Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[AdrianX]

Unfortunately BU doesn't seem to be a party either and it is not obvious there is any commitment to further on chain scaling, which if true is potentially disastrous.

It does say

If you wish to dedicate technical and engineering support from your team, please let us know and we will include you in the list above.

so BU is not excluded. We should cooperate - I wouldn't be much interested in supporting segwit - the "they" have rejected everything I've contributed to improving it and banned my input, but supporting a safe and coordinated HF within 6 months would be a responsible thing to assist with.

I see Segwit support as optional as it's a soft fork so not mandatory. however should it get 80% support BU will need to adopt it in time to stay relevant.

Given the 2MB HF limit and the resulting 8MB Block weight I'd say BS/Core were well represented in that meeting. an 8MB HF seeming not unreasonable given technical limits and the state of the network.

A HF to 2MB takes the wind and FUD out of the incumbents arguments, I come to think of the first HF to increase the limit as the hardest and so long as it stays above demand the limit will have fewer negative ramification on bitcoin, so all good if we can do it. BS/Core have to redeploy segwit if it's going potentially activate on a 2MB transaction limit with 80%. New implementations would also need to integrate segwit and test it works with the network not just BS/Core.

It would be irresponsible to push a new deployment of radical change like Segwit without extensive testing on all bitcoin clients capable of 2MB block limit so I can't see it happening before the HF.

so the more diversified and less centralized bitcoin becomes the less viable segwit is without extensive network wide testing.

[doublepost=1495574576][/doublepost]

Also I don't understand why the original 95% (afaik) goal had to be lowered in any case.

to remove the mistakes of the Incompetent developers who don't understand sociology and free market economics - that's the only explanation I can imagine to adjust the activation limit.
[doublepost=1495574880][/doublepost]

I read "activate Segregated Witness at an 80% threshold" as simply meaning deploying an upgrade that will activate Segwit once 80% of hashpower signals for it.

I read the same, but what does signaling at bit 4 mean?

• Activate Segregated Witness at an 80% threshold, signaling at bit 4

 

[albin]

I'm confused because my understanding is that 95% as the activation threshold is hard-coded into Version Bits right? It's not like the activation threshold is a parameter?

 

[bluemoon]

I only believe it when shit hits the chain. Not before. We're still at >40% of HP.

Absolutely! Can Bitcoin really delay activating a scaling solution for another 6+ months? The market pressure can only increase.

 

[freetrader]

I read the same, but what does signaling at bit 4 mean?

It means that miners will signal their support for this on versionbit 4 instead of versionbit 1 for the existing Segwit BIP141. If this truly has support, in the coming days you will see blocks signaling on that version bit. Let's see if some of those who signed continue signaling BU while doing so.

 

[bluemoon]

A HF to 2MB takes the wind and FUD out of the incumbents arguments, I come to think of the first HF to increase the limit as the hardest and so long as it stays above demand the limit will have fewer negative ramification on bitcoin, so all good if we can do it.

This is a good point and it does weaken the anti-HF anti-on-chain scaling case.

It would be irresponsible to push a new deployment of radical change like Segwit without extensive testing on all bitcoin clients capable of 2MB block limit so I can't see it happening before the HF.

I think its likely the HF will be tied to Segwit. In the Lerner plan Segwit came first.

If Segwit takes very long to code/test the agreement may be overtaken by events.

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

As some might have noticed, I recently started to do a bit of minor code review and dev on the BU C++ code base, to help out after the last 0-day bug and to do my bit to help BU get more traction and trust with miners and others. This felt like a pretty big damper on my spirit, just like HK1.0 again, but then there's something in me that just wants to continue with that at least until activation day of that thing now and what then will basically be confirmed final backstabbing of BU. At least for me at least. If it happens.

Don't be so pessimistic about all this. For BU the next three years will be extremely important, and I think at the end of this period, BU could surplace Core. You help with the code will be more needed than ever before.

As long as so many things of the agreement are vague, it is hard to say that it is the "final backstabbing of BU". I rather tend to hope that it is the final backstabbing of Core, which clears the way for BU.

Why?

First, look at the comments on twitter, r/bitcoin and medium. The Alpaccas and Trolls and Lukes and UASF-Cheerleaders don't like the agreement. Since I don't like the power attitude of this group, this makes me like the agreement. Also if you take the quotes from Stephen Pair the last days and the fact that the agreement links to Sergio Lerner's proposal in the mailing-list, which was shot down by Matt Corallo, this agreement seems as a manifestation of the lost trust of the industry in Core.

Second - and here things are very vaue - it might be possible that SegWit activates and we'll securely get 2MB blocks some month after. Most people here are upset that first SegWit and than 2MB. I'm not, I like this. Why? While everybody knows very well that 2MB will successfully give capacity, for SegWit and Lightning the moment of truth will come, when it has to fix capacity problems without the help of 2MB-HF. I often wished this to happen, just to stop the ongoing distraction from real capacity. Now we get this with the safety of a small increase and a definite relaxation of the situation in the foreseeable future.

Third 2MB + ~0.5 MB with SegWit will give us some time. Price will moon, fees will relax, people will continue to use Bitcoin. I guess 2 or 3 years. I heavily doubt that this is enough time to do all these hyper-smart scaling-artworks of Core, Schnorr, Lightning and so on and have an effect with them. If I'm not wrong, Lightning will not be used very much. 2-3 years are enough time however for Bitcoin Unlimited to attract more folks and for other clients like bcoin and bcrust / parity to build a solid new infrastructure.

Fourth, if we finally come again close to the limit of 2-3 mb, maybe in 2019, the situation will be much better than today: There is no excuse to wait for SegWit and Lightning, and Core has lost the trust of the industry. And, like Adrian said, the Fear of the Fork will be gone.

