Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[freetrader]

@theZerg: I remember there was a mention of this in the Core meeting IRC log from 14 July 2016:

Gmaxwell notes he got some replies on reddit stating that bitcoin core’s wallet was unusable for commercial use and most use centralized API providers. Commercial users unfortunately don’t report issues they encounter often and he doesn’t know how to improve this.

Source: https://bitcoincore.org/en/meetings/2016/07/14/

That narrows down the time, but provides no link to the comments / thread. Someone with more reddit-fu may be able to find something.

Perhaps if Maxwell reads your article he will know how instruct his engineers to improve the Core wallet too ;-)

 

[Justus Ranvier]

It stuns me how mundane the suppression of these corporations really turned out to be. For example, all this bad juju just to protect Sony from criticism over a massively-overhyped summer flop of an inconsequential motion picture that cynically used social-justice guilt as a marketing tactic.

It helps if you understand that "social justice" is just rebranded Bolshevism.

The Cold War never really ended. After the Bolsheviks were kicked out of Russia they simply moved west to found the EU and to the US to continue the existing program of taking over every institution one step at a time.

The "bad juju" has nothing to do with the success or failure of a single inconsequential film. It's about establishing the principle that the neo-Bolsheviks can rightfully dictate the viewing preferences of their audiences.

From their point of view, when audiences do not like what they've been ordered to like, they're being disobedient and deserve to be punished for it.

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

I've got the code to do it now... https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/52e82w/optimizing_bitcoins_transaction_generation_code/

we'll see if it gets merged into BU. Personally, I think that making BU appeal to enterprises might help node counts...

I remember a post on Reddit I think about how bitcoind has all sorts of issues in enterprise use. Does anyone remember that and have a link?

I did not understand completely what you did ... you just changed the composition of a transaction? If I use just bitcoind's RPC-API to manage my transactions with some outer layer like BitcoinJS, I'm not affected, right? It's not a problem of the protocoll, but of the user-interface core provided?

And does it affect

So most businesses like exchanges and wallets are not affected, because they do it for themselves for a long time?

However, I thought for some months that Bitcoin-Unlimited should optimize transaction composition ...

So what should coin selection actually optimize? And when you ask that in the context of Bitcoin today, the answer becomes obvious. The coin selection should minimize the UTXO set, without significantly impacting transaction fees. In other words, it should attempt to consume more TXO inputs than it produces as outputs, and ideally spend some of the wallet’s near-dust outputs in transactions with larger inputs that will allow the transaction to not be penalized. [Privacy advocates might be alarmed — shouldn’t wallets try to keep coins separate to confuse blockchain analysis? To which I’d respond that its very dangerous to rely on the algorithm to do so because, well, it must combine these outputs to build up a transaction. A better approach is taken by many wallets, and that is to allow you to separate your wallet into “accounts” or subsections that will not be mixed]

If you manage to optimize transaction composition that it reduces UTXO, this would be greatly helpful for the system as a whole ... If you - in the long run - manage to implement something like a system where the user can choose if his transaction composition should be a) economic, b) private or c) reduce UTXO, this would be even better. And if you implement the proposed account system in the client, it would be an event to celebrate.

 

[Peter R]

Perhaps if Maxwell reads your article he will know how instruct his engineers to improve the Core wallet too ;-)

Clearly Greg already knows about this potential improvement--in fact he discovered it in the late 90's. A Core team member actually implemented what @theZerg did and found its performance to be lacking (it was only 1000x better). They didn't bother to release it because Greg proved that it could be made 1001x better with a bit more work (that they never got around to doing). This can all be proved by three tangentially-related IRC comments. /s

 

[albin]

From their point of view, when audiences do not like what they've been ordered to like, they're being disobedient and deserve to be punished for it.

That is definitely the impression that I got just catching some of the interviews and promotion via general osmosis. It's bizarre and upsetting because I previously had a good impression of the director of this film from other previously great comedy work, but the stuff he was saying (or likely coached to say to some extent or another) just came across as the most arrogant bile.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

@albin If you look carefully you'll see the same thing happening in many venues and mediums.

