Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[freetrader]

Could the anti-AsicBoost storm actually be a proxy for squashing this earlier Bitmain patent?
http://archive.is/Fe6vN

Jihan Wu (co-inventor on the Chinese patent) came out slightly critical against the HK consensus party line shortly after, and might be seen as a threat to the BTCC / BitFury group of miners supporting Core.

Could it be that other Chinese miners / chip forges want to eliminate his patent as a threat to their mining positions in China, and doing so while simultaneously eliminating AsicBoost would neatly secure BitFury's investments too?

I've opened a separate thread to ask @Jihan about the relationship between the patents, and his views on the current discussion.

 

[cypherdoc]

This is very promising for Bitcoin:

Once Again, Thieves Enter Swift Financial Network and Steal
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/business/dealbook/swift-global-bank-network-attack.html?referer=
[doublepost=1463142962][/doublepost]Oops, there's that dirty word there. I thought that could only be a bad thing according to Feinstein?:

“An event like this changes the risk profile for the banking system, since the attackers will inevitably reinvest some of their profits in new large-scale attacks,” said Paul Kocher, a security and encryption expert who is the president of Cryptography Research, a division of Rambus.

This is very promising for Bitcoin:

Once Again, Thieves Enter Swift Financial Network and Steal
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/business/dealbook/swift-global-bank-network-attack.html?referer=

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

The thing is, we can never reach total independence while participating in an economy. Unless you live on a farm, you are always dependent on supermarket shelves being stocked. The supermarket is a middleman. Without such middlemen there would be no way to keep everyone alive in the current population sizes, at least with current technology.

Complete self-sufficiency is not necessary, and as we have argued here, chasing that ideal (everyone everywhere can cheaply run a full node) would result in being taken over by an altcoin (or more likely a Bitcoin fork/spinoff) that strikes a market-favored compromise between the two extremes of "minimum node spec = Raspberry Pi on dialup connection" and "only a few huge data center nodes per jurisdiction."

Fortunately, the way open source and ledger-copying works, we can try them all, all at once. And with no risk for current investors (people who invest after a fork/spinoff will have to make a choice, but whatever they choose, current investors get all the rewards for any and all wins - by default). That is, unless we for some reason don't create forks/spinoffs in time when viable altcoins appear (in which case I would nearly have to conclude cryptocurrency is a dead concept).

Core refuses to define a minimum node spec, like Jameson Lopp suggests, because that would lead to complaints on both sides: certain people wouldn't be able to run a full node, and the blocksize would still have to be small. Any increase or decrease would irritate one or the other side.

They strive for inclusion via ambiguity. What we need, and what the market will eventually demand, is clarity. Inclusion isn't necessary for Bitcoin, because the ledger can split with no harm to current investors. It's only necessary for Blockstream profits.

Core/BS reminds me of the CEO of a company trying to build a perpetual motion machine, who is constantly saying, "We may not have all the details on how we will do it, but we have a roadmap that gets us there and we will take things one step at a time." This doesn't make any sense since the goal is unachievable... unless the real goal is to maximize venture capital and personal gain.

Now you do the same thing like "they": Shifting the goal to some spacy-daisy-maximalism and rejecting the possible because the maximalistic goal is impossible.

We can't scale to eternity - we don't need to scale to 2 MB.
You can't live completely self-sufficient - you don't need to have financial independency.

What I mean: Maximalisms should never be an argument.

Beside that: yes, we need a middleway, something between "every raspberry on earth" and "only big datacenters." Some minimum number would be good, but considering the kind core discusses the issue don't expect it. goals are shifted all day, like bandwith was first a primary reason not to raise the blocksize, but has become a irrelevant factor, when xthin was released.

For me Core is simply a group of smart people living in a world of theory and binary realities and thinking Bitcoin is their toy. Bitcoin has decided to keep them in power and follow them, and bitcoin has decided that censorship is the way to go. Neither SegWit nor RBF nor Lightning will ever see a usable implementation, I guess, and if investors get that the so called roadmap is good in theory, but fails in reality, things will get dirty. There will be no magic revelation, classic has been dissed to heavy, the community is splitted too heavy, too many egos at work, that will never admit they have been wrong ... most probably it will be a desaster or bitcoin will become irrelevant.

