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Title: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: Simran on January 15, 2016, 04:25:46 PM What is everyone speculating is going to happen to Alt. Coins now that Mike Hearn made his announcement and apparently sold all his BTC(?). Also, this includes speculation now that Cryptsy/Crapsy/Shitsy has formally announced that basically all their shit was stolen.
Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: deliveryman on January 15, 2016, 04:33:06 PM im just gonna pass out for a bit speak soon
Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 15, 2016, 06:06:05 PM http://www.coindesk.com/scalability-debate-bitcoin-xt-proposal-stalls/
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/mike-hearn-says-bitcoin-has-failed-and-sees-a-price-plunge-in-the-future/ http://www.coindesk.com/cryptsy-bankruptcy-millions-bitcoin-stolen/ It opens the door wide open for better altcoin to kill Bitcoin. However for the short-term this is appears to be the crash to below $150, that I predicted last year. The crash should bottom roughly March. Amazing the crash is coming right on time as gold has also warned it is ready to crash below $1000 (headed to below $850 by March). This is necessary to reset everything. Then we start anew and look for the technology that can improve upon Bitcoin. This is fabulous day for me. My diligence has paid off and I could be in the driver's seat. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 15, 2016, 09:17:27 PM Argumentum ad verecundiam (Hearn) is not a kind of an argument we expect in such thread. I am not appealing to his authority and I in fact criticized him by quoting the part about he is working for/with 42 big banks, which says something about his motives and biases. However it is a fact that what he says about China controlling Bitcoin mining and this having potentially very negative impacts. Whether you want the block size to increase or stay the same, you can't argue that is decentralization when miners in China will decide for the rest of the world. And the "fundamentals are broken" in numerous ways (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13521902#msg13521902). It will get very interesting when the block reward halves this year. If the price doesn't move up, the Chinese miners might start extracting high transaction fees. By constraining the protocol block size (by refusing to adopt large block sizes and controlling 51% of the PoW), they can do this without causing the market to think Bitcoin has fallen to an attack. Otherwise they'd need to do an active 51% attack on the longest chain to enforce higher transaction fees. But really it is no distinction and Bitcoin has already fallen to a 51% attack. ;) Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: Zer0Sum on January 16, 2016, 12:49:34 AM It opens the door wide open for better altcoin to kill Bitcoin. And why has this not even come close to happening? The only road that I see is trading crypto on public, legit exchanges... Because primitive "decentralized" exchanges have been completely unable to develop significant liquidity. https://i.imgur.com/F1FWFeo.png Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: kelsey on January 16, 2016, 01:00:30 AM http://www.coindesk.com/scalability-debate-bitcoin-xt-proposal-stalls/ https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/mike-hearn-says-bitcoin-has-failed-and-sees-a-price-plunge-in-the-future/ http://www.coindesk.com/cryptsy-bankruptcy-millions-bitcoin-stolen/ It opens the door wide open for better altcoin to kill Bitcoin. However for the short-term this is appears to be the crash to below $150, that I predicted last year. The crash should bottom roughly March. Amazing the crash is coming right on time as gold has also warned it is ready to crash below $1000 (headed to below $850 by March). This is necessary to reset everything. Then we start anew and look for the technology that can improve upon Bitcoin. This is fabulous day for me. My diligence has paid off and I could be in the driver's seat. while i somewhat agree with you on bitcoin i.e. my personal opinion is bitcoin is a distraction on the development of a true p2p currency. reading you and fellow clowns over engineered ideas, i kinda always chuckle at you and your fellow clowns heightened sense of importance. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: ArticMine on January 16, 2016, 01:34:10 AM Mike Hearn has an interesting new article on some of the failures of Bitcoin... https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7 He makes some very valid points and he is of course right about the negative impacts of the 1 MB blocksize. He is also correct in saying the "bloat" is not the issue, in fact the small blocksize in Bitcoin may have led to the massive concentration of the Bitcoin hash rate in China effectively allowing the Government of China to control Bitcoin. On the other hand I do not agree at all with the criticism of people such as Gregory Maxwell, who I must say has also made many very valid points on the matter of scaling Bitcoin. The simple reality is that the Bytecoin solution of adaptive blocksize limits without a tail emission is also a prescription for disaster. The problem with Bitcoin is that nobody has found and it may well be impossible to find a way to develop a fee market, in the, absence of a block subsidy, that does not over time converge to one of two undesirable results: Fixed blocksize and infinite fees or infinite blocksize and zero fees. Mike Hearn has made a very persuasive argument as to why a fixed blocksize and infinite fees is such an undesirable outcome; however I am sure that Gregory Maxwell can make an equally persuasive argument as to why an infinite blocksize and zero fees is an equally undesirable outcome. Maybe the real reason why there has not been a solution to Bitcoin blocksize debate is that a solution may in fact not be possible, if one keeps the 21,000,000 maximum number of XBT limit in place, rather than because of the personalities involved. So in all of this where does Monero stand? Well Monero is the highest capitalization coin that has solved this problem in a pure proof of work coin. My philosophy on this is that when one takes care of the long term the short term will take care of itself. On the other hand focus on the short term and expect grief over the long term. Monero has taken care of the long term, unfortunately Bitcoin and for that matter most other crypto currencies have not. Crosspost of my post from Monero Speculation on Mike Hearn's article. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: hanzac on January 16, 2016, 02:45:02 AM I'm afraid both things are possibly (indirectly) sponsored by the US bank group.
