Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[freetrader]

@satoshis_sockpuppet :

e) UAHF before SW2X / UASFhappens. Could be close, but it's within realm of possibility I would say. Esp. since no-one knows what's going to happen with SW2X. With a UAHF, at least we know where we stand.

A big block altcoin-like spinoff could happen in the next months, but I doubt before UASF / SW2X. There is still technology that remains to be improved and tested. ( > 16MB)

 

[awemany]

@freetrader: I think a big blocks spin-off with a temporary 16MB limit is fine. And I definitely want that with SW activated on the main-chain.

All: Anyone around in the Chinese forums? What is the general opinion there on this S2X thing?

 

[KoKansei]

@awemany

I don't keep up with as many Chinese bitcoin fora as I used to, but I can tell you that the mood in 8btc.com, which to my knowledge is the largest Chinese-speaking forum, is very similar to /r/btc, with perhaps a little less emphasis on the potential negative repercussions of SegWit (technical debt, etc.).

That is to say, SegWit's technical problems aside, the majority supports S2X and views it as a total repudiation of the Core development team. Prior to around two months ago, you would still sometimes see Core shills gain some traction using D&C rhetoric, mostly directed against Jihan, but now the consensus seems to have moved decisively against Core. The prevailing attitude is that the very need for S2X is a final nail in the coffin for Core and "Core has lost the trust of the bitcoin community."

Other fora might be a little different, but the tide has definitely turned decisively against Core on 8btc.com. The market for ideas seems to be working.

 

[majamalu]

Good to know. Thank you.

I predict that the defeat of Blockstream / Core will open the floodgates to the greatest (peaceful) transfer of wealth in history.

 

[awemany]

@KoKansei : Thank you for the insight! I am digesting the SegWit injection into Bitcoin only with great difficulty and a feeling of sickness, but as long as we actually get the HF, I guess I'd not call it dead yet. If there's any problem or issues with the HF down the line, however, I think Bitcoin is done. I see damaging corruption of the incentive system here by outsiders, but maybe not full incentive failure. Maybe @AdrianX is right that we're playing an infinite game.

The trick, I guess, will be to figure out early signs of likelihood of HF failure.

And as we have seen, the Corium folks are of course already working on making it fail.

It simply boggles my mind that we couldn't make it a coincident activation.

@majamalu:

I predict that the defeat of Blockstream / Core will open the floodgates to the greatest (peaceful) transfer of wealth in history.

You'd certainly hope so. Especially on the peaceful part.

 

[KoKansei]

@awemany: NP, glad to contribute where I can.

My sense is that any attempt by Core to subvert the NYA would be reputational suicide just as much in the Chinese community as the English-speaking community. There has been some discussion on 8btc over the last couple of days regarding a possible attempt to sabotage the protocol upgrade, so the community is aware of the issue, which means they will be prepared if the HF does not materialize in November. The landscape of the bitcoin community's communication channels is a lot different than it was two years ago, both inside and outside China. I believe we have already won the war on that front. (No, Theymos, this time is not different. Long term, censorship doesn't work on the Internet.)

HF failure really seems unlikely at this point given the alignment of incentives and massive loss of face that it would cause the miners, but if such a thing did happen, the savvier miners would realize that their differences with the defecting hashrate are irreconcilable and we would get an emergency HF regardless.

If I am wrong about any of the above and we are still here with 1MB SW blocks in November, I will have to re-evaluate my faith in the honey badger, but I just don't see it happening.

Good to know. Thank you.

I predict that the defeat of Blockstream / Core will open the floodgates to the greatest (peaceful) transfer of wealth in history.

I also hope so, for the sake of our species.

 

[awemany]

@KoKansei : That is good to hear. I guess the Chinese community never got screwed over that much to begin with. Oh, the irony.

I guess the good thing about the delayed HF (yes, I am looking for ways to somehow like S2X...) is that there's three months of opportunity for Core to deliver on their off-chain utopia.

Or, conversely, for all of the Bitcoin community to grill them over the failure of SegWit to deliver this utopia.

Which I think is more likely. Along with a corresponding, well-deserved loss of the rest of their reputation.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

The only ace I still see up Core supporters' sleeve is leaking a zero-day that causes people to come running back to Core. The exploit trick worked against BU. The key is that Greg and others would just shake their heads and say, "It's unfortunate it has to be this way but the fact is there simply aren't any Bitcoin wizards besides us. Feel free to go elsewhere, but if you want Bitcoin to actually work securely, we're be here for you. "

 

[awemany]

@Zangelbert Bingledack : You can defuse that by having multiple implementations around, so the 0-day is unlikely to be in all of them.

Which is an anti-SW, but pro-HF dynamic, I guess.

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

So, the activation date for HF is now set to be 3 months after SW activation for SW2X?


