once again, i am going to claim that with no delays btwn blocks, such as we're getting, and with such low utilization of my bandwidth, as i am seeing, the network is more than capable of processing/clearing the backed up mempool.
Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.
- Thread starter cypherdoc
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Melbustus
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Yeah, the key reason why bitcoin should suck market-cap from gold over time is because it has all of gold's properties PLUS it's *directly* useful in the modern economy. Since gold is NOT directly useful today, it's monetary inertia may very well bleed out over time.
If we make Bitcoin similarly NOT directly useful (via high fees or other friction), then we run the severe risk of dooming Bitcoin to that same dynamic early in life (ie, before meaningful inertia), and opening it up it to both competition and apathy.
Why we would intentionally do that in the absence of extraordinarily good and obvious reasons is beyond me.
@Melbustus
and Bitcoin doesn't have the worldwide luxury of base ornamental and industrial demand of $250/oz that gold enjoys.
furthermore, as a settlement layer, one can forget using Bitcoin as an embedded database for NASDAQ, smart contracts, colored coins, Factom etc b/c the tx fees will be way too expensive for that sort of usage.
and Bitcoin doesn't have the worldwide luxury of base ornamental and industrial demand of $250/oz that gold enjoys.
furthermore, as a settlement layer, one can forget using Bitcoin as an embedded database for NASDAQ, smart contracts, colored coins, Factom etc b/c the tx fees will be way too expensive for that sort of usage.
humanitee
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@Melbustus, preach brother.
IDK if you are on cryptocrypt but a lot of people over there want Bitcoin's cap to never move. These are long term Bitcoin holders/supporters. It boggles the mind.
If they really want it they can have it, I'll just abandon ship and short it into the ground.
IDK if you are on cryptocrypt but a lot of people over there want Bitcoin's cap to never move. These are long term Bitcoin holders/supporters. It boggles the mind.
If they really want it they can have it, I'll just abandon ship and short it into the ground.
Melbustus
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Ok, so from the "let's do something about this department", does anyone think a 0% (or even slightly <0%, funded via donations) mining pool that supports no cap would gain reasonable market-share? If launched and run by people willing to be open and non-anonymous, it'd potentially get support from the majority of bitcoin companies, users, VCs, and bitcoin hodlers.
Hashpower still has the loudest voice, afterall.
Hashpower still has the loudest voice, afterall.
@Melbustus
that's a clever idea.
give us more details. would you see the pool running Core code but with coinbase messages of No Limit? i suppose that even though there is no release code with NL on github yet, it wouldn't matter as if and when the pool took off, surely someone would step up with a NL code and be willing to be lead core dev (like Gavin hopefully).
it would be a hashing power before code scenario as opposed to code before hashing power ala BIP 100.
that's a clever idea.
give us more details. would you see the pool running Core code but with coinbase messages of No Limit? i suppose that even though there is no release code with NL on github yet, it wouldn't matter as if and when the pool took off, surely someone would step up with a NL code and be willing to be lead core dev (like Gavin hopefully).
it would be a hashing power before code scenario as opposed to code before hashing power ala BIP 100.
Melbustus
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@cypherdoc
Yeah, I think that's the gist. It'd be key for the people operating the pool to be known, and to operate with transparency and professionalism. The idea would be to get most of the bitcoin businesses on board. To date, there's no pool that they can easily support for various reasons.
This should be a US-based business (since most of the bitcoin ecosys is in the US), with the explicit charter of operating to support an unlimited blocksize. In fact, it should probably be a true non-profit, with donations going to hopefully both cover costs and yield overlay payouts to miners. If it could offer both the best payout option for miners, as well as support the long-term interests of the majority of the ecosystem in a non-competitive way, it could work well.
Yeah, I think that's the gist. It'd be key for the people operating the pool to be known, and to operate with transparency and professionalism. The idea would be to get most of the bitcoin businesses on board. To date, there's no pool that they can easily support for various reasons.
This should be a US-based business (since most of the bitcoin ecosys is in the US), with the explicit charter of operating to support an unlimited blocksize. In fact, it should probably be a true non-profit, with donations going to hopefully both cover costs and yield overlay payouts to miners. If it could offer both the best payout option for miners, as well as support the long-term interests of the majority of the ecosystem in a non-competitive way, it could work well.
