Ranvier

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Aug 28, 2015
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Another thing: in the last months it was a sin to be with classic, but it was to some part ok to stay neutral. Now the propaganda goals shiftet and you are no longer allowed to be neutral. Who is not for core is against bitcoin.
This is a valid approach, but aimed in the wrong direction.

I think there are issues in which people should not be allowed to remain neutral and retain the status of being in good moral standing. They have to pick one or the other.

Wladimir accused Gavin of being "toxic", in spite of observations that the insult ratio is heavily skewed against Gavin:


Wladimir also said, "Day in, day out, there is trolling, targeted attacks, shilling on social media targeted toward us."

He did not identify the individuals behind the supposed attacks, nor did he cite examples which can be independently verified.

(On the other hand, it's very easy to identify a professional trolling team that's active in /r/btc engaging in trolling, targeting attacks, and shilling on behalf of Core. We do have a list of names and independently-verifiable examples.)

Given the very public demonstration we had regarding standards of proof, this is unacceptable.

By the very same standards the Core project members used to denounce Craig Wright, they must denounce Wladimir as a con artist and scammer unless he produces evidence supporting his accusations.

Every single public figure should be put on the spot and asked to take a position on this issue. Either they should support Wladimir's accusations and explain why, giving examples which can be independently verified, or they should state that the accusations are false and join in asking Wladimir why he's making false accusations.

If they are unwilling to do either of these things then they are cowards and hypocrites. Of course the very first thing the cowards and hypocrites will do is complain about the "tone", or "diviseness" of the previous sentence because they desperately don't want to address the content. Sorry, but you don't get the luxury of comfort any more. Either you get made uncomfortable, or else Bitcoin is strangled to death.
 
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Inca

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if you have a poisonous person like Maxwell at the heart of bitcoin Core, then we cannot be surprised the project is surrounded by sycophants and awful lickspittle trolls.

Gavin is undergoing a very deliberate character assassination. If you have investors and 75 million USD behind you, plus absent morals, then this must be done to purge risk of failure.

Dirty tactics call for the same in response..
 

cypherdoc

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Aug 26, 2015
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Another article about the Liberty Reserve that can't resist mentioning Bitcoin:


Does anyone have more information about how the digital currency used scheme was in any way similar to Bitcoin?
digital, that's about it.
 

王英清

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May 7, 2016
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Hello, I wanted to join this chat! You have very different views to the people I speak at the Bitcoin meetups I go to say.

People think that this Craig guy is crazy and maybe tries to damage Gavin on purpose.

Personally, I'm very exited for Segregated Witness however bigger block are cool also. (A wallet developer said that transaction malleability is going to be solved).
 

cypherdoc

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Aug 26, 2015
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if you have a poisonous person like Maxwell at the heart of bitcoin Core, then we cannot be surprised the project is surrounded by sycophants and awful lickspittle trolls.

Gavin is undergoing a very deliberate character assassination. If you have investors and 75 million USD behind you, plus absent morals, then this must be done to purge risk of failure.

Dirty tactics call for the same in response..
yes, Maxwell is the crux/center of the problem.

Backtrack runs a close second, not from an intellectual/coding perspective, but simply from Hashcash (even though those in the know realize esp after CW that it's very different from Bitcoin).
[doublepost=1462633692][/doublepost]
Hello, I wanted to join this chat! You have very different views to the people I speak at the Bitcoin meetups I go to say.

People think that this Craig guy is crazy and maybe tries to damage Gavin on purpose.

Personally, I'm very exited for Segregated Witness however bigger block are cool also. (A wallet developer said that transaction malleability is going to be solved).
Welcome @王英清!

question for you; do you have personal problems with tx malleability or with a business of yours?
[doublepost=1462633975,1462633263][/doublepost]
 

tynwald

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Dec 8, 2015
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Hello, I wanted to join this chat! You have very different views to the people I speak at the Bitcoin meetups I go to say.

People think that this Craig guy is crazy and maybe tries to damage Gavin on purpose.

Personally, I'm very exited for Segregated Witness however bigger block are cool also. (A wallet developer said that transaction malleability is going to be solved).
Transaction malleability wasn't some huge issue that exchanges, payment companies and wallet developers were crying to be solved.
 

