Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.
- Thread starter cypherdoc
- Start date
albin
Active Member
- Nov 8, 2015
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That's unbelievable to think that the United States seems reasonable in comparison. Trump's tax plan could even be great for Bitcoin as far as tanking capital gains rates.
The US mainly sucks IMO because we don't have a very strong culture of public information with respect to "the rules", I would suspect stemming from a long-deteriorating sense of civics in the general public. You basically have to hire an attorney and take their advice, which might not be right if enforcement ever happens, and its your ass that's on the line, or best-case scenario you can write to a regulatory body asking for guidance on their interpretation of regulation, then on the off chance they answer, you take that to a lawyer. To make matters even worse, we don't even really have "laws" per se for alot of these scenarios, we have vague legislation authorizing the existence of a bureaucracy mandating it to achieve some stated purpose. There's almost nothing at all that I can think of that's pertinent to Bitcoin which actually involves complying directly with some civil or criminal statute passed by legislature.
The US mainly sucks IMO because we don't have a very strong culture of public information with respect to "the rules", I would suspect stemming from a long-deteriorating sense of civics in the general public. You basically have to hire an attorney and take their advice, which might not be right if enforcement ever happens, and its your ass that's on the line, or best-case scenario you can write to a regulatory body asking for guidance on their interpretation of regulation, then on the off chance they answer, you take that to a lawyer. To make matters even worse, we don't even really have "laws" per se for alot of these scenarios, we have vague legislation authorizing the existence of a bureaucracy mandating it to achieve some stated purpose. There's almost nothing at all that I can think of that's pertinent to Bitcoin which actually involves complying directly with some civil or criminal statute passed by legislature.
Norway
Well-Known Member
- Sep 29, 2015
- 2,424
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So, the "blocks are full" on the SMS network here in Norway tonight. I try to send new years greetings to my family, but all my SMS messages are rejected and I have to resend them over and over again. I don't want a replace by fee or receiver (parent) pays system. I just want it to work, not go to an SMS auction 
Norway
Well-Known Member
- Sep 29, 2015
- 2,424
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Norway
Well-Known Member
- Sep 29, 2015
- 2,424
- 6,410
Thinking about the future.
Watching bitcoin music videos. Most of them are two years old. Nobody are making these silly bitcoin music videos anymore.
It used to be us against them. Now it's nerd vs nerd. Troll vs troll.
Somebody have taken control of the idea of bitcoin and killed the hippie dream of fair currency. It's really sad.
Watching bitcoin music videos. Most of them are two years old. Nobody are making these silly bitcoin music videos anymore.
It used to be us against them. Now it's nerd vs nerd. Troll vs troll.
Somebody have taken control of the idea of bitcoin and killed the hippie dream of fair currency. It's really sad.
That's why it's so cool that there are some
MOTHERFUCKING ASSHOLES FIGHTING ON!
CHANGING THE AUTOPILOT MODE OF POOLS & MINERS!
IT'S A WAR!
BRING IT ON!
BU!
MOTHERFUCKING ASSHOLES FIGHTING ON!
CHANGING THE AUTOPILOT MODE OF POOLS & MINERS!
IT'S A WAR!
BRING IT ON!
BU!
TLDR; We do not need to retain all data forever.
We must not fix this yet, but some people hold the view that data must be retained forever, and the chain will grow forever, as a negative, or even making bitcoin impossible in the long run. Therefore it is good to have this as a counterargument.
Here we go: The important data is the unspent transaction outputs set. If we have that, we can transact as usual, and create a new utxo set for each block.
When we decide what is bitcoin, we do not start from the genesis block. That block is the first block only because satoshi said so, on an insecure mailing list. Rather we start from the other end, the recent best block. This has some security, only because we know that the miners don't just waste their hashing power. The last minus one block has more security due to the block that is mined on top of it. The last minus two blocks has even better security, and as a rule of thumb, last minus six can be considered almost absolutely safe. It is the depth where the block is buried, that decides its degree of bitcoinness.
The data that we are interested in: What output contains a specific bitcoin fraction, can be defined to be either the result of all transactions since genesis, or it can be the utxo set itself.
Now if we could prove that a specific utxo set is secure to the same degree, we need only that, plus later blocks. So if we have the blockchain plus a secure utxo set for every block, we could really start at any place in the chain, not from genesis.
To have the same security for the utxo sets, we need only hash it and place it in the block. So if the block is good, so is the utxo set.
Don't worry about the added diskspace needed, many optimizations are possible. We could do it for every thousand blocks, for every week, or even every year.
