Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[jonny1000]

Bitcoin is resilient to the "hard fork without consensus attack". If this is the case, we do not need to waste our time arguing about this, just let those advocating the hard fork proceed with their plan and see how things play out.

The reason Bitcoin is resilient to to hardforks without consensus attacks, is because network participants and incentivised to ensure this does not happen, so that we maintain consensus on the one true chain.

Part of the process in achieving this is arguments, posts on forums, meetings, discussions and miners thinking about is and discussing it and then deciding its a bad idea as otherwise they could lose money.

Those advocating a hardfork are free to "proceed with their plan". They are proceeding and are discovering that the participants in the network are voluntarily rallying behind the existing rules. For example 82% of node operators and 95% of miners are acting in their own self interest in supporting the existing rules, despite the fact they prefer a 2MB limit.

Out of interest, why else do you think 82% of node operators support the existing rules?

 

[AdrianX]

Could you explain the logic of how this works? How does "defeating the attack" now make Bitcoin stronger in future?

I see two possible situations:

1) Bitcoin is resilient to the "hard fork without consensus attack". If this is the case, we do not need to waste our time arguing about this, just let those advocating the hard fork proceed with their plan and see how things play out. If there are problems, we gain knowledge and can make necessary fixes. But Bitcoin survives with its fundamental value intact.

2) Bitcoin is vulnerable to the "hard fork without consensus attack". Defeating the attack requires convincing a significant proportion of the community to stop trying to hard fork without "consensus". Let's say a massive campaign of arguing, censoring forums, and making deals with miners manages to defeat the "attack". Then in a few years, Bitcoin grows and attracts an order of magnitude more participants to the ecosystem. But it also gains much stronger and well funded foes who try the "hard fork without consensus attack" again. How does the prior "victory" of the small blockists make it any easier to defeat this new attack?

This analysis is spot on in my view, well said. to add to point 2 it's going to be a lot easier to change fundamentals with a soft fork once the new scripting language is implemented and the president to avoid hard forks has been set, all that's required is a little bit of leverage and political maneuvering. No need to get hung up on the hard fork issue you just need financial leverage over the miners and 51% of Blockstream Core investors to agree a few digital influencers and a dash of PR. (translated it = 95% consensus)

[doublepost=1463983445][/doublepost]

However, the claim that they are consciously blocking a hardfork, due to their own financial self interests, is wrong and destructive. Please refrain from making this divisive claim.

Please could you help me understand this, could you provide any evidence to the contrary, and don't tell me Maxwell has held this position for ever, when I called him on it 2 years ago he pulled up an old post effectively saying "see you can trust me my opinion on the matter is consistent".

The irony was it just proved he'd formulating a business plan to profit from limiting the block size back then. It didn't support his argument that just prior he went and edited his post deleting much of the content before presenting it to me.

If your "fact" statement above were true Blockstream would fork Core and develop their solutions independently to avoid the conflict of interest and hope the browder Bitcoin community adopt their code on its merit, it does not support your claim that they insist on maintaining authority over the direction of development.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

However, the claim that they are consciously blocking a hardfork, due to their own financial self interests, is wrong and destructive. Please refrain from making this divisive claim.

It's not self-evidently wrong; it's unknown, and there are 70 million reasons to at least suspect it is right.

It should not be divisive to point out that there is a conflict of interest that warrants higher scrutiny of BS employees' claims, anymore than it would be divisive to point out that the biggest proponents of fracking have a conflict of interest because they work for Halliburton. Even if they started Halliburton because of their long-held belief that fracking is safe for the environment. Especially if they refused to even acknowledge the conflict of interest, and even more so if the main environmental discussion forums fastidiously censored all criticism of fracking, Halliburton, and its employees.

EDIT: Perhaps more importantly, it doesn't have to be one or the other. Blockstream folks' actions can be partly motivated by what they think is probably right and partly by their financial stake in BS. The COI is always a factor to consider, even if it's just what changes an "I'm pretty sure this is right" to a "MUST HOLD THE LINE AT ALL COSTS."

 

[Zarathustra]

@jonny1000

Why is that suspicion "wrong and destructive"? Why is a claim bad because it's "divisive"?

