Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[freetrader]

However this definition does not really matter, most people are now saying it has not been released. I am happy to accept that.

 

[lunar]

I'd say that with 2MB, we have the perfect figure for it to be an experiment on this front, harmless enough to hopefully convince most except the very stubborn smallblockers:

This might be a loose loose debate. The only small block argument left with any merit, is a fear of the undefined word 'decentralisation'. They fear that with an increased block size node count would drop significantly. They are right of course a hard fork increase would kill off all the old nodes on the network.

What's not said, is that due to increased network adoption new nodes would likely come online at a faster rate than before. Nevertheless the immediate net effect would be a significant loss in node count. The area here that's interesting, is that if we look at nodes that have not upgraded in say 18 months (insert speculative guess here ~ 1/3 ?) we must really start to consider these as dead nodes, to be pruned from a healthy network.

The two methods to remove these nodes are swift as in hard fork, or slow with a gradual reduction in ability to perform thorough validation via successive soft forks. I'd like to see this experiment, but first there must be an agreed level playing field where we only consider 'maintained' nodes as relevant to the network.

 

[solex]

@Roger_Murdock

I've been wondering for a while how much VISA paid to become the official credit card sponsor of Bitcoin scaling comparisons.

I think credit card comparisons are valid because Bitcoin's intrinsic value is foremost via its utility as a payment system. Once this translates into a growing network effect it gains speculative value and then becomes a store-of-value in a virtuous cycle.

VISA is the largest single card issuer, so gets the lion's share of public references in the Bitcoin community.

@lunar

The only small block argument left with any merit, is a fear of the undefined word 'decentralisation'. They fear that with an increased block size node count would drop significantly.

That is a secondary concern, behind the concern that an HF puts at risk Core's status as the reference client. The main benefit of soft-forks is that they maintain Core's node count at a high-level, even if old nodes become near-useless zombies. The two are connected issues but with different emphasis.

 

[freetrader]

Hmm, I just looked at the FIBRE code for the first time and it's a modified Bitcoin Core.

Interestingly, not all sources are distributed under the MIT license anymore, e.g. src/udpnet.cpp is AGPL:

// Copyright (c) 2016 Matt Corallo
// Unlike the rest of Bitcoin Core, this file is
// distributed under the Affero General Public License (AGPL v3)

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html

I have considered using the AGPL myself before in projects. The main benefit (and the reason it was invented) as far as I remember is that it prevents people from using the free code in web services where they don't have to disclose their code, and thus don't have to share their enhancements.

In this regard, the MIT license is more permissive.

Anyone know if this is the first instance where a developer has bundled non-MIT code with the Core client?

 

[lunar]

behind the concern that an HF puts at risk Core's status as the reference client.

Yes, perhaps it's naive of me to still assume altruism here? I'm thinking that despite differences, the majority of developers still want what's best for the network health. The idea of multiple competing clients and teams seems like a no brainer?

 

[cypherdoc]

mental note to self: "but yet make sure he/she pays for the potato skins next time."

Yeah, I've been wondering for a while how much VISA paid to become the official credit card sponsor of Bitcoin scaling comparisons.


Yep, and sort of related to that is the idea that people tend to be somewhat uncomfortable, at least in certain contexts, with explicit / quid pro quo exchange (including monetary exchange) because it traditionally signaled social distance. It was something that you did with outsiders whereas the economics of tribal life were based on informal gifts / debts (not unlike how intra-family economics are usually handled today). An illustration of this idea is that weird ritual you sometimes see where two friends who are dining out together argue over who gets to pick up the check. Why would you ever want to pay (and how hard is it to ask for separate checks)? But of course that's not the point. The point is to signal that the other person is in your inner circle -- "I value our friendship and the time we spend together so much that $20 to cover your loaded potato skins and baby back ribs isn't even a rounding error."

 

[yrral86]

The other issue with using a 2MB hardfork as an 'experiment' is that we can't hold everything else constant. If decentralization does increase, they will claim it is due to the continued commidification of mining hardware or something else.

 

[Erdogan]

@solex

We can easily have a system like Visa for bitcoin, easily even better systems, we could even use Visa, they could add bitcoin as a currency option.

Bitcoin compares to dollars, the actual cotton rectangles.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Shower thought:

What if Bitcoin had to hard fork in a way that ruined any address that has been spent from?

As with Ethereum regarding TheDAO, the issue of social inurement is big. People have gotten used to spending from addresses multiple times, though they shouldn't. People invested hundreds of millions in TheDAO, though they shouldn't have. Since there is market value to preserving norms, whatever becomes a norm can become a governance liability, at least under the theory that there can only be one persistent chain.