It is too much coincidence and it's a sign. The community should be more careful in the future. These people definitely don't want to see the freedom can grow and do harm their benefit. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 16, 2016, 05:05:09 AM Mike Hearn has an interesting new article on some of the failures of Bitcoin... https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7 He makes some very valid points and he is of course right about the negative impacts of the 1 MB blocksize. He is also correct in saying the "bloat" is not the issue, in fact the small blocksize in Bitcoin may have led to the massive concentration of the Bitcoin hash rate in China effectively allowing the Government of China to control Bitcoin. On the other hand I do not agree at all with the criticism of people such as Gregory Maxwell, who I must say has also made many very valid points on the matter of scaling Bitcoin. The simple reality is that the Bytecoin solution of adaptive blocksize limits without a tail emission is also a prescription for disaster. The problem with Bitcoin is that nobody has found and it may well be impossible to find a way to develop a fee market, in the, absence of a block subsidy, that does not over time converge to one of two undesirable results: Fixed blocksize and infinite fees or infinite blocksize and zero fees. Mike Hearn has made a very persuasive argument as to why a fixed blocksize and infinite fees is such an undesirable outcome; however I am sure that Gregory Maxwell can make an equally persuasive argument as to why an infinite blocksize and zero fees is an equally undesirable outcome. Maybe the real reason why there has not been a solution to Bitcoin blocksize debate is that a solution may in fact not be possible, if one keeps the 21,000,000 maximum number of XBT limit in place, rather than because of the personalities involved. So in all of this where does Monero stand? Well Monero is the highest capitalization coin that has solved this problem in a pure proof of work coin. My philosophy on this is that when one takes care of the long term the short term will take care of itself. On the other hand focus on the short term and expect grief over the long term. Monero has taken care of the long term, unfortunately Bitcoin and for that matter most other crypto currencies have not. Crosspost of my post from Monero Speculation on Mike Hearn's article. ArticMine is correct about the problem and incorrect to claim Monero (or Aeon or any other crypto currency) has a solution. Only my design has a solution. Details at the following link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13569087#msg13569087 reading you and fellow clowns over engineered ideas, i kinda always chuckle at you and your fellow clowns heightened sense of importance. Facts don't have an ego. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: The Sceptical Chymist on January 16, 2016, 05:18:49 AM There are already so many threads about these same things. I could give a shit about a dev selling his bitcoin and getting out, but the Cryptsy thing pisses me off. The high level of scuntitude they've displayed and complete disregard for their customers just makes me want to scream. I did in my car on the way home, but it didn't help.
What a day for bitcoin, eh? Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 16, 2016, 06:26:00 AM I could give a shit about a dev selling his bitcoin and getting out The reasons Mike Hearn got out is that Bitcoin has just been 51% attacked. As I explained upthread. That is not a minor event. It is the first 51% attack on Bitcoin, and thus likely a death spiral for Bitcoin. , but the Cryptsy thing pisses me off. The high level of scuntitude they've displayed and complete disregard for their customers just makes me want to scream. I did in my car on the way home, but it didn't help. Why do you scream when you've been incessantly warned that storing your crypto currency with any third party is inherently unsafe and can never be safe. That is why we need decentralized exchanges, but these have technical challenges that have yet to be overcome. Spine TINGLING footage of Cryptsy's #Bigvern lying on camera 2 weeks after the 7-million-dollar hack! http://puu.sh/mxteE/b0f93ff827.jpg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJONR_UL1rw) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJONR_UL1rw Btw, his mannerism and face/facial expressions remind me so much of another alleged scammer Evan @ Dash in the recent Evolution videos. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: kelsey on January 16, 2016, 06:57:47 AM https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13569087#msg13569087 reading you and fellow clowns over engineered ideas, i kinda always chuckle at you and your fellow clowns heightened sense of importance. Facts don't have an ego. Q.E.D. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: rdnkjdi on January 16, 2016, 07:01:27 AM There are two interesting coins. Ethereum and Monero. I've found nothing else.