Yes, I don't have the desire to be reunited with the side that supports censorship and all those totalitarian tactics of organized violence.

 

[BldSwtTrs]

Many Blockstream employees are suffering from all kinds of biases, leading to all kinds of possibly inappropriate behavior or irrational reasoning. However, the claim that they are consciously blocking a hardfork, due to their own financial self interests, is wrong and destructive. Please refrain from making this divisive claim.

In the finance industry, best practice is to disclose any potential conflict of interests and let other stakeholders judge if it impacts the independence of the work being done and the objectivity of the opinions being conveyed.

The simple fact that they don't even publicly acknowledge the existence of a potential conflict of interests affects adversely the perceptions regarding their integrity.

 

[yrral86]

That is true, it is not easily defined. However locking in 25% opposition at the time of activation, with the stated aim of forking away the expected significant (25%) opposition is clearly not forking with the intention of strong consensus.

Can you give me one example of a democracy in the world that requires a 3/4 majority for anything? As far as I recall, here in the US, the highest bar is 2/3rds. Why should Bitcoin demand a stronger consensus?

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@yrral86

Perhaps because for a measly 2MB bump Bitcoin probably can reach 95%, and the 75% threshold is (according to some) actually why Classic is being rejected, apparently due to the perception* that this consistutes a plan for screwing over the remaining 25%.

*They don't realize that the 25% will either join us if they don't really care enough, or fork away if they do, with no one really getting shafted in either case.

 

[bluemoon]

@Zangelbert Bingledack

Blockstream Core are free to voice their worry that Classic is compromised by a plan to screw over the remaining 25%.

Since Classic are compromised they are not free to voice their worry Blockstream Core has hidden conflicts of interest.

 

[cypherdoc]

I've always said that Blockstream has 76 million reasons to be arguing dishonestly.

What parts of their behavior can't be explained by Core devs getting into a political/tribal battle? IMO you see the same sort of motivated reasoning and 'dishonest' tactics among liberals and conservatives arguing with each other. Yet these people sincerely believe that they are reasoning correctly and that the other side is just full of evil people and/or idiots. Or do you think most political discussions are also done in bad faith?

[doublepost=1464007094][/doublepost]I object to you continuously using the term "locked in" as if it means there will inevitably be 25% opposition of 2 chains as a result. Game Theory suggests that shouldn't happen.

That is true, it is not easily defined. However locking in 25% opposition at the time of activation, with the stated aim of forking away the expected significant (25%) opposition is clearly not forking with the intention of strong consensus.

I

 

[Richy_T]

That is true, it is not easily defined. However locking in 25% opposition at the time of activation, with the stated aim of forking away the expected significant (25%) opposition is clearly not forking with the intention of strong consensus.

I don't see this emphasis on strong concensus. People are expected to act in their own interest. If they think bigger blocks will benefit them better, they will attempt to steer the consensus in that direction. Now, you might want to pivot on some degree of consensus to protect value but there's nothing virtuous in strong consensus in and of itself.

Now, I think your position would be that a 95% threshold would have a) Protected the value of the blockchain and, perhaps more importantly, b) made the transition to a bigger block size limit more likely. I don't agree with the former, the damage being done to the blockchain with the current actions from Core is much larger in my opinion and as for b), given that the switch to a bigger limit could have been performed years ago with little fanfare, the only conclusion is that it has been deliberately stifled.

Consider also that even if Gavin's 8GB (actually just a removal of the limit and falling back to technical constraints, I believe) was too aggressive, the correct response would have been to counter with a lower value but still larger than the 1MB limit. That this wasn't done speaks options. At least Gavin was attempting to address the issue (and Jeff Garzik was attempting to soon after the limit was put in place)
[doublepost=1464014927][/doublepost]Hey Jonny, you've spoken a bit on hard forks, 2MB limits, strong consensus and Classic. I'd like to hear what you think of Bitcoin Unlimited's approach (which really is the house version)

 

[cypherdoc]

Another blow for freedom. This is good news;

The question of how and whether to regulate Bitcoin has confounded regulators around the world since it emerged in software form in 2009 from a paper authored by an anonymous computer scientist.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-22/california-agency-abandons-plans-to-regulate-digital-currency

 

[jonny1000]

Can you give me one example of a democracy in the world that requires a 3/4 majority for anything? As far as I recall, here in the US, the highest bar is 2/3rds. Why should Bitcoin demand a stronger consensus?

