Bitcoin Forum

Hello,
what differences are between them. I know that both of these solutions try to solve scalability issues but both do that in a different manner. So how they differ? And is one of them better?

The biggest difference is: who controls the Core project, and who controls the Unlimited source code. That's what the whole fight is about, who controls the reference code. The technical weeny-waving is all just politics dressed up as expert contention, but the code, and arguments, have been weak.

SegWit is far more progressive solution and it solves several problems not just scalability. Besides SegWit is softfork and Unlimited is hardfork. Remember what happened with Etherium after hardfork?

SegWit is the way to go.

What happened with Etherium was due to the DAO hack and then the hardfork ultimately divided the community.
This won't be the case at all with Bitcoin unlimited, if it ever comes to fruition.

In my opinion a hardfork will seriously damage bitcoins reputation and could send us back years to main adoption (if it dosnt kill the project)  And it is a cert that some people will continue to mine the old chain which could create competing bitcoins.  it would be a disaster, can we not just activate segwit and LN and then increase the block size over a defined period ?  

Every hardfork without overwhelming support can cause a network split. In order to increase the block size a hardfork is needed and it was (and might be again) on the core roadmap as well. As Carlton Banks said, the difference is who controls the code, both projects plan (or at least planned) to do a hardfork to X MB.

So everybody understands that Segwit is inconceivably better, but some trolls on the forum, whose posts I've read, keep getting on the way.   :(
What possible reasons may they have, backing unlimited against Segwit?  ???

Well it adds complexity, esp. as softfork. Its also not a blocksize solution per se, it just happens to have that as a side effect. It solves malleability though and allows and more easy introduction of new transaction types in the future.


I dont know what reasons other may or may not have, it often boils down to petty politics I dont really care about. Unlimited tries to give node operators more control over how large blocks can be. Whether or not that actually works or is just a placebo and miners are still in control I cant say.

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Just leave this thread open for a bit and the comments about how this side or that side is evil and leads to damnation (centralization) will come.

and thats why all consensus using proposals have gone with "overwhelming support" before even thinking of activating.


also for the silly people comparing it to ethereum.
ethereum was not a consensus proposal it was a intentional split. (some call a bilateral split)where by extra code was added to intentionally ignore the opposition rather then find mutual agreement.

google: ethereum --oppose-dao-fork

no other bitcoin implementation wants an intentional split. but some devs on segwits side want those not supporting segwit to split away. by calling anything not supporting segwit an altcoin... even though the nodes not supporting segwit are actually running on the mainnet so are not an altcoin (showing how misinformed and desperate segwit enthusiasts are getting)

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core actually advised non segwit supporters to intentionally split.. non supporters laughed and refused

again only core, who have stated core would do an intentional split to get segwit added, if things got desperate enough

the real funny part..
if it reached 90%.. instead of activating it and just causing a bit of TEMPORARY consensus orphan drama risk.. they would prefer to split the network.. (foolish knee jerk plan)

core do not trust or want consensus, its why they decided against nod consensus and instead skipped to a fake (consensus emulating) pool vote

Lol. There's literally few people on this forum who understand both segwit and unlimited and those have somewhat informed opinion. The rest is just cheering for the camp they feel is right.

Anyhow, segwit support (https://blockchain.info/charts/bip-9-segwit) stuck at 25%, you can hardly blame 'some forum trolls' for that.
Apparently, to get things moving one way or the other, you have to organise few closed-door meetings with the miners, because that's how decentralisation works nowadays.

best unbiased option

a real consensus release where core include dynamic blocks and segwit.
starting with 2mb base 4mb weight.

where nodes upgrade and show desire for and then at a certain point. pools then vote for when they see that nodes can validate their blocks
meaning pools dont see the big risks if they see node majority acceptance.

that way everyone gets what they want
and brings core back onto a level playing field with the network.. rather then the dictator path they want.

decentralised diverse consensus driven code updates is what bitcoin should be about. not dictator dev driven code that bypasses consensus.

You don't mention that Unlimited splits network if it reaches only 51%.

If segwit solves the scalability issue then there's no nessesary to make dynamic blocks. What for? Just to gratify 3 weepers?

