Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cliff]

@Roger_Murdock Helpful post.

Third paragraph might benefit from being turned into a lot of little paragraphs, maybe numbered or something.

 

[priestc]

This whole pre-fork, post-fork thing sounds too complicated. We can assume no cooperation from core. Let's just go ahead and fork.

I don't care if forked coins start out at 100th the price of Core coins. If we have the right idea, the price will adjust appropriately.

Its not complicated at all. If you are a miner who mines for the fork, then you have post-fork 2MB coins. If you're a miner who mines core then you are getting post-fork 1MB coins. All holders who do not mine have pre-fork coins.

Exchanges will have markets for prefork -> 2MB post-fork, and prefork -> 1MB post-fork. People who feel strongly in favor of the fork, will put up for sale their pre-fork coins for post-fork 2MB coins at a premium. This will cause post-fork 2MB coins to be worth more, and will encourage core miners to switch to the fork.

Those who feel strongly against the fork will put their pre-fork coins up for sale at a premium on the prefork -> 1MB market. This will cause the 1MB post-fork coin to go up in value and will encourage miners mining the fork to switch back.

With this set up, there is less risk for miners who mine the fork if there are pre-fork holders who really want the fork to happen (which there is in the case of rasing the blocksize). There is also a greater reward for miners who mine the fork because if the post-fork 2MB coins are worth more, their mining is more profitable. If there happens to be a group of people who are rabidly anti-fork, then miners who mine the 1MB chain will also profit on the people who buy their coins at a premium. Miners win no matter which chain they fork, the only people who lose are pre-fork coin holders who support the losing chain.

There may even be people who decide to begin mining just to get either 1MB or 2MB post-fork coins to dump on an exchange, so the network as a whole may even see an increase in hashpower.

 

[go1111111]

I was trying to think of analogies for hard vs. soft forks. I've been a fan for a while of analogizing the Bitcoin network to a traveling herd of animals

Nice -- I've also been trying to think of analogies (I'm tempted to write that comprehensive fork article myself). The best one I came up was: a group of friends who meet for pizza every week, but at some point some of the group want to start going to a burrito place instead. They have a big meeting about whether to switch restaurants, but they can't agree. Some of the group decides that they will go to the burrito place, and anyone else is free to join or not, etc.

The herd of animals seems better in that the advantages of having as large a group as possible are more clear. I like the relatability of the pizza/burrito scenario though. I also really like your language analogy.

If anyone has more analogies, please post them.

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

It will take a lot to get rid of the people who do not want a hardfork, unless there is consensus across the entire community. I think a mistake the "large blocker" side has made is underestimating the determination of the "small blocker" side. Many small block people figured the large blockers would eventually lose patience and stop the attacks, after this we can increase the blocksize limit with consensus. "Small blockers" are patient and happy to wait it out (remember everyone wants larger blocks, there is just a different philosophy with respect on how to hardfork). This is gradually starting to happen.

In contrast, despite some large block people "giving up" or moving to altcoins and saying the small blockers have won, I think us small blockers need to remain diligent in defending the existing rules. The last thing we should do it claim "victory" or get complacent, too early. I think it is vital not to make the same mistake as the "large blockers", we must not underestimate our opponents or their determination.

I hope this illustrates how important it is too many people to have consensus before hardforks and that it will take a lot to get rid of us.

Since month you say always the same, day by day: Big Blockers need to stop wanting bigger blocks to get bigger blocks. Since month you have been told, day by day, that this is bullshit, a perverse logic and a stalling. You did not answer. Never.

I welcome every small blocker to participate in the discussion with big blockers. But, jonny, please go away. Leave us alone.

P.S.: i finally started to ignore jonny. His repeating of the same has become not more than a distraction of the discussion.

 

[Zarathustra]

This whole pre-fork, post-fork thing sounds too complicated. We can assume no cooperation from core. Let's just go ahead and fork.

I don't care if forked coins start out at 100th the price of Core coins. If we have the right idea, the price will adjust appropriately.