王英清

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May 7, 2016
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I am not a complete expert on it, Bitcoin works great for me when I use it now.

Some people say that it would be cool as it makes checking if coins have been spent easier to track.
 

Justus Ranvier

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Aug 28, 2015
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Dirty tactics call for the same in response..
There's nothing dirty about requiring people to uphold the same standards themselves they use against other people.

Sometimes that happens accidentally and you can tell because the person will self-correct when the discrepancy is pointed out.

You can tell who the malicious actors are because they'll resist having their own standards applied to them in the same way a cat resists taking a bath.

Confronting them in this way is about as pleasant as giving a cat a bath, yet Bitcoin will not survive unless this is done.

The worst part about this situation is all the people who know it needs to be done, and aren't willing to participate in the progress because they want to enjoy the benefits of other people doing the right thing without taking any of the burden.
 

Inca

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Aug 28, 2015
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All changes in the last year in bitcoin Core are to allow layer two solutions developed synchronously by blockstream to work.

Without alternate development teams keeping a true consensus through merit the protocol can be abused in any direction Core wishes currently.

Maxwell thinks he has it all worked out. If you consider that anyone with designs to contain bitcoin would be keen to limit its on chain growth potential, whilst simultaneously encourage increasing complexity to the protocol and codebase to dissuade alternate developers from contributing to the project then everything makes sense. Coupled with a personality defect and a superiority complex he is quite possibly the worst person to be in charge anyone would select (see Wikipedia history and github commit theft, and personal interactions)

What was previously an open project is now a closed shop.

It is hard to support bitcoin when it is under the control at present of these pricks who do not believe in the ideals of what bitcoin was originally for.

I am open to active suggestions for a way forward. An industry supported alternate client, run by every company in the space would be my suggestion. We urgently need a 'two party' system to force real debate and honest development towards stated goals and along an honest map to mainstream adoption.
 

cypherdoc

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Aug 26, 2015
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@王英清

if anything, i'd think solving tx malleability makes it easier to track. the entire purpose of why core dev is driving for SW, CSV, CLTV, median time, etc is so that txid's can be relied upon (kept track of) to update sequentially as counterparties progressively transact thru a payment channel. currently, if a third party inflicts a malleability upon your tx, you don't actually lose your coins which is a good thing. but the malleability will change the txid making it harder to track and potentially opening up questions about who was involved in the tx.
 
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satoshis_sockpuppet

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Feb 22, 2016
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Personally, I'm very exited for Segregated Witness however bigger block are cool also. (A wallet developer said that transaction malleability is going to be solved).
Hi and welcome!

If you are excited for Segregated Witness* imho you should ask yourself and others some questions:

1. SW should be ready by April, where is it and which wallets have implemented it so far?
2. Why is it rolled out as a soft fork with an unnecessary amount of additional code instead of a hard fork everybody would be ok with?
3. Why is it sold as a scaling solution although it doesn't reduce the size of transmitted and stored data at all? (If you get fussy, it adds a few bytes instead..)
4. Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to let a central authority decide to give a discount for (complex) SW transactions?

SW and bigger blocks aren't related. These are completely different topics, one is about scaling the other one about data handling and maybe malleability.
If Core played nice they could have had a clean hard fork with SW + 2 MB BS and everybody would be somewhat happy and we could have civil discussions.

*Most, almost everybody, think SW is a nice cleanup, if done properly aka in a hardfork..


---

After this CSW (at least he managed to burn his initials into my brain) mess, if you asked 'cui bono' everything points at core & BS. It's just a nutty conspiracy theory but if you wanted to discredit Gavin there are 2 points you like to address:

1. The respect he has b/c Satoshi chose him to keep the project going and the relationship he had with Satoshi.
2. His (limited) abilities in the field of cryptography.

Maybe CSW tried to "get outed" as Satoshi last winter and failed. BS created a nice plan to gloss over the fact that April is over and there is no scaling and blocks are full. They take the wannabe-Satoshi, pay all expenses and something extra and pull off this charade. And it didn't take them a day to kick Gavin off Github and dig out a quote about him giving Satoshi commit rights as soon as he wants.

