Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[xhiggy]

What would happen if a hard fork took place and a significant percentage of bitcoins were in lightning network channels already? Would having more coins in lightning network channels make it cheaper or more expensive to hard fork without warning?

 

[Roger_Murdock]

Hey guys, I had a chance to join @Justus Ranvier in the Crypto Show studio last night for a discussion on a brilliant essay by Daniel Krawisz called Reciprocal Altruism in the Theory of Money.

The Crypto Show - Yoshi Goto of Bitmain Justus Ranvier of StashCrypto and Jon Vaage

(The first segment of the show is an interview with Yoshi Goto of Bitmain - our discussion begins at 42:22)

You can read the essay over at the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute or wait for the release of the audio narration I've begun working on. I can't recommend it highly enough!

Speaking of Daniel Krawisz, does anybody know what he's up to? I haven't seen anything from him in a while, but he is absolutely one of the best and most brilliant thinkers in the Bitcoin space. Lots of good (but older) stuff by him here.

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/authors/daniel-krawisz/

Would love to see more from him.

 

[cypherdoc]

@xhiggy

why do you think /u/nullc is worried about his nLockTime Blockstream incentives being invalidated? same difference.

 

[jonny1000]

you replayed "it wasn't initially deployed as a hard fork but a soft fork", you provide no evident for that claim but aside form that, it's an irrelevant rebuttal as it doesn't negate the fact that it was at some point deployed as a hard fork and what's what we are talking about.

You seem to not understand the difference between and hardfork and softfork, or perhaps you have your own different definition, which can wholly account for our disagreement and makes our discussion up to this point totally ridiculous.

This distinction is not based on the deployment mechanism used, but the nature of the change.

Adding the 1MB was a new rule and therefore a softfork, old nodes that did not have the 1MB rule, regarded the new blocks of less than 1MB as still valid. The old rule was less than 32MB, the new rule was less than 1MB, since 1MB is less than 32MB, it was a softfork. Nodes were therefore not required to upgrade to stay on the main chain and if they did not upgrade, the chain would not split.

It is clear from this that you do not understand my point of view at all and it is therefore amazing how we have been arguing.
[doublepost=1465345168][/doublepost]

i'm sure you are prepared to engage in censorship, personal attacks, backdoor meetings, bribes, etc. maybe even assassination since you said "all necessary measure"? sounds like you certainly view this as a war.

• censorship - I think some private Bitcoin forums may not want to be used as a tool to facilitate the attack, that seems reasonable for me.
  
• personal attacks - These are not justified, in my view
  
• bribes - You mean like the Classic mining fund?
  
• backdoor meetings - discussions should be seen as positive
  
• maybe even assassination since you said "all necessary measure" - No, violence is not justified. By all necessary measures, I mean reducing the value of my holding to zero, through means such as spending all my money running Core nodes, mining Core blocks, selling Classic futures ect ect. I do not mean to justify physical violence of any kind, I apologies if anyone thought it meant that.

 

[cypherdoc]

 

[solex]

Fascinating reading about Sweden's immigration problems
"There is Definitely Something Strange Going On" in Sweden

However, when I reached this point I saw a distinct parallel with our battle between on-chain and off-chain scaling where the vast majority of Bitcoiners want work done on enabling larger blocks (as seen in 20 BCT and reddit polls over 2.5 years before the censorship kicked in), but an "elite" of developers think better and want off-chain as the priority direction:

[TS:] One recent poll I have seen, and it excludes the past months, shows very high opposition: only 8% said we are not taking enough immigrants, where 58% said we are taking too many. It’s the elite opinion that forms the consensus that Sweden should take many more immigrants – it’s almost like a religion, but it is not the popular view.

ET: But that consensus correlates with election voting right? There is only one party that is openly against immigration and they scored very low in the last election.

TS: Yes, it’s because that party has its roots in racism and it was taboo to vote for them. Despite that they went from 3% around ten years ago to perhaps 20% now. What’s also happening in the last few months is that the right wing moderate party, the Swedish “Tories” if you like, has shifted to the right on immigration very rapidly. You know in Sweden things shift very rapidly, it’s a consensus society. Now they are saying close the borders, deport a large number of migrants, very vociferously. The Liberals and the Christian Democrats are following suit. And even the Social Democrats, the ruling party, closed the borders in the end.

