Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[freetrader]

I found this post highly insighful and plausible:

 

[MoonShot]

for sure the real arguments and their base premises are not being shared by those aligned with small blocks.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

@freetrader

The one-way peg sidechain proposal is interesting. It's like fork arbitrage except without the ability to ditch Core, instead making the two work together. I'm not sure whether that is better or worse, but it is useful to consider the merits and social effects of the two approaches side by side. Both have the essential failsafes of 1) keeping hodlers whole and 2) being ignorable and "endlessly repeatable until success."
[doublepost=1471179733][/doublepost]/u/EndlesslyManipulable's comment on the DNM driving the controversy points to a big paradigm shift. I don't agree with it all, but it's quite thought-provoking. The DNM have been the elephant in the room in Bitcoin for a long time, so it wouldn't be all that surprising if they were also a major contributor the weirdness of the blocksize controversy (people skirting around certainly key points because of unwillingness to mention DNM).

 

[freetrader]

@Zangelbert Bingledack :

I have my issues with the "one-way" nature of the sidechain proposal. I don't think it scales well (freely) for several forks. I think if I spend some more time thinking about it, I can rationalize my thoughts on it, but for now it's at a "gut feeling this is not a good idea" level.

I can see for whom this would be a good idea though.

 

[chriswilmer]

@Zangelbert Bingledack Another theory is that law enforcement have infiltrated bitcoin development and want to prevent the further adoption of Bitcoin for illegal activity. That's why some in Core really want smaller blocks... because that would please the FBI officer twisting their arm (whose arm, in turn, is being twisted by some US senator). Again, it comes back to dark net markets mostly using Bitcoin, but from a different angle. It's also something that can't ever be spoken about it public.

 

[freetrader]

While we're on speculation, I don't understand how you can run a nationwide mail fraud scam, have it blow up and then not go to jail or at least be punished severely in a way that entails some restitution to your victims. Unless, perhaps, you start to co-operate with LE in a useful way that could make that problem go away.

 

[Roger_Murdock]

Some new users who are not high-fee tolerant, perhaps just learning about Bitcoin or doing their first 0-conf transaction, such as buying a beer at a BTC accepting bar, will be unimpressed with the cost of their transaction, and not bother again. I read an anecdote about how someone described Bitcoin to a friend, set him up a wallet and sent $5 of BTC. It never confirmed in a reasonable time, so his friend went away unimpressed. This could be happening a hundred times a day and we don't hear about it.

This is actually a point I'd been meaning to make. So I'm someone who has previously argued that the damage from the 1-MB limit probably isn't that great yet, because fees still really aren't that high in the context of the use cases for Bitcoin that actually matter most today. Right now, Bitcoin's most important use case, BY FAR, is as a speculative asset. Use as a transactional currency for censored markets is, in my view, a distant runner-up. (And use as a transactional currency for general purposes is basically insignificant if we're honestly evaluating where Bitcoin's current utility actually lies.)

And that's still mostly my position. But then I think back to the 100 or so on-chain transactions I've personally made over the past four years. Maybe a half dozen or so of those involved me transferring bitcoin to or from exchanges for the purpose of buying / selling. So those are the transactions that represent me using Bitcoin for its most important use case. What about all the others? Well, another half dozen or so involved me actually buying some kind of good or service (all perfectly above board, of course). Then there were maybe 30 or so transactions that involved me sending a buck or two for demonstration purposes to friends / family / strangers in bars I had drunkenly evangelized to. And then finally, most of the transactions I've made (most of which I made within a few months of first discovering Bitcoin) involved me just getting comfortable with Bitcoin -- practicing sending funds to and from paper wallets, brain wallets, and various phone and desktop wallets I was testing out. Looked at from a superficial perspective, almost all of my transactions were unimportant or even "spammy" -- so who cares if they get priced out with transaction fees of 30 or 50 cents a pop, right? But from a practical perspective, from the perspective of someone who is actually concerned with promoting Bitcoin's "virality" and continued adoption, those kinds of transactions are hugely important. We should absolutely care if it's feasible for holders to send their friends a buck or two, and then allow those new users to experiment with setting up wallets and moving funds around. If that experience is a positive one, those users are more likely to recognize Bitcoin's true value proposition and dive in on the speculative investment side.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

That's kind of the user evangelism version of the Fidelity Effect.

 

[megadeth]

Concur with this tweet:

Vast fortunes will be made on hard fork speculation aka wealth creation.

 

[chriswilmer]

Gah... anyone know of a block explorer that lets you look up bitcoin addresses by the first few characters? All the ones I tried seem to be not working... what's going on? So frustrating.

 

[Richy_T]

You might be thinking of something like firstbits which was abandoned (and yes, I understand the reasons). Shame as I think it could still be useful.