Mike Hearn announcement just put an exclamation point on everything everyone knew. Bitcoin can't innovate and can barely scale enough to keep up with a very laxidasical demand. You know what happens if I let this happen to my network - wait for it to slow things down before doing anything about it? I get fired. Bitcoin's approach of squabbling for years on end over a trivial 1mb increase (to anyone who's paying attention and realizes that bitcoins value comes from the innovation of the blockchain) is proof that bitcoin isn't in the future far enough. Maybe it's two years or fifteen - I don't pretend to know. But whatever "blockchain" is in the future for the general ledger - bitcoin isn't it. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 16, 2016, 07:22:59 AM https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13569087#msg13569087 reading you and fellow clowns over engineered ideas, i kinda always chuckle at you and your fellow clowns heightened sense of importance. Facts don't have an ego. Q.E.D. I know what you are implying. Be careful you don't conflate the person (and his health struggles) with the facts. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1219023.msg13569775#msg13569775 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=753252.msg13569312#msg13569312 Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 16, 2016, 07:25:09 AM There are two interesting coins. Ethereum and Monero. I've found nothing else. Both are fundamentally broken. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1323408.msg13518156#msg13518156 (Ethereum) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13569087#msg13569087 (Block chain scaling Tragedy of the Commons applies to Monero also) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13569178#msg13569178 (Monero's anonymity is unreliable/unprovable and thus useless for fungibility or other important use cases) Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: BitcoinNational on January 16, 2016, 07:26:45 AM bigger question
Are the Hearn, BigVern, and the BTC market down turn all related? The bitcoin whales are becoming more and more a collective of hacker/thieves. Eventually about $6B in market capital is going to try to squeeze into the alt market. The Cryptsy chaos seems an effective event to muddy the ALT waters. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: rdnkjdi on January 16, 2016, 07:59:29 AM Quote Both are fundamentally broken. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1323408.msg13518156#msg13518156 (Ethereum) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13569087#msg13569087 (Block chain scaling Tragedy of the Commons applies to Monero also) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13569178#msg13569178 (Monero's anonymity is unreliable/unprovable and thus useless for fungibility or other important use cases) "Broken" and "Success" are relative terms. Both are broken less than bitcoin and bring attributes to the table that fiat does not. If you have any suggestions that are less broken ... I'm all ears. An absolutist uses words like broken. A realist uses terms like "best alternative". Opening myself up to all available options those are the two answering the big questions. Privacy, programmable blockchain and both more scalable than bitcoin. What alternatives are less broken than these two I mentioned? Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 16, 2016, 06:02:33 PM Quote Both are fundamentally broken. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1323408.msg13518156#msg13518156 (Ethereum) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13569087#msg13569087 (Block chain scaling Tragedy of the Commons applies to Monero also) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13569178#msg13569178 (Monero's anonymity is unreliable/unprovable and thus useless for fungibility or other important use cases) "Broken" and "Success" are relative terms. Both are broken less than bitcoin and bring attributes to the table that fiat does not. If you have any suggestions that are less broken ... I'm all ears. An absolutist uses words like broken. A realist uses terms like "best alternative". Opening myself up to all available options those are the two answering the big questions. Privacy, programmable blockchain and both more scalable than bitcoin. What alternatives are less broken than these two I mentioned? Don't you understand that "fundamentally broken" means they don't work for the features they claim that are an improvement over Bitcoin. The link I provided to you for Ethereum explains that afaik they never solved the primary economic issue facing scaling programmable block chains, which is that every full node has to verify the block chain, thus every full node has to run the programmable script. But the problem is who to pay the gas (ether) to so that all full nodes are paid for verification? This has DDoS implications as well. In short, they never solved the core economic problem and thus Ethereum is just a fucking toy that can't actually work. Ditto Monero as explained below (the arguments were in the links I provided to you before but again I am always forced to repeat myself because readers are so clueless about technology that they can't even understand what I write). I think Monero is the best money to stay anonymous. It uses the ring signature. The mixing is built into the protocol. You are a n00b and you don't do enough research to know what you are writing about. Why should anyone believe you? Monero is not anonymous when your metadata can be correlated. One example of metadata which unmasks your anonymity is your IP address. And no, Tor and I2P mixnets do not hide your IP address from the government, in fact they are thought to be Sybil attacked honeypots that not only tell the government your IP address but also alert the NSA et al that you should come under extra scrutiny. And IP address is not the only metadata that can destroy your anonymity in ring signatures. Other examples can include cookies in your browser and other activity you did on the web. Other examples also include telephone calls and other activity you did around that time, which have statistical significance. I wrote about that in the link in the post I made upthread which is quoted below. None of them will surely keep you anonymous. Zerocash is the only design which might be very reliable, but it does not exist in any altcoin yet. Period. Some elaboration is at the following post (and also in the archives of my posts): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13569178#msg13569178 Ring signatures do not obscure everything. Only Zerocash can obscure everything so that then metadata is no longer a problem. I see Vitalik @ Ethereum has been reading my Bitcointalk posts, because now he has written a blog post to copy most of the points I have been making for the past months (https://blog.ethereum.org/2016/01/15/privacy-on-the-blockchain/). Additionally I have been making the point since the BCX incident that ring signatures can theoretically be unmasked by combinatorial analysis of the block chain. In the recent debate I had with Monero's cryptographer Shen-noether at Reddit about his white papers, I pointed out that his proposed solution to combinatorial unmasking was flawed. He and smooth did the usual ad hominem attack on my person, and then I rebutted them with logical facts and they were forced to finally put their tail between their legs. Bullshit. So much bullshit in these discussions of cryptocurrency technology. Especially coming from all the Monero pumpers who haven't done their homework, because they are retarded, closed-minded, and boastfully so. TPTB_need_war, what about ShadowCash? Just a (arguably plagiarized) copy of Cryptonote technology, so same conclusions as for Monero. https://z.cash/ is the only potential solution for making metadata correlation irrelevant, but all I know about it is here: http://zerocash-project.org/ Seems the project died or stalled? Afaik they've been quiet past months or most of 2015? Also scaling issues will probably still apply thus it is possible that Zerocash doesn't scale to world wide use, or other problems such as DDoS. I won't know until I dig deeper into it. Perhaps they discovered such issues and stopped working on it. Anonymity is very difficult to achieve. I would guess maybe impossible once all the technical factors are considered. But I am still willing to try. I personally will come back to Zerocash's technology later, after I finish fixing block chain scaling and decentralization (which is more important priority and more realistic). Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 16, 2016, 09:18:34 PM And so the n00bs moved their delusion over to Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/41a3nb/is_anonymint_correct/cz0r3d5 Quote from: myself Hi, I am AnonyMint. The drama queen allegation is a perception that is mostly irrelevant. Everyone on BCT who posts significantly is a drama queen bcz crypto is dramatic. Your labeling me a drama queen makes you a drama queen, lol. On to the substantive issue... The OP didn't quote my clarifying statement: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13575212#msg13575212 "The link I provided to you for Ethereum explains that afaik they never solved the primary economic issue facing scaling programmable block chains, which is that every full node has to verify the block chain, thus every full node has to run the programmable script. But the problem is who to pay the gas (ether) to so that all full nodes are paid for verification? This has DDoS implications as well. In short, they never solved the core economic problem and thus Ethereum is just a fucking toy that can't actually work." A probabilistic argument that says miners who win block rewards get paid fees and it will balance out, is dumb as shit. Just think it out. Unless hashrate is uniformly distributed amongst miners, then some miners get paid less for doing the same verification work. It is also DDoS amplication attack vector. Also there are variants of attacks, and Vitalik was incorrect to argue that the attacks are unlikely due to cost, because the attacker can profit from shorting the coin: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=448923.msg4995521#msg4995521 Come on n00bs, you don't have a clue. Give up. You need an expert. Respect when one is trying to help you understand. Stop labeling him a drama queen. That is B-lister attitude. Quote from: myself I think when people try to be perfectly politically correct, they become so anal that they enter another form of insanity. I didn't think you were being a dick. I just chalk it up to the nature of life. It is no big deal, that is why I put "lol". Well it is mostly getting exhausted because it is very difficult to write so much and repeat oneself so many times. And also I am not really in a position in life where I can just sit back and relax. I have serious problems in my life and I am under a lot of stress. So I am stressed about consuming so much time writing (instead of for example coding). I also run into the problem that when I am less forceful, then the discussions get overrun with noise by emboldened n00bs. I don't know what the correct balance should be. As I said, it is just life. I laugh it away. No worries mate. https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/41a3nb/is_anonymint_correct/cz0rgdv Quote from: myself You entirely miss the point. The cost of verification in Bitcoin is rather small because the transaction rate is so low, and the block rewards are so high. So the inequality I explained my other post above, isn't such a big deal. But eventually this same issue could plague Bitcoin as well. The problem is more immediately egregious in Ethereum, because scripts can consume a lot of resources, unlike verification of Bitcoin transactions which is a constant resource cost per transaction. Again you n00bs should stop trusting your own analysis, because in my excrutiatingly vast experience of reading n00b posts at BCT, you are nearly always wrong. Quote from: myself In Bitcoin I think so, although there was a recent block chain fork because some miners were not doing complete verification, so perhaps the costs of verification are already borderline in Bitcoin and the transaction rate is highly corralled in Bitcoin to a 1MB block size which can't scale world wide. Also $9 - $16 in electricity cost per transaction isn't going to scale. So eventually PoW must be redesigned to lower the cost. (I have designed that solution) And Ethereum MUST allow a much greater use of verification resources, simply because scripts consume more resources than highly optimized code for doing one thing of verifying transactions. Ethereum could place global limits on the amount of gas a script can consume, but this is no longer a fully programmable block chain (no longer Turing complete because it requires unbounded tapes) and it is also not a free market, but rather a hard-coded, centralized decision. Just like Bitcoin's block size constant, this will become a political hellhole. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1219023.msg13577344#msg13577344 "Bottom line is any global constant in the protocol is not decentralization. Period. End of story. The protocol must be able to function in a free market dynamic. All the arguments about consensus is moving forward from 1MB slowly are irrelevant, because if constants are not decided by the protocol, then the protocol is by definition under a 51% attack always." Quote from: myself Afaics, none of these directions Ethereum is headed deal with the economic issue I outlined in my first post in this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/41a3nb/is_anonymint_correct/cz0r3d5 As for their scalability ideas (which again do not address the economic problem of inequality of gas fees I outlined), they are going down the same throught process that I went through in my analysis of how to scale a consensus system. My thought process is far ahead of theirs, and they will later realize that what they have designed is a total failure. The reason is because the CAP theorem is violated by Proof of Evidence aka Proof of Cheating (which is also one of the reasons why Bitcoin's proposed Segregated Witness will fail). Refer to my decentralization thread in the Altcoin Discussion forum at Bitcointalk for more details of the relevance of the CAP theorem. I am not eager to drill down and convince them of this, because I don't want to give then my design. In short, scalability requires centralization. I ultimately realized it is how the centralization is structured that allows for decentralized control. That was my key epiphany. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 16, 2016, 10:33:38 PM The Chinese are siphoning off our speculator money with their $50 per BTC mining costs: Anyone know what proportion of BTC is produced in China/held in China/sold out of China ? Without this info I don't know that I can put too much store in this theory Jorge. There is practically no reliable info on the bitcoin economy, in particular on the flow and ownership of bitcoin by country. (This is a serious problem for would-be investors.) We can only note that more than 67% of all new bitcoins are mined by Chinese pools, which probably comprise mostly Chinese miners; and that bitcoin has practically no use inside China, except as an instrument of speculative trading inside the exchanges. Until last October, variations of trading volume at those exchanges did not seem to be reflected in the USD transaction volume, which may mean that there was little deposit and withdrawal at those exchanges. There is efficient arbitrage between the Chinese and non-Chinese exchanges. If Chinese miners sold their coins only in Chinese exchanges, that would tend to depress the price there. Then the arbitragers would immediately move those excess coins to non-Chinese exchanges, until the prices got equalized. So, I would guess that it does not matter where the Chinese miners sell: the net effect is that a large fraction (if not most) of the bitcoins mined in China are eventually bought and hoarded by non-Chinese investors. On the likelihood of fixing Bitcoin: The problem is that the cost [ of validating a transaction ] grows like N^2 for N inputs. By the way, there is no excuse for the cost to be quadratic. That is one of the many crocks in the BitcoinCore implementation, that will take more crocks to work around. Like the Segregated Witnesses proposal, malleability and its partial patches, blockchain voting to increase the limit, etc.. There you have another possible failure mode for Bitcoin: runaway code crockification (RCC). As the code gets more complicated and ugly, fewer competent people will be willing to work on it. Their place will be taken by incompetent pople, who will add even more crocks -- and so on until the code will fail and there will be no one capable of fixing it in time. Just a possibility; but after seeing the malleability problems, the Fork of July fiasco, the "fee merket" plans and the RBF hack, the Seg Wit proposal -- I fear that the RCC may be already underway... If we understand the reasoning that led to certain details of the design (like the 1 MB limit and the abrupt halvings of the reward) we have a better chance of predicting what would happen if we changed them. Those who want to reform bitcoin so that it replaces VISA or ACH should put bitcoin aside and start the design such a system from scratch, choosing at each step the gears and rivets that are better suited to those goals. But, first, they should justify why the world needs a better option for those goals and why they think that they can design one. (That said: in fact, I believe that, as a software engineer, Satoshi, was much better than Gavin and Mike, who are much better than all the Blockstream developers -- who are totally incompetent and irresponsible in that regard.) Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 17, 2016, 12:07:58 AM China can SPV mine, which they do already, but it is risky and puts them at a further disadvantage. Why? They can control the pool abroad. A pool abroad is a loser. It just adds latency. That doesn't add any latency that they wouldn't have already with small blocks. Yes it does. Block is solved in China. If it is sent to a mining pool in China, that mining pool and the other ones in China receive it right away. If it has to go over GFW twice, as would be the case with a pool node outside China, then there is added latency. Incorrect. The pool still has to propagate the block solution to the block chain which means all block solutions have to propagate across the GFW (so it always double for incoming/outgoing block solutions regardless whether the pool is inside or outside China's wall). The size of the blocks is irrelevant as I said. The block solution can be propagated directly to others inside of China even if the pool is also outside. They would have to build a custom solution to do that, and then deal with maintaining it and potentially being exploited in some manner. If forced, they will likely do exactly that, but they would prefer not to. I'm not referring to what is theoretically possible (maybe, if there aren't some non-obvious ways to exploit it) but what is readily deployable using existing tools. 1,312,500 BTC mined per year @ $300+ profit = $400 million annually (assuming the very low < $50 costs for mining for 2 cents hydropower and latest ASICs). Chinese are mining an estimate of 67% of that apparently. They can afford to build that custom software solution. The Chinese miners are lying. Expect corruption at the highest levels. Probably are getting subsidized electricity for free. Etc. Bitcoin has already been 51% attacked. End of story. We MUST eliminate profitable mining (my design)! Edit: Quote from: anonymous Maybe those Chinese miners are puppets for corrupt Chinese ministers? Maybe due to the crackdown on corruption, electricity for Bitcoin is more stealthily than transferring bank money? That was also one of my thoughts about the possibilities. But also consider that the core devs of Bitcoin can't be this dumb. Surely they also know about this and have covered it up. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: rdnkjdi on January 17, 2016, 11:24:03 AM Bitcoin "is a fucking toy" when compared to VISA and yet in it's realm it has done quite well at being better than cash for many things. I know a guy who purchased land by taking it across international borders. I've used it multiple times for things VISA was not useful for.
