Bitcoin Forum

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/21809/open-letter-bitcoin-community-developers/ (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/21809/open-letter-bitcoin-community-developers/)

As active contributors to Bitcoin, we share this letter to communicate our plan of action related to technical consensus and Bitcoin scalability.

Bitcoin is many things to many people. However, the development and maintenance of Bitcoin is a human endeavor. Satoshi sought review and cooperation, and the subsequent work by Bitcoin’s developers has made the system more secure and orders of magnitude faster. The Bitcoin developer community is dedicated to the future of Bitcoin, looks after the health of the network, strives for the highest standards of performance, and works to keep Bitcoin secure on behalf of everyone.

We’re committed to Bitcoin and responsive to the needs of the community. For the past five years, we’ve written code and managed over 50 Bitcoin releases and reviewed more than 45 formal proposals to improve Bitcoin’s performance, security, and scalability. Technical discussions, while heated at times, are always focused on improving Bitcoin.

Much work has already been done in this area, from substantial improvements in CPU bottlenecks, memory usage, network efficiency, and initial block download times, to algorithmic scaling in general. However, a number of key challenges still remain, each with many significant considerations and tradeoffs to evaluate. We have worked on Bitcoin scaling for years while safeguarding the network’s core features of decentralization, security, and permissionless innovation. We’re committed to ensuring the largest possible number of users benefit from Bitcoin, without eroding these fundamental values.

There will be controversy from time to time, but Bitcoin is a security-critical system with billions of dollars of users’ assets that a mistake could compromise. To mitigate potential existential risks, it behooves us all to take the time to evaluate proposals that have been put forward and agree on the best solutions via the consensus-building process.

In the upcoming months, two open workshops will bring the community together to explore these issues. The first Scaling Bitcoin workshop will be in Montreal on September 12-13. The second workshop is planned for December 6-7 and will be hosted in Hong Kong to be more inclusive of Bitcoin’s global user base.

We ask the community to not prejudge and instead work collaboratively to reach the best outcome through the existing process and the supporting workshops. It’s great to already see broad excitement for the event and the high concentration of technical participants attending.

We’re confident that by working together we can agree on the best course of action. We believe this is the way forward and reinforces the existing review process that has served the Bitcoin development community (and Bitcoin in general) well to date.

We welcome your participation as we continue our efforts to bring Bitcoin into the future.

Signed,

Wladimir J. van der Laan

Pieter Wuille

Cory Fields

Luke Dashjr

Jonas Schnelli

Jorge Timón

Greg Maxwell

Eric Voskuil

Amir Taaki

Dave Collins

Michael Ford

Peter Todd

Phillip Mienk

Suhas Daftuar

R E Broadley

Eric Lombrozo

Daniel Kraft

Chris Moore

Alex Morcos

dexX7

Warren Togami

Mark Friedenbach

Ross Nicoll

Pavel Janík

Josh Lehan

Andrew Poelstra

Christian Decker

Bryan Bishop

Benedict Chan

฿tcDrak

Charlie Lee

Jeremy Rubin

Sounds constructive. Is anyone here going?

"Trust us"

No.

I thought bitcoin was to be a trustless system?

Is this real ? I'd like to hear from https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1931.

I am TRYING to keep an open mind.

The thing is, 5 core guys couldn't agree on how and when to raise
the block size, but now we're going to have a couple of workshops
where the global user base is invited, and somehow the best solutions are going
to emerge and we are all going to agree on the best course of action?

Again, trying to be optimistic and I like the transparency
but I don't understand how this is going to work.

Also, since people like Gavin have been ranting on how
we are running out time, it is troubling we are told
to wait till December.  This should have been done already
if they wanted to do it.  I still say a moderate dose of healthy skepticism
is appropriate.

while we use dirty tactics to fight against any proposal we dont like......cough DDoS cough

Seriously, they must think bitcoin industry leaders are children. They stonewall any blocksize increase proposal, and held us hostage. Now they gave us 2 fcking workshops, like we would magically come to an agreement by meeting in person.

Whats the point of communication online then.

I guess they dont give a shit about those signatures from all the largest bitcoin service providers.....

lol at the angry bichtes up above. (besides carlton)

http://38.media.tumblr.com/c3ab55dc2f75f61f0d3f8cff84484176/tumblr_inline_nlux1rk0Jr1r9z6qn.gif

plz feel free to fork off if you dont like it.

ripple waitin for yaaa  :-*

the good thing is that the first workshop is in less than two weeks so we can see what unfolds.

Seriously this is super disappointing that the developers can't come to some sort of agreement on a simple code change/removal of a number in the code.

Imagine adding any more changes to the code that could or would help bitcoin become a better digital cash that Satoshi meant Bitcoin to be.

Mind boggling.

excellent indicator that someone is pushing their own agenda when they start screaming the sky is falling.
Follow me!!!
My mind is closed to anything that person proposes unless it's going back to the original code and allow blocks to be organic again.

Even with the long list of developers, it only comes down to decision of 5 people.

............

So much for decentralization

if you listen to Gavin, he is far from alarmist.  If you actually look at the fact that the blocksize is roughly doubling annually and consider the fact that there are network spikes, and could be unforeseen factors that could accelerate this further, and factor in the considerable time required for consensus change and rollout, you will also conclude that time is not in abundance.

I don't see a benefit in going from 5 people to 2 (as "centralization" was often used as a argument). However, this is not the topic here.

We may be short on time, however nobody can exactly define how much time we have. You can not just take the pattern from the past and expect it to continue forever. We might have a 0.5MB average next year, or we might have 5MB average (assuming the limit is raised to some degree). One can't really know.
Actually what they have planned is very good. The first workshop will contain a lot of ideas, and a final resolution will probably be found in the second one. There will be enough time to implement it before the halving, even though the second one is in December.

The delaying tactics prevent txs increase prolongs delaying tactics prevent txs increase prolongs delaying tactics ...
Awesome strategy by the small blockers.

So no-one from the BIP101 camp wants to attend the workshops then? Interesting.

I thought you guys were against stifling debate?  ;D

Since when is Amit Taaki a bitcoin core developer ? Did I  miss something ?

I don't understand this. So is the solution suppose to emerge from these two workshops or is this just a try to "get community involved so they fell important and they see that we do care about their voice" and then on the other side we will do as we imagined.

My mind really doesn't know what to think about this. When I saw a title, An open letter to the community from developers, I told to myself thanks God we have a solution and consensus will be reached, but now I am even more confused!

Bitcoin is a trustless system but the some if not all of the bitcoin core developers are not to be trust since they work for 3rd parties like BlockStream

These people are idiots.

Exactly. Don't you find it suspect he, and Mike, have been the only ones trying to hammer in this point?

Sure will be interesting to see what happens at the new workshops that will being the community together. More is needed to be done to bring bitcoin back together. Development team need to listen more to its users worldwide, to get things moving back on track. If more is not done to secure its future then I do not see Bitcoin dominating the top poll position any longer given current situation of loom. More people using it is one thing. More shops adopting it to use as payment is also another option. But for it to get though its current tough times it needs a lot of work and stuff putting in place to stop the wide and massive spikes, stop that and you got more people using it. Stop the stupid updates and make more improvements and listen to the community we have lift off and right now we are at a null.

No they don't because these were nothing more than Gavin handing out the "letter" and them signing it. These companies are fraud and should be referred as such.

Please provide quotes and facts referring to the "stonewalling".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Haters gonna hate. I wonder if there were similar accusations against Xerox Parc?

So there is a workshop. I don't see that as a bad thing. God forbid anyone should talk face-to-face  ;D

The only issue I have with it is there are only two. How about a couple in Europe and South America?

Same, can't make it to Montreal so soon, and Hong Kong is too far.

I think the main issue is they do respect the fact that it could get messier the longer this stays unresolved...

The workshop were announced a couple weeks ago btw..

It's a complex topic, so these workshops will be an invaluable educational tool for all in the community.

It's just a shame the BIP101 crowd are so against this dialogue, it would be much better if they presented their arguments publicly than taking their ball and going home.  

Gavin and Mike are the only ones?  From my vantage point, over half of the Bitcoin community has been hammering on this point all summer long.  

who is against the dialouge?

It's trustless as long as you can fork the code. But when you do so, they'll call it an altcoin.

Ironic isn't it?

A reaction only sparked by the Gavin blog post propaganda.

Again, the lead up to current situation has been well documented (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3ilbit/mike_hearn_responds_to_xt_critics/cuhpil1)

Mike & Gavin for one apparently.

And still as of today, no submissions have been accepted.  If presenters hear back tomorrow, that gives them only 8 business days to prepare PowerPoint slides, book flights, and reserve hotel accommodations.  

http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-workshops/2015-August/000012.html

This is highly unusual for a conference promoted as academic in nature (normally, there would be over 6 weeks [rather than 8 days]).  

So they actually said these workshops were a bad idea?

Please show me that, I'd like to see.

Pretty certain I've read on Twitter Mike has no plan of attending. You will also realize none of them signed the letter.

I increasingly feel the urge to attend. Seem like we could be witnessing historic moment.

Just because they don't endorse the event with their signature, doesn't mean they are "against the dialouge."
Once again, you are twisting facts because of your bias.  

Which is another way of saying that you agree with me that Mike and Gavin are not the only ones hammering on this point. 

Well, given that Bitcoin is quite a big concept now worth billions of dollars, this puts you developers on edge to do your jobs correctly and act on the best interests of the community, right? You are being compensated in Bitcoin after all. Personally, I do not have $2000 CAD to fly across the country and join the confrere. I went to CakePHP earlier this year. I paid for that trip on my credit card and still paying interest for my education. I simply can't afford to talk to you in person about this so here are my 2 satoshi: I think the blockchain technology is revolutionary and has a lot of potential. Personally, I think that if the limits are not increased in the core version of Bitcoin, the XT camp will fork and the price will plummet. Bitcoin will catch on and it has to have the capacity to handle networks as large as Visa and MasterCard. As far as I'm concerned Bitcoin is here to stay and the fork will only hurt the price.

For me it's great news. At the very least, they show interest in a solution. And if they are going to listen to community (which I feel mostly proposes a raise in block size) it is a very good signal.

I don't see Brock Pierce's name on there.  Isn't he the president of bitcoin?  

Maybe its a fake.  I wouldn't trust anything without the president's name on it.

I agree 100% being revolutionary technology, when I first knew of Bitcoin, I knew nothing of it passed on it shame really I did on something so powerful like this to make changes for the future. No doubt about it will see a fork coming in the coming months or sometime next year if it continues to go the way it is. And no doubt about it too, that prices will fall and the downfall of Bitcoin will happen. Devs and teams need to get their acts together before it is too late and everyone shooting we told you so but did not bother to listen like now. Even if price does spike down way down I will buy and hold for a future but right now its very tough to decided to even continue with Bitcoin. Only time will tell and the devs on what is in store for the future. Am hoping a bright one and they get their acts together.

They should have made on in San Fransisco and one in Amsterdam since these cities are the more bitcoin advanced ones in North American and Europe. Montreal and Honk Kong seem like a weird option to host a bitcoin work shop.

You mean Brock "ordinary sexual appetite for adults" Pierce?

careful about which coin you buy when whatever fork happens.

fun times ahead as basically the devs have been forced by two rogue rotten power grabbing devs and their reddit army to take action about something that was under control and thoroughly investigated.

there is no community behind. just retards.

y'all going to deserve what is coming. friggin bunch of unqualified blind followers.

if any fork, you better be short. or else you'll end up eating them shorts..

pop corn ready, now bring it on, time for bitcoin to loose them forkers in the abyss of their ignorance.


http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maiw81hSH61r0wmpgo1_1280.gif

how about Brock "chief scientist whatever it means buddy" Pierce.

Fun times indeed ahead and also some wild fires too. Am holding a wide range of different coins that I know are and currently succeeding where BTC is not and am happy with them so far. Am looking at coins that are not controlled or need to hld their value with BTC not many are doing it but their is a few that is priced differently but 98% of all cryptos prices seems to go off BTC value because BTC is no1. If BTC was not would it be a new pair LTC to what ever crypto or even other coins. If Bitcoin fails another one will succeed theirs many markets out their and it only takes one as big and innovative to dominate the markets and take control.

Markets and crypto need to stop being valued under BTC and look at other pairs than just bitcoin. I give it till end of this year or 1/4 of next year if no good changes then it goona crash so hard and people going to be pissed right off. Hold for the longest. Feel sorry for all people who bought back in 2013 and it went poof back  down and down and a little up and I made a good few on trades back then. Now buying coin if I do I will be buying and trading and making on the low down and profiting down trading hard to do but it can be done. And then use to grab others that are good but holding BTC and a lot of it like now is risky with everything going on. Who knows what we have in stall for BTC but it not looking good unless the devs can get past this and only time and decisions made will seal the faith and future of BTC

That is an amazingly skewed perspective.  Agree with Gavin or disagree with him, but it is disingenuous to insinuate that he hasn't presented his arguments publicly.  See http://gavinandresen.ninja/ (http://gavinandresen.ninja/) for a sampling of articles on the subject.

It's very nice to see the other core developers working towards a solution to the block size debate.  I don't know whether all five were invited to sign that proclamation or not.  In either case, I hope they all attend.

You're right to some extent. I did mean to say "in a public forum", but my net connection/bitcointalk.org was being screwy and couldn't be bothered to keep pressing "Edit" only for it to timeout again. Sorry about that!

In that case, we completely agree.  I felt a small tremor in the force.  ;D  I'm sure it will pass.

And this means you have the ultimate right to dictate to everybody else? Because you wrote some code?

Interesting argument. I think programmers who wrote some java system for a bank should go straight to the board of directors and demand to run the bank from now on.

Greg would have a good argument that the signers represent an unbiased group with nothing but Bitcoin's best interests in mind,
but the fact that several of the biggest contributors work for a private company that has taken millions of dollars in venture
capital and plan to offer services related to Bitcoin extensibility casts a shadow of doubt on that implication.

There's really no way around the fact that the handful of guys who want to continue to control Bitcoin core,
also happen to work for a private company in the business of Bitcoin functionality.

