Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[AdrianX]

Absolutely. However, I don't want a solely BU-dominant future either. Right now, we're far from that situation.But I sometimes fear (a somewhat funny fear, I know) that the whole thing is highly nonlinear: It feels that we might soon cross a threshold where so many people are so upset with all this that suddenly BU indeed becomes all the rage and we the new 'elected' leaders of the ecosystem.

Yes but even if this did happen BU has a better governing structure than Core, and I think if BU allow critical thinkers as members we'll be better off and not so easily hijacked. If we ever have too many members the governing process becomes dysfunctional a splinter group will form.

 

[lunar]

@Voorhees Finally finding his voice.

http://moneyandstate.com/the-parable-of-alpha-a-lesson-in-network-effect-game-theory/

It's all been said before, Part 1 Here. was good post, but this one is on the money and well worth a read.

Economics 101 for small blockheads. MythBUsters at work

 

[majamalu]

Bitcoin was started by one person so all it takes is one person to start another movement and the market will choose what best serves consumers. Eventually market forces will play out and the block size will increase and we will see all the magic come back into the community once more. The price will go parabolic, billions of venture capital money will pour in and some of the brightest minds will once again enter the space. I really like what the Bitcoin Unlimited developers/community are doing and I think they are doing invaluable work for the ecosystem. Its good to know there are other people out there who understand where Bitcoin needs to go and it has kept me optimistic about the future of the technology.

https://medium.com/@p.g.tomlinson/bitcoins-stagnation-2098753b2e17#.btb06urhr

 

[bluemoon]

@Voorhees Finally finding his voice.

http://moneyandstate.com/the-parable-of-alpha-a-lesson-in-network-effect-game-theory/

It's all been said before, Part 1 Here. was good post, but this one is on the money and well worth a read.

Economics 101 for small blockheads. MythBUsters at work

This article is indeed on the money: Bitcoin maximises its utility and provides the greatest possible value to mankind the closer it can get to becoming a, perhaps even the, universal p2p digital cash.

Blockstream does not believe Bitcoin can scale natively to any significant extent and are determined to drive virtually all transactions off-chain, off-Bitcoin.

Blockstream intend to profit thereby and thus, whether they are right about Bitcoin's ability to scale or not, they have a massive conflict of interest between their self-appointed role as guardians of the one true Bitcoin reference client and their desire to profit themselves on the back of a broken Bitcoin: they have a financial interest not to be good guardians.

This is something Adam denies emphatically, but completely fails to address. It is a serious Blockstream vulnerability and they are very sensitive to accusations about it, though for the most part they disdain to discuss it.

 

[bluemoon]

https://medium.com/@p.g.tomlinson/bitcoins-stagnation-2098753b2e17#.btb06urhr

Oh wow! This guy really does get it, everything. I thought the last article was good, but this one blows my socks off!

 

[freetrader]

 

[awemany]

@lunar: It is indeed a good one. Calm but still pointing out the problem that gets more and more severe each day. I was under the impression he's quite Core-aligned?

@seweso also said it nicely somewhere on rbtc: Just because Bitcoin doesn't fail loudly, doesn't mean it won't fail silently. With its base eroding and more capable Altcoins slowly corroding the foundations further.

 

[awemany]

With 100 UTXOs/user, 50 bytes/UTXO and 7 billion users of Bitcoin, full node storage is available on a single 3.5" HDD that exists today.

(You) do the math and you'll agree

 

[sickpig]

 

[albin]

@freetrader

Looking at our resident concern-troll's reddit comments there makes me worry (in quasi-buttcoin fashion) that maybe Bitcoin disproportionately attracts sociopaths, because in the real world, nobody can make those kind of statements without looking like a crazy person. It's only here, under a sense of persistent self-righteous paranoia can anybody actually make such "you'll get what you want if you stop arguing for what you want" arguments.

 

[Zarathustra]

At least he is now back where he belongs to: In thermos' censored playground for sociopaths.

