Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

theZerg

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His expertise in these matters is undermined by his consistent misspelling of collaterALized. Why are you quoting this?
 

cypherdoc

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Aug 26, 2015
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@theZerg

b/c he makes good pts regardless of his spelling.

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this looks bad to me in that the $DJT did not clear it's previous high:

 

cypherdoc

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Aug 26, 2015
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That's a huge concern it's in my view worse than most think.

Blockchain Core developers feel that changing Bitcoin is fair game so long as you don't change the rules that make valid transactions and valid blocks.

Going so far as offering miners added revenue if they run their modified version of Bitcoin. They call it a harmless soft fork needed for sidechains with merged mining, but in reality it's a change to the software that runs Bitcoin and it's an attack on the incentive system that protects Bitcoin.

It offers miners an incentive to move transaction out of the blockchain and onto other chains.

Soft forks are fine when you look at how Mike runs Lighthouse on the Bitcoin protocol, but when you need it included in the speck (reference client to run) it's border line abuse. In reality Blockstream Core developers want to implement code without network conscious. At least that's what's advertised with it only requires a soft fork.

I'm OK with that so long as we are free to choose.
i agree. i guess my source of urgency is more acute having watched them continuously slip in soft fork changes to the protocol which facilitates their business model more so in the last few months. take CLTV for instance. i don't know alot about it but i know that the LN folk consider it important for them.

 

solex

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While Bitcoin Unlimited, is the ultimate solution, I think that pursuing it now, as described with no limit, is a strategic error.

Firstly, BIP101 is a very good real-world approximation of Bitcoin Unlimited, it assumes a quite aggressive annual growth rate in global bandwidth. When the initial 8MB block limit is activated does anyone think that a miner being prevented from creating an 11MB block, in a busy period within the next 2 years, is a major drawback to the functioning of Bitcoin?

Secondly, a classic tactic for a minority to maintain the status quo is divide and rule. The division of big block supporters into multiple camps is one thing preventing the required woolly "consensus" for change. That has been a problem with the 100 different solutions already proposed for the 1MB, there are supporters for every one of them who reject different solutions, leaving the status quo with less pressure to change. The HK conference is likely to coalesce towards a solution but it will be weaker than BIP101, let alone no limit.

Perhaps the best way forward is a rebranding exercise. Implement BIP 101 in a version of Core and call it Bitcoin Unlimited.
 

theZerg

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Its not a misspelling when you do it 2x in a row. Its a symptom of the root issue which is that his analysis is simplistic and therefore unlikely to convince anyone. You are connecting with one node in the lightning network which itself may be decentralized. If all the bitcoin SPV nodes connected to a single node in a freak coincidence we would have a similar situation.

The real issue is that there are significant centralization pressures that encourage there to be few lightning network nodes.
 
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rocks

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Sep 24, 2015
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While Bitcoin Unlimited, is the ultimate solution, I think that pursuing it now, as described with no limit, is a strategic error.

Firstly, BIP101 is a very good real-world approximation of Bitcoin Unlimited, it assumes a quite aggressive annual growth rate in global bandwidth. When the initial 8MB block limit is activated does anyone think that a miner being prevented from creating an 11MB block, in a busy period within the next 2 years, is a major drawback to the functioning of Bitcoin?

Secondly, a classic tactic for a minority to maintain the status quo is divide and rule. The division of big block supporters into multiple camps is one thing preventing the required woolly "consensus" for change. That has been a problem with the 100 different solutions already proposed for the 1MB, there are supporters for every one of them who reject different solutions, leaving the status quo with less pressure to change. The HK conference is likely to coalesce towards a solution but it will be weaker than BIP101, let alone no limit.

Perhaps the best way forward is a rebranding exercise. Implement BIP 101 in a version of Core and call it Bitcoin Unlimited.
This is just what I've been arguing for, fork the core with the single change for BIP101 (or unlimited). Makes it clear and removes the "don't go to Hearn's private client" arguments. It creates a single decision for people and removes everything else. Personally I like the name Satoshi's Promise, but that probably only appeals to a smaller set of people who care about Satoshi's white paper. Bitcoin Unlimited does seem to make the functionality for people very clear from a marketing perspective and seems to be something most people could rally behind.
 

humanitee

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Sep 7, 2015
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While Bitcoin Unlimited, is the ultimate solution, I think that pursuing it now, as described with no limit, is a strategic error.

Firstly, BIP101 is a very good real-world approximation of Bitcoin Unlimited, it assumes a quite aggressive annual growth rate in global bandwidth. When the initial 8MB block limit is activated does anyone think that a miner being prevented from creating an 11MB block, in a busy period within the next 2 years, is a major drawback to the functioning of Bitcoin?