 

[cypherdoc]

well, well:


Knives out for R3 blockchain group as it seeks $200m in funding

Bank-backed blockchain mega-consortium R3CEV is rumoured to be facing a little trouble from its member banks over its extra funding needs.

…

The request for funding has reportedly not gone down wellwith the core members of the R3 consortium, who want a bigger return on their investment and for their support of the overall project.

An insider has described the situation as an “implosion”, adding that “the big banks are apoplectic with the high-handed approach and are busy considering their options.”

~ IBSIntelligence.com

http://www.bitcoinerrorlog.com/2016/05/13/r3cev-articles-mysteriously-disappear/
[doublepost=1463145568][/doublepost]Despite Blockchain-without-Bitcoin being a relatively unproven solution, the competition is heating up faster than a basement GPU mining farm. R3CEV is facing a reality where companies like IBM and Digital Asset are going all-in against them. That’s a lot of hungry investment money fighting over what may be an imaginary slice of vaporous pie.

Maybe if R3 representatives such as Tim Swanson and Mike Hearn spent less time trolling Bitcoin via blog posts and more time embracing the world’s greatest blockchain, they’d actually be getting somewhere.

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

Do the rest of you have the same experience?

Funnily I had exact the opposite experience. Most people, that had any opinion about money at all, had the opinion that "real money" must be variable in production to control inflation. It's burned into a lot of Europeans minds apparently.

- do you know how the nodes are financed? Selling APIs to let people broadcast their (locally created and signed) transactions may be enough for a couple of nodes, but not for 1-2 in every big city.

If you care about your money you will find a way to finance a node.
One idea I like, but I don't know how popular this idea is, is to take a small cut from SPV clients for your service.

And do you know how to prevent that we see regulation in the sense that this limited number of nodes needs to do KYC?
The thing is: bitcoin is about financial independency. If you can't run a node, you are not really independent but need a middle men.

If Bitcoin ever reaches the described status it grew beyond regulation stuff. The 1-datacenter scenario is a long term goal where Bitcoin ate the current system.

Furthermore, if you have nodes all over the world you will always find one without regulation, that's why I said it's important that there is good enough coverage in different jurisdictions.

"Can't run a node" is relative. It's always a question how much you are willing to invest.

This may be better than the current system (at least, you have controll over your keys and we have a limited supply), but it's not the whole vision of bitcoin.

You have control over your keys and you always have the possibility to fork away. Can't do that with the Dollar or Euro.

Core refuses to define a minimum node spec, like Jameson Lopp suggests, because that would lead to complaints on both sides: certain people wouldn't be able to run a full node, and the blocksize would still have to be small. Any increase or decrease would irritate one or the other side.

I think it's a very good idea to have the different camps give minimum specs for a node in the next 2 years or so.
There is too much talk without definitions. I.e. "Decentralized" isn't a digital value that's either on or off.

We can't scale to eternity - we don't need to scale to 2 MB.
You can't live completely self-sufficient - you don't need to have financial independency.

It's about centrally planning how Bitcoin should develop in the future vs. letting it grow free and see where it gets us. We probably won't be doing coffee purchases on the Blockchain if there are better alternatives but I still think it's possible, if(!) bitcoin ever got that big, that there were enough technical resources to someday do every transaction on earth on the Bitcoin blockchain. We are not talking about tomorrow or the next 2-3 years here.

For me Core is simply a group of smart people

Few smart people and a lot of dumb people.


Summing up, I don't think there is a reason to be scared about Bitcoin centralizing because there are too many transactions done with Bitcoin. The best protection against prohibition and censorship is widespread use, not a C64 being a full node.

 

[Paashaas]

Neither SegWit nor RBF nor Lightning will ever see a usable implementation

Bitcoin cannot please everybody, We will get Segwitt, deal with it and dont cry like a little baby. Ore sell youre coins and move on, but im sure you dont that.