 

[Erdogan]

At least have to modify your suggestion to: Disallow receiving to an address that has been spent. But no, I don't see the point.

 

[cypherdoc]

fiat boys piling in again. can't say i blame 'em. bull flag breaking UP:

 

[Erdogan]

Interesting development in Venezuela:

http://themerkle.com/surbitcoin-sells-bitcoin-at-26-below-global-market-average/

I suspect the bitcoin market they discuss is the bolivar fuerte. May be the value of the bolivar has stabilized, after all, they don't print more because the value is so low that the seigniorage is gone.

The seigniorage comes back if they decide to print bills larger than 100, or overprint old ones.

Then you have the card systems, where more money can easily be created. Maybe we will have a disconnect between paper rectangles and bank card money.

Money printing is a part of the misery venezuelans experience. Here is a good article that makes this point:
http://dev.cato.org/publications/commentary/venezuela-vs-ecuador-chavismo-vs-chavismo-dollarized

 

[cypherdoc]

That is a secondary concern, behind the concern that an HF puts at risk Core's status as the reference client. The main benefit of soft-forks is that they maintain Core's node count at a high-level, even if old nodes become near-useless zombies. The two are connected issues but with different emphasis.

let's refine this even further to a tertiary concern cuz nobody has anything against the Core client. it's the for profit enterprises of kore devs controlling the client that is the real concern. when too many of them group together like in Blockstream (~10 kore devs) then it becomes a problem of influence and direction of the code. it's very difficult to discern in a situation like this if they're slipping in BIP's that benefit themselves at the expense of Satoshi's original vision. my assessment over the years is that they are in fact doing this, as i have argued ad nauseum with things like RBF, CLTV, CSV and now SWSF. i don't think there's any question that Pieter Wuille and Gregory Maxwell hold sway over all the other devs to a great degree even tho they would claim differently. Pieter has actually earned his cred altho i think he betrayed his intentions by saying that there would be no incentive to work on offchain solns if we lifted the 1MB cap. duh, of course not, b/c then Bitcoin onchain would become wildly successful and there would be no need nor interest from the community for their offchain products. Greg otoh, who also is quite intelligent, wields a significant amount of his power thru intimidation/trolling. the "dipshits" come to mind. i don't know about you, but i'm pretty sure i wouldn't trust ultimately a supposed open source project led by someone like him. in fact, i'm sure of it. i still have confidence though that eventually he will be swept away by the incoming Bitcoin onchain tsunami.
[doublepost=1467996505][/doublepost]

@solex

We can easily have a system like Visa for bitcoin, easily even better systems, we could even use Visa, they could add bitcoin as a currency option.

Bitcoin compares to dollars, the actual cotton rectangles.

yes, my ideal long term scenario would be for the entire legacy system to stay in place (as much as possible) and swap out dollars for Bitcoin.

 

[lunar]

This is a pretty important list to keep an eye on for the next 6 months.

The world is going negative. There is no precedent for this in any of the economic history books.

Dutch are the latest additions to the club

 

[awemany]

@yrral86 : Point taken. That's one of the main arguments why economics is not a science, like physics is. Lack of proper controls. My assumption behind the idea of looking at it as an experiment is of course that the MBSL is the strongly dominating factor in all things Bitcoin at the moment.

 

[cypherdoc]

@freetrader: Interesting link @ cryptosteel.

It looks like you have to arrange the keys manually and they are just inserted into that contraption, though?

I feel that's a lot of money for a piece of sheet metal. And it probably isn't quite that rugged, as the letters/digits seem to be just held by the front and back plate? If the thing comes apart, the letters would fall out ...



Personally, I'd rather use a simple sheet of 1.5mm (~ 1/16" for you Americans ) titanium metal (even more corrosion resistant AFAIK(?)) plus one of those.

I think that will be as permanent as it gets.

@cliff @freetrader

good news is i have tried most of these options including cryptosteel, trezor, armory, paper wallets, and metal plates.

my initial response to @cliff assessed his current situation and the potential dangers and costs of switching to a new system. paper wallets are dangerous b/c paper (easily destroyed) and the fact that if you perform just one tx, the balance remains on that private key and your public key is now exposed. cryptosteel actually has 3 separate plates to hold in the letters. the 2 outer plates swing apart via a single hinge at one corner. the inner plate is what holds the letters in place along with the outer plates. the car demo was actually instructive in that the thing didn't split apart scattering the tiles everywhere. as far as titanium plates; i can't remember what material (iirc nickel something) type plate i went out and bought but i did a fair amount of research once about which material was most resistant to fire and ended up buying a coupla plates and stamping tools which are still sitting unused in my drawer. the only problem with the above choices is that they aren't encrypted/passworded and if gotten to can be swept. that's where the digital tools like Armory and Trezor come in (the latter of which could turn out to be my default choice) which can be encrypted/passworded. both those tools are cool too but should have redundant backups in case of failure. safety deposit boxes are good too but always keep the wallets encrypted/passworded in case officials decide to raid your box. diversification is good too in that you can have a variety of different types of backups either for the same privkeys or different sets of privkeys. any security system you choose requires redundant and different types of backups in case one goes bad.