Maybe it takes long enough to get it deployed, that the UASF'ers solve the problem for us on August 1st.

 

[albin]

Does the SW2X HF reduce the witness discount, or is it just 2x one million weight?

 

[molecular]

In a piece published by CNBC we can see in full display the (coming?) mainstream narrative of how ETH is better (smarter!) than BTC:


My opinion: Ethereum is part of the attack... the flippening to the dark side. ;-(

 

[awemany]

@molecular: That's why I think that even if 'bad press' or 'more laws against Bitcoin' or 'we're going to (attempt to!) drive Bitcoin's price into the ground' or whatever has been threatened by TPTB against the miners, they should simply go larger blocks and thus voice a loud and clear screw you. Long term, I see an uncorrupted Bitcoin as being worth much more (also in $-value) than one where fiat hooks have been inserted.

Bad press is still attention.

And any confused souls can be easily pointed to the whitepaper and accompanying documentation and statements of the original author.

But I am not a miner and it is clearly their decision.

 

[Norway]

“JET LAG IN ARNHEM” - The final details

The celebebration of “Gold Collapsing, Bitcoin Up” is happening in just two days, and the last details are now ready:

Time: Wednesday 28th of june, 18.00 (6 PM)

Place: Café Verheyden, Wezenstraat 6, Arnhem


Looks like we will be 15-20 people meeting up at this special event where we have our own, separate room. People will buy their own food and drinks, and may pay in bitcoin.

Café Verheyden is famous for their oysters, and food is ordered à la carte. A google translated menu is here: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.cafe-verheyden.nl/voor/&edit-text=&act=url

Looking forward to see you there. Free speech & big blocks FTW!

Stein H. Ludvigsen AKA Norway

 

[Dusty]

Interesting article on the fact that the LN leads to centralization.

Mathematical Proof That the Lightning Network Cannot Be a Decentralized Bitcoin Scaling Solution

https://medium.com/@jonaldfyookball/mathematical-proof-that-the-lightning-network-cannot-be-a-decentralized-bitcoin-scaling-solution-1b8147650800

 

[Dusty]

For the sake of completeness there is this interesting article as a rebuttal to the previous:
https://medium.com/@murchandamus/i-have-just-read-jonald-fyookballs-article-https-medium-com-jonaldfyookball-mathematical-fd112d13737a

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

J. Stolfi posted a rebuttal to Murch's rebuttal:

https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/6jxem4/responding_to_murchs_responding_to_jonald/

The really conspicious fact is at the end: still no one in the history of this idea being promoted has ever been willing to give specific numbers of users, amounts, numbers of hops, network topology in any concrete way. That is the smoking gun and should be harped on. Also particular configurations should be given as examples and shown to be unworkable, then leave the ball in their court: OK, we tried 3 ways that don't work, now you who claim this is an alternative to on-chain scaling show us a way that will work.

Best of all would be an actual website with a simulation where visitors could adjust the parameters as they see fit to try to make it work. If it is truly unworkable, that should be a devastating demonstration. (Anyone wanting to do this can probably get reimbursed rather generously for their time by CSW; he already made the offer to Jonald Fyookball but I gather anyone who does a decent job could catch a good bounty.)

 

[Jonathan Vaage]

Good quote:

One reason why the dollar (and other good national currencies) are readily accepted in their domains is that it has no such payment size restrictions. Boeing accepts dollars for airplanes because it knows that it can pay its workers with them. The workers accept salaries in dollars because they can pay their groceries with them. The grocer accepts dollars because he can pay his frappuccino with them. And so on in reverse too..

Responding to Murch's "Responding to Jonald Fyookball's article" article

 

[Dusty]

Another follow-up to this interesting thread:
https://medium.com/@jonaldfyookball/continued-discussion-on-why-lightning-network-cannot-scale-883c17b2ef5b

This is Not a “Routing Issue”
The topic of “Lightning Network Routing” has been a common one, meaning “how can we find the best route”. This is a challenge that hasn’t been solved yet (as far as I know), but that is NOT what I am addressing in my article.

I should have been more clear about this: The article isn’t discussing if a route can be “found”, but whether a route even exists!

A lot of the comments about graphs, graph theory, routing tables, and so on are therefore irrelevant as I hope to clarify here.

 

[albin]

The really conspicious fact is at the end: still no one in the history of this idea being promoted has ever been willing to give specific numbers of users, amounts, numbers of hops, network topology in any concrete way. That is the smoking gun and should be harped on. Also particular configurations should be given as examples and shown to be unworkable, then leave the ball in their court: OK, we tried 3 ways that don't work, now you who claim this is an alternative to on-chain scaling show us a way that will work.

The bar is so damn low!

All they have to do is produce some kind of remotely plausible scenario that has some probability of working!