How long do we need to retain transaction data? We can for instance use the same standard as most economic institutions use: ten years. So if you regard a transaction as safe when buried under six blocks, after ten years it must be even safer. If the banks and the card companies, every business and every defunct business can hold data for ten years, so can we. If they can discard older data, so can we.
This means we can just let older data die and go to bitheaven, and bitcoin can churn forever.
We must not fix this yet, but some people hold the view that data must be retained forever, and the chain will grow forever, as a negative, or even making bitcoin impossible in the long run. Therefore it is good to have this as a counterargument.
Here we go: The important data is the unspent transaction outputs set. If we have that, we can transact as usual, and create a new utxo set for each block.
When we decide what is bitcoin, we do not start from the genesis block. That block is the first block only because satoshi said so, on an insecure mailing list. Rather we start from the other end, the recent best block. This has some security, only because we know that the miners don't just waste their hashing power. The last minus one block has more security due to the block that is mined on top of it. The last minus two blocks has even better security, and as a rule of thumb, last minus six can be considered almost absolutely safe. It is the depth where the block is buried, that decides its degree of bitcoinness.
The data that we are interested in: What output contains a specific bitcoin fraction, can be defined to be either the result of all transactions since genesis, or it can be the utxo set itself.
Now if we could prove that a specific utxo set is secure to the same degree, we need only that, plus later blocks. So if we have the blockchain plus a secure utxo set for every block, we could really start at any place in the chain, not from genesis.
To have the same security for the utxo sets, we need only hash it and place it in the block. So if the block is good, so is the utxo set.
Don't worry about the added diskspace needed, many optimizations are possible. We could do it for every thousand blocks, for every week, or even every year.
How long do we need to retain transaction data? We can for instance use the same standard as most economic institutions use: ten years. So if you regard a transaction as safe when buried under six blocks, after ten years it must be even safer. If the banks and the card companies, every business and every defunct business can hold data for ten years, so can we. If they can discard older data, so can we.
This means we can just let older data die and go to bitheaven, and bitcoin can churn forever.
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@Erdogan: And even the UTXO set can be reduced, should the need for that ever arise (which I doubt).
Depending on the structure of your UTXO merkle tree, you could have a part that is 'transactions older than 10 years'. For those, instead of saving the whole tree of very old transactions, you just save the tip.
If someone then wants to spend those coins, s/he would have to supply the hashes to the branch of the old-part UTXO tree where his/her coins reside. Increasing bandwidth by O(log n) per transaction, for the benefit of reducing storage down to almost O(1) (except block headers, but that's like a CDROM full of data for >100 years of blockchain).
This would of course mean that it eventually becomes the coin holder's responsibility to keep the data needed to spend old coins. Interestingly, small blockers bitch and moan all the time about 'having to store all that transaction spam on their full nodes' and 'your use of the Bitcoin network is using other's people money/resources'. But in some discussions (unfortunately I don't have a link handy), when I pointed out this possibility of shifting the burden of long term storage back to the user, those same people then suddenly became all defensive of saving everything and expressed strong dislike of this idea. An interesting cognitive dissonance.
In case something like this would be implemented, an archive node could provide those old branches for a fee.
And again: I do not think it is likely that this is going to be necessary - but don't see any reason why I won't be possible or why it would be particularly bad.
Interestingly, this kind of behavior could be implemented just on the network layer and wouldn't even touch the 'consensus critical paths'.
Depending on the structure of your UTXO merkle tree, you could have a part that is 'transactions older than 10 years'. For those, instead of saving the whole tree of very old transactions, you just save the tip.
If someone then wants to spend those coins, s/he would have to supply the hashes to the branch of the old-part UTXO tree where his/her coins reside. Increasing bandwidth by O(log n) per transaction, for the benefit of reducing storage down to almost O(1) (except block headers, but that's like a CDROM full of data for >100 years of blockchain).
This would of course mean that it eventually becomes the coin holder's responsibility to keep the data needed to spend old coins. Interestingly, small blockers bitch and moan all the time about 'having to store all that transaction spam on their full nodes' and 'your use of the Bitcoin network is using other's people money/resources'. But in some discussions (unfortunately I don't have a link handy), when I pointed out this possibility of shifting the burden of long term storage back to the user, those same people then suddenly became all defensive of saving everything and expressed strong dislike of this idea. An interesting cognitive dissonance.
In case something like this would be implemented, an archive node could provide those old branches for a fee.
And again: I do not think it is likely that this is going to be necessary - but don't see any reason why I won't be possible or why it would be particularly bad.
Interestingly, this kind of behavior could be implemented just on the network layer and wouldn't even touch the 'consensus critical paths'.
