Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Richy_T]

Have you considered the financial markets aspect to this?

Over the timescale involved, it is not a big concern. Traders gonna trade. I am not afraid of the free market.
[doublepost=1469818078][/doublepost]

Thought this was a pretty good analogy:

I dunno. HOV lanes seem to be quite popular
[doublepost=1469818256][/doublepost]

@freetrader They were waiting for someone else to solve the problem for them so they can claim credit for it.

I heard it had already been considered and dismissed back in '98

 

[Zarathustra]

Strong consensus ...

https://twitter.com/JihanWu/with_replies

 

[sickpig]

I start to feel a sort of cognitive dissonance

 

[freetrader]

@sickpig: You're not alone.

 

[xhiggy]

Keep in mind it is core that has broken an originally agreed to "strong consensus" by repeatedly failing to compromise. Why should we bow to their version of a "strong consensus" when it's really just what they want, and not any kind of consensus at all.

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

rofl this thread is awesome if you have jonny on the ignore list.
Every 2nd post is about "strong consensus" and you know you guys are just rehashing the same old arguments again and again without having to read his answers.

Jihan seems pissed enough for me to be slightly optimistic that we will see an earthquake next week.

If we don't, I'm done with Bitcoin. If I sense enough momentum for a somewhat promising (PoW) fork I'll wait for that before leaving a doomed ledger.

 

[Impulse]

Keep in mind it is core that has broken an originally agreed to "strong consensus" by repeatedly failing to compromise. Why should we bow to their version of a "strong consensus" when it's really just what they want, and not any kind of consensus at all.

This is what is so frustrating. You know who could create "strong consensus" for a safe hardfork in an instant? Core. Yet they don't, nor will they it seems.

 

[Richy_T]

Yeah, they could have had 2MB, had LN and segwit ready in time for us to start bouncing off of *that* in a few months and then easily slid in their pet projects/fee hijacking stuff in under the guise of a timely update. Instead, they've pissed off half the community and had their motivations laid bare.

 

[jbreher]

I consider the example you cite as being outside of the scope of consensus systems. If you have a rule where clients jump from a less than 1MB chain to a more the 1MB chain, just because they hear about it, even if it has much less work, that is not a longest valid chain proof of work consensus system.

Part of a consensus system is that each node chooses the rules by which it will abide. Some nodes are co-located with economic interests. Blocks valid on the 2MB chain, yet invalid on the 1MB chain contain transactions (i.e., are not empty blocks). Each transaction on the 2MB chain results in Bitcoin value being transferred to some party willing to accept Bitcoin on a 2MB block. Such recipients have a vested interest in ensuring that chain does not cease to be. Any node operated by such a recipient can be assumed to act in that recipient's best interests. Such a node will not follow a temporarily larger 1MB-only chain. BU solves this aberration.

The net is that such coins on a temporarily shorter 2MB-including chain will not simply 'cease to be'. Such is fully within the purview of a consensus system.
[doublepost=1469832571][/doublepost]

That modification is entirely unnecessary for clients, assuming a majority of hash power behind the fork.

Only the miners would need to do so, and only temporarily until they establish a sufficient lead over the minority chain.

Counting on the miners for this does, however, indeed seem like poor planning. I assume here that miners typically divest their Bitcoin holdings for fiat, which may or may not be a valid assumption. I had always assumed that people with an economic interest in the 2MB chain would not allow for its demise. These are likely to be nodes, not miners, in my estimation.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

Counting on the miners for this does, however, indeed seem like poor planning. I assume here that miners typically divest their Bitcoin holdings for fiat, which may or may not be a valid assumption. I had always assumed that people with an economic interest in the 2MB chain would not allow for its demise. These are likely to be nodes, not miners, in my estimation.

During the time immediately following (hours) a hard fork, the miners are the entities who have the most to lose from a failure.

Regardless of how much they save vs how much they cash out, their newly-mined coins aren't spendable for 100 blocks.

If the >1MB fork gets reorged out of existence before that point, then they've just wasted a lot of money hashing for nothing.

If the >1MB fork maintains a majority of the hashing power and manages to mature the first post-fork generation output, the odds are low (exactly how low depends on how much of a supermajority they maintain) that their fork will fail.

As a non-miner on the other hand, if the fork fails before that point, any transactions you made which were mined in the large block fork can still be mined in the minority fork, so a fork failure is mostly just an inconvienience to you.