@Melbustus
well, you'd need to hire a cracker jack admin or team of admins who know alot about defending against ddos, which would be the first thing expected.
i think i like the idea. not having run a pool before, i'm not sure how expensive it is, altho it can't be too much since i envision them as being merely servers. donations from US businesses would be ideal, however, esp since it would need to be fortified against all attacks.
well, you'd need to hire a cracker jack admin or team of admins who know alot about defending against ddos, which would be the first thing expected.
i think i like the idea. not having run a pool before, i'm not sure how expensive it is, altho it can't be too much since i envision them as being merely servers. donations from US businesses would be ideal, however, esp since it would need to be fortified against all attacks.
Melbustus
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I think the risk of an economically suboptimal blocksize is far worse than the risk that somehow the bitcoin ecosystem wouldn't be able to defend against a malicious 1Exabyte block creating miner. What would likely happen is that most nodes and most miners would run a soft limit and that'd be that.
In short, leave it to the market.
Yeah, it wouldn't be a trivial endeavor. But it's nuts that bitcoin businesses - ie, where most of the capital in the ecosystem actually lies, doesn't have a voice in mining. A non-profit to give them such a voice seems reasonable.
...and to be clear, with a payout structure that's clearly one of the most advantageous in the ecosystem, the actual hash power would come from a large collection of small users. If the pool were to abuse that relationship and start implementing things that users didn't want, they'd flee (as we saw with Deepbit, and GHash and others). So there'd be that implied broad user "mandate" as well.
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I think this would be an excellent idea! To make it impactful, it would be great to organize it in stealth mode, secure support from some influential businesses/VCs/thought leaders, negotiate deals to direct 5-10% of the hash power at your pool, and then flip the switch and make the announcement. An event like that could catalyze a lot of other miners to make similar changes.
In my opinion, it is crystal clear that the economic majority wants larger block sizes; the difficulty is organizing everyone--especially since our primary organizational platforms (Core Dev, Reddit, etc.) are now working agains the will of community (at least that's my impression).
humanitee
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I'm slow today, but how are nodes going to run a soft limit? They relay blocks, they don't choose what goes into them. They could reject a block that was too high but if their peers don't we could fork.
In a perfect world that's great, but big miners already had their limits at 750 KB instead of 1 MB which doesn't inspire confidence for this scenario.
In a perfect world that's great, but big miners already had their limits at 750 KB instead of 1 MB which doesn't inspire confidence for this scenario.
"In a perfect world that's great, but big miners already had their limits at 750 KB instead of 1 MB which doesn't inspire confidence for this scenario." @humanitee
The soft limit is just the max size of the block the miner's node will produce. A miner will still build upon blocks that are larger than his soft limit.
The soft limit is just the max size of the block the miner's node will produce. A miner will still build upon blocks that are larger than his soft limit.
humanitee
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I know that, but if you relay it to me and I say "whoa buddy that's too big" and so does 51% of the network it would be rejected right? At least for our subsection, then it's a race to build the longest chain as is usual with forks. I suppose you would need a block to be mined around the same time that was smaller and therefore accepted by the smaller limits, so it would be included instead. I don't see how this wouldn't fork for a time.
@humanitee
I think the idea would be to communicate "we will build on any block that you can propagate to us and that we can validate in time"; however, the blocks we would build would always be of a size that we'd be confident would be accepted by the majority of hash power.
In other words, we'd have no hard limit but we'd set our soft limit to be in-line with the effective limit imposed by the majority of the network.
Am I correct, @Melbustus?
I think the idea would be to communicate "we will build on any block that you can propagate to us and that we can validate in time"; however, the blocks we would build would always be of a size that we'd be confident would be accepted by the majority of hash power.
In other words, we'd have no hard limit but we'd set our soft limit to be in-line with the effective limit imposed by the majority of the network.
Am I correct, @Melbustus?
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Melbustus
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@Peter R - Yeah, I think that sounds right. And we'd be transparent with what size block we were "confident" in getting accepted.
FWIW, if we ever got to >30% hashpower, I'd suggest splitting the business into two completely separate entities with zero management/ownership overlap, but with the same stated business-model/charter. Thus, the fraction of the network that supports Bitcoin Unlimited could eventually exceed 50% without being a 51% threat.
FWIW, if we ever got to >30% hashpower, I'd suggest splitting the business into two completely separate entities with zero management/ownership overlap, but with the same stated business-model/charter. Thus, the fraction of the network that supports Bitcoin Unlimited could eventually exceed 50% without being a 51% threat.