I am from the United Kingdom. In my country 40% of the electorate typically vote for the ruling party, which then has a majority in parliament and forms a government. The government then appoints the Bank of England policy committee members, who engage in policies like quantitative easing. The mandate for this policy is from the democratic system, which imposes changes to the money on savers, which is against the will of some of the savers.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with the above system, but to many Bitcoin is about providing a different alternative. The idea is that with Bitcoin, a majority can not impose changes to the money, against the will of a significant minority of savers/holders. Changes can only occur when there is consensus among the holders of the coin. I am very prepared to be pragmatic about this, there is no demand for unanimous consent.

In the UK I can send money instantly (100 milliseconds), for free (fees are exactly 0), with no meaningful capacity constraints, to almost every adult in the country, using the traditional banking system. To many, if Bitcoin loses the unique characteristic, that changes cannot be imposed on a significant minority by a democratic majority, then it has nothing unique about it and Bitcoin is therefore essentially pointless and totally useless. This is why a string majority of Bitcoin participants are so keen to defend the 2MB limit, even though they support 2MB in principle. We must ensure any changes can only occur with consensus, at all costs.

By the way, in modern political systems there are many examples of veto power:

• Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, have the right to veto resolutions
• Members of the European Union have the right to veto treaty changes
  
• US jury system

[doublepost=1464019731][/doublepost]

I object to you continuously using the term "locked in" as if it means there will inevitably be 25% opposition

That is how Classic works, 25% opposition is locked in. Classic activates if and only if exactly 25% of the blocks in the last 1,000 do not support it. It is impossible for Classic to activate with 80% support, for example. This is the root cause of the strong opposition to Classic, because Classic doesn't even give strong consensus a chance. Classic guarantees strong consensus cannot occur.
[doublepost=1464020113,1464019311][/doublepost]

Hey Jonny, you've spoken a bit on hard forks, 2MB limits, strong consensus and Classic. I'd like to hear what you think of Bitcoin Unlimited's approach (which really is the house version)

I have mentioned many times, BU is outside the scope of consensus systems. Users all set their own limits (some with no limit at all) and there is no effort to reach consensus on one set of rules. Nodes therefore diverges onto different chains.

 

[Zarathustra]

@jonny1000
"We must ensure any changes can only occur with consensus, at all costs."

The consensus rule (block size limit has to be far away from actual block size) has been changed without consensus.

 

[jonny1000]

It should not be divisive to point out that there is a conflict of interest that warrants higher scrutiny of BS employees' claims, anymore than it would be divisive to point out that the biggest proponents of fracking have a conflict of interest because they work for Halliburton. Even if they started Halliburton because of their long-held belief that fracking is safe for the environment. Especially if they refused to even acknowledge the conflict of interest, and even more so if the main environmental discussion forums fastidiously censored all criticism of fracking, Halliburton, and its employees.

I have no problem pointing out the potential conflicts of interests. However there is no evidence of malicious intent.

For example take central bankers, I am sure this is a topic many on this forum are familiar with. I think the following statements are true:

• Some central bankers are too close to the wealthy elite and senior leaders in finance. Therefore typically central bankers subconsciously engage in policies to help the wealthy and financial services industry without appropriately balancing out the negatives on other parts of society.
  
• In the future some central bankers may hope to get good jobs in finance, therefore this may subconsciously have an influence on behavior of some central bankers, who may feel it is important to try to maintain a good working relationship with private bankers and keep an open dialog of information.
  
• Some central bankers admit and understand that some polices like quantitative easing have positive effects on the wealthy, whilst at the same time make life more difficult for poorer people. These individuals would like the system to change, however unfortunately they feel trapped in the system and feel they have no choice to support and implement quantitative easing, given they feel in it the least worst option available to them in the imperfect system they find themselves part of.