"If the Spinoff Bitcoin starts with a market cap of 200 Million, would you be disappointed or encouraged?"

https://www.reddit.com/r/btcfork/comments/50j64r/if_the_spinoff_bitoin_starts_with_a_market_cap_of/

 

[Peter Tschipper]

@Christoph Bergmann I find ignoring someone works very well...every time you engage some toxic person, whether with good intentions or with shouts of derision, you make them relevant; and then they keep coming back to waste more of your time.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

Unfortunately there are no easy solutions in the world.

If ignoring is the only tool in your arsenal, then it opens you up to different attacks.

 

[Bloomie]

Guys, we've done a great job staying civil in these conversations. Let's try to avoid name calling going forward as well.

 

[pekatete]

@Bloomie - I concur on the civility part, however, the message may have been lost along the way so I'll attempt to clear that up.

The concerns expressed by members here were in regard to our very own resident village troll's perceived (repetitive?) dis-ingenuous, condescending tone and lack of reason in his arguments, but to my knowledge, no name calling was done.

Saying that, I believe the ignore option, like I've done above, draws a line under this unsavoury episode. I thank you.

 

[chriswilmer]

Whoa! I finally found out how to ignore certain users ... highly recommend this feature!

 

[go1111111]

I also replied to the thread that Roger has going on with MAbtc, in response to MAbtc's article. It now seems increasingly likely that I will write a more comprehensive post about this and try to publicize it throughout the Bitcoin world. Some of the seeds of my eventual post are in my reply, specifically I discuss:

-my Pizza Hut / Taco Bell analogy in a fuller form (showing that HFs are not coercive)

-why users have not actually given their "implicit consent" to soft forks

-that cryptocurrencies fundamentally rely on demand for the coins, not 'code'

-the nuances of changing a cryptocurrency's name

Since I'm thinking of expanding on these themes in a post for mass consumption, I'm interested in any feedback people have about how to make the arguments better/clearer. Or whether it's better if I use one of Roger's analogies (herd of animals, language) instead of my pizza/taco one.

Here's the post:

 

[xhiggy]

You do realise old nodes don't relay or validate segwit transactions - in effect they just host the blockchain and are capable of broadcasting pre segwit transactions. Old nodes just accept what the network tells them is a valid block. they are nothing more than zombie nodes hardly part of the P2P backbone of an online Digital Cash protocol.

There is not much point in preserving them if they don't add to network security. Segwit is just a hack to bypass the security full nodes would otherwise provide to prevent such an insidious hack.

To me this exchange represents the crux of the argument, and why this situation is mostly Greg Maxwells fault. Both sides are kind of right, but the core sides take their cues from the originator of their position. A person who reacts very strongly to ideas that aren't his AND that he disagrees with. The classic/unlimited, or fork, side of this argument is more of an anti-core sentiment, so they cover much more ground with their positions.
Just look at this exchange:

Johnny supports the idea of soft forks ONLY to keep the network as one

Adrian says that there may be problems with it, or exceptions to this reasoning.


One argument is much more specific than the other, at this stage in bitcoin development it is unlikely that the specific statement is assuredly the one to follow. It is even less likely that Greg's 'vision' are all the relevant specific ideas grouped correctly. Those who oppose Core tactics are simply pointing out that there are other ways forward, Greg can't handle this with composure, opponents are ostracized, and his followers copy his tactics/passionate nature. Core supporters are not allowed flexibility in their position which results in anxiety and anger, which quite frankly shows through in how opponents are treated (banned from a subreddit for being 'dangerous attackers'). Proponents of a fork are looking at mainly two feature changes, block size increase, and a hard fork away from Greg. Both are credibly needed in the short term, and are rather conservative proposals.

Fortunately, these traits of Greg's will be his undoing. If there is a persistent, viable fork he will not be able to handle it, and he'll leave in a flair of dramatics. Who knows what damage he'll do along the way.

(it's also worth remembering that most people interested in bitcoin are of average intelligence)

 

[xhiggy]

I don't want to be a Debbie Downer re: the whole /r/btcfork effort... but I have to say I'm pretty skeptical of its chances at this time. As I've said before:

The easy part of forking is releasing the code for a fork. The tricky part is getting people to use and value it. A PoW-changing fork is more likely to be successful in that regard if it's a clear Schelling point, i.e. if it lends itself to being viewed as "the official" fork attempt around which the pro-scaling forces should rally.
​

Now some people have taken the position, "well, hey, who cares if a particular fork attempt fails to gain traction because it's too early and/or poorly coordinated? We can always try again. Eventually there will be a fork attempt that is successful (assuming we're right that this is what the market actually wants.)"