btw, i carry around >$1K in coin in Mycelium on my phone all the time and have never been hacked. just goes to show you how good the tools have become with proper use and awareness.
[doublepost=1467998329][/doublepost]

This is a pretty important list to keep an eye on for the next 6 months.

The world is going negative. There is no precedent for this in any of the economic history books.

Dutch are the latest additions to the club

that looks brutal and is why Bitcoin was created. negative yields arise from excessive money printing which is why Bitcoin has and should continue to emphasize it's monetary/currency properties above all else (esp smart contracts).
[doublepost=1467998399][/doublepost]

Hmm, I just looked at the FIBRE code for the first time and it's a modified Bitcoin Core.

Interestingly, not all sources are distributed under the MIT license anymore, e.g. src/udpnet.cpp is AGPL:

// Copyright (c) 2016 Matt Corallo
// Unlike the rest of Bitcoin Core, this file is
// distributed under the Affero General Public License (AGPL v3)

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html

I have considered using the AGPL myself before in projects. The main benefit (and the reason it was invented) as far as I remember is that it prevents people from using the free code in web services where they don't have to disclose their code, and thus don't have to share their enhancements.

In this regard, the MIT license is more permissive.

Anyone know if this is the first instance where a developer has bundled non-MIT code with the Core client?

didn't i see somewhere where Corallo will be charging a fee to use FIBRE?

 

[freetrader]

@cypherdoc :

didn't i see somewhere where Corallo will be charging a fee to use FIBRE?

I didn't pick up on that, but I assume so - after all it's not the software by itself that brings the sub-300ms latency he claims, it's the associated infrastructure. Same goes for the Falcon network. The question I have: this is becoming like a game of high-frequency trading. The one with access to the fastest network wins, and we're moving into sub-1s range while the block period is 10 minutes. This seems like a silly, unproductive arms race in the big scheme of things.

What if the consensus protocol enforced a blanking period after the nTime of a received valid block, based on some pseudo-random variable, e.g. recent block hashes.
If a newly received block were to be within a blanking period window w.r.t. the node's medianTime, the block would not be considered valid. Let's say,

blanking_period = (30 + ((the sum of the last N blocks' final hash digits) modul0 10) * 10) seconds

This would introduce some dependency on real-world time, and probably have some adverse effect that I haven't thought about. And most likely someone has suggested it before?

 

[cypherdoc]

not sure how that would help. i just hope miners see the comparative value in using things like XThins etc which are free and more decentralized while performing at high enough levels to compete. i don't begrudge individual kore devs pursuing their for profit ventures; just big one's like Blockstream that have clearly NOT passed scrutiny in their push for their proprietary alternatives which cripple Bitcoin.

 

[cliff]

@Roger_Murdock


I think credit card comparisons are valid because Bitcoin's intrinsic value is foremost via its utility as a payment system. Once this translates into a growing network effect it gains speculative value and then becomes a store-of-value in a virtuous cycle.

VISA is the largest single card issuer, so gets the lion's share of public references in the Bitcoin community.

Actually, I've been wondering recently whether the references/comparisons/aspirations to VISA are appropriate. VISA doesn't transfer cash. VISA transfers contracts/short-term loans. Sometime after the point of sale the merchant and credit provider get actual money for the transaction (or they don't - many card holders default and their accounts end up in collections). Lightning may actually be closer to what VISA actually does than the BTC network. I don't think this necessarily has to implicate the blocksize debate, but the debate certainly has gone that direction . . . .

 

[cypherdoc]

such crazy bullshit. you can just see how all of us and every US citizen is just one small step away from being demonized by these unknown, masked, & anonymous terrorists called the NSA:

NSA classifies Linux Journal readers, Tor and Tails Linux users as "extremists"

The program marks and tracks the IP addresses of those who search for 'tails' or 'Amnesiac Incognito Live System' along with 'linux', ' USB ',' CD ', 'secure desktop', ' IRC ', 'truecrypt' or ' tor '. It also refers to the Tails Linux distribution as "a comsec mechanism advocated by extremists on extremist forums".

http://www.in.techspot.com/news/security/nsa-classifies-linux-journal-readers-tor-and-tails-linux-users-as-extremists/articleshow/47743699.cms