In a very short period we went from one extreme to the other. The number of asylum seekers per week has come down by over 90% because they introduced border controls and ID requirements.

So the elite consensus was in favor of migration to the point of the media severely censoring critics, which created a lot of tension. However, people could see what was going on and the elite just couldn’t lie about it anymore. And now the mood has changed completely.

This is because this issue is tearing the country apart. And it’s just not me saying it, international newspapers are reporting on this as well.

History doesn't repeat but it certainly rhymes.

 

[cypherdoc]

 

[jonny1000]

They can't impose arbitrary rules, only useful ones that people want to adopt.

Could not agree more, miners cannot remove arbitrary rules which people want to keep. This is my point. Therefore there is no "nakamoto consensus" with respect to removing rules. We need consensus among users...

 

[cypherdoc]

@jonny1000 Sure miners can HF to 2MB. That's because I believe they do have user support.

 

[jonny1000]

I'm not taking about weather or not it was deployed as a soft fork I hope you see that's irrelevant to the information being presented to you, it is a fact that is was deployed as a hard fork and it was just deployed,

Please can you explain what you mean here, what about the new 1MB rule made it a hardfork? What was it about the deployment methodology that made it a hardfrok rather than a softfork? I genuinely have no idea what you mean here, does anyone else on this forum know?
[doublepost=1465348989][/doublepost]

@jonny1000 Sure miners can HF to 2MB. That's because I believe they do have user support.

I agree with this in general. With the exception of using a very odd, new and unpopular deployment methodology, which locks in 25% miner opposition at the time of activation. Unfortunately, this deployment system means the 2MB HF does not have the user support, I find this a huge shame as I really want a 2MB limit. In contrast a tiny insignificant minority of small block extremists are delighted by this counterproductive activation methodology, as it means they get their way and keep the 1MB limit.

My evidence that the users do not support Classic is as follows:

• 88% of nodes against Classic
• 85% of investors against Classic, in the only poll I can find
• 95% of miners against Classic
• 85% of developers against Classic

Where is your evidence of the users supporting Classic? It is clear I am very unpopular here, but please recognize any actual metric shows the strong economic majority is on my side, whether you like it or not.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

How would a futures market prevent manipulation by short-term speculators (doesn't self-identify as a "bitcoiner") and anti-bitcoin interests?

Attempts at manipulation are free money for us, and should be welcomed (only a sudden massive manipulation could be harmful; gradual interest from manipulators just attracts liquidity as people line up for the free money, just as poker sites with a continual supply of weak players attract many strong players lining up for the free money). That's one of the dynamics that make prediction markets so effective.

See: https://github.com/psztorc/Truthcoin/blob/master/docs/5_PM_Manipulation.pdf

Also, fork futures trading is not a direct voting mechanism. It's just a way of ensuring that miners have the best possible data about the market of bitcoiners so that they can support hardforks that comport with market demand during controversies.

The key point again for emphasis: In Bitcoin, miners have great incentive to please the market. That's why they won't be complicit in doublespending, tx censoring, or raising the 21M coin limit. It is crystal clear how to please the market on those things. The problem is, it is not crystal clear what blocksize policy would please the market, and when. In general, miners cannot be expected to know what would please the market during a controversy; due to the unintended (by Satoshi) disconnect of mining and noding, miners desperately need reliable information about market demand during controversies. (There is no controversy about doublespends, tx censorship, or the 21M coin limit.)

Fork futures trading merely restores the original Satoshi prediction market where miners (intended by Satoshi to approximately mean everyone, during a controversy) place their bets by hashing on their preferred ruleset and orphaning blocks with different rulesets. It does this without having to return mining to CPU only, which would have other problems anyway.

Satoshi seemed to imagine a cartoon world where users could just summon whatever amount of CPU power they could afford to vote during controversies. The reality of botnets, FPGA/GPU mining, ASICs, and specialization is more complicated. Fork futures trading returns to that cartoon ideal, except that experience with futures markets of all kinds shows that it actually works to form a robust prediction market.