 

[freetrader]

The whole 'it'll be your bank account, stupid' argument neatly eliminates the need to on-board any existing users for this pesky 'blockchain' thing. Bitcoin, an interbank settlement system. To my mind, this at least 50% explains the whole 'blockchain, blockchain' song and dance - it's to normalize another idea of what Bitcoin is - "we have always been at war with Eurasia" - "the blockchain has always been about banks and big business". This is what the VAST majority of the public will perceive, and it will take a helluva educational campaign to counteract that perception.

Indeed, the war on cash could rather be a reactionary measure prompted BY the rise of cryptocurrency, more than anything else. Private digital cash would be collateral, conveniently netted in this action.

 

[Norway]

With 100 UTXOs/user, 50 bytes/UTXO and 7 billion users of Bitcoin, full node storage is available on a single 3.5" HDD that exists today.

(You) do the math and you'll agree

This!

EDIT: I did that math now, and I got 35 TB of data. I think the largest consumer HDDs have 14 TB today. (http://www.anandtech.com/show/10888/western-digital-announces-ultrastar-he12-12-tb-and-14-tb-hdds)

But in 3 years, we can do it, no problem. We will never reach the technical limit.

 

[bluemoon]

I've been passing some time with Adam. He's a slippery guy ...
I guess I should say, I am bitlop

 

[Richy_T]

Can it be put any simpler for the small-blockers to understand?
[doublepost=1486977508][/doublepost]
Not to me, and I wouldn't look forward to it...

How about a BU friendly podcast? I know a guy here who podcasts (Think it's bitcoin and gravy) who's in favor of bigger blocks. I'm not sure if that would fit his format though (I don't listen to podcasts generally)
[doublepost=1487091968,1487091178][/doublepost]

I also think - although I am not proposing this and do think it will have downsides - that even if Bitcoin ossifies in all other regards except blocksize, it will have a great chance of overtaking the planet.

But maxblocksize absolutely needs to be allowed to increase in an open-ended way for that.

Absolutely. While bitcoin has many improvements that could be made, only one qualifies as urgent. The blocksize. All else is of debatable importance and can be fixed in time, potentially without disrupting existing utility. Need an immutable transaction? Introduce a new immutable transaction type that works alongside the existing format.

 

[Norway]

@bluemoon Great dialogue with Adam Back. He is constantly dodging the issue of conflict of interest between Blockstream and on-chain scaling.

 

[Richy_T]

Having so many nodes at a single service provider doesn't make much sense for what seems to be a small startup company. My guess is they are just IPs on a few actual servers.

I do wonder about the Blockstream "server farm". Probably just a datacenter but still...

 

[awemany]

In an adversarial environment like we have now with Core vs. the rest, the distinction of hard vs. soft forks becomes meaningless and the discussion in here nicely shows that. All forks become automatic hard forks depending on vantage point, and even Core supports will admit this, even argue this when pressed on these issues, funnily enough.

What is left is Gavin's definition of Bitcoin.

And I am pretty sure that that is what we're all going to follow in the end.

I do think there is an option to fire the miners, but due to the balance of powers (and thus like my energy-based variant of Gavin's definition more , only if the rest of the ecosystem acts in unison, or overwhelmingly so.

I very much think we had that until the HK consensus (despite the loud but small minority of Greg & Co.).

The miners giving Core an ear at HK, Core even bamboozling them really created this whole fuck-up in the first place, by increasing the contention. It will, however, also likely be a long-term learning experience, so there's that.

The miners created the contention by listening to Greg & the dipshits, and now it is in their hands to also end this contention as well.

 

[Richy_T]

This is something Adam denies emphatically, but completely fails to address. It is a serious Blockstream vulnerability and they are very sensitive to accusations about it, though for the most part they disdain to discuss it.

I think one has to be careful in interpreting what they are denying. Whenever anyone claims that Blockstream intends to make bunches of money by forcing people off of Bitcoin onto their LN solution, they always answer by saying that LN is open source and that anyone can implement it.

What they do not say is that they *do not* intend to make bunches of money by forcing people off of Bitcoin onto their LN solution.

 

[bluemoon]

@bluemoon Great dialogue with Adam Back. He is constantly dodging the issue of conflict of interest between Blockstream and on-chain scaling.

His redeeming feature is that he replies; his not so redeeming feature is that he is so evasive.