Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Bagatell]

He's down 39% so far.

 

[Bloomie]

@cliff

I respect your thought process, but these particular conspiracy theories are ludicrous. It is also irresponsible to throw accusations the way you are doing it without at least researching how search engine optimization works.

The reason e-dinar is one of the currently featured keywords is because I, in my infinite wisdom, choose not to delete their silly thread a few months ago and a few of our members turned it into a discussion, which lead it to being discoverable by search engines. The more people found the thread by searching for those keywords, the more importance the forum's algorithm assigned them. It's a chicken and egg or whatever you call it, and we can edit those keywords out manually, but no, am not getting paid by a secret global e-dinar/DAO/ETC organization.

As for whether it's "respectful" to continue posting in this thread, perhaps you should ask the person who tried shutting it down whether it was respectful to sabotage an entire forum read by thousands of people and followed by some of the biggest influencers in this space, by closing, without a warning, a discussion of Unlimited and Classic and Core and Ethereum and issues way more important than gold charts.

There is no "ownership" of threads on this forum, both from a technical and a philosophical perspective. You choose a subject matter and a topic and you become the OP, which gives you the ability to add a poll, that's all the forum's software allows. Moderators can shut down threads but shouldn't, you obviously understand why.

Should you start a new thread? Of course you should. Start a hundred or ten thousand of them if you like. That's what a forum is. In fact, you guys cornered yourself into this situation by focusing so much discussion and energy in a single thread. Yes, it's fun in a masochistic way to follow an epic saga of 750 pages, but it's unwieldy, not very welcoming to new entrants, and difficult to link on other sites. The most unfortunate part is that the very important individual topics discussed here have near zero discoverability for people outside our circle.

tl;dr This baby remains open, but people are free to post wherever they like, as always.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I think Barry Silbert sees ETC as the anti-altcoin. It's an altcoin that itself is a spinoff of an altcoin, thereby affirming the principle that you don't switch ledgers when you have a disagreement within the community of investors...despite the fact that Ethereum did just that.

He may also see ETC as cryptonite to Core, because its success would show that hard forks are not dangerous, and if Ethereum only grew stronger by existing in multiplicity that would really throw an oil slick in Core's path. Blockstream would have no ability to block the stream. Another duplicate stream would just flow on top of it.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@Roger_Murdock

Brian Armstrong called out your post on the Ethereum hard fork. I wonder if he reads the thread or if he found it via the reddit post.

https://medium.com/the-coinbase-blog/on-the-ethereum-hard-fork-780f1577e986#.2qlb1snuq

 

[cliff]

@Bloomie

lol. ok. guess we'll just see how things go over the next month or so.

EDIT - @satoshis_sockpuppet - my post* from earlier today is supposed to accentuate the surreal for those missing out on some exceptionally buttery corn. So, thanks for describing the post as "weird" - it is indeed that. Hopefully, its a little interesting and fun to read as well.


*well, tbf, two posts - but they're really one piece split by a character limit.

 

[freetrader]

The Bitcoin Exit - brg444 / Locked out of original @bergalex account

How satisfying. A media manipulator's worst nightmare.

 

[Richy_T]

You cannot guarantee it, but one idea of protecting the industry

If Bitcoin needs protecting, it has failed.

 

[Richy_T]

I don't think you can tell, usually. The block version isn't a reliable indicator.

So, looking at the coinbase, is that the first block from ViaBTC?
coin.dance shows the coinbase as:



Is there a conventional way to decipher the other data?

No. They can put whatever they want in there.

 

[_mr_e]

I've been following @cypherdoc since the beginning of Bitcoin, subscribed to his newsletter, and had private emails with him over the years and read almost everything he's ever posted... I've got to say, this is shockingly out of character. The more I think about it, I am seriously worried that something more sinister has happened to him.

 

[jbreher]

Did seem kinda weird. Adverse reaction to the end of the legal issue?

 

[theZerg]

If Bitcoin needs protecting, it has failed.

I disagree and think that this is a terrible idea to promote because it encourages apathy.

Bitcoin incentivises stakeholders (coin holders, infrastructure companies, etc) to protect it. But still, individuals must step up and work hard to protect it. And others won't step up yet still benefit from the work of those who do.

EDIT: the repeated concern I am hearing these days from "some people" is "your team is small."

 

[jonny1000]

If Bitcoin needs protecting, it has failed.

You can make the same argument about any protocol rule...

Why not get rid of everything then?