Other than that I still find the possibility of an advanced fee scam sadly to be very probable. And it would somewhat explain the weird behavior by Grigg and JVP. They are inaugurated in a "complex plot" CSW and his guys invented and they still believe it.
The crypto guys aren't the worst audience for a big time scammer, on one hand they're able to check your evidence and might want technical proof. On the other hand they are very receptive to conspiracy theories, puzzles and complex stories full of half-truths and mysteries.

Additionaly, maybe he is the guy who hacked Satoshis account and tried to use the information he got from all the emails to make himself into a bitcoin expert, which didn't work as expected. But it would explain the sparks of wisdom in his articles and interviews.
He then chose plan B, to become Satoshi, b/c he had to do something with the information. Would explain why Gavin believed him as he had enough time to read all their email exchanges.
 

Inca

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Aug 28, 2015
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Furthermore, if we view Maxwell as a politician who is performing a governance attack, then he has like any coup d'etat performed vital steps to cling to power.

1) restrict communication channels
place sycophant troll in control of developer mailing list moderation, team up with Michael Marquardt to censor anything off message on bitcointalk and /r/bitcoin ('if 90% of people disagree with these policies then 90% can leave')
keep the Core project insular and paranoid

2) propaganda + secret police
use online fora to manipulate opinion by deleting anything promoting alternate views, use troll army to try and keep up the appearance of majority view (once it became clear they held a very tiny minority position in the community)
ban users who are thorns in the side through use of 'moderators'
promote the message of the glorious leader (Maxwell the fantastic cryptographer, only core developers are intelligent enough to manage the codebase)
'scaling conferences' to give illusion of this being an open project

3) purge previous party members
influential early developers who see straight through the bullshit require removal
character assassination of gavin, mike and pretty much anyone who disagrees, including actual academics such as Peter R bringing science to the argument
keep puppet 'in charge' of project to deflect attention from Blockstream

4) rewrite history
Misattribute github commits. Include non-bitcoin code to inflate newer members contributions. Use troll army to constantly disparage early contributions of early devs including Satoshi ('satoshi made a lot of mistakes and was wrong about a lot of things')

5) miners
Pay off the miners with fairy tales and secret conferences, and quite possibly cold hard cash.

6) dirty tricks
DDOS nodes running alternate implementations

7) sit in power and profit!


---


It seems as though wishing for an alternative development team to ride to the rescue may not happen spontaneously.

I think to work around this situation drastic measures are required. Industry consensus will be needed to gather together the bulk of the companies in the space, companies who like users will benefit from on chain scaling as far as will technically be viable. Certainly aiming to keep a blocksize cap above transaction demand for the next few years of user growth. Companies would need to pledge funds and support to an independent development group and a separate client which they would all vow to run, citing diversity of implementations as vital for the survival of bitcoin in the longer run. Openly naming the developers who have severe conflicts of interest against the wider bitcoin community (we all know who) and putting pressure on reddit.com to relinquish control of administrator rights for /r/bitcoin from Michael Marquardt.

Steps must be taken now before bitcoin is derailed permanently.
 
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Dusty

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Mar 14, 2016
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@Dusty
Are you still defending your hack theory after I clearly debunked it?
There is nothing do debunk, with the few info about what happened the simplest thing would be to implement a transparent proxy with a forged DNS server.
Almost trivial if one has enough time to setup the environment.

I never thought that the procedure I described was what happened: it is only a fictional example on how to exploit a signature replay attack.
That was the strange thing that CSW did with the first strange post btw, by pulling the signature from the blockchain.
 

freetrader

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I am not a complete expert on it, Bitcoin works great for me when I use it now.

Some people say that it would be cool as it makes checking if coins have been spent easier to track.
I believe you're talking about the signature algorithm in SegWit covering the output amount, leading to some savings for hardware wallets as described here:

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ledger-presents-use-segregated-witness-hardware-wallets/

I'd say that if Bitcoin's mass adoption is blocked, there will not be much of a need for such products (hardware wallets), and the consumer-oriented Bitcoin companies will fail soon.
This would be very sad.
 
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