I think the following statement is not supported by evidence and is not helpful or constructive dialog:

• Central bankers are too close to the wealthy and senior leaders in finance. Central bankers deliberately and maliciously engage in policies like quantitative easing to help their friends in the banks, knowing full well that poor people will suffer
• There is a revolving door between senior central bankers and senior figures in finance. These senior figures deliberately, maliciously and exclusively peruse the interests of their private banking organization while in public office. They do this in the full knowledge that there actions are for direct financial gain.
• Central bankers have deliberately constructed an unfair economic system, to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Ultimately the meaning and result of the above two cases is essentially exactly the same, apart from the intent of the individuals in question. Perhaps there is a minority of people that fit into the lower category. However, believe me, I have met many of these "senior leaders in finance" and almost all of them do not have this malicious intent.

In conclusion, believe what you like about Blockstream and there incentives. I can promise you this, the Blockstream employees themselves, do not believe they have this malicious intent. Therefore the intent is not malicious. From your perspective maybe this makes no difference. However, claiming malicious intent achieves nothing and is simply false.

 

[Mengerian]

The reason Bitcoin is resilient to to hardforks without consensus attacks, is because network participants and incentivised to ensure this does not happen, so that we maintain consensus on the one true chain.

Part of the process in achieving this is arguments, posts on forums, meetings, discussions and miners thinking about is and discussing it and then deciding its a bad idea as otherwise they could lose money.

If the future of Bitcoin depends on "posts on forums, meetings, discussions and miners thinking about it", that gives me very low confidence in its long term survival. It will require constant ongoing struggle to fend off all future challenges. One of those future attacks is bound to succeed, even if this one is defeated.

On the other hand, if Bitcoin is resilient to the "hard fork without consensus attack", then its future is bright. Developers can spend their energy on improving Bitcoin rather than arguing in forums. Hard fork attempts that could harm Bitcoin, like changing the 21 Million coin limit, are handled smoothly by nodes choosing to ignore the fork, and investors selling the new coin through fork arbitrage thereby destroying its value.

So why don't we try to find out which situation we are in? If Bitcoin is vulnerable to these attacks, it will inevitably fail. So we are better off exposing it to this attack sooner than later. If it fails we can all stop wasting our time on it.

On the other hand, if Bitcoin is resilient, then it's also better to let the hard fork attempt play out now. Bitcoin grows stronger and adds to its anti-fragility. We learn from any problems that arise, and gain the capability to deal with hard forks more gracefully. Investors and developers can build the ecosystem confident that Bitcoin can overcome the more formidable challenges it will inevitably face.

Those advocating a hardfork are free to "proceed with their plan". They are proceeding and are discovering that the participants in the network are voluntarily rallying behind the existing rules. For example 82% of node operators and 95% of miners are acting in their own self interest in supporting the existing rules, despite the fact they prefer a 2MB limit.

Out of interest, why else do you think 82% of node operators support the existing rules?

Although it can be difficult to guess other people's motives, I would guess it's inertia. Some mix of risk aversion (sticking with what is known), combined with lack of immediate and pressing need to switch. It is a type of coordination problem, so when node operators see most others running Core, they have little incentive to switch, even if they prefer larger blocks. If they saw more other nodes switching to Classic and Unlimited, more BIP109 blocks being mined, or the need for larger blocks seemed more urgent, I suspect many more node operators would switch.

Keep in mind that human actions take place through time, it is a dynamic process. So a snapshot of the situation at an instant in time isn't necessarily predictive of the future. If a tipping point is reached, possibly triggered by an external catalyst, change can happen rapidly.

 

[Melbustus]

@Zangelbert Bingledack : Good point. I suppose the difference would be intent, which is always difficult to prove.

On a related note, is it possible that I am suffering from cognitive dissonance?

Is it possible that I'm wrong and that Bitcoin is not political? And that somehow the miners siding with BS/Core keeps it that way? Is there some way this makes sense?

Is there some way to view developers working to improve bitcoin according to their own vision, and then marketing their code to the community, as an attack?

Or if I choose to accept blocks greater than 1 MB today, am I waging war against Bitcoin? What is the argument?

I like the thought experiment. The best argument I've heard to keep the 1MB limit unless there's >90% consensus (leaving measurement issues aside), is that by changing bitcoin on a 51% majority rules basis, it is destined for dilution of its key properties (supply cap & uncensorability specifically). The argument asserts that while it actually *is* bad to leave 1MB in place, it's worse to open the floodgates to change at the tyranny of the majority. Thus you would be "attacking" if you want to change things without almost unilateral consensus.