 

[chriswilmer]

I understand not relying on it for payments... but why would block explorers disable the search functionality... it was really handy!

 

[Richy_T]

I think it just became unsupported. When you do that, sooner or later, something breaks and you just disable it. I don't know if Google would index it?

Do you run a node yourself? Should be straightforward to harvest addresses. There's a fair few by now though.

 

[freetrader]

Some astute observer has spotted the upcoming "Passing the blame" strategy execution ahead of time.

 

[solex]

Pardon my French, but this Greek drama is sh*t:

Tax authorities will upload on their website pre-filled data like real estate, declared income, income from rents, loans, vehicles etc – practically the pre-filled data will refer to data given by taxpayers in their income declaration.

And under the new scheme, Greeks are mandated to have registered everything they own, with taxpayers having to add moveable and immovable possessions such as paintings, antiques, jewelry, even historical weapon, etc but also the cash they have in their wallets or under the mattress.

“Taxpayers must declare all the cash they have in their hands, even one euro!” an official from the Finance Ministry told newspaper To Vima on conditions of anonymity.

The Greek finance ministry apparently does not know yet what value the taxpayers will have to declare if they possess a necklace and a ring, a painting made by the cousin and a sculpture made by the sister in the ceramics course. The Ministry has also no idea, who will estimate the value and how.

Within a month, the taxpayer will have to submit a modification statement, if there are any changes in his possessions status.

How long before this comes to civilized countries?

 

[freetrader]

Excuse me @solex, Greece is a civilized country
They are probably just complying with whatever regulations someone wants to impose on them.
In the end it will be ignored by the people, esp. more by those with more wealth.
What are they going to do - arrest everyone in the country?

Still, it's a great way to criminalize an entire nation, because obviously no-one can value all their possessions accurately. So later you can use that information to selectively eradicate your political opponents. This is what you (as a regime) can do if you are too poor to put up a 99,9% surveillance infrastructure like the rich nations. On the political road ahead, it looks to me like Greek leadership might be tempted to follow the current Turkish regime if such a law goes into effect.

P.S. of course I agree that such actions by a state should be denounced, but not on the basis of being uncivilized, but on the basis of being oppressive. Otherwise you'll soon have people coming with arguments like the how many artefacts of supposed 'great civilizations' were constructed by conscripted labor . . .

 

[Justus Ranvier]

Speaking of the ongoing collapse of civilization:

 

[freetrader]

On the topic of DNMs and Bitcoin's dominance there -

https://np.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/4xqrzd/sigaint_launches_tor_monero_node_as_its_operators/

---

https://www.reddit.com/r/btcfork/comments/4xtz71/btcforks_now_has_a_slack/

 

[cliff]

-------------------------------------
Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP!
-------------------------------------
BTC | XAU (spot) | COMEX CG1
~$564.6 | $1341.11 | $1346.10
-------------------------------------
GBTC | SPDR Gold Trust ETF
$96 | $127.97
-------------------------------------
10YR Treas| Copper | Crude (WTI)
1.57% | $216.15/lb | $45.66/barrel
-------------------------------------

Short post today: Read this article - published today - by John Williams, the President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (where Yellen came from). It is a pretty good read on adaptability.

Introduction​

...​

In the wake of the global financial crisis, monetary policy has continued to evolve, in this latest incarnation battling low inflation and stagnation via unconventional monetary policy actions like quantitative easing and near-zero or even negative interest rates. As we move forward, economic conditions require that central banks and governments throughout the world carefully reexamine their policy frameworks and consider further adjustments in terms of monetary policy strategy—both in its own right and as it relates to other policy arenas—to successfully navigate these new seas.

Conclusion

Economics rarely has the benefit of a crystal ball. But in this case, we are seeing the future now and have the opportunity to prepare for the challenges related to persistently low natural real rates of interest. Thoroughly reviewing the key aspects of inflation targeting is certainly necessary, and could go a long way towards mitigating the obstructions posed by low r-star. But that is where monetary policy meets the boundaries of its influence. We’ve come to the point on the path where central banks must share responsibilities. There are limits to what monetary policy can and, indeed, should do. The burden must also fall on fiscal and other policies to do their part to help create conditions conducive to economic stability.

Policymakers don’t often cite Machiavelli, but in this instance, the analogy is potent (and, perhaps, a portent). In The Prince, fortune is compared to a river; in times of turbulence it wreaks havoc, flooding and destroying everything in its way. But in calm and sedate weather, people can build dams and stem the tide of destruction. In other words, we can wait for the next storm and hope for better outcomes or prepare for them now and be ready.​

-------------------------------------

PM TRIBUTE

 

[Erdogan]

Difficulty again at all time high.