For me this is a nice outlook. Not the jackpot, but also no loss.

 

[AdrianX]

[doublepost=1495578257][/doublepost]

Fourth, if we finally come again close to the limit of 2-3 mb, maybe in 2019,

we'll bump into the limit 2 months after any type of certainty. Possibly even this year is we HF to 2MB.

 

[AdrianX]

in the light of the above, locking in Segwit and abandoning the Core developers who wrote the code seems a little shortsighted.

@Jihan why not activate the hard fork, then let multiple clients develop independent implementations of segwit. The agreement doesn't specify they be locked together does it?

Activating segwit as is on the C++ code base locks everyone in to the old Core implementation and sets the decentralization of all competing implementations back to flowing the original reference client.

May Core developers have stated that 2MB hard fork + Segwit is not going to be supported by Core so why expose the network to that risk.

I trust miners to keep mining for the $3,000,000 a day in BTC but developers come and go, They have no incentive to support new controversial rules.

 

[Windowly]

I agree. I hope Gavin and Jeff know what they're doing.

With all due respect to Gavin or Jeff, I'm not sure either ever knew what they were doing leadership-wise. This whole scaling problem is due to a lack of initial leadership way back when Satoshi gave the reins to Gavin.

 

[Norway]

To me, this new situation looks like a created narrative where to sides fight about how SegWit should be activated while the goal, for some hidden reasons, is simply to activate SegWit.

We have all known that huge powers could fight bitcoin at some point. The whole financial system is at stake.

These powers employ millions of people. They create real wars. Nukes. Aircraft carriers. Psyops, bribes and threats are trivial to them. Stuxnet and Snowden revelations are real. Assange is an embassy prisoner for some really weak rape allegations.

Bitcoin is still pocket change in this context. We need bitcoin to grow a lot more to "corrupt" the world and become resistant.

 

[AdrianX]

BU seems ready ahead of the curve.

 

[Windowly]

@AdrianX I can't wait to hear more detail from all the supporters of exactly what it would entail and how they plan to roll it out.

 

[AdrianX]

I think it's a mess - abandoning first principals. Most of the companies that signed are in the business of extracting wealth out of the blockchain. The interests that govern the bitcoin blockchain are the one's who have an incentive to grow the network not those who extracting value. The rules are governed by the PoW and the incentives that preserve the integrity of the network. Interests that extract value from the network have no business dictating or agreeing or optimizing the rules to better serve their businesses, they benefit from better money and serving users, creating value for those who want better money.

 

[Richy_T]

UASF bip 148

​

That exact thought has gone through my head a few times
[doublepost=1495598196,1495597240][/doublepost]Well, so far I've heard it's Segwit first from Silbert, HF first from Ver and both together from Jihan. Confidence inspiring (not)

 

[Roger_Murdock]

Well, so far I've heard it's Segwit first from Silbert, HF first from Ver and both together from Jihan. Confidence inspiring (not).

Maybe it's one of those physics problems and the order of activation depends on your reference frame?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Relativity_of_Simultaneity_Animation.gif

 

[awemany]

@Christoph Bergmann : I would love to share your optimism if this is the deal. Assuming it is, I see exactly HK2.0, months out and with the exact same parameters. Fool me twice.

If Core would truly have been been abandoned, no reasonable mind would oppose e.g. BIP100. Core might be abandoned now, pro forma or maybe just temporary taken out of the picture. But the powers, investors behind Core seem to have gotten all they wanted. Final crippling at 2MB and an enforced shift to off-chain. Bitcoin turning into Ripple. The big rippleization.

And no, I am not talking about SegWit - I have said I am ok with that if we get clear path forward on on-chain scaling as well. As @cypherdoc said.

But this reeks like final 2MB lock-in.

@AdrianX: And exactly these comments indicate to me that this is just yet another piece of paper.

Why is there disagreement or questions already about the basic parameters of that deal they all signed?

I am still cautiously optimistic.

 

[Zarathustra]

I don't like that BS Segwit discount, but there's a difference between the Hongkong- and the NewYork Agreement.

The first one was between the BSCore devaluators and the miners.
This one is without the BSCore devaluators. It's an agreement between the miners and all the main Bitcoin businesses. It's much more of a market consensus.

After the Hongkong agreement, the BSCore devaluators have been able to fool and divide the miners and businesses. I think that terror strategy won't be successful again.

You can fool a majority of the market participants some of the time, and some of them all the time, but you cannot fool a majority all the time.

 

[79b79aa8]

It strains credibility to believe Blockstream and their investors are innocent of a Segwit-locking deal.

 

[freetrader]

Not sure about this theory, but I found it amusing:

https://np.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/6d0qzl/legal_segwit_exploit_to_easy_riches/

 

[bluemoon]

It strains credibility to believe Blockstream and their investors are innocent of a Segwit-locking deal.

Agreed. The deal was not about sorting out the block size limit problem, it was about locking in Segwit. Increasing the block size limit to 2MB was just the minimal concession the Segwit interests could make to achieve that, made easier by BSCore's absence from the room.

Perhaps BSCore directed from behind the scenes or perhaps their investors intend to replace them. But the way is now cleared to activate (AXA's?) strategy of diverting all transactions off-chain. All that remains is to block any further unwanted increase in the block size limit.

The trouble is that if it took Segwit to obtain a 2MB block size limit, what will us take to get a further increase?

The on-chain proponents can only muster about 45% of hashpower for a block size limit increase despite an on-going transaction backlog crisis. At best, the 2MB agreement kicks the can down the road a few months during which we can expect the scaling politics to continue. If the ultimate solution is to be a fork and division into two chains, it may be better to do that sooner without conceding the Segwit bargaining chip.