 

[jonny1000]

If @jonny1000's problem with Classic is the assymetry and "only assymetric forks require strong consensus," isn't it then just a matter of making the fork symmetric?

It is not just my problem. If you do an asymmetric hardfork like Bitcoin Classic, without strong consensus, it will fail. Are you starting to appreciate this now?

A hard fork to 2MB with a change in the PoW algorithm would be symmetric, wouldn't it?

If you want to do a symmetric hardfork, by changing PoW algorithm such that the two chains trade side by side. There is nothing I can do about that, please go ahead and try. I have been saying this for over a year now.

Please stop trying to

[doublepost=1469852683][/doublepost]

Over the timescale involved, it is not a big concern. Traders gonna trade. I am not afraid of the free market.

I am not convinced you appreciate the dynamics. For example we have recently had ETC and ETH trade side by side, with a lot of speculation, momentum and volatility. At one point ETC reached 30% of the ETH price. Had this been an asymmetrically unfavorable hardfork like Bitcoin Classic, as soon as Core got a lead, even for one block, the Classic coins would cease to exist. Do you not see how this can impact the market sentiment on exchanges? If ETH worked like that, when ETC reached 30% everyone could have panic sold ETH and ETH would have vanished, with many people losing funds.

Any significant minority, such as 5% of investors, could drive the price of Core coin up to 30% at any one time, causing panic. That is why, to repeat again:

One cannot successfully do an asymmetric hardfork, where the status quo has the advantage, if there is any significant opposition in the community. Minorties do have veto power.

Another way of saying this is "strong consensus".

To repeat again, this does not mean Bitcoin is inflexible and cannot change, as we will never have "strong consensus". Because this asymmetric hardfork idea, is a tiny insignificant spec, in the space of potential ways to make changes to the system.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

If you do an asymmetric hardfork like Bitcoin Classic, without strong consensus, it will fail.

You misspelled "simple majority".

 

[freetrader]

Please stop trying to

@jonny1000 : You forgot to fill out the template. Past favorites:

[ ] mischarectise (sic) the position
[ ] misrepresent my opinion
[ ] spread false, counterproductive, malicous (sic) and divisive rumours
[ ] conflate seperate issues
[ ] confuse the system you like with reality

 

[jonny1000]

You misspelled "simple majority".

With a simple 51% majority, you have a 49% chance of being wiped out and failing within the first 10 minutes, based purely on chance, let alone all the other ways to fail...

 

[Justus Ranvier]

@jonny1000 Are you paid to keep saying that no matter how many times it is debunked?

Do you get a bonus for claiming the simple solution to the problem you're describing was already invented by Blockstream right before going back to claiming it doesn't exist?

Maybe you should read your own posts if you're not able to keep track of the consistency of whatever narrative you're supposed to be creating.

 

[jonny1000]

@jonny1000 Are you paid to keep saying that no matter how many times it is debunked?

You have not debunked this in my opinion. I am not being paid no.

I would like to repeat, that in my view you are being genuine, honest and authentic. You really believe the points you are making and you argue in what you believe to be in the best long term interests of Bitcoin. In particular, I do not think you are a paid shill, in my view.

Do you get a bonus for claiming the simple solution to the problem you're describing was already invented by Blockstream right before going back to claiming it doesn't exist?

Are you talking about the "Soft Hardfork" idea, where a softfork imposes a rule that miners must flag support for a hardfork, which then happens later on? I am still not sure we are talking about the same thing.

I am not aware this idea had anything to do with any Blockstream employee.

• A non Blockstream employee and Bitcoin developer told me about this in mid 2015
• I posted about it on this forum on 6 June 2016
• I gave a link to a non Blockstream Bitcoin developer posting about it on the mailing list in February 2016

What has Blockstream got to do with this?

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@jonny1000

I think I do see your point that Bitcoin Classic doesn't lend itself to fork arbitrage. The thing is, it seems like we agree completely that strong consensus is not required as long as the fork is, as you say, symmetric - so why do you harp on strong consensus? Only because we still seem to support Classic? (I don't particularly. I just want a hard fork to up the cap, that can be effectively traded in fork arbitrage.)

 

[jonny1000]

I think I do see your point that Bitcoin Classic doesn't lend itself to fork arbitrage.