Secondly, a classic tactic for a minority to maintain the status quo is divide and rule. The division of big block supporters into multiple camps is one thing preventing the required woolly "consensus" for change. That has been a problem with the 100 different solutions already proposed for the 1MB, there are supporters for every one of them who reject different solutions, leaving the status quo with less pressure to change. The HK conference is likely to coalesce towards a solution but it will be weaker than BIP101, let alone no limit.

Perhaps the best way forward is a rebranding exercise. Implement BIP 101 in a version of Core and call it Bitcoin Unlimited.
I thought about this as well, it directly undermines XT. Is it really worth doing? The more you fragment your user base, the more likely you are to fail to secure majority. If it's done after January, then whatever, go for it. We can't even get people to agree to BIP101 so this has approximately 0% chance of happening anyway.

People want:
Core > XT > Unlimited blocks

and before someone responds with "no they don't", they in fact do. Look at node counts.

Sorry guys, we are on the losing side of this for now. Until the block limit is met every block they can kick the can, and they will. That's why I was so pessimistic in my first post. We lose. If/when they adopt a block size increase proposal, it will be some piddly 4 - 8 MB bs that none of us wants.

There's too much cult of personality, cult of authority, and cult of ignorance to even have a shot at it. The only metric that we have to go by that gained any traction (node counts) can be easily manipulated. Miners did nothing so far. All bark no bite.

It's a sad state of affairs.


This is just what I've been arguing for, fork the core with the single change for BIP101 (or unlimited). Makes it clear and removes the "don't go to Hearn's private client" arguments. It creates a single decision for people and removes everything else. Personally I like the name Satoshi's Promise, but that probably only appeals to a smaller set of people who care about Satoshi's white paper. Bitcoin Unlimited does seem to make the functionality for people very clear from a marketing perspective and seems to be something most people could rally behind.
This already exists, it's the clients tagged as "BigBlocks" or something like that. It's core with BIP101 integrated.
 
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Peter R

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...a classic tactic for a minority to maintain the status quo is divide and rule. The division of big block supporters into multiple camps is one thing preventing the required woolly "consensus" for change. That has been a problem with the 100 different solutions already proposed for the 1MB, there are supporters for every one of them who reject different solutions, leaving the status quo with less pressure to change.
The "Bitcoin Unlimited" I'm imagining helps with cohesion for the "bigger block cause" without requiring that people abandon their preferred solution (BIP100, BIP101, etc.)

Bitcoin Unlimited is designed to reduce the friction for bigger blocks; it will show support for all proposals that intend to lift the block size limit. It will flag support for BIP101 and it will vote in BIP100. If another BIP shows promise, it will vote for that too. In other words, it will be largely agnostic to the method used to achieve larger blocks because it will be compatible with all methods.

If there was a Bitcoin Unlimited Mining Pool, it would publicly agree to mine on top of any sized block another miner could propagate to it; however, the pool would only build blocks that it was confident would be accepted by the majority of the hash power. This way, the Bitcoin Unlimited Pool would never be an impediment to raising the block size limit.

Lastly, I like Bitcoin Unlimited because if--for example--ten percent of the hash power ran it, it would prove that the protocol rules don't need to be completely homogenous in order for Bitcoin to function. It would help kill the silly idea that we need some sort of "consensus" in addition to the consensus formed by the longest proof or work chain.
 

Zangelbert Bingledack

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Aug 29, 2015
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@humanitee

XT hasn't lost at all, because node count doesn't become a test of its success until things get down to the wire. Most people won't change to a new client just to show support, even if they will do it without hesitation once blocks start to become painfully full.

The node counts we have seen indicate the number of people who care enough to make a political statement at the cost of perhaps several hours of their time and some risk (as well as the chance that they are supporting the wrong big block implementation, as a better one may come along or Core might get its act together). That seems likely to be a tiny percentage of all those who would actually jump to XT when push comes to shove and Core remains recalcitrant and no other implementation offers big enough blocksize caps.
 

rocks

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This already exists, it's the clients tagged as "BigBlocks" or something like that. It's core with BIP101 integrated.
Did not know that, thanks for sharing.

Bitcoin Unlimited is designed to reduce the friction for bigger blocks; it will show support for all proposals that intend to lift the block size limit. It will flag support for BIP101 and it will vote in BIP100. If another BIP shows promise, it will vote for that too. In other words, it will be largely agnostic to the method used to achieve larger blocks because it will be compatible with all methods.
So essentially a client that votes for every block increase BIP. That is the best idea yet.