By my measure bitcoin was a success and now it's outlived it's prime. I view Monero and Ethereum in the same light. I'm sure you would have pointed out bitcoins flaws when it was $10 per coin and said "This will never work." out of some of the same principles you are using now. You are one of those who peruse perfection and I wholeheartedly respect that. But I'm not hearing any alternatives from you. And as you so graciously pointed out - I'm a n00b. I can't fix all the problems you point out. So my two choices are opt out of the market. Or pick the least bad losers. When I perceive them to no longer be the least bad - I will move on to whatever else is the least bad. I know it's not your strategy - but it's mine. By your standards bitcoin was fundamentally broken years ago. But it paid off for those who picked "the least bad option." BTW I wasn't the one who posted your stuff on the reddit ethereum forum. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 17, 2016, 12:19:04 PM Bitcoin "is a fucking toy" when compared to VISA and yet in it's realm it has done quite well at being better than cash for many things. I know a guy who purchased land by taking it across international borders. I've used it multiple times for things VISA was not useful for. By my measure bitcoin was a success and now it's outlived it's prime. And I never said otherwise. Since when did "it is centralized" and "it has been 51% attacked" constitute a statement that Bitcoin had no utility ??? You put words in my mouth that I never spoke, because you are trying to rationalize your investments in Monero and Ethereum. Thus you have lost your objectivity, not me. I view Monero and Ethereum in the same light. I'm sure you would have pointed out bitcoins flaws when it was $10 per coin and said "This will never work." out of some of the same principles you are using now. I did point out in 2013 exactly how Bitcoin would end up failing, which I said would be game theory of centralization around mining. And I was correct. I never wrote that Bitcoin would have no utility and in fact I wrote that the utility of Bitcoin was very inspiring. Why do you reckon I am still here in crypto if I didn't think so! Problem Monero has is that there is very little demand for an anonymity for which the reliability is unprovable. It is a marketing utility problem, which Bitcoin doesn't suffer. Even if we did implement provable anonymity (e.g. Zerocash not Zerocoin), it still not clear if markets for anonymity would be great, especially if the decentralized, permissionless attribute isn't assured, because the government can simply take control over centralized mining and force the anonymity to be stripped off. OTOH, companies are saying that privacy is very important to them and perhaps they do not mean hiding from the NSA. And public block chains using encryption are superior conceptually to private block chains using perimeters defenses because even sneakernets fail (e.g. Stuxnet). But the things corporations want privacy on are the block chain 2.0 features that Ethereum is working on. The corporations aren't interested just in crypto currency alone as that doesn't have much utility to them. Cryptonote (especially combined with Confidential Transactions that hide values) is a very technologically interesting concept, but without any significant utility in the markets. Problem Ethereum has is that programmable block chains are an overly ambitious clusterfuck. And it isn't clear that the major markets for block chain utility require a fully programmable block chain. And the developers of Ethereum are basically clueless and have been making it up as they go along. You are basically investing in research. That guy Vlad has changed designs numerous times and has come up with some of the most stupid ideas, as even he admits. They haven't been able to think it through from start to finish as to what design they should use. And their current direction on scaling looks to me to be another clusterfuck. However I am also curious about smart contracts, block chain applications, and programmable block chains. And maybe I will come to different conclusions after I have more time to analyze all the issues of those extended ideas. At the moment, my research is more focused on scaling crypto currency. You are one of those who peruse perfection and I wholeheartedly respect that. You mistake sobering analysis for being some form of demanding perfection. I demand only that I understand the issues of a technology. But I'm not hearing any alternatives from you. And as you so graciously pointed out - I'm a n00b. I can't fix all the problems you point out. So my two choices are opt out of the market. Or pick the least bad losers. When I perceive them to no longer be the least bad - I will move on to whatever else is the least bad. I know it's not your strategy - but it's mine. Then you haven't read about the design I proposed in the decentralization thread I started this week in this Altcoin Discussion forum. And as you so graciously pointed out - I'm a n00b. I can't fix all the problems you point out. So my two choices are opt out of the market. Or pick the least bad losers. When I perceive them to no longer be the least bad - I will move on to whatever else is the least bad. I know it's not your strategy - but it's mine. You are not forced to invest in cryptocurrency. An investor needs to be unbiased and flexible. For the moment, I am investing in the US dollar, until some clarity is obtained in the crypto scene. By your standards bitcoin was fundamentally broken years ago. But it paid off for those who picked "the least bad option." I told rpietila back at the start of 2013 when Bitcoin was < $10, that I approved of his decision to sell $100,000 of silver and buy 10,000 Bitcoins. Unfortunately I couldn't follow him into the investment because I had been so ill since May, 2012 and had lost $75,000 in the markets during June through August. This was caused by some craziness in my life (something about my ex yanking my kids from the Philippines and my endocrine system going bezerk). So unfortunately I had to stay on the sidelines, but never did I argue against investing in Bitcoin when it was at such a low price. When Bitcoin hit $1000, I began to argue that the direction would be downwards and lately the clarity