 

[Richy_T]

The Cypher/Bloomie drama makes no sense to me.

 

[Richy_T]

I disagree and think that this is a terrible idea to promote because it encourages apathy.

Bitcoin incentivises stakeholders (coin holders, infrastructure companies, etc) to protect it. But still, individuals must step up and work hard to protect it. And others won't step up yet still benefit from the work of those who do.

EDIT: the repeated concern I am hearing these days from "some people" is "your team is small."

I think you miss my point. The design of Bitcoin is that it incentivizes people to act in their own self interests and this leads to positive outcomes for Bitcoin. It should not need protecting because, judo like, it subverts potential attacks. If it is unable to do this, it has failed in its aim and is little better than a toy.

This is why, though I push for a higher block size limit, I have little doubt it will fall in time anyway, as Peter R's oh-so-controversial animation illustrated.
[doublepost=1469675760][/doublepost]

You can make the same argument about any protocol rule...

Why not get rid of everything then?

I don't follow. Bitcoin is anti-fragile or it's pointless.

This is the point of decentralization after all. Needing protection implies a protector. Protector implies disproportionate power and/or control.

The consensus of the willing is all Bitcoin needs.

 

[Roger_Murdock]

@Roger_Murdock

A few exploratory thoughts on the "fork now, gain market share later" approach:

• Timescale matters. If it plays out over the course of a week or so, it could work much better than if it takes months or longer. Imagine if ETC keeps rising, for instance. This relates back to the distinction I drew between persistent splits and "deeply persistent" splits above.

• If the majority side of the fork has a hard limiter on its network effect for use in trade (say, a tiny blocksize cap), the quartering of the network effect may not matter much, relatively. Also, failure doesn't mean anything is lost, because it seems much more likely that network effect won't split but will go one way or the other (even if the market cap temorarily is divided between them); if for example LN comes out and turns out to be great, the big-block chain never gains market share, but we have lost nothing. Either all trade moved to our chain or it didn't. A quartering of value is more of a theoretical threat, not an actual consequence of a semi-persistent split, I think. The split simply persists as long as there is hope for it, with transaction volume on it largely determined by how Core fares, but with a continual all-or-nothing dynamic. I feel tempted to say, "The network effect wants to preserve itself. We can't break it just by forking."

• It's still not clear whether the Metcalf's law correlation with price is a coincidence, and whether it is n^2 or n log n. I believe we all agree that speculation remains the main use at this stage. And as I mentioned in the previous post, things like Shapeshift and smooth wallet interfaces may make things invisible to the casual user, and that may buy more time for the timescale point above as well. In other words, users and merchants may be fine accepting both chains for a little while thanks to such smoothing out of that friction, allowing additional time for "gain market share" to happen.

• While current dominant market cap is a big Schelling point, the ultimate Schelling point is eventual market cap. Sure the majority can make the value-enhancing changes later on, but the entire endeavor of investment at this stage is inherently forward-looking so current orientation of a chain should matter quite a bit as well. This coupled with the recursive nature of the problem suggests it's not entirely clear where the Keynesian beauty contest leads here. I can see arguments for both sides.

Good thoughts. This statement in particular jumped out at me: "The network effect wants to preserve itself. We can't break it just by forking." That resonates strongly with my own intuition. And overall, after reading through your comments and thinking through the issues some more, I'll admit to being less convinced of my own argument that the "fork now, gain market share later" approach isn't a viable solution to the block size issue. I still strongly suspect we're not yet at a point where it would likely succeed if attempted. And I also suspect that the actual resolution will ultimately come via a majority hashpower fork. But I think given the right conditions, it could work.

I'm specifically imagining a scenario where the pain of the current limit has increased significantly but where miners are, for some reason, still sitting on their hands. Major stakeholders finally respond to miners' continued inaction by planning and executing a well-publicized and technically-sound fork that succeeds in becoming viewed as "the official" fork attempt that large-blockers are going to rally behind. At least a few critical exchanges offer customers the ability to trade coins on the forking chain against the majority hashpower / small-block coins. Immediately, one or a handful of bold mega-whales begin to quickly and relentlessly sell off tens of thousands of small-block coins for large-block coins, thereby triggering the perception (and in turn, the reality) of a rout in favor of the fork. If it plays out quickly enough, there may be no chance for the small-block chain to respond.