 

[cypherdoc]

lol, this is what i call "breaking support":

[doublepost=1463148602][/doublepost]looking very ominous. the Primary Dow Theory Bear Trend is still in force:

 

[Paashaas]

http://www.bitcoinerrorlog.com/2016/05/13/r3cev-articles-mysteriously-disappear/

Nice read! Those bankers from R3 are running around like head-less chickens. Wow, they need $200m for there own Blockchain..those investors will scratching there heads with it; ('' Wasn't it a better idea to keep the focus on Bitcoin's chain'')

 

[cypherdoc]

Bitcoin cannot please everybody, We will get Segwitt, deal with it and dont cry like a little baby. Ore sell youre coins and move on, but im sure you dont that.

how do you overcome 5.9% Classic hashrate?

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

Bitcoin cannot please everybody, We will get Segwitt, deal with it and dont cry like a little baby. Ore sell youre coins and move on, but im sure you dont that.

Ah, the "take it or STFU" attitude. If this goes on, bitcoin will find itself in a very small niche.

Question: If bitcoin cannot please everybody - who is it, who is pleased? And why?

I'm sure we will get SegWit, but I doubt it is useable.

Question: How will it be rolled out? Will every wallet and every exchange need to send and receive Bitcoin in two variations? Will my exchange send out SW-outputs to those who use SW, and standard-outputs to those who don't use SW? And if I got a payment request from someone, do I also need to decide if I build SW-outputs or standard-outputs?

This question is not to proof any point. It is a question I want an answer.

 

[cypherdoc]

great post by Michael Toomim. didn't know he coded:

[doublepost=1463153173][/doublepost]such bullshit:

Bitcoin May Help Criminals, But Blockchain Can Help Thwart Fraud

But the underlying ledger technology behind bitcoin — the blockchain — should lack such negative connotations due to its capability of tracking users' activities in a rigorous way.

http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/bitcoin-may-help-criminals-but-blockchain-can-help-thwart-fraud-1080937-1.html
[doublepost=1463153471,1463152798][/doublepost]just look at the misunderstanding aka bullshit:

Taking a cryptographic "fingerprint" of a transaction and adding it to a ledger that everyone across the enterprise has is both accurate and virtually impossible to hack. Not impossible, but so unlikely it would take, say, a thousand years and many rooms full of computers.

uh, no, you idiots. it would take 3 sec and a motivated group of colluding bankster institutions in charge of such a blockchain desiring a bailout or to steal.

 

[cypherdoc]

looking very bad. once we get below that little red line (17484) look out for the real plunge. maybe Monday:

[doublepost=1463170015][/doublepost]good interview; Fred Ehrsam:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-early-bitcoin-company-coinbase-adapting-to-blockchain-frenzy-fred-ehrsam-brian-armstrong-bitcoin-exchanges-140054770.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma

 

[Aquent]

I think the asicboost thing is just a red flag to make the hardfork controversial and perhaps show that once we open the way for a hardfork it could lead to all sorts of things.

Gavin was very explicit in stating he wanted the hard fork to focus on only 2mb or whatever, while they are pretty explicitly stating they want it to focus on everything, including something pretty irrelevant to most, but giant mining farms.

And, of course, once you talk about everything, you talk about nothing. It was never their choice or decision anyway, but that of the miners, and as the current softfork stands at a measly 35%, the miners are making their voice loud and clear.

The problem is, their choice is rejection, that is passive choice, instead of actively choosing. They were going to make an active choice, perhaps, on May the second, but then the whole Wright nonsense messed up everything. Now, maybe, we should just let core show their arrogance and the miners figure out their mistake on their own.

At the end of the day, it doesn't hugely matter. What is obvious, is obvious.

 

[cypherdoc]

Here's a guy who's bearish:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-05-11/milton-berg-we-re-at-the-cusp-of-a-30-year-bear-market

 

[albin]

I can't even imagine how radically a 30 year-long bear market would impact society. For starters, a couple generations will not be able to retire in the manner that they expected.

 

[Inca]

In the UK we have some interesting demographic issues which I think explain why UK government is so keen to allow continued uncontrolled migration onto our tiny island. By 2030 I have read that a projected 50% of the population will be over 65.