on the bottom should be < $150 in Q1 or Q2 2016. At this point I am trying to contemplate what is going to happen to Bitcoin given these issues revolving around scaling. I don't see any technical solutions for Bitcoin other than to centralize and then raise the block size. Maybe that is what will happen. At this time, I need to be focused on coding and not trying to analyze the complex possibilities of what might happen with Bitcoin from here forward. BTW I wasn't the one who posted your stuff on the reddit ethereum forum. No problem I am happy we were able to discuss some of the details about Ethereum over there. I told rpietila back at the start of 2013 when Bitcoin was < $10, that I approved of his decision to sell $100,000 of silver and buy 10,000 Bitcoins. Would you approve such decision for Ethereum today? rpietila would only have to sell $10,000 of silver for ~10,000 ETH. Bitcoin clearly had momentum at the start of 2013, and it was a technological concept that was so revolutionary that it was clearly going to take the world by storm. Ethereum not. The conceptual technology isn't even threshed out yet, and they are adding more and more complexity on top. If I am somehow wrong about some killer app that requires a programmable block chain and some way that Ethereum's complex design process is able to solidify (and for all that to occur this year), then I will be quite shocked. We tend to get so excited about a programmable block chain because we think that implies that there are unbounded cases of apps that can be written, but as Ethereum is discovering as they go through the research process, is that so many limitations have to placed on the scripts in order to achieve scalability that I argue much of the generality is also lost. For example, scripts can't be allowed to read/write from any state that any other script could, because then commutativity of block chain ordering is lost. There is the Tragedy of Commons issue around fees (gas) that I raised. Etc.. It is difficult to access how the 51% attack the Chinese miners did on Bitcoin is going to play out. Btw, to follow my logic, then follow my posts in the Altcoin Discussion forum. Any one interested in analyzing Ethereum, then start here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1219023.msg13583753#msg13583753 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1329136.msg13577121#msg13577121 I believe Armstrong's timing for a gold low is roughly March, if that has not changed since his earlier gold reports. We will have to see if Bitcoin follows gold down in a liquidity crisis event or not. Right now everything sure seems to be quiet in the global markets, but maybe the quiet precedes the storm. So yes Armstrong could end up being wrong about gold and I could even be further wrong about Bitcoin following gold down. So shorting is risky. Note I have revealed that the Chinese miners are lying. See the discussion between smooth and myself. As this revelation spreads out, what happens if the Chinese miners are caught in a huge corruption and decide to liquidate their mining equipment? Or some other rash action in our community. It is really difficult to access how this clusterfuck of block scaling economics is going to play out for Bitcoin. I haven't expended enough time doing the 3D chess analysis on it. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: rdnkjdi on January 17, 2016, 10:05:32 PM I read your entire reply. I don't disagree with anything you said.
I do think there may be some intermediate solutions on a programmable blockchain with projects like Augur (Intrade on the blockchain), decentralized exchange and currency type swaps. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-09-01/blythe-masters-tells-banks-the-blockchain-changes-everything. I'm also witnessing the continued clampdown of US government on currency (eBay reports to the IRS on yearly sales for individuals now). I'm continuing to see it more and more. This pressure / friction from the governments will at some point force free capital somewhere. Cryptocurrency is my hedge/bet on this. Of the solutions that exist - what do you recommend? Nothing? Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: Zer0Sum on January 17, 2016, 10:23:13 PM Bitcoin "is a fucking toy" when compared to VISA and yet in it's realm it has done quite well at being better than cash for many things. I know a guy who purchased land by taking it across international borders. I've used it multiple times for things VISA was not useful for. Bitcoin has maxed out it's design at 1/10000 of the volume that VISA does daily. The entire crypto space is a "toy" in the sense that it's a Zero Sum Game... Where 2% of the players have made off with all the money... and 98% are bagholders in denial. Stocks, forex, poker, sports betting, crypto... it's all 2% winners and 98% bagholders. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 18, 2016, 05:29:11 PM double bottom below $1000 in March Than one more time on 2017... ...I believe Armstrong's timing for a gold low is roughly March, if that has not changed since his earlier gold reports. We will have to see if Bitcoin follows gold down in a liquidity crisis event or not. Right now everything sure seems to be quiet in the global markets, but maybe the quiet precedes the storm. So yes Armstrong could end up being wrong about gold and I could even be further wrong about Bitcoin following gold down. So shorting is risky... EDIT: ...And gold is going to < $700 by end of Q1 2016... You mention "...a gold low.." So, in your judgement, and while aknowledging the uncertainty, do you imagine a single low / bottom by end of Q1 2016, or double low / bottom by end of 2017? My writing is very sloppy and missing words (that I hear in my head but forget to type), because I am far too overloaded due to the rate of posting and number of waking versus sleeping hours, in addition to all the other work and tasks I am attempting to do. You all simply can't expect one man to be superman. Impossible. Even the coherence of my writing and thoughts declines as the load increases. It is a documented fact that brain damage results from these sort of patterns of activity (lack of sleep, etc). Especially not good for age 50.7 and trying to cure come chronic dysfunction of the bile duct that has systemic