Do you agree that any significant opposition to Classic has a chance of defeating Classic, therefore it may not be good to proceed with Classic if there is significant opposition?

If so:

so why do you harp on strong consensus? Only because we still seem to support Classic?

Yes, I strongly oppose Classic, I have been in a long difficult and frustrating campaign against Classic & XT. There has been this massive campaign in favor of XT/Classic, which has involved all kinds aggressive campaigning:

• One of the most highly regarded Bitcoin developers, who has been heavily active in the community since May 2010, pushing for Classic. Many consider that Satoshi, personally decided to make this developer, Gavin, the lead of the project.
  
  
• Other respected developers like Mike Hearn, Sergio Lerner and Jeff Garzik supported Classic
  
  
• Some of the largest and most well capitalized businesses in the industry, for example Bitpay, Blockchain.info, Circle, It Bit, KNC and Bitnet signed a letter supporting XT (https://bitcoinxt.software/industry-letter.pdf)
  
  
• The CEO of the largest bitcoin bank, Coinbase, very strongly supported Classic/XT
  
  
• After the first attempt called XT failed, there was another attempt, but this time the hardfork proposal was made more moderate to try and win more support
  
  
• There was then a campaign to bribe/pay miners to support Classic (http://nodecounter.com/mining_donation_fund.php)
  
  
• There was a campaign to pay people to run a node supporting the hardfrok (http://classic-cloud.net)
  
  
• There was an effort to flood the main communications channels (/r/bitcoin), with comments strongly in favor of the hardfork and advocating participation in the attack
  
  
• The campaigners tried everything they could, at one point they even claimed Satoshi was back and that he was supporting the hardfork

I have been fighting along tiring battle against this XT/Classic movement. However at all times I kept trying to point out that:

• I support a larger blocksize limit
• I support a hardfork for larger blocks, it is just that Classic/XT did it in an inappropriate way, such as a weak activation methadology

Look through this thread, I have repeated that again and again. Please end the Classic campaign, then we can all start a sensible, collaborative, patient and calm discussion about a safe hardfork to increase the blocksize limit.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

I said that a majority of miners can ensure the success of a hard fork by simply agreeing to continue extending the large block chain even if the minority chain temporarily overtakes theirs. The mechanism via which they could accomplish that can accurately be described as a "soft fork" since it doesn't require any client participation.

That's where you jumped in and said that Core had planned to do that all along.

I also said that miners planning the fork and preparing users for it ahead of time should tell everyone not to consider the fork complete until the first >1MB generation output has matured (become spendable), which does not occur until it's 100 blocks old.

If miners did this, the risk of of the minority chain temporarily overtaking the large block chain after the maturation after the maturation time is vanishingly small.

Even with just a 51% majority, the large block chain has a 94% chance of never being overtaken after the first maturation.

That probability increases extremely rapidly as the fraction of the hash power mining on the large block chain increases.

If the hard fork was done completely haphazardly, with no planning whatsoever and with the stupidest possible implementation then your probabilities are correct. However with just the smallest amount of planning the fork can proceed smoothly with as little as 55% miner support.
[doublepost=1469857841,1469857163][/doublepost]

 

[Zarathustra]

With a simple 51% majority, you have a 49% chance of being wiped out and failing within the first 10 minutes, based purely on chance, let alone all the other ways to fail...

That's wrong. With 75% of the hash rate you will not have a 25% chance of being wiped out.
Since the world is 100 pct deterministic, there is no such thing as a 'chance'. 'Chances' are just subjective interpretations of 100 pct (pre-) decided effects. Whether it rains tomorrow is not an undecided chance. It is decided already, but the computers are not filled with all the data that are needed to predict it with 100 pct hit rate.

Meni Rosenfeld takes it even one step further. he says that even if 40% of the hashrate does a hard fork, it will win if they represent the economic majority, such as exchanges, wallets, businesses, and large hodlers. he's right; the other 60% hashrate wouldn't be able to economically function theoretically. of course it would be better to know you have 51%, but his point stands.

so we don't need @jonny1000's "strong concensus". it's not achievable anyways...

https://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/page-739#post-25673

As soon as F2pool and Antpool (40 %) are beginning to mine classic blocks, 90 percent of Bitcoiners start to realize that the game is 100 percent decided being over soonish for the Kore Gang and its cheerleaders (you et al.).