And I think that's certainly true from a big-picture perspective. But I also think that an early failed attempt will probably have the effect of delaying our ultimate success. What happens when a lot of ideologically-motivated big-blockers rush to sell their "stupid Core coins" for coins on a forked chain that ultimately fizzles? Well, they no longer have those coins as "ammunition" to support a subsequent (and perhaps better timed / organized) fork attempt. Again, from a big-picture view that's fine and is just the nature of investing. But it would still be unfortunate from my perspective.

They're probably planning on attacking a fork for this exact reason. It's going to be hard without the big miners on board.

 

[xhiggy]

You don't get to just decide that this is how people are supposed to perceive you. You earn the trust of people in these claims by your behavior.

It's not realistic to expect that you can run around like an obnoxious condescending disingenuous prick, then just say this to gaslight your victims into compliance.

Great point, another tactic learned from Greg.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

They're probably planning on attacking a fork for this exact reason. It's going to be hard without the big miners on board.

Any non-Core Bitcoin implementation that's not planning for the most knowledgable Core developers to go black hat and attack them is setting themselves up for failure.

 

[Bloomie]

Arrrrgggh

 

[Justus Ranvier]

I've never accessed this site without using a VPN, so I'm not sure what he's talking about.

 

[cliff]

There are many ways to document the history of this thread.


Midnight's position relies on/assumes that there is some kind of user-entitlement to certain kinds of archiving tools and a corresponding obligation on website owners to preserve the entitlement. It's pretty solid handwaving, would go over better in person probably. He might make a good Fuller Brush salesperson one day:

https://books.google.com/books?id=lamH6PUqPWAC&pg=PT150&lpg=PT150&dq=fuller+brush+technique&source=bl&ots=ujI_9qITTn&sig=FDLvb6Hxo34cXtgIuqY6M5EInRo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwieiuyh-e_OAhUDKGMKHfNnDisQ6AEIVjAI#v=onepage&q=fuller brush technique&f=false

 

[Zarathustra]

I don't want to be a Debbie Downer re: the whole /r/btcfork effort... but I have to say I'm pretty skeptical of its chances at this time. As I've said before:

The easy part of forking is releasing the code for a fork. The tricky part is getting people to use and value it. A PoW-changing fork is more likely to be successful in that regard if it's a clear Schelling point, i.e. if it lends itself to being viewed as "the official" fork attempt around which the pro-scaling forces should rally.
​

Now some people have taken the position, "well, hey, who cares if a particular fork attempt fails to gain traction because it's too early and/or poorly coordinated? We can always try again. Eventually there will be a fork attempt that is successful (assuming we're right that this is what the market actually wants.)"

And I think that's certainly true from a big-picture perspective. But I also think that an early failed attempt will probably have the effect of delaying our ultimate success. What happens when a lot of ideologically-motivated big-blockers rush to sell their "stupid Core coins" for coins on a forked chain that ultimately fizzles? Well, they no longer have those coins as "ammunition" to support a subsequent (and perhaps better timed / organized) fork attempt. Again, from a big-picture view that's fine and is just the nature of investing. But it would still be unfortunate from my perspective.

A Professor of Computer Science said:

"If the coin does split, the two coins will be identical, except that one will have a slow block rate, 1 MB blocks, and force the users to engage in the the "fee market" auction; whereas the other will provide 10 minute average conf delay for all transactions that pay the posted min fee, will allow transactions to be signed offline in advance and then issued with fire-and-forget, among other perks. Which version will be more likely to retain most of the price?"

 

[priestc]

"If the Spinoff Bitcoin starts with a market cap of 200 Million, would you be disappointed or encouraged?"

https://www.reddit.com/r/btcfork/comments/50j64r/if_the_spinoff_bitoin_starts_with_a_market_cap_of/

It depends on how "market cap" is defined. If it's defined by number of post-fork coins multiplied by the price of post-fork coins, then 200 Million market cap would be phenominal. If the market cap is defined as prefork coins + post-fork coins multiplied by market price, then no that would not be impressive at all. "Market cap" in the second scenario is misleading.