Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[awemany]

@adamstgbit : A way to make bitcoind (BU as well as Core) more robust is automatic restart upon failure (+ a limit on respawn frequency).
AFAIR apache has such features, for a good reason.

 

[Mengerian]

Bitcoin Exchanges Unveil Emergency Hard Fork Contingency Plan
[doublepost=1489769197][/doublepost]Highlights:
- Plan to list as "BTC" and "BTU"
- Say they won't list "BTU" unless BU implements replay protection

 

[Mengerian]

I'm not overly concerned with the naming issue, "BTC" vs "BTU". I think that's something that the market would work out over time, and everyone would just end up calling the winner "BTC".

The bigger issue is the insistence on replay protection. I think BU should absolutely not be bullied into this. Another term for it would be "transaction incompatibility". It's a losing move to make transactions incompatible with all the wallets out there.

 

[lunar]

Somedays I just shake my head and mutter, WTF

 

[awemany]

@Mengerian : Excellent point regarding replay protection.

I like the one I heard on the slack (from @deadalnix ?): "Proper Bitcoin will have replay protection by permitting to mix with low-fee transactions" ...

 

[Richy_T]

@freetrader

Is it possible then that the 10k+ number is any nodes with ports open that he sees at any time? That seems like alot but I can almost kinda believe that many nodes that pop on the sync every so often then go offline, but happen to have ports open.

Doubt it. I could believe he's counting high turnover dynamic ip addresses multiple times though.

 

[_mr_e]

I think the replay protection is a great idea. This would allow people to feel safe listing on exchanges and would open the door to allow for free market based fork arbitrage. One chain will likely die quickly but this is the safest way for everyone.

 

[Richy_T]

what ever happened to return false; pass back *err and deal with the error
but i can see why asserts are cool, often we'll say things like "that OK because its impossible it gets here while he's in that state because XYZ" that sounds like a good use case for assert.

I feel like the correct action if you have such a situation is to put the effort in to fail gracefully. Sometimes when I'm hacking in Perl and being lazy, I'll do the 'or die' thing but my experience has been that if you're letting that go through to production, you will inevitably regret it. At least in the main loop. You have to bear in mind what the aim of the software is and that's usually to keep running unless things have really gone seriously wrong.

 

[adamstgbit]

replay attack protection only make sense if there is a network to replay onto
if BU forks bitcoin with majority hashing power, nodes, and coins their won't be a chain to replay TX onto

 

[Richy_T]

@adamstgbit : A way to make bitcoind (BU as well as Core) more robust is automatic restart upon failure (+ a limit on respawn frequency).
AFAIR apache has such features, for a good reason.

That may be something best handled by external software. Linux comes with several options for daemon control.

I'd rather push for getting as much out of th bitcoin software as possible in preference to adding more and more junk. 'Core' is anything but.
[doublepost=1489779734][/doublepost]We probably should go ahead and have a vote on this replay issue to get it out of the way and end speculation (I'll be voting no). Some kind of optional replay protection might work tho. Perhaps we could have a flag that core could choose to ignore with a hard fork...

 

[AdrianX]

The only direct investment advice that I would give to people, is to diversify, hedge your bets.

I'm looking at my Alt portfolio I 90% of was lost to cryptsy, 60% of the remaining 10% are duds. so I dont consider myself diversified in this space.

I still see evidence that, what grows the network of money is users. I still see evidence that the more users who don't understand money the more susceptible they are to manipulation and of the money supply to centralized control.

The conclusion I draw from that is we don't need more complicated money we need simple money - that attracts new users. The easier it is to understand the lower the barrier to enter, and the harder it is to centralize control. The more complicated the more centralized the people who understand it, and the more controlled the people are who use it.

Layer 1,2 and soon 3 (3 being - smart contract fractional reserves) are going to make it impossible for the majority of the market to understand money (bitcoin) - the result is centralized manipulation.

So I still see bitcoin as the simplest of solutions, BS/Core aside they are trying to turn it into an inferior Etherium used as a settlement layer for Layer 2 networks.

so help me reconcile my position, Why is bitcoin still not the best option?

