Bitcoin Forum

[–]luke-jrLuke Dashjr - Bitcoin Expert 2 points 17 hours ago

HaoBTC, in the future, if you have concerns or questions that need clarification and/or answering, please just ask, rather than posting on a blog that we probably don't read and might not even notice...

Things that we tried to make clear both at the meeting itself, as well as afterward on social media:

    Core contributors present and party to the agreement were not acting as representatives of the Core dev team, (This was made VERY clear.)
    There was no hardfork promised (not even all the Core dev team has authority to do that), only code that could be recommended for one. (This also was made VERY clear.)
    The hardfork proposal promised was not a "2 MB hardfork", but a hardfork that would include as one minor change, the ability to include up to 2 MB of current witness-included-in-txid (anyone-can-malleate) transactions.
    Miners have no leverage to make demands. If they attempt to hardfork without community consensus, they harm only themselves, while Bitcoin moves on without them. (At least for my part, my goal of the agreement was to end division and argumentation, which did not happen, admittedly not because of the fault of many of the agreement participants.)
    The July 2016 estimate was not part of the agreement, and certainly not a deadline. It was (at the time) a reasonable expectation based on the agreement terms.
    Speaking only for myself, I made the promise with sincerity, and intend to uphold it best I can (despite the almost immediate violation by one of the parties).

Admittedly, both at the meeting and now, I consider the "SegWit delayed until HF is released in Core" position some miners took to be unviable, and that miners will be pressured to deploy it much sooner by the community. After all, not deploying segwit literally means they are preventing the block size increase. However, I understand the agreement places no such obligation on them.

Since the agreement was made:

    SegWit has still not yet been included in a release. Thus the three months deadline has not even begun "counting" yet. (I still aspire to have something by the end of July if possible, but I consider this to be above and beyond the agreed-on terms.)
    Discussions have revealed that the goal of expanding space for anyone-can-malleate transactions loses the necessary performance improvements included with SegWit to make larger blocks safer, thus cannot safely be done without ugly hacks to introduce new limits similar to BIP 109 which might become a nuisance to Bitcoin both today and in the future. This isn't a show-stopper to writing code, but it may make it difficult to come up with something that unbiased parties can recommend.
    Many third parties have expressed that they will under no conditions consent to a hardfork that comes out of this or any other political agreement. This won't block code nor recommentation, but it does guarantee such a proposal cannot be adopted.
    Some developer(s) have expressed concerns that doing a hardfork safely ("soft hardfork") is somehow "unethical" to them, and doing it unsafely will require even greater efforts on ensuring consensus is reached not only from the community, but also that there are no nodes accidentally left behind. This isn't a blocker, but it probably makes deployment much harder.

Miners don't know shit about bitcoin. They think that because they run a bunch of miners and keep expanding their mines, that automatically means they know how to scale a protocol worldwide.

Most of them don't really care about bitcoins future, they want to earn lots of money without much effort and little maintenance/electricity fees.

Instead of using a new, today created account you should have the balls to FUD with your general one.
This is ridiculous!

Ad hominem retorts are pretty much what you're left with when you can't rationally refute an argument.
It's a quote, Friendo. How can quoting a core developer be called "FUD"?
Would it be any less frightening for you if I used a hero account? Would it cause you less anxiety & doubt?
Help me out here.

Can you provide the part that was the agreed upon term you are referring to,
and then place that next to what was the lukejr lie above?

My understanding is that the agreement doesn't even take effect until three
months after SegWit is within a Core release. Then after that, the 2MB raise is an
individualized lobbied position and pull request, not a confirmed implementation.

Luke Jr. is saying that the agreement is null and void, because "Core contributors present and party to the agreement were not acting as representatives of the Core dev team, (This was made VERY clear.)," so the details are irrelevant.

If you're simply curious, SegWit was promised us a couple of months ago. Are you suggesting that the letter of the (invalid) agreement is being adhered to, because Core also lied about SegWit?

I read the quote.  I don't see the part where he says, "We Didn't Promise You Dick!"

Perhaps if you were less interested in FUD, you'd have used a Subject line more like:

"Core Dev Luke Jr. To Chinese Miners: I intend to uphold [my promise] as best I can"

That is at least something I can actually find in the quote.

