Bitcoin Forum

To increase the blocksize or not increase the blocksize, that is the question.   As core developers quarrel and mining pools take sides, the world of Bitcoin-holders wait.
 
The genius of the Bitcoin Blockchain is in its ability to leverage asymmetrical cryptography to empower the individual through decentralization.  Time, however, has taught us that Bitcoin’s real risks come not from within, but from its interactions with the old centralized-world from which it was born.
 
     For instance:
 
     1 – Centralized exchanges promote centralized theft.
 
     2 – Centralization from mining pools concentrates the hashing power used to approve transactions and change the code, while simultaneously increasing the probability of a successful 51% attack.
 
     3 – Centralized development gives us centralized decision-making and is leading to dilutive hard-forks.
 
Our focus here is on issue number three: centralized development.
 
With the controversy between Bitcoin-Core, Bitcoin-XT, BIP100, BIP101, et al., growing by the day, we now have centralized developers wooing the ever-centralizing mining pools to get the consensus they need to decide the fate of increased blocksizes.
 
And where exactly are the Bitcoin-holders in this decision-making process?  Well, they aren’t.
You see, Bitcoin-holders are stuck waiting on the sidelines to have these centralized decision-makers shove “consensus” down their decentralized throats because, you know, Bitcoin is a decentralized currency and all.
 
Newsflash: Bitcoin-holders are the actual owners of Bitcoin and, consequently, have a bigger stake in Bitcoin’s outcome than either the mining pools or developers. Yet, the only decentralized stakeholders left in this “consensus” equation, the Bitcoin-Holders themselves, are completely removed from it.
 
But with blockchain technology, there is a better way: decentralized blockchain consensus.
 

We propose a simple and clean decentralized shareholder-style blockchain voting system that allows Bitcoin-holders to cast votes on development issues in proportion to their ownership stake in Bitcoin itself; all without ever giving up control of their coins, or without needing trusted-third-parties to hold, cast or audit votes.
 
Decentralized shareholder-style blockchain voting provides the mandate developers need to push out controversial updates and will finally give a voice to Bitcoin-holders in a non-binding public forum that requires zero changes to the existing codebase.
 
In addition to creating an objectively fair method for resolving development conflicts, decentralized blockchain voting would also incentivize information-sharing between developers and the Bitcoin community.  Furthermore, one day decentralized blockchain voting could give rise to competing developer factions who propose features for Bitcoin-holders to decide, and miners to subsequently adopt, rather than having a handful of centralized developers decide issues top-down.  
 
Accordingly, in response to the shortcomings of centralized development, we now bring you CryptoVoter.
 

In a nutshell, decentralized shareholder-style blockchain voting, aka CryptoVoter, works by using vanity Bitcoin addresses to create a personalized vanity voting address in the user’s wallet file to allow users to send coins to themselves to publicly register votes.
 
 
More specifically, to vote the user picks an answer choice and simply sends coins from one address in their wallet to another vanity voting address in their wallet before the published voting blockheight deadline.  This vanity voting address is personalized with a pre-designated voting pre-fix that represents a voting question and answer pair reflecting the user’s vote choice.
 
To count votes, at the designated voting blockheight deadline anyone can search voting results by doing a simple wildcard search (*) on any blockchain explorer.  To eliminate double-voting, coins not confirmed in a voting address at the block-height deadline do not count.  Additionally, requiring +n confirmations to the voting blockheight deadline could further secure the voting.
 
The CryptoVoter client would perform this functionality automatically and would provide: (i) a user-friendly interface to automatically complete the voting steps; (ii) options to manually complete the voting steps (if desired); and, most importantly, (iii) will have its source-code published on Github with deterministic Gitian build instructions and file checksum hashes provided, so anyone can verify the safety and authenticity of the CryptoVoter client.
 
Ultimately, with decentralized blockchain voting any user could propose, vote and audit votes themselves using the blockchain without the necessity of trusted-third parties.  And best of all, it works on all blockchain-based cryptocoins that use asymmetrical public-key encryption.
 
After over a year of development (and setbacks), we filed a patent application and completed alpha-testing this summer (USPTO Non-Prov Patent App # 14745370).
 
Thus, we are pleased to announce that CryptoVoter is ready for official launch September 14, 2015.
 

For the initial launch the first cryptocoin to decentralize development through CryptoVoter’s shareholder-style blockchain voting service will be the Bitcoin-sCrypt alt-coin (BTCS), with plans to expand to Bitcoin-Core and other alt-coins shortly thereafter…if the community supports our efforts.
 
So join us in our attempt to shift power away from centralized developers and mining pools to Bitcoin-holders themselves, and help further the democratization of finance through Bitcoin blockchain technology.
 
The future is decentralization.
 

Original Article posted at: http://theotherbitcoin.com/decentralizing-development-through-coin-holder-consensus

http://theotherbitcoin.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/CV-info.png

CryptoVoter to be featured on Bitcoin Rush Weekly CryptoNews Show: Friday (9-11-2015).

https://twitter.com/Bitcoin_Rush/status/642171320491380736 (https://twitter.com/Bitcoin_Rush/status/642171320491380736)

CryptoVoter: Decentralizing development consensus.  Launch: 09-24-2015

CryptoVoter just featured in Techcrunch article:
https://cryptocointalk.com/topic/41630-cryptovoter-featured-in-techcrunch-article/

The next blockchain vote is whether to change Bitcoin-sCrypt's official coin name and is scheduled for this Friday, October 16, 2015.

The voting block deadline is Bitcoin-sCrypt block # 339500, which should occur sometime between Oct 16, 2015, and Oct 18, 2015.

Voting is easy.  Just download the CryptoVoter-BTCS open-source voting client from http://btcs-voter.com and cast your vote using Bitcoin-sCrypt coins before the voting block deadline of BTCS block 339500.

An infographic with voting announcement details can be found below.

Also, the source-code and binaries for the Bitcoin-core CryptoVoter-BTC voting client will be released within 24 hours for the first Bitcoin-core blockchain vote on whether to increase the maximum blocksize, estimated for October 23, 2015.


http://theotherbitcoin.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/BTCS-Vote-2-Announce1.png

Here are the official results:

http://bitcoinscrypt.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/BTCS-Vote-2-Results-ENG.png


http://bitcoinscrypt.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/BTCS-Vote-2-Results-ESP.png


http://bitcoinscrypt.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/BTCS-Vote-2-Results-RUS.png


http://bitcoinscrypt.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/BTCS-Vote-2-Results-CHI.png

CryptoVoter Updates:

The second set of blockchain votes with the Bitcoin-sCrypt altcoin (BTCS) executed flawlessly and we are ready to begin the first set of Bitcoin-core (BTC) blockchain votes on whether to increase the maximum blocksize.
 
BITCOIN-CORE (BTC) BLOCKCHAIN VOTING BEGINS AND SOURCE-CODE RELEASED
 
Let's start with the first set of Bitcoin-core blockchain votes on whether to increase the maximum blocksize.  This first BTC blockchain vote is an opportunity to showcase CryptoVoter's ability to measure consensus in decentralized manner using the blockchain and we encourage all interested parties to participate to help the concept grow.
 
The CryptoVoter-BTC voting client source-code and compile instructions have been released for public review and can be found at:  https://github.com/CryptoVoter-Client/CryptoVoter-BTC-Client
 
The first set of Bitcoin-core blockchain votes are slated to officially open up for voting on October 23, 2015 and will remain open until the voting block deadline of BTC block #382250, which should occur on November 6, 2015.  Detailed voting instructions will be released when voting begins on October 23, 2015.
 
BITCOIN-SCRYPT (BTC) BLOCKCHAIN VOTING
 
Below, please find the latest results for the last Bitcoin-sCrypt blockchain vote on whether to change the official coin name.  Additionally, please find the voting schedule for the next set of Bitcoin-sCrypt blockchain votes through the beginning of 2016.
 
Latest Bitcoin-sCrypt Blockchain Vote Results - Name Change Vote
 
After many years, the controversial issue of Bitcoin-sCrypt's official coin name has finally been put to rest.  After a final vote at BTCS block 339500, the community voted to change Bitcoin-sCrypt's official name with 68% in favor and 32% opposed.  As a result, the community will vote on the coin's new official name as provided below.
 
Next Set of Bitcoin-sCrypt Blockchain Votes
 
The next set of Bitcoin-sCrypt blockchain votes have been scheduled below (and can also be found at http://btcs-voter.com):
 
BTCS Blockchain Vote 3 [October 30, 2015] | Vote on whether to update the difficulty algo, as per http://bit.ly/btcs-vote3.
BTCS Blockchain Vote 4 [November 13, 2015] | Vote on new name for Bitcoin-sCrypt altcoin
BTCS Blockchain Vote 5 [December 11, 2015] | Vote on new coin code to represent new name
BTCS Blockchain Vote 6 [January 8, 2016] | Vote to declare winner of logo replacement contest
 
Thanks.

Launch Announcement of CryptoVoter-BTC Voting Client and Voting Website.  First Blockchain Poll on Increasing the Blocksize in two weeks.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1217640