When I bought my bitcoin in 2012 I told my wife that if all went well we might be millionaires in 5 years or so, thinking I should be optimistic.
And then we had 2013. The unbelievable power of bitcoin, wow, oh wow!
And then the darkness ...
This time last year I was sure bitcoin must follow its economic interests and break the CoreBS stranglehold before too long.
Now I can only think maybe it will happen this year, maybe later, or maybe not at all.
Bitcoin is stronger than I dared imagine, but it has constraints, some self-inflicted.
I have an idea it may take 25 - 30 years for the internet and computing infrastructure which supports bitcoin to allow it to replace the existing fiat money system. It will take at least that long to reach its full value of perhaps another 10 or 12 doublings. Meanwhile it is a battle for minds and market. Bitcoin's value today reflects the time that will take and the risk bitcoin will not reach its potential.
We are in it for the long haul.
Cryptocurrency is an enormously powerful idea whose time has come and its memes are beginning to enter public consciousness: that is why bitcoin is feared and attacked by TPTB. Whatever the buggers contrive to do to bitcoin, whatever bureaucracy they wrap it in or poison pills they inject it with, however much they isolate and fragment its discussion, shout and scream or stamp their feet, crypto itself will succeed: of that I am sure; money will again be free, a bulwark against hubristic overmighty government, a source of truth, to benefit all mankind.
Happy New Year!
Godspeed, BU!
Dusty
Active Member
- Mar 14, 2016
- 362
- 1,172
1000$ here we come again
(999$ now)
Happy new year!
(999$ now)
Happy new year!
albin
Active Member
- Nov 8, 2015
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Unless I'm misremembering, sometime in 2014 I remember reading an academic paper that I think made the claim that Bitcoin price performance was strongly driven by transactional fundamentals. Does anybody recall the title or authors of this paper? I would curious to maybe review it again in light of what we know now. I had some really preliminary related thoughts that might form a reasonable hypothesis about certain aspects of market dynamics.
If it takes 30 years, it means that the value will rise for 30 years. All that time, almost everyone on earth will be a stranger to bitcoin. For every bitcoiner, there will be 10 potential bitcoiners lurking on the station, weighing for or against, maybe thinking the train they see is too late, they should have taken the previous train.
So: station lurkers - just hop on.
So: station lurkers - just hop on.
oda
New Member
- Jan 1, 2017
- 4
- 17
Would be interested in that one as well. Most articles I know come to a different conclusion -- speculative feedback loops mainly driving price. No surprise there.
Then there's the pretty widely cited Kristoufek (2013) 'BitCoin meets Google Trends and Wikipedia: Quantifying ...', or van Wijk (2013) 'What can be expected from the BitCoin?'. The last one claims macro-financial factors are significant, but more recent articles question their methodology, see: Ciaian et al (2015) 'The economics of BitCoin price formation' (solid article by the way).
P.S. "BitCoin", "the Bitcoin" ... this goes on even in recent articles. How hard can it be to get the nomenclature right? Feels like a throwback to early newspaper items about the Web.
79b79aa8
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- Sep 22, 2015
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oda
New Member
- Jan 1, 2017
- 4
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@79b79aa8 Thought it's about time to sign up here, after being reminded this forum exists (comment on reddit by albin -- thanks for that). Not quite ready to give up on theymos' shitshow entirely, but posting over there increasingly feels like a bad habit, like, say, smoking. And cypherdoc's legendary thread seemed like the obvious place to get acquainted .
albin
Active Member
- Nov 8, 2015
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The angle I was curious about examining was whether changes in transaction demand are statistically significant causally in driving movement in the speculation markets (though not necessarily providing any kind of support for price levels). I have this feeling that there's something going on underneath the fluctuations in LocalBitcoins price premium and volume levels.
I hope parity with gold brings @cypherdoc back...
oda
New Member
- Jan 1, 2017
- 4
- 17
I've never used LocalBitcoins price data for any kind of analysis myself, probably because I'm unsure what to make of it. On the one hand, it seems to be a way (and maybe: the only way) to get a hold of trading data without the serious distortions (or at the very least, possibility of such distortion) that comes with the data we get from exchanges.
On the other hand, I do believe there is substantial friction inherent to the transactions that LocalBitcoins supports, to the point where I do believe the price is greatly distorted on there (I realize this assumption isn't necessarily shared by everyone -- but I can elaborate if needed).
In other words: unreliable data of efficient (*cough*) trading activity vs. reliable data of low-volume, inefficient trading. Pick you poison.
(aside/off-topic) There's a bit less of a trading culture in this forum so far, right? Compared to the speculation subforum, I mean. Is that by design, or simply a lack of interest?