That is not my reading of what he wrote.

1) Chinese mining farms that participated in the talks wanted a confirmed change in the protocol.
People who participated who were also Bitcoin Devs advised the miners that they do not control the Dev team
and do not represent Core, since that is impossible since no one can represent Core. For the Chinese miners
to request that 3 or 4 Bitcoin Devs that participated in the talks, to guarantee a 2MB HF, totally disregards
how our development system works. All they could do was promise to make the pull request and lobby for it.

2) The agreement becomes invalid if the chinese miners do not begin to run SegWit. According to the terms,
when the miners begin to run the SegWit code, the 3 or 4 Devs who participated in the talks will make a pull
request for 2MB and lobby in an attempt to get the other Bitcoin Devs to agree and make the raise confirmed.
If SegWit was late in its release by 1 or 2 months, does not invalidate the agreement since the agreement is
not date based, but stage/term based. SegWit has now left testing and reached the stage of release.

If there is lying going on, as you say, can you please post the terms of the agreement, next to the lies.

I read the quote.  I don't see the part where he says, "We Didn't Promise You Dick!"

How could an invalid agreement ("Core contributors present and party to the agreement were not acting as representatives of the Core dev team, (This was made VERY clear.),") be made any more invalid?

Are you telling me that if you make an unauthorized agreement on my behalf (let's say forged my signature on a contract), that contract could be made less valid if I break some clause of this (illegal) document?

It seems you are very confused. Did the bitcoin Devs that were present at that meeting,
sign the agreement as representatives of Bitcoin Core or as Lead Bitcoin Devs or as Bitcoin Maintainer or etc?
If they did not, and signed as individuals, then LukeJrs statement above is true, according to contract law.


If I make an "unauthorized contract on your behalf", then the contract is automatically invalid,
since I did not have your approval to sign on your behalf. You can not make an invalid contract,
more invalid, only specific terms within such agreement can be individually invalidated due to
nonconformity of law.

Are you saying that LukeJr and others signed the agreement as Official Bitcoin Core Representatives?

...and that's why it's perfectly OK to lie to them.

Not at all.

There is nothing equivalent about that at all.

If I promise to vote against BREXIT, and I promise to campaign against BREXIT, but I make it very clear to you that I do not get the final say all by myself, that my vote may be insufficient and that my campaigning may not sway enough people...

Is that equivalent to "I don't promise you dick"?

Perhaps you believe me to be influential enough that you value that promise from me.  As long as I fulfill my promise to the best of my ability, I've done my part. Even if BREXIT passes.

Speaking only for myself, I made the promise with sincerity, and intend to uphold it best I can (despite the almost immediate violation by one of the parties).

This is how the whole thing was presented by Bitcoin media...

But, technically you're right. From now on, whenever I hear Core promise anything, I'll know that it's utter drek, because there's reallyy no such thing as the core team. The entity colloquially referred to as "Core" is amental construct, an ever-changing assemblage of sovereign persons, whose current electromagnetic state and molecular makeup is not identical to that of the signatories as at the moment of signing.
Thus making aforementioned virtual digital token, i.e. non-binding non-violent unenforceable non-contract null and void.
::)
Takeaway: Legacy business (the sort where promises are actually kept and expectations met) is impossible with bitcoin.

Doesn't matter what the media thinks, all that matters is the terms of the contract or agreement.
Almost 100% of the time the media gets the story/issues wrong. No one should base their knowledge
of issues from bitcoin media (especially when they are constantly wrong and half the time paid to shill altcoins).

I don't really understand the issue. If "Core" provides information on their site as to the roadmap or etc,
then "Core" takes an official stance and is attempting to comply/enforce/implement such a stance.
If a few Core contributors to the Bitcoin code make an agreement with anyone, even God himself,
descended from heaven, that does not bind the remaining Core Contributors (over 80 at least) to such
an agreement.

It seems to me the Chinese Miners have no idea Bitcoin is open-source and maintained/improved
by individual contributors working separately and together.