Japanese style economics are here to stay. NIRP is here to stay. Generations following the baby boomers in the UK are fucked over by sky high asset prices, seeing their parents generation retire on gold plated index linked pensions with no prospect of a similar happy ending, priced out of the housing market which is booming once again (whilst real pay isn't).

Bitcoin should resonate with current generations more in my opinion. I am surprised it has not garnered more use among the youth of today as an investment and savings plan. It could become a self fulfilling prophesy if a movement began. After the halving inflation drops to 5% and things could get very interesting as it begins to compete (in a predictable fashion) with conventional currencies which will inflate away to dust.

I have stopped waiting for interest rates to spike and crash asset prices globally - it would cause a global depression and seems unlikely when you have central banks literally printing money to buy one another bonds. The game can carry on forever if you have a printer and the illusion of a bond market.

In that context I can see stocks being stagnant in real terms, rising in fiat currency units, but continuing as we have since 08.

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

If someone's interesting and able to read german / to deal with google translate, here's an interview with Timo Hanke regading asicboost / core

https://bitcoinblog.de/2016/05/14/eine-katastrophale-message/

--

@cypherdoc, @albin @Inca

I don't believe in a 30 year bear market. If we are in a bubble, we'll see a correction companied with some kind of inflation, but a 30 year bear markets need fundamental reasons and is not imaginable under the condition of growth (what is for nearly a century a basic element of western societies)

I recently read "the capital" from Thomas Piketty, and propably the most interesting chapter was about growth. It said, beside many other interesting things, that growth is a result of
- population growth
- productivity / head growth

As in europe our population growth is like the blocksize (sorry, couldn't resist), we see some flatening of the economic growth. But as long as technology advances, we'll see a continuos growth in productivity per head. Maybe things will get interesting, when we'll see a shrinking of productive parts of the population due to basic income plus demographic change plus robots. But this is some time in the future.

Also Piketty said that this growth, that we see, 2-4-8 percent, is far from being anything normal in history. He thinks that growth will flat out on between 0-1 percent in the future. So, maybe we'll see a looong bear market someday, but this will be a major turning point in history, and I don't think we reached it yet.

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

I have to admit I didn't think about an ASIC boost patent giving Chinese miners yet another advantage as they'll be able to buy cheap hardware without paying patent fees that can't be exported to the US..
I still think there is no reason to do anything about this atm but I also don't think a patent on Asic boost net will have a positive effect.

I was wondering if this patent is even enforceable outside the US. On first glance it seems to be a software patent which normally can't be registered in the EU.
It might still be patentable because sadly the EU allows patents like this although it is against the rules...

And btw. Imho Timo Hanke is a very bad representative of his profession and he should be ashamed. You shouldn't patent algorithms or mathematical discoveries, even if the retarded system allows you to do that.

 

[Inca]

If someone's interesting and able to read german / to deal with google translate, here's an interview with Timo Hanke regading asicboost / core

https://bitcoinblog.de/2016/05/14/eine-katastrophale-message/

--

@cypherdoc, @albin @Inca

I don't believe in a 30 year bear market. If we are in a bubble, we'll see a correction companied with some kind of inflation, but a 30 year bear markets need fundamental reasons and is not imaginable under the condition of growth (what is for nearly a century a basic element of western societies)

I recently read "the capital" from Thomas Piketty, and propably the most interesting chapter was about growth. It said, beside many other interesting things, that growth is a result of
- population growth
- productivity / head growth

As in europe our population growth is like the blocksize (sorry, couldn't resist), we see some flatening of the economic growth. But as long as technology advances, we'll see a continuos growth in productivity per head. Maybe things will get interesting, when we'll see a shrinking of productive parts of the population due to basic income plus demographic change plus robots. But this is some time in the future.

Also Piketty said that this growth, that we see, 2-4-8 percent, is far from being anything normal in history. He thinks that growth will flat out on between 0-1 percent in the future. So, maybe we'll see a looong bear market someday, but this will be a major turning point in history, and I don't think we reached it yet.

Don't forget the traditional rules of economics and capitalism were rewritten in 2008 to prevent a Great Depression and global deflationary credit spiral.