From a mining perspective I'm assuming it would create blocks with the BIP101 version and the BIP100 size vote tag, any other mechanisms that need to be included?
 
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rocks

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Trolls are on notice
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3ommzh/trolls_are_on_notice/

It almost seems as if Thermos won't be happy until /r/bitcoin only has 5 users left all signing party slogans in perfect harmony with one another. BTW, I've noticed that the # users here now has been constantly decreasing over the past month. Only 500 right now, it used to be at 800-900 during the same time period.
 
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Peter R

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So essentially a client that votes for every block increase BIP. That is the best idea yet.

From a mining perspective I'm assuming it would create blocks with the BIP101 version and the BIP100 size vote tag, any other mechanisms that need to be included?
Right, it would create blocks with the BIP101 version and the BIP100 size vote tag (and vote for a very large block too). If a new BIP gained traction that required another mechanism to be included, then it would be included too if possible.

Also, it wouldn't wait for some future consensus event before accepting bigger blocks. It would always accept bigger blocks. However, it would only ever attempt to build blocks that it was confident would be accepted by the majority of the network's hash power.
 

cypherdoc

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Aug 26, 2015
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when markets turn, all news is good news:



this is the Gold thread afterall :)

btw, i was surprised this comment didn't get deleted straight away.

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this sounds bad:

 
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rocks

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Sep 24, 2015
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This thread originally started in a Speculation forum, however I have never made any price predictions in it. So here is my first speculative prediction on price.

I believe the price has bottomed out and hit it's low for this cycle since the 2013 run. The price may still go down a bit from today's price and even go through $200, but the Jan 2015 $166 price is the low for this cycle and I doubt we will see the more recent Aug 2015 $198 price again.

I expect we will see a slow grind higher for a period of time, probably around 12 months, before a run over the previous high. Very similar to the price action in 2012, where after the 2011 low was hit, the price formed a base and slowly grinded higher until entering a run in early 2013.

If I had new money to add, I would be buying hand over fist today.
 

Peter R

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Aug 28, 2015
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Trolls are on notice
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3ommzh/trolls_are_on_notice/

It almost seems as if Thermos won't be happy until /r/bitcoin only has 5 users left all signing party slogans in perfect harmony with one another. BTW, I've noticed that the # users here now has been constantly decreasing over the past month. Only 500 right now, it used to be at 800-900 during the same time period.
It's weird how their new definition of trolling is mostly about using logical fallacies. "Straw men," "ad hominem," "stonewalling" and "sidetracking" will get you banned?? Haven't the small-blockers been stonewalling and sidetracking since the middle of the summer? Come on now, the entire small block position is one big logical fallacy :D
 

Zangelbert Bingledack

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Aug 29, 2015
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I took that as a possible olive branch? maybe I'm wrong?
I think it's just the latest move in the downward spiral created by the in-for-an-inch-in-for-mile dynamic of Theymos's original opinion-molding program.

While mods are getting broader and broader powers to banhammer as they see fit, the real trolls (those tortured souls who pop up in every thread, defending the party line with the same long-refuted talking points) are being deputized to report anyone who commits everyday debate fallacies like - gasp! - a strawman, and the environment will just grow worse as the mods predictably fail to notice that the real source of the decline is their own policies and broad discretionary powers to delete and ban for the purpose of shaping opinion, Theymos having set the standard as exactly this and having recruited those most keenly salivating over the prospect of exercising such bald power over debate while having the nerve to harp about vote brigading.

The /r/Bitcoin mods will reap that which they have sown, on and on, zig-zagging toward irrelevance all the faster the more vicious they turn.

Alternative interpretation:

A few of the saner mods want a good excuse to ban/demote the twirpiest small blockers and rabid mods among them, since these are some of the worst offenders in terms of quasi-trollish squabbling and actually end up making the small block camp look worse than it is (if we had some of these guys on our side, I'd be rebuking them for showing up like gadflies in every blocksize thread making such wooden, unthinking arguments; isn't it interesting how the small blockers don't see fit to do this (with a few exceptions, like /u/eragmus sometimes)).

Although I strongly suspect it's just the zig-zag into irrelevance, for individual mods there may be some nuanced ideas being entertained as to how to salvage the situation (naively I think, because the worst mods will take it as nothing other than an upgrade to their banhammer). We'll find out the true motive behind this move soon enough.
 
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cypherdoc

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Aug 26, 2015
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i posted this 10d ago but just to remind everyone of how the spv proof for SC's will work given today's revelation of the federated server model: