Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cliff]

-------------------------------------
Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP!
-------------------------------------
BTC $655.43
Gemini Daily $630.275 | 1500 BTC | Total $945,412.50 (Fri, 2016-10-21)
Gemini Daily $655.795 | 537.658022 BTC | Total $352,593.44 (Sat, 2016-10-22)
Gemini Daily $650 | 67.68214728 BTC | Total $43,993.40 (Sun, 2016-10-23)
GBTC* $91
-------------------------------------
BTCswap(BFX - FFR) 0.0333% | BTCswap(Polo) 0.0269%
-------------------------------------
XAU (spot)* $1,265.9
COMEX CG1* $1,266.9
SPDR Gold Trust ETF* $121.7
-------------------------------------
HashRate 1.86 EH/s
MarketCap $10,326,621,531
BTC Dominance 80.6%
Exchange Volume (BTC) $56.32m
Exchange Volume (ALT) $17.15m
Exchange Volume [BTC] Dominance 76.7%
-------------------------------------
10YR Treas 1.76%
Copper* $208.9/lb
Crude (WTI)* $50.85/barrel


*Indicates price at market opening

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

• Bitcoin Jumps to Three-Month High as Yuan Weakness Fuels Buying (Bloomberg)
• Overstock.com could begin first Bitcoin-based stock trades (VentureBeat)
• Korea to expand system for digital currency (Korea Herald)
• [patent] Funding access in a distributed electronic environment

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

• AT&T, Time Warner CEOs say mega-merger is all about speed and mobility (CNBC)
  • AT&T boss vows to keep his hands off CNN’s journalism (WashPost)
• Belgian internal feud blocks EU-Canada trade deal (Reuters)
• Euro zone October business growth buoyant, prices rise: PMIs (Reuters)
• Egypt's Security Chief Warns of Scheme to Incite Chaos (NYT)
• Dow gains 100 points amid deluge of corporate news; real estate leads (CNBC)

 

[pekatete]

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

@pekatete
Where did that guy hide the last months?

I wonder if there is some common ground, nearly everybody in Bitcoin supports. I guess, everybody, devs from all implementations, managers, "Bitcoin celebrities" etc. would sign a document, saying that there won't be more than 21e6 coins ever. If there were more statements like this, maybe a "Bitcoin constitution" like T. Zander proposed, could be made, that is accepted by nearly everybody.
Would make it easier to speak about the questions the fractions are discordant about only.
And would make it clear, that the 1 MB limit isn't accepted by most as a property of Bitcoin itself.

 

[79b79aa8]

such a document would mean little those who didn't sign it (e.g. you and me and all the new users we are waiting for). hardfork realpolitik will have to suffice.

 

[pekatete]

@satoshis_sockpuppet - yeah. Where has he been hiding all this time? I totally concur with the last part of that tweet on the simplistic premise that core have taken ownership of the bitcoin eco-system far beyond what would have been reasonably expected of any development team on an open source project, but that this is bitcoin makes their tight reign regressive.

bitcoin constitution ... ? I believe the white paper could sufficiently serve as the constitution, simply because it'll be a constitution by and for the early adopters.

In that vein, it'd be nice if all client development teams had a manifesto type document, listing the areas of development on the bitcoin protocol that they intend to carry out, so users can "vote" on which client to run / support based off their "manifestos". Obviously, any developments outside their manifestos can not be included in the client unless they are bug fixes, and new manifestos published every 2 years.

I'd also like to see more accountability for soft-forks on top of the current voting through blocks, where soft forks can only occur when the code for the soft fork has been fully integrated into the two leading clients (by node count and / or mined blocks), meaning the other dev team has got to accept the soft fork as necessary to the ecosystem to avoid the kind of impasse that core have brought due to their belligerence. That way we can even safely revert to the 51% satoshi consensus in the block-votes / signalling.

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

bitcoin constitution ... ? I believe the white paper could sufficiently serve as the constitution, simply because it'll be a constitution by and for the early adopters.

21e6 limit is not in the whitepaper.

The whitepaper is a very compact paper about the absolute fundamentals of PoW cryptocurrencies, but it doesn't define Bitcoin sufficient imho.

such a document would mean little those who didn't sign it (e.g. you and me and all the new users we are waiting for). hardfork realpolitik will have to suffice.

It would make it easier for people to see, where the disagreements are and what most people define as being Bitcoin.

 

[Richy_T]

I wonder if there is some common ground, nearly everybody in Bitcoin supports. I guess, everybody, devs from all implementations, managers, "Bitcoin celebrities" etc. would sign a document, saying that there won't be more than 21e6 coins ever. itself.

*Shrug* I've come to the stage where if someone wanted to create a fork with constant inflation, I'd wish them luck and only have the caveat that I'd be divesting myself of any of the coins on that fork (if it were worthwhile). Bitcoin is about finding consensus, not forcing it.

 

[adamstgbit]

You should listen to this TED talk by Rachel Botsman:

https://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_botsman_we_ve_stopped_trusting_institutions_and_started_trusting_strangers

No, really, you have to listen her: she nails it.

she said the word "trust" much to much...
I like the idea she puts forth but i think her way of going about explaining it is kinda wrong.
its not about trust, or redefining how we "build trust" or what ever..
its about Removing trust from the equation altogether!

when i get paid in cash-dollars i must Trust that that cash is not counterfeit.
when i get paid in bitcoin i do not have to trust anyone or anything ( other then the idea of bitcoin itself )...

building systems that eliminate or reduce the need for trust is the key to victory.

her trust ladder is 3 steps

1) trust the idea
2) trust the platform
3) trust in the individual users

Trust in Fiat:
1) i dont trust the idea, its a bonkers idea! i guess fiat makes a lot of sense if your a big gov or a bank...
2) if we define the platform as Cash money or Big banks leading ( aka creating ) " SQL DB money ". i have little faith it will work out in the long term, altho it does definitely work in the shorter term...
3) i have very little trust in individual users of fiat system. ( i mean who trusts that the FED will "tighten" when it says its going to "tighten", they make shit up all the time, and when shit don't work they flat out make up new bonkers rules, "negative interest" rates for "institutional lending" ...I dont even... )

Fiat works only because everyone (wrongfully) BELIEVES it works,


Trust in Bitcoin:
1) at its core, bitcoin is just messages being signed by pub/priv keys which can easily be verified, I understand the idea, i trust the idea.
2) if we define the platform as the BTC in and of themselves, yes i "trust" 1BTC is 1BTC no matter where it comes from or how it got to me.
3)does not apply at all, i'm not required to Trust that the users are using the system properly. the "proper use" of Bitcoin's blockchain is guaranteed by the system itself, any deviation from the expected behavior is an invalid TX, orphan block, or Fork!

Bitcoin works because no one is necessarily required to trust anyone else, only the idea itself must be trusted, but even then, trust in the idea kinda boils down to "do you trust the public/ private key encryption model" . and... well... yes, I do!

 

[solex]

Trying to show why anything resembling a settlement layer can only be distilled from a larger system.

 

[awemany]

I just explained to someone how the already existing payment channels could be cascaded. I am now further thinking about off-chain payments and LN and such.

If you ponder about it, the cascading variant has a latency-to-(max-counter-party-risk) trade-off, though. With latency L and maximum counter party risk C, maximum payment rate R becomes R=C/L. And I think the main advantage of a multi-hop trustless implementation like a full-blown LN is in eliminating this trade-off. Nothing less, but also nothing more.

What do you guys think, what are the actual scenarios where LN or cascaded payment channels could work out, and where do you think do they fall in the L and C range?

Here's what I think, intuitively, drawing from my example:

1ct lost due to a scammy hub is going to be slightly annoying but not so off-puttingly so (in the western world and for the applications considered), in terms of adopting payment channels. I think a simple reputation system (and if only that there are like 5 such hubs existing and slowly build a reputation by users manually selecting those 'well known hubs' (such as Coinbase) could drive the likelyhood of that occuring below <<1% (and thus the 'risk tax' below <<0.01ct).

I think 5ct/s is definitely enough to use payment channels to use micropayments to browse ad-free.

5ct/s amounts to $3/min, which is a decent rate for a lot of streamed content, online concerts, whatever.

But it could be on the low end for what seems to drive a lot technology adoption, porn, cam girls and the like.

I am pondering about this because I think it would be interesting to see the trade-offs between what LN could achieve and what payment channels could achieve - and what the applications would be that miss out.

Note I am not opposed to having a full-blown LN in principle, but ViaBTC's stance makes me wonder whether we get something like that at all anytime soon (due to miner incentives) - and what we would 'miss' by not having an imagined, perfectly working Lightning Network.

 

[steffen]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4vub3y/mimblewimble_noninteractive_coinjoin_and_better/ is from August.

Any thoughts on MimbleWimble created by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?

 

[Dusty]

she said the word "trust" much to much...
I like the idea she puts forth but i think her way of going about explaining it is kinda wrong.
its not about trust, or redefining how we "build trust" or what ever..

I agree completely: the use of Bitcoin does not redefine the use of trust, but simply renders it not relevant any more: while she did not state it correctly in these terms I think that she expressed it correctly by crossing the last pole of the ladder.

Anyway, what I like most of the video is the fact that an enormous paradigm shift is being worked on, and the politicians are completely out of touch: have you seen the tweet of the English politician in London the day of the Uber protest?

He was not even aware that Uber existed.

And the other politicians probably did not even know how to use twitter

EDIT: grammar

 

[cliff]

-------------------------------------
Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP!
-------------------------------------
BTC $661.01
Gemini Daily $648.2 | 2308 BTC | Total $1,496,045.60 (Mon, 2016-10-24)
GBTC* $90.51
-------------------------------------
BTCswap(BFX - FFR) 0.0331% | BTCswap(Polo) 0.0276%
-------------------------------------
XAU (spot)* $1,264.44
COMEX CG1* $1,265.2
SPDR Gold Trust ETF* $120.9
-------------------------------------
HashRate 1.84 EH/s
MarketCap $10,392,163,513
BTC Dominance 81.5%
Exchange Volume (BTC) $65.96m
Exchange Volume (ALT) $27.15m
Exchange Volume [BTC] Dominance 70.8%
-------------------------------------
10YR Treas 1.74%
Copper* $209.65/lb
Crude (WTI)* $50.49/barrel

*Indicates price at market opening
-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------

• Bitcoin needs on-chain transactions to survive, and so do miners (O.Janssens)
  • On the Instability of Bitcoin Without the Block Reward (Carlsten et al, PDF)
    • Miles Carlsten (Princeton) shows BTC liveness ruined when tx fees > rewards @ ACM CCS 2016
  • Bitcoin is unstable without the block size size limit (brg444)
• “In 2016, does anyone still take ‘the reference client IS the specification’ seriously? If so, someone wants their 93 billion bitcoins back.” (Buterin)
  • Lack of a spec and alternative implementations is an enabler for centralizing development and concentrating power in devs. (Dr. Sirer)
• BitPay beefs up Bitcoin wallet security with Intel chip integration (VentureBeat)
• Major banks trade cotton using blockchain in a move that could transform a major industry (CNBC)

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

• Wall St. opens flat as investors assess earnings (Reuters)
• Caterpillar Stung by Global Economic Funk (NYT)
• Tata shake-up may distract group from restructuring efforts (Reuters)
• Federal Reserve Board announces it has voted to affirm Countercyclical (Federal Reserve Board)
• Good Cybersecurity Doesn’t Try to Prevent Every Attack (Harvard Business Review)
• Federal Contractors Face New Cyber Security Standards – Here’s How to Prepare (InfoSecurity)
• Open Data Projects are Fueling The Fight Against Police Misconduct (The Intercept_)
• 'Siri, catch market cheats': Wall Street watchdogs turn to A.I. (Reuters)

 

[steffen]

Might the true purpose of Segwit be to make future forks of the blockchain impossible without people loosing money? I.e the purpose is to create a centralization of power?

 

[AdrianX]

I think a simple reputation system (and if only that there are like 5 such hubs existing and slowly build a reputation by users manually selecting those 'well known hubs' (such as Coinbase) could drive the likelyhood of that occuring below <<1% (and thus the 'risk tax' below <<0.01ct).

The "fungibility" benefits the LN promises for bitcoin come at an expense. The LN hubs have the potential to get a big data overview of money flow as well as the ability to drill down individual purchasing behaviors of the hub users.

 

[adamstgbit]

I agree completely: the use of Bitcoin does not redefine the use of trust, but simply renders it not relevant any more: while she did not state it correctly in these terms I think that she expressed it correctly by crossing the last pole of the ladder.

Anyway, what I like most of the video is the fact that an enormous paradigm shift is being worked on, and the politicians are completely out of touch: have you seen the tweet of the English politician in London the day of the Uber protest?

He was not even aware that Uber existed.

And the other politicians probably did not even knew how to use twitter

I think its going to take a while for the "paradigm shift" to happen.

Uber is not good enough... its sadly a centralized trust based system....

their DB which hold ratings on drives and passengers is centralized.
when you choose to ride in a uber taxi you choose to trust that taxi driver.

sure you (the passenger) gets to pick and choose which uber-taxi you ride in based on individualized rating system, but that system is still centralized..

when the taxi driver gets a bad rating because he farted in his taxi, what does he do?

uber creates a web of shame, not a web of trust.


what if i told you we can build a COMPLETELY decentralized taxi system, which TOTALLY removes trust from the equation, AND does not rely on a web of shame to operate.

Uber done right: ( lets call it Bouber )

Bouber-Car and Bouber-passenger wants to make a deal: london to paris for 0.2BTC

problem, on one knowns or trusts each other..... what do we do?

Bouber-passenger creates a smart contract that says " once i'm in paris send 0.2BTC to the Bouber-Car "

Bouber-Car creates a smart contract that says " if Bouber-passenger smart contract does not complete within 24hours send 1BTC to Bouber-passenger"

KABOOM!

trustless taxi service.

Bouber-Car knows if he get the Bouber-passenger where he needs to go, he gets the 0.2BTC.
Bouber-passenger knows if Bouber-Car fails to deliver he'll get 1BTC

there's some technical details to work out.

like maybe we need Bouber-Cars/passenger to register there wallets on the blockchain. and figure out a reliable system to prove that Bouber-Cars/passenger's contacts completed successfully. etc etc

but its much better than a centralized web of shame, dictating who's who's.

 

[79b79aa8]

remember that by the time Bouber goes live the taxis will be driverless and quite safe. also, it is not just about taxis.

 

[Zarathustra]

There is strong consensus within the uncensored reddit sub that @jonny1000 is marching in fours with the totalitarian junta and does not deserve upvotes for such disgusting behavior.

 

[Dusty]

I think its going to take a while for the "paradigm shift" to happen.

Maybe, but it's happening faster than politicians are able to understand, and this is really good

Uber is not good enough... its sadly a centralized trust based system....

The slowness of the paradigm shift is not due to a technical problem, but to cultural inertia.
The big shift that is happening, is the change of the normal person (or maybe, their parents) seeking once for authority to organize their life, while now they use intermediaries available in the market.

A system that tomorrow will replace Uber with an autonomous system using smart contracts is a technological advancement, but does not require a change in the people behaviour: actually most of them will never notice the difference.

The relevance of the actual paradigm shift in my opinion is the fact that political power will be seen as less and less useful and this, together with the utter failure of fiat money will destroy government in a (not so?) near future.

 

[adamstgbit]

I can't disagree with you there @Dusty.
Altho i would like Uber to be more decentralized and trustless in nature.
the real mile stone is to get the poeple to understand and accept systems that operate without an authority.
once that step is taken, and you find yourself stepping into a Uber-car, stepping into a Bouber-car won't require any extra "leap of faith".