I think it's a crucial element needed to undo the problem of mining specialization. It reconnects the breach in the incentive structure by giving miners the accurate information they need in order to maximize profits by satisfying market demand (regarding the market's preferred consensus ruleset).

 

[xhiggy]

@xhiggy

why do you think /u/nullc is worried about his nLockTime Blockstream incentives being invalidated? same difference.

Considering this, the incentive to hammer away on the '95% consensus requirement for a hard fork' argument is clear. It's to protect the future interests of blockstream. It makes sense that Jonny would leave the ecosystem if it has been shown that the lightning network can be compromised. This is dishonest corruption, end of discussion.

 

[cypherdoc]

Here's some evidence:

https://m.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/426wt7/blocksize_polls_summary_to_date/

Please stop saying there's a 25% lock in against. That's not true and you know it. If 75%activates ,the 25%will come along immediately .

Old polls yes but reflective of prevailing thought before kore dev went into extreme censorship and FUD mode. As well, I really only consider the 32%of 0.12.1 nodes to be supportive of the latest kore policy, maybe 0.12.0 as well. The others probably won't upgrade out of protest to what they are doing. And miners? Around 30%of them haven't yet indicated support for CSV yet alone SW, so that doesn't look too good.

Please can you explain what you mean here, what about the new 1MB rule made it a hardfork? What was it about the deployment methodology that made it a hardfrok rather than a softfork? I genuinely have no idea what you mean here, does anyone else on this forum know?
[doublepost=1465348989][/doublepost]

I agree with this in general. With the exception of using a very odd, new and unpopular deployment methodology, which locks in 25% miner opposition at the time of activation. Unfortunately, this deployment system means the 2MB HF does not have the user support, I find this a huge shame as I really want a 2MB limit. In contrast a tiny insignificant minority of small block extremists are delighted by this counterproductive activation methodology, as it means they get their way and keep the 1MB limit.

My evidence that the users do not support Classic is as follows:

• 88% of nodes against Classic
• 85% of investors against Classic, in the only poll I can find
• 95% of miners against Classic
• 85% of developers against Classic

Where is your evidence of the users supporting Classic? It is clear I am very unpopular here, but please recognize any actual metric shows the strong economic majority is on my side, whether you like it or not.

 

[jonny1000]

Here's some evidence:

https://m.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/426wt7/blocksize_polls_summary_to_date/

Sorry, I meant sybil resistant evidence. Do you have any of that?

Please stop saying there's a 25% lock in against. That's not true and you know it. If 75%activates ,the 25%will come along immediately .

25% opposition "AT THE TIME OF ACTIVATION" e.g. at the exact point Classic nodes make an irrevocable policy change to accept 1.01MB blocks, 25% of the miners oppose the move. I mean exactly that. This is clearly true. Please stop denying this fact or try to make out I mean something else.

 

[pekatete]

Core are doing both on-chain scaling and and on-chain capacity increases. For example with on-chain capacity increases:

• SegWit
• Schnorr signatures
• Aggregated signatures

The capacity enhancements of these combined is far greater than a move to 2MB.

Stop spreading false, divisive and counterproductive rumors, which indicate Core is not doing on chain capacity increases.

SegWit (with LN) plus the Schnorr and Aggregated signatures do indeed represent work by Kore on capacity and scaling of bitcoin, however this work (specifically LN and, unrelated but relevant, RBF) erodes Bitcoin's ability to act as P2P payment (and settlement) network. I personally find that trade-off unpalatable at this normative stage in Bitcoin's development.

I also doubt that SegWit plus the Schnorr and Aggregated signatures will deliver anything near a scaling / capacity increase of 2MB seeing the biggest contributor to that at 1.8MB would be if SegWit is adopted by ALL nodes on the network.

 

[cypherdoc]

@jonny1000

You'll have to give an example for me concerning your Sybil concerns.

25% opposition at activation won't matter. A fork will probably be short lived. The 25%will capitulate quickly.