 

[adamstgbit]

the segwit HF BUIP provides replay protection dose it not?
it changes TX format enough to protect against replay.
wouldnt that be funny.
" eh ya, BU is replay protected because it includes a segwitHF the miners were willing to adopt "

 

[AdrianX]

Bitcoin Exchanges Unveil Emergency Hard Fork Contingency Plan
[doublepost=1489769197][/doublepost]Highlights:
- Plan to list as "BTC" and "BTU"
- Say they won't list "BTU" unless BU implements replay protection

We need to take ownership of our shortcomings.

Controlling the narrative works, that's why TPTB own the media companies. I did not think it was possible or that bitcoin was susceptible to this type of manipulation, but it inevitably is.

Yes the framing is bad but in the light of this we have knowledge and experiences and possibly a fork on the horizon.

Falkvinge makes the point, and if Trump proved anything it is that old media paradigm is fading and a new one emerging. TPTB have beaten us early bitcoin adopters and taken control of the narrative, tehy havent won anything yet.

[doublepost=1489783476,1489782821][/doublepost]

I'm not overly concerned with the naming issue, "BTC" vs "BTU". I think that's something that the market would work out over time, and everyone would just end up calling the winner "BTC".

The bigger issue is the insistence on replay protection. I think BU should absolutely not be bullied into this. Another term for it would be "transaction incompatibility". It's a losing move to make transactions incompatible with all the wallets out there.

Great point - I totally agree with what you are saying. We should add relay protection for the rules where where is no consensus, ie. tagged 1MB BCC blocks - Core need to own up to the fact that the block limit is not a consensus rule that dictates valid bitcoin transactions.

BU relays valid BTC transactions because it is Bitcoin, why should anyone make it not bitcoin?.

It should not relay double spends or invalid blocks, and if Core wants to change bitcoin they can go ahead, we can agree to not relay their blocks if they make them incompatible with Bitcoin. (UASF segwit or something.)
[doublepost=1489783808][/doublepost]

I think the replay protection is a great idea. This would allow people to feel safe listing on exchanges and would open the door to allow for free market based fork arbitrage. One chain will likely die quickly but this is the safest way for everyone.

BS/Core are opening themselves up to an attack vector here and a trojan horse. BU can can add replay protection, but a fork of BU lets call it BItcoin Dynamic, may not, what happens when the majority miners switch to BItcoin Dynamic?
[doublepost=1489784589][/doublepost]

We probably should go ahead and have a vote on this replay issue to get it out of the way and end speculation (I'll be voting no). Some kind of optional replay protection might work tho. Perhaps we could have a flag that core could choose to ignore with a hard fork...

LOL - love the idea, it is in keeping with the philosophy of BU - let users descried, (decentralized governance) BU members vote on it, if we vote on yes, we implement it, make it user activated, and by default it set to off.

Just thinking through this makes me realize how clueless those exchanges are to the inner workings of Bitcoin with regards to centralized decision making - Adam Back and his closed door meetings. Just more misallocation of resources due to centralized planing. - When will the centralized planers, and their followers learn.

Honey badger not affected - move along nothing to see here.

 

[lunar]

Someone really needs to point out to these exchanges that all they have to do is collectively patch their Core nodes to accept 2MB blocks are the whole problem goes away.

 

[xhiggy]

BTU and BTC for Bitcoin Unlimited and Bitcoin Core

 

[awemany]

LOL - love the idea, it is in keeping with the philosophy of BU - let users descried, (decentralized governance) BU members vote on it, if we vote on yes, we implement it, make it user activated, and by default it set to off.

Given that:

- we should focus much of our resources on testing the shit out of the network stack changes in BU
- this is additional complexity to implement, test and make sure it is safe
- that BU does not need RPP at less than 50% (as it does not activate)
-that it is Core's onus as the minority coin to implement RPP should they want to fork off with BU >50% and HFing

... I'll probably vote no on such a proposal.

But otherwise and on the general approach, fully agreed.

 

[AdrianX]

Is it not also a viable strategy to ignore centralized planning attempts to change bitcoin consensus rules (Replay protection).