The signers to the letter include more than the developers of Bitcoin Core, it includes other implementations.
The letter was signed by -


    12 Independent/Unknown/Other (38%)
    5 Blockstream (16%)
    2 MIT; 2 unSYSTEM; 2 Chaincode (7% each)
    1x each from Conformal, Ciphrex, Dogecoin, ETH Zurich, LedgerX, BitGo, Viacoin, and Coinbase (3% each)

Yes, Amir Taaki has contributed and or created 5 bitcoin core BIPs There are many ways to contribute to Bitcoin core and be considered a developer. His contributions to our ecosystem have been most important with darkwallet/darkmarket/libbitcoin however.

More importantly and what makes his signature and others crucial to this letter is support from other implementations other than core.

According to an interview with one of the devs, they planned the workshops BEFORE Gavin broke off, and Gavin knew about the timing of the workshops when he and hearnia launched the spork. 

I understand that companies like Circle (who are BIP101 backers) have Goldman Sachs and Moneygram as investors  :D
Little bit of a conflict of interest, perhaps?





More to come on that, I know there was another questionable investor in Circle (and no doubt in Bitpay and BitGo too). Just cannot remember, I may have to look for it later

Trying to understand your constructive recommendation here.  Should they abandon development of the code?  Should they quit having open dialog?  Should they quit meeting in person? 

I fail to see the conflict of interest.  What does Goldman and Moneygram have to do with anything ?

FYI: If you can make it to Montreal and you think that you can actually add something to the event, I'm giving away two conference tickets. See here. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1166867.msg12286987#msg12286987)


You'll be able to participate without attending in person. The event will be livestreamed, and everyone there will be connected to an IRC channel that will be open to the public.

I am all in for a debate on this subject and just hope they sell popcorn at the venue. You cannot miss this opportunity to rub shoulders with the main peanuts in Bitcoin.

In the left corner we have Bitcoin Core weighing in at 6000 supporters and in the right corner we have Bitcoin XT weighing in at 700 supporters. Let's get ready to rumble!

Anyone think it will be a fair fight? The referee for the fight will be ???? ^puzzled^

I hope someone makes sure the whole event gets video taped. Montreal is way too far for me. However I would like to see as much as possible from that conference.
Furthermore I hope this will be a honest and really open minded debate. No shilly-shallying anymore.We need solutions!

It is being live streamed so someone will probably record it if they aren't already. Other people can still participate in online discussion they are hosting.

Still waiting for an explanation on this one Carlton.   Has your bias on this debate degraded your thinking
to the point of spouting non sequitors?

It makes about as much sense as the blockstream conflict of interest

By keeping the 1MB limit in place, Core developers would
force transactions off the main chain as Bitcoin scales.
And Blockstream is in the business of building sidechains,
and other extensibility.  I think that is a very solid argument.
You can disagree with the conclusion but should be honest enough
to admit that the argument is at least plausible on the surface.
What Carlton is saying is just nonsense
that he can't even explain.  

So, why did it take them so long to announce it publicly. Doesn't make much sense, does it?

So the chief cat wrangler Gavin doesn't sign the letter and doesn't agree with it? Mike Hearn doesn't sign the letter and doesn't agree with it? The ones that did sign want to show love and solidarity with the "Bitcoin community" (whatever that is) except they have it in such remote locations that no one will be able to go? Good luck adding any useful comments by watching a webcast. If you're Chinese it's too far away and if you're in the Western Hemisphere it's as far north as you can get. That makes sense. Sure, I get it.

It's a good thing I don't want to go anyway. I don't trust five people on that list.

Don't speak too fast: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1169062.0

Circle and their dubious connections:


Investors Goldman Sachs and Accel:

http://blog.circle.com/2015/04/29/new-circle-investors-new-us-dollar-account-features-china-horizons/

Employing a formerly JPMorgan/Deutsche Bank executive as CFO:

http://blog.circle.com/2014/12/11/circle-team-leadership-expansion/

Employing former SWIFT CEO ( + previous investment from Accel):

http://blog.circle.com/2014/03/26/circle-closes-17-million-series-b-rolls-consumer-product-invite-limited-release/

Employing former Bank of Ireland/Goldman Sachs financier as their MD:

http://blog.circle.com/2014/07/02/circle-appoints-fintech-leader-former-bank-ireland-director-garrett-cassidy-head-european-operations/

Employing former Special Advisor to US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner as a Director:

http://blog.circle.com/2013/11/14/circle-names-former-banking-industry-exec-head-u-s-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-raj-date-board-directors/

Employing former board member at Wal Mart/Cisco/Goldman Sachs as "global finance executive" (at the same time the Mike Hearn becomes an advisor):

http://blog.circle.com/2014/01/16/circle-adds-new-board-member-announces-key-advisors/

Launch announcement of Accel investment:

http://blog.circle.com/2013/10/30/introducing-circle/



Do you want more?

"But what's wrong with all those highly desirable individuals companies?". Fair question lol, it will be answered in a separate thread that I will prepare.

Ha ha! Thanks, that answers one of my questions. Hearn thinks it's just a load of crap same as I do.

OK, I don't fail to see a conflict of interest, but isn't it for a Circle most important that Bitcoin survives and does well? If these big banks are funding Bitcoin start-ups in order to destroy them and Bitcoin, isn't then natural to think that Circle would recognize this, took banks money and say f**k to them?

I mean, if they do side with Goldman Sacks and the others, and they got destroyed in the process, then they will end up out of the game and on the streets.

P. S. Just thinking out loud! :)

So what if they are dubious?  How's that a conflict of interest?
Are you suggesting that they are dubious because they are banks
and thus want Bitcoin to fail and so they invested in a Bitcoin company??
And then supported a BIP proposed by Gavin which is somehow bad?

Mental gymnastics anyone?
 

http://blog.circle.com/2014/05/16/circle-update/



So, how are Circle making money if they're paying all the Bitcoin transaction fees for their customers to withdraw their money? And the whole of the rest of the service is free? Arguably, the answer is in the rest of the linked blog post from circle.com.

 Realize this, a lot of big companies have invested millions to bring bitcoin to the mainstream and for this to happen, they need bitcoin to scale and now. They have deep pockets and will use this money to achieve their means (i.e. stress tests and it won't stop there) and they won’t let a single company called “Blockstream” stand on their way.

Circle intentions are no suprise and no secrets from the whole beginning and they do share the same goals than most of the biggest companies in the bitcoin space. It’s just too bad you just came to this realisation. The only thing they are now asking for is SCALING and there is nothing to be afraid of since it was part of the original vision of Satoshi.

Which is precisely why I'm supplying the information from Circle's own press releases


Except for all those that don't share their goals, of course

Except the miners that are reluctant, which are?  

I guess people here don't understand that you are presenting proof that the financial status quo is hell bent on taking over Bitcoin. It makes sense for them to at least try to have some controlling interest in this new revolutionary technology. The problem is when they control the upper echelon of Bitcoin business and development it won't really be revolutionary techonology anymore but instead it will be the same old shit in a shiny new wrapper.

They won't be able to change a single thing of what bitcoin is exept for the scalability issue. What are you afraid they could do to the protocol exactly?

If they want a piece of it then they want it to succeed.   Bip 101 lets it scale.

You don't really believe that do you? One small change could bring blacklisting and end Bitcoin's fungability. There are numerous ways to change Bitcoin for the worst. Sure, the few hundred thousand current users here would abandon it but hundreds of millions of other mainstream users would pick it up and trust it because big names in finance are supporting the system.

Retard arguments for the simple minded...

Since decentralization does not matter, the followers of Hearndresencoin can just use Paypal. There's no difference besides the personality cult around Andresen and Hearn.

Scaling bitcoin won't make it less decentralized to the point of jeopardising its robustness. The fear of centralization is overblown.

Scaling bitcoin by exponentially increasing blocksize limit will make it less decentralized to the point of jeopardising its robustness. The fear of centralization is justified.

You know, I can make statements as well.

A Proposal for the Consensus Building Process:

1) All BIP's have equal weight in the voting process.

2)Miners vote with each newly mined Block.

3) BIPs are revised and amended according to argument and reservations submitted so that they are molded into the best possible versions that everyone is happy with.

4) Once 75% of blocks mined within the last 1000 blocks is in support of one BIP, an alert is sent out to everyone indicating that they should switch over to supporting this BIP.

5) Once 90% of blocks mined within the last 1000 blocks indicates support of the BIP the debate is over and the new BIP is implemented, all blocks that do not include the new BIP protocol changes are after that point rejected.


Historically the threshold has been 95% such as with BIP69, but I suggest lowering that to 90%. Agree? Disagree?

A few of us are working on creating an Open Letter to the Devs from The Bitcoin Community which will include this proposal. If you would like to help us shape this document PM me and I will send you a link to the Google Doc so you can help us write the letter.

Of course scaling is possible without harming decentralization. Just not the way those two self-proclaimed "benevolent dictators" want to do it. Their proposal which (among other privacy-attacking features) is now included into their Altcoin is not a well-thought-out solution. That's why the vast majority of Bitcoin Core developers rejected it.

Andresen and Hearn are very good at making PR and bully for their own interests. However that doesn't make them good engineers.

This scaling solution was part of the plan from the whole beginning. It’s just too bad a better solution didn't came up until to this point but now is the time to accept it and move forward. Time is money for these businesses and they can no longer afford to wait any more. They will make things happen as planned.

The DDOS protection in XT is also an overblown concern about blacklisting. Nobody wants this and every major players understand that bitcoin need to remain agnostic and fungible as they are key attributes for being a robust system.

It seems to be your job to downplay valid concerns with bogus arguments. Either you are hopelessly naive or a Hearndresencoin shill.

Welcome to my ignore list.

If you don't understand the difference between DDOS blacklisting of IPs and blacklisting of coins which threatens fungibility, you are hopelessly naive or a blockstream shill.

FTFY :P

The problem lies with shitheads like Luke Dashjr who make changes unilaterally. He decides to make a Gentoo patch that blacklists sites. The bastard blacklisted SatoshiDice, BitcoinDice, Satoshibones, and Luckybit. He also blocked addresses operated by Mastercoin, and Counterparty without telling anyone. He used his pools power, disregarding the trust of his miners, to destroy an altcoin instead of mine Bitcoin which is what his miners signed up to do. As long as people like him are on the dev team I find it hard to trust anything they say or do because you won't find out until way after the fact that any change was made. When you involve corporate heads and government heads to operate your company and develop Bitcoin it's like having an entire team of Luke Dashjr's controlling Bitcoin. At that point I'm out. MasterCard, Visa and bank accounts have worked well for me so far, jumping the extra hoops to use Bitcoin won't be worth it, and the old financial system execs are in charge anyway so why change?

1.) What makes you think that I don't understand the difference?
2.) What makes you think that IP blacklisting is harmless?

These are rhetorical questions. Don't put too much effort into your answer, because I will no longer read it.

Luke is not a core developer and doesn't have commit access to Bitcoin's repo: https://bitcoin.org/en/development
Though it doesn't prevent him from doing stuff for Core, as many other contributors do.

Luke certainly has a rather controlling character. On the other hand he made some significant contributions to Core. I think within the current consensus process he won't be able to harm Bitcoin, because the other developers will prevent it. Imho overall it is still good to have him on board.

Actually I apologize, I misread the post. 

I get you point but it is inevitable that bitcoin is/will go to another level where every major governments and corporations will want a piece of it. If bitcoin core's principle happens to work out just as it should, nothing should really change in a fundamental level. Bitcoin is international so governments and corporations around the world will still be decentralized having opposite views and will still need consensus for any change. We can expect to see awesome products coming out of these companies if everything happen as expected. If they make some changes that you strongly disagree with and affect your ways of moving money around, there will be roundabout systems and/or  altcoins trying to monetize on your specific needs. The only thing we can be 100% sure is that the cat is out of the bag and things will evolve wildly in this space.

Hang tight and put your seatbelt, it won't be a smooth ride.

My point remains. Who can I trust? I already don't trust Circle, Coinbase, a number of other Bitcoin businesses, a clear quarter of the dev team and half the mining pools. What am I left with? I could fire off a laundry list of things I disagree with that have been done by the dev team. Luke Dashjr is just the most extreme example of stupidity. They deliver a signed letter about this great new direction and open consensus that's going to happen. Pfft, they're about as open as the Bitcoin Foundation and agree with community consensus about as much as a military base does. Whatever.

Gavin? 

LOL

You shouldn't have to trust anybody...

Because bitcoin was meant to be a trustless network since its beginning. And you shouldn't trust people in the internet, or in real life too much.

Of course you shouldn't. You shouldn't have to trust that a crazy gun toting cop isn't going to shoot you on a traffic stop. You shouldn't have to trust that your bank isn't going to freeze your account. You also shouldn't have to trust that a crazy Bitcoin coder isn't going to cripple your Linux OS with a blacklisting patch.

But we do.

It is not.

Government control around the world is slowly disintegrating before our eyes. We only need to hold you animals off for so long.

People who feel the need to call XT an altcoin (when the reality is that it will only fork if there's a supermajority of miners running it) are mischaracterizing it, which is a form of intellectual dishonesty. Apparently they need to try to control opinions because they are afraid of letting the economic majority do something that they don't agree with.

Yup and bitcoin will only accelerate that but it doesn't mean they won't try. They will.
Don't expect governments to disappear though, they will adapt after hitting the hard reality of decentralization leaving them with less influence they currently have. Which is a good thing IMO.

Bitcoin is a trojan horse. Let it infiltrate the actual power structures around the world that think they can control it like anything else. They might have some influences but it is limited and they will eventually hit the wall of decentralization. Just like anybody else.

You want Bitcoin run by corporation puppets of the governement who the hell do you think you are fooling with you trojan horse preaching?

What I want is irrelevant to what will happen. You and I won't stop the inevitable.

There's a reasoning behind calling XT an altcoin, to which I partly agree (though I think altcoin is too bold).
Of course you are implying that you're right here, and they are wrong, while they think the opposite way.

I just don't think there's anything bad in being afraid or suspicious when the economic majority is against you (in fact, it isn't). Quite the contrary, I think it's natural. Being afraid of 'small blocks' is nothing different.

unclear if you mean "right" about the labelling of XT or whether it should be run.

My stance is that if 75% of the miners are running something, who am I to disagree. 
If I don't like it, I don't have to use it.

XT IS the altcoin until it surpasses BTC in market cap. Its not a matter of opinion.

Bitcoin XT is an attack on Bitcoin consensus.

XT shills lead by Mike himself are trying to teach the controversy by spinning the debate into a governance issue.

They mainly use two talking points:

1. The BIP resolution process is broken. They are attempting to sell people into thinking the existing consensus-based development process has not worked. Now understand they have been setting this up from the beginning, stifling discussion and launching a PR campaign led by Gavin blog posts rather than approach the issue within the existing developer community.  (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3ilbit/mike_hearn_responds_to_xt_critics/cuhpil1)

Their solution: Mike Hearn, benevolent dictator.

2. That Bitcoin XT is just another Bitcoin implementation and in true open source nature we should have no right to oppose it. They argue their proposal respects the concept of "permissionless innovation".

"Let's throw this irresponsible half-baked chinese number pos in the open and consensus shall decide. Free market guys right!!!?"

This tactic has led a number of foolish sheep into this delusion that somehow there are problems within Bitcoin Core that are so absolutely irresolvable the whole development process should be thought again from the beginning starting with a central figure and a bunch of decentralization theater "implementations" non sense. Here's the kicker: they will pretend that this is how we all got started, with Satoshi, Gavin, blabla. All of this is a bunch of nonsense. You people have two things confused: reputation and authority.

The development of Bitcoin began with Satoshi leading the charge not because "the people", "the community" had made him "benevolent dictator" but because he, of course, had the most influential reputation and weight in decision for being the creator of the system. Don't try to tell me he'd make changes without asking you noobs opinion because he obviously knew better than to do that. Had he stayed with us and grown around the Bitcoin development community it makes no sense to suggest he would have continued to claim "authoritarian control". A part of me is convinced he left partly to avoid this cesspool of power grabs.

I mean "right" about your stance on XT not being an altcoin. It's only an opinion, unless we can strictly define what is an altcoin and what is a Bitcoin client.

The reality is that 0% miners are running XT, so why leave? We can argue instead. But I'm sure that some would leave if it hit 75%, that's reasonable, as it would be too late to argue. I personally consider this possibility.

https://i.imgur.com/6AUcdJy.png

No fork, no altcoin.

The investors in circle coinbase etc want to either cripple or centralise Bitcoin. They are funding Gavin and Hearn to do that. 'Solid argument'.  Plausible on the surface.

...

Actually, both arguments are idiotic ad-hominems. Both sides need to reduce the temptation of using them. It just adds vitriol to the debate.

btw most of the people including core-devs who disagree with XT are not from blockstream

blockstream people held similar positions before blockstream

blockstream gains from making bitcoin better and bigger

blockstream gains from keeping block small is questionable and minimal if even existent. Its a very long bow to draw

there are much easier ways for core devs to make way more money then trying to keep blocks small in some hope they can make money of open source infrastructure

the core devs have a long history of being motivated primarily by privacy and tech not by money

lightning network is open source and blockstreams business model is crappy, it receives not revenue. Its essentially a way to  fund devs so they can work on common-good infrastructure. Infact its probably the best way for them to be funded yet remain independent.

ok, somewhat plausible I suppose, but idiotic as you say.

We can accuse both sides of bad motives but I think one side wants main chain scaling and one wants off chain scaling.  would you agree?

@Envrin below...I want bigger blocks.  period. ASAP. If you want discussions, that's fine, looks like you're getting them.  I've already sided with Gavin and the industry leaders who favor Bip 101.  But, any reasonable proposal for bigger blocks would be great such as Bip 100 or Bip 102.

Geez, you just can't please some people.  They go out of their way to organize two open discussion meetings across the world, filled with some of the top technical folk in bitcoin, and you guys are still unhappy.

I don't get it.  It's like someone offering you an olive branch, and you slapping their hand away.

Which approach would you prefer?  The open discussion format such as this, or Mike and Gavin just forcing things down our throat?  I think I'll vote for this approach.

It's more like one side wants optimal decentralization and security while the other side is fixated on scaling the system by externalizing costs to the ones running it.

there's a third side saying lets give ourselves some breathing room, and keep trying to find a more optimal solution.

BIP100

Yes, as a rough generalisation. There is also privacy decentralisation vs growing at all cost. There are a few other underlying issues and complexities also.

Maybe the different visions will require a split at some point. For now its completely unnecessary. A uniting compromise is best . Both visions should be compatible for at least the next 3-5 years.

Bitcoin is way to small for such divisions now.

We don't need/have lightning now and we don't need exponentially growing blocks either. 4-8mb for the time being gives plenty of time and would be best way too keep us united, in my opinion.

Very good letter. Finally the people have heard the voice of the reason and will sit to discuss about the problem which faced bitcoin nowadays. This is the right solution and not the division. Hope that everything will go ok and will not be division. Even flaring the absence of the name of Gavin. Hope it will not be late for a pacific and overall solution.

oh ya they got this don't worry.

@danielW , completely agree that splintering factions of Bitcoin can't survive on their own.  We are all in this together.  

I'm amazed by how passionate people are about Bitcoin, on both sides.  I'm hoping we'll all come out on the other side of this stronger than ever.

I couldn't agree more with this sentiment. I hope we all can just get a long.

There is nothing wrong with a fork. Let's just make sure the exchanges allow the exchange of both. If there are exchanges that intentionally block one over the other, the exchange is not a supporter of free markets.

Edit: Bitcoin, no matter what form or forms it takes, will survive.

The only problem is that CURRENTLY, real world merchants like Dish, Expedia, etc will only accept "Bitcoin".  They will not bother accepting two coins, so most likely the fork with less mining power will die quickly and there will be miniscule demand for it.

In the future if crypto becomes more mainstream, a fork that leaves two currencies will be more viable.

Dude, no one is using Bitcoin to pay for his Dish bill. That type of use case is never going to make a difference... get some sense, won't you?

I have a question to you and other big-blockers. What would be a minimal compromise proposal you could live with?

For example I think what Adam Back mentioned on twitter was very fair:

I.e. 2 mb now ( in reality it would have to be about 6 months to a year from now)

4 mb  after 2 years,

8 mb after 2 years.


If that was agreed upon and pushed into core do you think that would be an acceptable compromise? Would people drop XT then?

sounds reasonable, but I don't see why we should wait a year.
why not roll out 2mb in the next 4-6 weeks?

In general, my concerns would be having plenty of extra room in case there is a spike
in adoption, and not being forced off the main chain.

At this point I would say "maybe". I will have a better opinion after seeing the effects of the stress test.

That's the problem, you can't do that.

There is simply no reasonable way to plan for security if you make decisions based on speculative adoption assumptions

I am not sure if its good practice to roll out hard-forks in such a small time period, unless absolutely necessary.


Many people would not upgrade their client in time, inertia is big.

Dish is definitely receiving Bitcoin payments.

I would not be so quick to assume that real world merchants will accept "only Bitcoin." First of all, some of these merchants were doing perfectly fine before accepting Bitcoin. They got into Bitcoin for a reason.

Secondly, it is entirely possible to build a "merchant service" whereby a Seller can accept any currency that the Buyer chooses, and have it instantly converted to their own currency. All this requires is more people to adopt Bitcoin and/or any other currency out there and to grow the exchange markets. Exchanges are very critical in this entire ecosystem.

Yeah maybe some hardcore Bitcoin dude does it but if we are being honest this use case is negligible.

This might be a good time to look at the alt coins. Are there any alt coins that eventually went offline, or do all alt coins continue to exist, even if they only have two users and near zero value?

Usage is negligible now; but these are the use cases that count the most for those in the Bitcoin is a currency camp. If you are in the Bitcoin is an asset camp, then you are right, who cares about the smaller transactions. I believe in the US consumer spending outweighs government and business spending combined. Tried to find some quick stats, but couldn't. Anyhow, the largest corps by market cap are all consumer oriented.

Asset markets largely surpass retail/consumer use cases. Bitcoin is infinitely more valuable as a replacement to gold, offshore saving accounts & safe havens. It also happens to be this is what it is best at.

If we're being honest Bitcoin as a payment system and transactional currency currently sucks balls. :-\ It is still years away from being mainstream consumer ready. Bitcoin as a currency will get all its glory and flourish once the majority of people on earth hold it and it becomes a unit of account. Until then we should expect retail use to remain marginal especially seeing as people will be increasingly encouraged to spend their inflationary fiat and save into Bitcoin or whatever other asset.

A coin is officially dead only if it can't be mined anymore. I've seen a couple of coins die due to coding hiccups. Something "breaks," the dev has already split and nobody in the community is interested in fixing the problem.

If it can't be mined and blocks can't be added to the blockchain, it becomes impossible to transfer and thus its value goes to zero.

See HawaiiCoin and ColbertCoin for examples.

I LOL'ed at this as it was my first response as well.

I was hoping there would be some clear statement of why they thought what they did regarding the current core versus XT fight or maybe even some compromise suggestion, e.g. 2 MB blocks now, oh well.

I hope the conferences are productive.  Thanks for posting the letter.

It's a bit more complicated than just changing a number, and when I say that I don't mean it literally, but in the sense that changing that number has very large implications for the whole community. I'm glad they're taking their time on this.

The letter looks suspicious. "Trust us" is simply not enough, I suspect they prepare something big,
and they want to have the community with them even before they talk publicly about it, so that they can
limit the controversy which will be caused by their hidden proposal.
Maybe it's blockstream. Off chain solutions are worthless, only trust the mainchain!!!

EDIT
https://i.imgur.com/TIpQ3H8.png