 

[jonny1000]

"You'll have to give an example for me concerning your Sybil concerns. "

There are no particular sybil concerns, in this adversarial climate I just ignore any polls without any basic sybil defence, its just a prudent course of action. I am just making a request, do you have any evidence, from a mechanism with reasonable sybil defense, that show support for Classic? Yes or no? Examples could include miner vote, node count, coin vote, prediction market, public in person meetings ect ect


"25% opposition at activation won't matter. A fork will probably be short lived. The 25%will capitulate quickly."

Yes, that is your view. That was not my point though, my point was not that in the 28 day grace period more miners may upgrade. My point was at the time Classic nodes make an irrevocable decision to remove the 1MB rule, there is 25% miner opposition. Please acknowledge this fact.

 

[solex]

Welcome to this labyrinthine discussion @pekatete

@jonny1000
To clarify, the difference between a hard-fork and a soft-fork is that soft-forks maintain forward compatibility of old versions of software, hard-forks do not. That is all.

This explains it in more detail:
https://bitco.in/forum/threads/soft-fork-bip101.461/#post-5600

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

The system needs to be robust enough to prevent an elimination of a rule against the desire of any significant minority, even if the majority want the consensus rule eliminated.

It is robust enough. If a significant minority want to keep 1MB, they can. It results in a persistent chain split. You think this ruins Bitcoin in the public's eyes because no one knows which is the "real" Bitcoin. OK, let's just assume you're right. However, we both agree that there isn't a significant minority wanting 1MB over 2MB, so it is pointless in that case anyway.

Where it isn't pointless is the scenario you mention where Bitcoin gets popular and eventually a majority of investors and hashpower want to raise the 21M coin limit. (The populist attack.) Here, though, a persistent chain split does make sense as there will be plenty of people (all the sound money advocates) who will view the 21M version as Bitcoin and the new fork a less valuable perversion. The general public of Keynesians might somehow view Bitcoin as a "failed experiment" at that point, but does that matter? They viewed it as failed already, due to having the 21M cap in the first place.

You seem to think extreme consensus is what preserves the 21M cap, and you use the example of the populist attack as evidence...but then when we object you can always split off, you bat that objection away by saying a split would ruin Bitcoin in the public's eyes.

This is circular reasoning.

Even if a split for an issue like blocksize would theoretically ruin Bitcoin in the public's eyes, the split wouldn't happen for that very reason. Whereas it would happen for the 21M coin raise. Any way you slice it, the persistent split is always a viable option during a populist attack. This renders extreme consensus completely unnecessary.

 

[Melbustus]

The 21M limit was completely arbitrary. It could have been 42m or 8m or anything. Or as you guys like to to put it, 21m was never mentioned in the whitepaper. The reason 21m is important is because it is the status quo. 21m is an existing rule and something people expect, although there is no fundamental reason it is better than any other number. This is almost what a Schelling point is and also also what the status quo is, they are interelated concepts

As a related tangent...there *is* potentially a decent reason why there are on the order of 2.1 quadrillion unique addressable units in the bitcoin system.

Ray Dillinger (who appears in Satoshi's original mailing list thread) claims:

Finney, Satoshi, and I discussed how divisible a Bitcoin ought to be. Satoshi had already more or less decided on a 50-coin per block payout with halving every so often to add up to a 21M coin supply. Finney made the point that people should never need any currency division smaller than a US penny, and then somebody (I forget who) consulted some oracle somewhere like maybe Wikipedia and figured out what the entire world's M1 money supply at that time was.

We debated for a while about which measure of money Bitcoin most closely approximated; but M2, M3, and so on are all for debt-based currencies, so I agreed with Finney that M1 was probably the best measure.

21Million, times 10^8 subdivisions, meant that even if the whole word's money supply were replaced by the 21 million bitcoins the smallest unit (we weren't calling them Satoshis yet) would still be worth a bit less than a penny, so no matter what happened -- even if the entire economy of planet earth were measured in Bitcoin -- it would never inconvenience people by being too large a unit for convenience.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=819656.msg9170781#msg9170781

#knowYourBitcoinHistory