NIRP is not normal. It breaks capitalism by no longer rewarding hoarding of currency units. As intended it promotes reckless lending and borrowing to keep asset prices falsely inflated. The longer the central banks keep rates rigged at zero by buying bonds the more difficult it becomes to stop the printing. It encourages speculation by everyone, desperately seeking yield, and makes pricing assets impossible. Have you seen money velocity charts for the last ten years? (Just wait until that spikes up). It destroys conventional pension schemes by crushing yields, which in the UK further drives money into an already overheated property sector.

My personal view is that they now cannot stop. A rate rise of one or two percent in the UK would cause a million householders to default on their mortgages and drastically reduce what Joe Public can borrow from the bank - remember in UK the vast majority of mortgages are variable rate. What do you think that would do to asset prices? Hint: it would decimate them. Also with central banks funding deficits in the UK and US there is no longer a realistic proposition for governments to tax their way back to a healthy sustainable debt:GDP ratio.

The really interesting question is what does this abhorrent situation do for commodity currencies like bitcoin. I would think it would drive investment into the space as we have seen from companies aiming to flesh out the digital infrastructure. I expect more direct investment in the currency and through vehicles like the ETF, should they sidestep political interference and be approved. A positive word from Obama would be a step towards that.

I am expecting bitcoin could be worth between 50 and 500 billion dollars in the next 5 years, which is part of the reason why I am so vocally opposed to the Core developers roadmap which lacks vision of the potential for bitcoin to grow globally, instead focusing on layer 2.0 solutions that do not exist.

That is unless we see major political change, with dangerous free trade agreements ripped up, protectionism, economic segregation, debt jubilees and war. Much easier to keep printing and allow the outrageous to become normal and continue the status quo.

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

This forum is not very quoting-friendly ... but I try ...

To clear this up: I think we don't need a blocksize limit at all, and I also think that keeping a limit to manage fee and restrict growth is central planning. I also think that in this debate we had so much instrumentally used misconceptions (e. G. blocksize-limit === blocksize etc.), and so much toxicity, manipulation and censorship, that it literally destroyed the community respectively splitted it into 1. toxic 2. sheepy 3. frustrated people. Sometimes I think it's too late to reunite. But I'm optimistic and I see three choices:
- follow the "consensus": small blocks or STFU
- fork off
- search for a compromise

As it is I'm for the third option, because the first is not debatable for me and the second is inferior to just switching to ethereum and let bitcoin be what "they" want bitcoin to be. This is imho, I know, some of you don't think so. But to follow my line of thought: the search for a compromise is only possible if you accept some basics of the other side. And this is that we should not be dependent on supernodes. Also I'm not sure if this is what I want.

If you care about your money you will find a way to finance a node.

That's not a good plan.

One idea I like, but I don't know how popular this idea is, is to take a small cut from SPV clients for your service.

hm, yes, that's natural, the only way this fits is that datacenter-nodes cut a fee from you to send your transaction. The good thing in this modell is that you keep your privkey and sign the tx by yourself, the bad thing is you'd need the supernode to broadcast it and to check your balances.

An alternative could be that supernodes combine transactions with op_return: advertisment, spam the blockchain with ads, and you don't have to pay to read them. Or they take fees for special services (escrow, consumer protections, contracts, etc.)

One problem I see is that we see again the google/facebook-problem: extremely centralization to 4-5 entities in the whole world.

Those who want a free coin will need to change the ledger. But good thing: they have the choice to do.

If Bitcoin ever reaches the described status it grew beyond regulation stuff. The 1-datacenter scenario is a long term goal where Bitcoin ate the current system.

Furthermore, if you have nodes all over the world you will always find one without regulation, that's why I said it's important that there is good enough coverage in different jurisdictions.

"Can't run a node" is relative. It's always a question how much you are willing to invest.

Yeah, maybe.

You have control over your keys and you always have the possibility to fork away. Can't do that with the Dollar or Euro.

As I said - it's much better then the current system, and it's much better than the current system + 1MB blocks bitcoin

Summing up, I don't think there is a reason to be scared about Bitcoin centralizing because there are too many transactions done with Bitcoin. The best protection against prohibition and censorship is widespread use, not a C64 being a full node.

Yes. Completely with you.[/quote][/QUOTE]