Honestly this agreement does not reflect a good understanding of what's happening in bitcoin.

It undermines bitcoin's founding principals. Bitcoin is decentralized and incentive driven - take it or leave it, there is no one to negotiate with.

PS - never sell your bitcoin on depressing news like this. (I'm superstitious of the AXA's of the world, they could be waiting to buy in - and picking up a bargain on days like this - shifting the balance of power.)

I am not surprised Jeff Garzik pulled the plug on bitcoin yesterday, he may have been presented with that document, with a list of those who had enforced it.

 

[Windowly]

The Bitaddress.org developer comes out in strong support of Bitcoin Unlimited.

 

[VeritasSapere]

I'm looking at my Alt portfolio I 90% of was lost to cryptsy, 60% of the remaining 10% are duds. so I dont consider myself diversified in this space.

I still see evidence that, what grows the network of money is users. I still see evidence that the more users who don't understand money the more susceptible they are to manipulation and of the money supply to centralized control.

The conclusion I draw from that is we don't need more complicated money we need simple money - that attracts new users. The easier it is to understand the lower the barrier to enter, and the harder it is to centralize control. The more complicated the more centralized the people who understand it, and the more controlled the people are who use it.

Layer 1,2 and soon 3 (3 being - smart contract fractional reserves) are going to make it impossible for the majority of the market to understand money (bitcoin) - the result is centralized manipulation.

So I still see bitcoin as the simplest of solutions, BS/Core aside they are trying to turn it into an inferior Etherium used as a settlement layer for Layer 2 networks.

so help me reconcile my position, Why is bitcoin still not the best option?

Bitcoin might indeed be the best option, but that is not necessarily the best option for an investment strategy. I would think that it is better to have a diversified position, even if that means we just put a small proportion into the alternatives.

It is the general principle of diversification, we could all be wrong in our views, and when it comes to investment it is saver to hedge our positions because there can be factors that we might not even be in a position to know about.

In regards to competition many of the alternative cryptocurrencies are obviously objectively far more technically advanced, and are being developed at a much more rapid pace, from faster blocktimes to instantly confirming transactions, anonymity, scalability, usability, low fees, smart contracts and many more applications that are not even possible to be build over the Bitcoin protocol today.

This is not to discourage the efforts of the great developers here at Bitcoin Unlimited, since Bitcoin is suffering from a possibly dysfunctional governance or at least a form of governance that hinders development, the blocksize limit is a great example of this. Another reason is a lack of funding, which introduces more problems besides from the obvious lack of resources.

This brings me to my point about governance, keeping an open mind it could be possible that there are alternative forms of governance/consensus protocols that function better then Bitcoin do today, Dash comes to mind with its masternodes and treasury, or Ethereums future plans with POS and bonded validators. I think these alternative forms of governance show a lot of promise to solve some of the problems we see in Bitcoin today.

Even if we get passed this issue there will be other issues in the future. And I do agree with you that the simplest design is the best design, but in my mind all of these protocols are still highly experimental, technically and socially. And if Bitcoin does turn out to have certain fundamental flaws in its design it could very well be that the market will favor its alternatives. When the simplest design does not work it makes sense to add complexity until it does.

There is also the damage that has already been done, the loss of BTC dominance that has already occurred, and I am not just talking about market capitalization either. Ethereum for instance has attracted a lot of intellectual capital, businesses and institutional adoption. For new people coming into the space Ethereum seems like a much more friendly and productive place compared to all of the vitriol and toxicity currently within Bitcoin. The greatest potential also lies in the new money coming into the cryptocurrency economy and Bitcoin is not looking as attractive after years of stagnation, it is this public perception correct or not that could shift the scales in terms of BTC dominance.

I am not saying it is wise to abandon Bitcoin, I will always hold and support Bitcoin and I am confident it will continue to survive even if it might be out competed. The origanol vision of Satoshi's best representative might end up being an altcoin however and that, in the grand scheme of things is not necessarily a negative outcome, we would still get our revolution after all.

If we love Bitcoin then surely we can also love its children.

 

[Roger_Murdock]