It seems to me the Chinese Miners have no idea Bitcoin is open-source and maintained/improved
by individual contributors working separately and together.

You're telling me that the press and everyone on this forum misconstrued this?
https://s32.postimg.org/ye6owppk5/waifu.jpg
https://s32.postimg.org/renjc4trp/bitches.jpg
And not a single core dev has seen it fit to correct such a grievous error?


ELI5 what the core devs thought they were doing here, you keep artfully redacting shit:
https://s32.postimg.org/ye6owppk5/waifu.jpg
https://s32.postimg.org/renjc4trp/bitches.jpg

What is the point of "reaching an agreement," issuing fancy press releases and posing for those nauseating pics when such agreements are fundamentally impossible in Bitcoin?

You know what promising something you can't deliver is called in the vernacular? It's called LYING LIKE A FUCKING RUG.

Not at all.

There is nothing equivalent about that at all.

If I promise to vote against BREXIT, and I promise to campaign against BREXIT, but I make it very clear to you that I do not get the final say all by myself, that my vote may be insufficient and that my campaigning may not sway enough people.

Is that equivalent to "I don't promise you dick"?

Perhaps you believe me to be influential enough that you value that promise from me.  As long as I fulfill my promise to the best of my ability, I've done my part. Even if BREXIT passes.

You know what promising something you can't deliver is called in the vernacular? It's called LYING LIKE A FUCKING RUG.

If you are adamant in your belief and opinion, all you have to do is two things:

1. Take the terms of the signed agreement.
2. Place those terms next to the lies that were committed.

Look at the topic of this thread.
Luke Jr. is not arguing against specific points of that "agreement," he isn't saying that all contractual obligations are being met, per signed "agreement."
He's saying that the signatories were not representatives of the core team, making said "agreement" null and void. That the entity known as core (henceforth EKAC) is not obligated to comply with the terms of that "agreement," because Why is this so difficult to get across?

If I pretended to be the King of Siam, and, in that capacity, signed a lengthy international treaty on the behalf of Thailand, what difference is it which terms of that treaty Thailand is/is not adhering to?

EKAC (sorry, temporally-bound virtual entity manifesting itself in cryptospace as Luke [dash] Jr., who is not EKAC) claim(s) that the whole thing is junk. Because the carbon-based sovereign individual(s) extant at the spacetime coordinates of signing (which is to say collapsing the probability field so as to make marks appear in one of the infinitely manifold realities), were not granted said authority by the nebulous entity known as core, which, by definition, is apunctual and exists outside spacetime, in constant flux.

I hope this is clear.

If you read the agreement signed, it says within the paragraphs that the Bitcoin contributors signing are separate individuals not empowered to confirm finalization. It clearly states that the Core community has the final say. A handful of Core Contributors is not the Core Community.

What documents or other material do you have that shows that LukeJr and others willfully participated in such talks with claims that they control Bitcoin, yet reneging later to just claim as an individual?.

If you read the agreement signed, it says within the paragraphs that the Bitcoin contributors
signing are separate individuals not empowered to confirm finalization. It clearly states that the
Core community has the final say. A handful of Core Contributors is not the Core Community.

What documents or other material do you have that shows that LukeJr and others willfully participated
in such talks with claims that they control Bitcoin, yet reneging later to just claim as an individual?.

They made no claims of controlling Bitcoin, nor is such a claim being put forward by me now.

What they did willfully do is mislead the miners, the press, and the entire fucking bitcoin community into believing that a meaningful agreement has been reached, knowing full well that the worthless assemblage of bullshit was fucking worthless. As I have pointed out as you celebrated that momentous event, and got laughed at. Lol. :)

The agreement terms is the agreement. There is nothing more.
Seems the media mislead everyone, since they added and subtracted to the agreed terms within their articles.

If the miners were not happy with the terms at the time, they could have walked away and said, "no deal".
Instead, all signatories managed to agree to what they themselves could agree to.

Whether the agreement is a good one or not is not relevant.
The issue is whether people are breaching their agreed duties.
I believe (without full knowledge) that no breach could have occurred from the Core signatories since
the 2MB HF terms agreed to only activate when SegWit is released.

Again, I'm not discussing the terms of the agreement here, that's an entirely different can of worms.
You are claiming that the bitcoin press, r/bitcoin, this forum - in short, the entire bitcoin community - misinterpreted that agreement.
At the time, I pointed out that the agreement, just like all non-binding, no-violent and otherwise totally worthless & unenforceable agreements, is worthless.
Got laughed at. And I believe (not 100%% sure) Lauda added some grease to the fire with one of his de facto standards: "ignore him, he's just trying to stir up shit."

And not a single core developer bothered to correct that misunderstanding and right that grievous wrong. Not one of them chimed in with "Guys, he's totally right on the money, there's absolutely no substance here, just feelgood fluff to placate you bit-villagers.
He's totally right, and you're all wrong, lol."

[]

There is no actual misunderstanding.

The truth is, that those individual core contributors agreed to an
agreement where they will personally code a 2MB HF and lobby that code, to the Bitcoin community,
for it's consideration of adding it into Bitcoin Core, and in return, the miners and other signatories
agree to implement SegWit and etc.

There is no actual misunderstanding.

The truth is, that those individual core contributors agreed to an
agreement where they will personally code a 2MB HF and lobby that code, to the Bitcoin community,
for it's consideration of adding it into Bitcoin Core, and in return, the miners and other signatories
agree to implement SegWit and etc.

Who should come forward and declare that the agreement, that individuals came to on their own accord,
is worthless and non-enforceable to those parties? If parties to the agreement do not uphold their part,
then their word and signature is garbage and should not be trusted in the future.

Lol no. No individual has agreed to do anything.
Allow me to adhere to your rigidly literalist reading, and quote an excerpt of said legal document:

"Based on the above points, the timeline will likely follow the below dates.
    -SegWit is expected to be released in April 2016.
   - The code for the hard-fork will therefore be available by July 2016.
    -If there is strong community support, the hard-fork activation will likely happen around July 2017."

You were saying something about arguing contract law? I take it you've seen wording like this in actual IRL contracts?
There's literally nothing loosely resembling anything enforceable here, SegWit was not promised, it was "expected to be released in April 2016."
So ya, nothing promised.

"The code for the hard-fork will therefore be available by July 2016," so if no SegWit, no code. "Available" is also left wide-open to interpretation, what does that even mean? Ditto for strong community support. But even if we agree that there is, in fact, strong community support, "hard-fork activation will likely happen around July 2017."
of course, everything mentioned everything mentioned "will likely follow the below dates."

Go, Dog. Go! reads more like a contract to me.
And I refuse to believe that our Best and Brightest came up with that drivel because clueless about contracts.

I expected luke-jr and Blockstream members to lobby for the 2MB HF, thats what the HK agreement basically said - a compromise. But this did not happened - quite the opposite based on gmaxwell and luke-jr anti HF talk. What it means to me is luke-jr and Blockstream lost trust in my eyes and they damaged core reputation as well because they are part of core team. Im surprised miners still respect the agreement when Adam Back as CEO failed to deliver support from all Blockstream members, and luke-jr talk in these lines: "I will deliver some HF code, but its pointless". So Chinese F2pool, luke-jr and and Adam Back failed to deliver the promise and ruined their reputation with this - but time to move on and do not trust these three anymore.

All parties that signed the agreement are bound to the agreement terms.
I never said this document was a sound strong legal document, just that it is an agreement.
If you interpret such an agreement, you would use contract law, but for this to be enforced in
a court of law, it would be hard since this is a basic gentleman's agreement that if x happens
by estimated y, then I promise to do z.

Ultimately, it is not a great legal contract.

A gentleman's agreement is, by definition, unenforceable. Thus your attempt to "argu[e] contract law" is as appropriate here as applying tort law is to poetry, which is to say stop.

Gentlemen (here I'm trying for the most liberal, widest possible meaning of the word) enter into ventures involving large sums of money (and by large, I mean humongous, ginormous suns - billions of nearly-anonymous borderless moneys that fit on a usb stick), the interested parties may forgo entering into an IRL, enforceable and legally-binding agreements for a multitude of reasons, but barring nefarious intent and deceit, we're left with only two: Insanity and Stupidity.
Core devs aren't stupid, most of them are reasonably sane.

Depends on what you meant it to do.
And to whom.

[]
A gentleman's agreement is enforceable by character and credibility.

But basically you are saying that everyone who signed the agreement, who does no coding to Bitcoin
Core, are either insane or stupid as well. A lot of different entities "OK'd" and signed that agreement.

What does that mean? Explain the mechanics of this "enforcement."
Wikip has this to say about gentleman's agreements:
"A gentlemen's agreement or gentleman's agreement is an informal and legally non-binding agreement between two or more parties. [...] It is, therefore, distinct from a legal agreement or contract, which can be enforced if necessary."

Not at all. I was not party to the negotiations, and can only guess re. the motivation and intent of the resultant "agreement." Placating you bit-villagers was suggested. You had pitchforks & the moat's been run dry, so sounds perfectly reasonable :-\

but on whether someone's character or credibility is worthy of entering into. Do you trust them to hold their word?
Then it is like a Gentleman's Agreement.

The enforcement mechanism of this type of agreement is that if one of the parties does
not follow up on what they have signed off on, then that person has lost credibility within
the community and anything they say should be taken as garbage. Also, they should not
be trusted with any other future agreements or such. The only remedy to this type of
agreement is a social one, and not legal.

[platitude]

I don't know what that even means.
The miners asked for a meeting and forced that agreement, was my understanding.

I dunno, 10 billion bucks buys a lot of character and credibility.
Do I trust a bunch of mercenary, money-loving gentlemen from the other side of this planet with 10 billion dollars? Lessee... Lemme look, let me look at them again...
https://s32.postimg.org/ye6owppk5/waifu.jpg
https://s32.postimg.org/renjc4trp/bitches.jpg

Nope, no I would not. Call me crazy.

How well has this scheme worked in the past, in this here cryptosphere? All good, I take it?
How much less than a flying fuck do you think I would give if, for a few measly million worthless US dollars, some bro from Chian thought me a scumbag?

Conversely, how heartbroken would a Chinese gentlemen be, was he to learn how little some Amerifat on the other half of the globe thinks of his character and integrity? Taking into account that the other cup of the scales is weighed with a few million filthy US dollars, i.e. more than he's likely to make in a lifetime?

Take your time.

That means that the "agreement" kkept you hodling and buying, which served rational self-interests of the miners, the exchange owners, and the core developers.
Which is to say everyone's but yours.
If you got any more questions, you just go ahead and ask.

P.S. re. "When an individual signs a document with another individual(s)":
When an individual shakes hands with another individual, it's a gentlemen's agreement, expectations, etc., etc.
When an individual shakes hands with another individual(s) on camera and issues multiple press releases, it's probably something else.

https://np.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4q3ztw/a_call_for_core_developers_to_clarify_their/d4q6ryh?context=3

[]
I never said Gentleman's agreement is a good idea.
In fact, it sucks. But then the miner's would have never gotten their agreement.
Personally, no one should have signed anything or made any promises.
No matter what happened, there will be someone upset about something.

So what is it you want? Remedy?

Bump.
Not sure re. credibility (probably more posturing), but this is what it would look like if the chickens come home to roost (to the luxurious Chinese chicken coops bitcoin data centers):

Yet another failed FUD post on r/btc (they're talking about it like this is actually happening). You also don't even know how to properly attach URLs. Anyhow, that post is just a proposal (or extension?) made by a random nobody on that Chinese website. There is no sign of any big pools being behind this. How about we wait for some actual 'people' to voice their opinions before we jump to conclusions on this one?
Here's the proper link from r/Bitcoin.  (https://bitcointalk.org/r/Bitcoin/comments/4qk67e/wow_chinese_miners_revolt_and_announce_terminator/)

Thanks for humbling me and correcting my link, Lauda. Your unmatched linking skills are unmatched, that's why you make big money.

That said, have you bothered reading before replying? Particularly this part: "Not sure re. credibility (probably more posturing), but this is what it would look like if[...]"?

Much like yourself, I do not find the linked material to be a credible threat.

Let's see how this one plays out, shall we?