effects in terms of chronic fatigue syndrome, peripheral neuropathy, headaches, whole body itchiness (to the point of having wounds all over my body when I scratch while sleeping) and other symptoms which mimic Multiple Sclerosis (but I now envision I don't have MS but rather the yellow stomach is more likely pancreatic or gall bladder issue, maybe cancer or blockage for other reason). I consistently stated that I thought the capitulation low would be < $150, perhaps < $100. Last May I predicted the rise to $320 exactly and expected it could begin the decline to the expected bottom. You can find the discussion mostly in kLee's PnF thread in Speculation forum. You find there my exact prediction stating that it could rise back up to maximum of $450 (or maybe I said $400 to $500 range) before making the decline to $150. I also stated that I would be stopped out at $380 if that scenario played out and had I been short (but later I realized had I been short from $320, I would have closed my shorts in the mid-$200s as it was meandering there). The $400 - $500 level was based on some chart analysis and the details are in that PnF thread. Around August or so with the approachin 2015.75, I was on the lookout as to whether the decline to the bottom would come precipitously. But then someone shared with me a copy of Armstrong's gold report and I became aware that the predicted low was roughly March 2016. So then I began to expect the final capitulation low would come Q1 2016. I stated this publicly. I also had more confirmation that Bitcoin was going to rise again when it meandered in the mid-$200s. As for a double-bottom or whether the bottom with be V shaped or U shaped, I don't have any ideas other than I expect the crash of Bitcoin is going to be due to fundamentals such as the realization that the Chinese miners control Bitcoin. And thus I don't expect any quick rise back up. Actually it is very difficult now to analyze the future of crypto. I just know I see an incredible opportunity for me given I have a design which solves these technical problems, so I need to busy coding and not posting about these matters. Another perspective could be that Bitcoin will be centralized and the block chain size increased and that we've already seen the bottom at the V bottom dip to $150 before. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 18, 2016, 05:47:02 PM I do think there may be some intermediate solutions on a programmable blockchain with projects like Augur (Intrade on the blockchain), decentralized exchange See my critique which says those technologies can't work: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13576188#msg13576188 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13580146#msg13580146 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13569559#msg13569559 ...at some point force free capital somewhere. Cryptocurrency is my hedge/bet on this. Of the solutions that exist - what do you recommend? Nothing? Here is what I am doing... (albeit I have only about $20,000 at the moment and it isn't even my money...I have roughly $0 networth...yikes :o) US Dollar until gold makes it's low March 2016 (or thereabouts and < $1000 perhaps < $850), then buy physical gold coins (not bullion!) or an ETF proxy short-term while retaining some US dollars (until as late as early 2017 before capital controls will be pervasive) and wait for the cryptocurrency arena to become more clear. There is appears to be great risk of a major implosion of crypto land. Trade gold or dollars for crypto as the situation becomes more clear. Of course no problem with speculation with 1% of net worth (maybe 5% total max for speculative longshots) in promising technological ventures, but don't go all-in on anything which doesn't have the momentum and clarity that Bitcoin had in late 2012 and early 2013. And don't ever buy so much of a speculative longshot, that you lose your objectivity such as what IMO has happened to some of the hardcore Monero/Aeon investors (which would force one to go around thumping their chest instead of listening and continually readjusting based on available data). Note I probably won't buy gold because I don't have enough capital to make it worth while, can't obtain the coins in Philippines, and I don't want to re-enter a brokerage again to buy an ETF. So it will be all US dollars for me. Title: Re: State of Alt. Coins - Post Mike Hearn Announcement? Post by: TPTB_need_war on January 18, 2016, 10:07:46 PM Bumping up against the hard limit is probably wastefully expensive for this "attack" What expense? [...]mining equipment next to a hydropower plant with 2 - 4 cents electricity or for that matter perhaps free subsidized electricity in corrupt environs such as China (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1219023.msg13578324#msg13578324)[...] You're suggesting mining is (or can be) free? That's absurd. Even if it were free, this attack still costs you the reward. I am suggesting the State (or those corrupt who control it) can charge the cost of mining to the collective (think the Three Gorges Dam that wrecked environmental devastation downstream, upstream and derivative effects all over China). I have made this point numerous times. And apparently (after everyone said I was crazy), it came true in China and if true was a factor that enabled China to capture an estimated 67% of the mining and 51% attack Bitcoin. Documentation of these statements is in my vaporcoin thread. If the profit from shorting is greater than the reward, then it doesn't cost you anything. The free mining cost just makes it more likely you can sustain it long enough to reap your reward. How do we know the Chinese won't milk the investors while the block reward is high (mining at near $0 cost charging it the cost to the collective) and then also profit by shorting it all the way down from $1000. We are bunch of naive geeks who are being reamed (mined) by savvy traders and strategists. These are no different conceptually than Rothschild's and Rockefeller's methods of yore. The players and technological field change, the game remains the same. (Yeah I am crazy conspiracy theorist whose analysis is always wrong) Edit: haven't you been slightly suspicious of why the MSM publicized Bitcoin so much. That doesn't happen without the approval the global elite. |