Whether or not one agrees that the motivation behind it shares a continuity with over a century of Marxist thought and activism, there's a very obvious push for a cultural command economy where unseen kingmakers decide what opinions are acceptable and which are not and that ruthlessly punishes disobedience.
[doublepost=1473699413,1473698347][/doublepost]On a related note, you should be concerned about this development, not so much that they are doing it, but the fact that they obviously aren't worried about getting caught:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-12/google-bias

What kind of endgame could they possibly have in mind to employ such a tactic? Are they planning to burn their company down to the ground? Do they think they've achieved some kind of TBTF status that protects them from the requirement to deliver a product that users willingly adopt?

 

[Norway]

Clearly Greg already knows about this potential improvement--in fact he discovered it in the late 90's. A Core team member actually implemented what @theZerg did and found its performance to be lacking (it was only 1000x better). They didn't bother to release it because Greg proved that it could be made 1001x better with a bit more work (that they never got around to doing). This can all be proved by three tangentially-related IRC comments. /s

lol

 

[theZerg]

I did not understand completely what you did ... you just changed the composition of a transaction? If I use just bitcoind's RPC-API to manage my transactions with some outer layer like BitcoinJS, I'm not affected, right? It's not a problem of the protocoll, but of the user-interface core provided?

And does it affect

So most businesses like exchanges and wallets are not affected, because they do it for themselves for a long time?

However, I thought for some months that Bitcoin-Unlimited should optimize transaction composition ...



If you manage to optimize transaction composition that it reduces UTXO, this would be greatly helpful for the system as a whole ... If you - in the long run - manage to implement something like a system where the user can choose if his transaction composition should be a) economic, b) private or c) reduce UTXO, this would be even better. And if you implement the proposed account system in the client, it would be an event to celebrate.

If the business's layer uses the "sendrawtransaction" api, then yes they are not affected. They are completely managing their own wallet. But if it uses the bitcoind wallet and schedules payments through the "sendtoaddress" api, and (I think) the "fundrawtransaction" api then they are affected by this work.

 

[freetrader]

Do they think they've achieved some kind of TBTF status that protects them from the requirement to deliver a product that users willingly adopt?

They not only think this, they know this. They are only superficially delivering a product anymore at all. The product is us, it's been us for a long time, every last bit of information that they can get their hands on about us, and sell to advertisers, who are the first layer of "real customers". I'd certainly speculate that there is another layer of "customers", the alphabet soup of agencies and contractors comprising the national-security / military-industrial deep state. The latter kind of "customer" is the one who probably makes you a deal you can't refuse.

 

[Bagatell]

@freetrader

what you and Justus are talking about is known as the "incentivized API marketplace" but for obvious reasons the players involved don't talk too openly about it.

 

[freetrader]

https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenBazaar/comments/52e3ab/i_won_crypto_currency_as_the_chosen_topic_for/

OP: "I won "Crypto Currency" as the chosen topic for /r/RedditDayOf/ tomorrow, Tuesday September 13th"

The best post of the day, by net upvotes, receives an Award. The winner may nominate a future topic. It may take a few days for winners to be awarded.

I think that's neat!

 

[Justus Ranvier]

@Bagatell He's been trying to warn us for years: https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

One of the side effects of this insanity we call a US presidential election is that I've had to recalibrate my definition of what is possible.

I never thought that I'd see one man defeat both the Bush crime family and the Clinton crime family in the same election.

If that's possible, what else?

Is the idea of seeing RICO statues applied to Manhattan banks no longer too unbelievable even for works of fiction?

Is it no longer ridiculous to imagine necons and globalists facing trials at the Hague for war crimes?

Could we ever see Dick Cheney and Eric Schmidt share a jail cell?

The possibilities are endless.

 

[Norway]

@theZerg Have you submitted a proposal for a talk at Milan?

 

[Norway]

Something SPECTACULAR should be done to give Gavin Andresen @Gavin Andresen the cred he deserves. Something BIG! Just sayin....

 

[albin]

I feel like I need someone somewhere to give a talk to explain to me how CONOP and proposals like Flexcap which impose a cost on increasing the blocksize are in any way logically connected.

I might be incredibly obtuse, but I still don't see how the ideas have any relationship to each other.

 

[freetrader]

@albin: I'm not saying the logical connection is sound, but have you watched FluffyPony's (Monero Lead dev) talk about CONOP and FlexCaps which he gave at the Onchain Scaling conf #1?