On the surface, there is indeed some rational basis for this argument. People point to the US Constitution as an example. A model of a very limited government, but where the parameters to cause governance change (eg, creation of laws/regs/taxes, amendments, etc) were unfortunately not set aggressively enough. >50% to pass a law, and 2/3-3/4 for an amendment have been empirically proven over 200yrs to be low enough to considerably water down the original intent. The revolutionary war was fought over <10% tax rates; now look where we are....etc.

So I certainly see that argument. But Bitcoin isn't the US Constitution. The parameters for change *can't* be set. The fundamental nature of bitcoin is that it achieves decentralized consensus by longest chain, where "longest" just means >50% of hashpower support. And this is the critical point: We do not know how to do permissionless consensus any other way but by "longest" chain. That was Bitcoin's key innovation and is fundamental to the system. So unlike the US Constitution, Bitcoin is mathematically a simple-majority-rules system.

I think that is a fact that many small-blockers cannot reconcile. Many people simply want to ignore that fact, want it to not be true, or to actively fight it. All such efforts will ultimately be futile, so my opinion is that we need to embrace it and do our best. Given that the system by definition can be changed with >50% hashpower opinion, we should NOT let obviously bad things like the 1MB hard-cap stick around just because we *want* the system to be unchangeable, and we should aggressively pursue making Bitcoin as competitive as possible on the open market. To do less dangerously ignores the key mathematical nature of the system.

 

[sickpig]

I am from the United Kingdom. In my country 40% of the electorate typically vote for the ruling party, which then has a majority in parliament and forms a government. The government then appoints the Bank of England policy committee members, who engage in policies like quantitative easing.

I'm using a crypto currency where 95% of the miners equals to the 5% (10%, 40%?) of the electoral base.

Despite of that miners can change consensus rules corpus at whim without me, node operator, having any chance to counteract their vote, a part from stop using my beloved crypto currency.

Is it fair?

It isn't, in my humble opinion.

For argument's sake let assume that preemptive strong consensus is an absolute requirement to change bitcoin consensus rules, then we should apply it both to soft forks and hard forks.

Distinction between hard and soft forks is a false dichotomy, and one of the most pernicious thing about bitcoin.

edit: add "preemptive" to qualify "strong consensus"

 

[cypherdoc]

Hmm, well respected zooko of zcash surprised at Thunder network. That's not good:

 

[bluemoon]

Changes can only occur when there is consensus among the holders of the coin.

You can poll the miners all you like, but they cannot possibly signal a consensus among bitcoin's holders.

Holders and potential holders of bitcoin show their approval for the state of the coin by how much they value it and compete to hold it, which is a market phenonemon.

Bitcoin serves the market or it is nothing. The market is not interested in whether some of bitcoin's operators find their operations congenial or fair; so long as the block reward persists, the market rewards them to the extent they maintain or increase the value of the coin.

If the miners are causing bitcoin to fail to serve the market, for example by failing to process sufficient transactions, the market will move elsewhere, the miners' rewards will decline, and miners will go bankrupt. It is up to the miners to resolve the failure. The market is not interested in what majority of miners it takes.

Bitcoin is a very conservative system. It is not so very easy to cause changes to be adopted, even by the standard of a bare majority of hash power. It is not obvious that introducing new restrictive and arbitrary rules such as requiring "strong consensus" helps bitcoin respond appropriately to the market, particularly if "strong consensus" entails a lot of political manoeuvring as opposed to participants being free to make their own independent decisions in the context of fairly straightforward and automatic system rules and market and network constraints and dynamics.

 

[Richy_T]

The idea is that with Bitcoin, a majority can not impose changes to the money, against the will of a significant minority of savers/holders.

Not at all. If the majority want to change the rules and see it is in their best interest, they can do so and the minority has to like it or lump it (or trundle along on their side of the fork). Bitcoin is a permission-less system. This is exactly why there *is* a risk of a 51% attack (which, incidentally is a reason to have incentive to grow the userbase and not let things stagnate).