@Roger_Murdock

Brian Armstrong called out your post on the Ethereum hard fork. I wonder if he reads the thread or if he found it via the reddit post.

https://medium.com/the-coinbase-blog/on-the-ethereum-hard-fork-780f1577e986#.2qlb1snuq

Cool, thanks for the heads up!

 

[molecular]

Not wanting to sound alarmist, but cypherdoc disappearing like this makes not much sense to me. Why would he delete his 'other' accounts because of a quabble with Bloomie here?

We're clearly missing some pieces to that puzzle.

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

It has gotten pretty far away from its original purpose.

Sorry - what happened? The argumets between bloomie and cypherdoc about moderation rights?
[doublepost=1469690547,1469689799][/doublepost]

@Christoph Bergmann

Agreed. Not sure what he's trying to say here? Does he think money supply should be flexible? In which case how does he expect two competing monetary systems, one with a fixed supply and another with a flexible (increasing) supply would fare in a free market competition? Surely the conclusion is obvious?

Or is he just saying money should not be a libertarian free market thing and we need governments involved? In this case reality proves otherwise.

Yes, I was somehow puzzled too and thought he is some kind of american scientific leftists or something like this.

I guess this is the discussion, about money, what kind of money we need. Bitcoinpeople and goldbugs mostly say that money needs to fulfill mostly two properties: 1.) being a medium of exchange and 2.) being a store of value. 2) translates here into being scare. With blockstreamcore we see the raise of extremists who see even 1) not so important.

Other people - like leftists, keynesianians and zentral bankers - say the scarcity of money when it was pegged to gold in time of the gold standard was a reason why the politic was not able to react adequately on the economic crisis in 1930th.
They add a property to what money should fulfill: 3.) it should be a medium to push / controll the economy. via the interest rates set by central banks this is engraved in the creation process of money. 2.) a store of value is furthermore a wished property, but it is not guaranteed by scarcity but by trust in the central bankers. And as those prefer inflation-rate of 2 percent, it's weight is somehow reduced.

In the end you can imagine a successfull economy not caring too much about the value of money middle- and longterm while money does a great as a tool in the economy. One of the most eye-opening facts Thomas Piketty presents in his book about the capital is that only a tiny fraction of the capital itself is in money and thus it doesn't care about inflation. Neither the rich nor the poor are hit by inflation. Hit are people in between, lower middle class; that people that are able to keep some money, but need a long time to cross the point of "having 1 or 2 annual income on your bank account" what is usually a point where you start investing in inflation-resistent things (securities, estate).

Note that I don't judge between the two perspectives on money. I prefer bitcoin for a long number of reasons and am aware that you can't cut off the scarcity; if bitcoin would be not scarce, if would have never ever become any relevant mean of exchange.

 

[freetrader]

EDIT: the repeated concern I am hearing these days from "some people" is "your team is small."

This 'your team is small' FUD deserves a kick in the nuts.
Those of us who are familiar with software development understand this argument intuitively as garbage propagated by corporates to make themselves look more impressive. Most innovation occurs in small companies, which are then bought up by larger ones if they are successful.

Small Teams Are Dramatically More Efficient than Large Teams

http://blogs.atlassian.com/2016/04/software-development-trends-smaller-teams-faster-leaner/

The complexity of the Bitcoin protocol software is NOT so high as to require a huge number of developers per team. The openness / permissionless nature of the system naturally lends itself to a multitude of smaller teams contributing to a big picture. Much more important is to have both end users and domain experts from related fields (cryptography, finance, ) interacting well with a team's developers to provide guidance and feedback.

Throwing more developers at a task has been conclusively shown to be ineffective. The seminal work on that dates back to the 70's

If I wanted to be cynical and provide a pointed example, I would say Blockstream is keeping the LN development team to a minimum (of yes, 1 developer) to speed up the development, because their other efforts have probably proven Brooks' law.

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

Not wanting to sound alarmist, but cypherdoc disappearing like this makes not much sense to me. Why would he delete his 'other' accounts because of a quabble with Bloomie here?

We're clearly missing some pieces to that puzzle.

Yes.

 

[Peter R]

Not wanting to sound alarmist, but cypherdoc disappearing like this makes not much sense to me. Why would he delete his 'other' accounts because of a quabble with Bloomie here?

We're clearly missing some pieces to that puzzle.

Yeah, I'm concerned. I noticed that his account on bitcoinclassic.slack.com is still active so I sent him a PM a few hours ago. Hopefully we can learn more. He's a great contributor to this forum and to the big-block cause; I hope he returns soon.