It's titled "Dynamic Block Size Caps", available here: http://www.onchainscaling.com/

Video:
Slides: https://uploads.strikinglycdn.com/files/59333b96-3e06-4030-8ae3-dd417014107a/R.Spagni-Automate All the Things - Dynamic Block Limits.pdf

I have a number of disagreements with the theory of CONOP as presented in that talk, but it's worth watching to understand some of the arguments. Needless to say, coming from Monero, Pony's got a certain view of things which have worked out well for them.

 

[Bagatell]

Supervisor Of "Massive Fraud" At Wells Fargo Leaves Bank With $125 Million Bonus

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-12/supervisor-massive-fraud-wells-fargo-leaves-bank-125-million-bonus

 

[freetrader]

Supervisor Of "Massive Fraud" At Wells Fargo Leaves Bank With $125 Million Bonus

Priorities:

Interpol and Europol to investigate how digital currency is used by the criminal underworld

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/52iqso/interpol_and_europol_to_investigate_how_digital/

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

If the business's layer uses the "sendrawtransaction" api, then yes they are not affected. They are completely managing their own wallet. But if it uses the bitcoind wallet and schedules payments through the "sendtoaddress" api, and (I think) the "fundrawtransaction" api then they are affected by this work.

Ok, thanks for the info. I think some exchanges - at least one I know well - use the sendtoaddress api, but I don't know if composing transactions ever had been a problem.
[doublepost=1473755787][/doublepost]

Priorities:

Interpol and Europol to investigate how digital currency is used by the criminal underworld

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/52iqso/interpol_and_europol_to_investigate_how_digital/

This info is quiet vague beside the fact that europol does what every other police unit in europe and the usa do for some time - trying to track digital currency flows. The interesting - dangerous - part of the game begins when they realize that it is impossible to track digital currency flows when someone really doesn't want to be tracked. (I guess this will be the inevitable moment when bitcoin gets banned / regulated to death worldwide)

On the other side there is some confusion what digital currency is used for. No doubt the ransom-ware thing exists, and no doubt darknetmarkets exist, but do we know some relations? I recently made a survey on my readers, one question was, what do you do with bitcoins, and the option "using it to buy illegal things" was only choosen by ~2 percent. In my view this is too less, but also the ~98 percent the police seems to think should be the answer is wrong ... what do you think is the real relation?

Edit: link: https://bitcoinblog.de/2016/09/12/unglaublich-optimistisch-aber-nicht-immer-konsistent/

 

[freetrader]

@Christoph Bergmann :
Some related analyses:

"A Market Analysis of the Bitcoin Economy" (seems to omit the illicit market):
http://www.finance20.ch/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Crypto15_PaoloTasca.pdf (September 2015)

"The Evolution of the Bitcoin Economy: Extracting and Analyzing the Network of Payment Relationships"
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2808762 (July 2016)

BitcoinMagazine summarized [1] the latter, comprehensive study (also co-authored by Tasca):

The economists’ conclusion is that the Bitcoin economy has grown and matured from an early prototype stage, through a second growth stage characterized by “sin” (i.e. gambling, black markets), to a third stage marked by a sharp progression away from “sin” and toward legitimate enterprises.

The researchers of the latter study themselves concluded:

Finally, our results could suggest that some recent concerns regarding the use of bitcoin for illegal transactions at the present time might be overstated, and that whatever such transactions may exist could further diminish as the Bitcoin economy continues to mature.

Also a notable quote from the study:

By November, 2013, the amount of in ows attributable to "sin" entities had shrunk
signi cantly to just 3% or less of total transactions. This third period, which we are still
currently experiencing, is characterized by a maturation of the Bitcoin economy away
from "sin" enterprise and diversifying into legitimate payments, commerce and services.

My own feeling is that it the situation is fluid, changing all the time, but I have no objective anchor for supposing that e.g. this study went wrong in its analysis.

What I find fascinating is how Bitcoin is the transparent posterboy for cryptocurrency, but now that more private forms exist - the boundary is not easily discernible, value can move quite easily from one to the other and back, stifling blockchain analysis. Thus, Bitcoin sort of gains privacy without having to directly implement the features itself - as long as markets exist between it and the altcoins.

[1] https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/new-study-reveals-bitcoin-economy-maturing-to-mainstream-enterprise-1469640897