Well, I would assume with changes like Segwit, miners would wait for a critical percentage of all nodes to be capable of handling witness blocks. Which you would assume would be 50%, so maybe we'll see more change soon, seeing as that milestone was reached recently. Activating before then would've invited messy chain re-orgs and unintended forks, so it's better to keep those risks low. We'll see how these "deadwit" claims stand up once that number moves definitively past 50%

you have no clue, try reading the code.
run simulations. research and learn


it doesnt. segwit is a one time temporary boost of tx count, that only boosts if people use segwit keys.
later that boost is taken away when future core features re-bloat the blockchain.

again try reading the code. run simulations. reseach and learn.

LN (later feature) is not a be alll-end all solution. its just a side service that puts peoples funds into permissioned contracts.
these contracts are not suitable for everyone.

but i hazard to guess you care and are more imagining the profits you can make from being a hub(commercial service), rather than thinking about bitcoins permissionless no barrier if entry ethos

And why the DAO happened? Becouse several lamers decided that they are great programmers and make shit code.
With unlimited we have the same situation. Who will fix bugs in unlimited? Roger Ver?

One is a hardfork and only tries to increase blocksize.Nothing excited about that.
The other, SegWit, fixes txn malleability and opens the door for many other great possible implementations.
Furthermore it's just a softfork.
I would like to see both happening in the long run.However when you ask me what should happen first I say SegWit!

"Antonopoulos Supports SegWit, Opens Doors For Lightning and TumbleBit"
Bitcoin experts including Andreas Antonopoulos believe that the activation of SegWit offers more improvements apart from scalability, as it opens the door for alternative solutions such as the Lightning Network (Lightning) and TumbleBit.
“Ironically, people who object to [Lightning] are vehemently against [trusted party custodial] but by resisting SegWit are actually encouraging and feeding centralization into more counterparty-risk through centralized intermediaries. Demand is already pushing us that way. The lack of a trustless alternative leaves only one alternative,” said Antonopoulos.

Bitcoin expert Antonopoulos also emphasized that the failure to active SegWit and Lightning pushes bitcoin users to rely on on-coinbase transactions, which are worse.

Ultimately, in consideration of the opportunities for second layer solutions which Bitcoin's upgrade can provide, Antonopoulos states that he supports the activation of SegWit.

Probably not, and what makes things even worse is the fact that, according to some comments, he has a large percentage of hashpower.
I read that a 95% consensus is required for SegWit activation. Does anyone know how much of that Roger Ver has?

I think both sides are over complicating the issue and this leads to confusion. Satoshi would most probably just up'ed the block size a tiny bit,

and addressed all the other issues on their own. Now Blockstream added all these extra features/fixes to make it more attractive, and people

got confused. Most developers make this mistake.... over engineering the solution.  ;) ....The answer is simple, keep the protocol clean and

secure and do off-chain payments for scalability... Oh, but that is what Blockstream is trying to do, or not... see, now I am also confused.  ;D

BU in short removes a single mostly unimportant line in the bitcoin protocol.

SegWit is a brutal hack into many places of the bitcoin protocol that is still not understood fully how it finally plays out and now litecoin tries to test it in real live soon.

You decide whats a bigger risk and could be called an altcoin.

Recently I saw the quote in which satoshi talked about changing the block size as a possible solution to such problems.

The point is, this quote was made in 2010. At that time there was no SegWit.
So, in fact, perhaps larger blocks were the best solution at that time. However, it's hard to know what satoshi would say these days...

Andrew stone will fix it, LOL

OMG this game will never be ending
https://coin.dance/blocks
What's next? 95% signaling is impossible for me.  

Roger Ver still has the last 51% mining pool supports.

Roger Ver has his own pool, currently 1.4% of hashpower. ViaBTC, other pool that openly opposed segwit softfork has 7.9%, meaning, if nothing changes, segwit will struggle to get 95% support.

gmaxwell has already stated he is ok with causing a network split below 95% just to get his softwork activated

just to clear the terminology up
orphaning off a block not because its invalid but because of which pool sent it. is controversial because its not an invalid block. meaning different nodes are accepting different blocks. this causes orphan drama that then leads to needing to ignore the opposing nodes too..
this is not consensus

consensus is agreement to accept the same data and same rules where the majority accept all the valid blocks (without any biased pickyness) leaving the minority simply unable to sync

Increasing the Block sizes have it's drawbacks. It can open up the network to new attacks and it will also bloat the Blockchain, if it is used

incorrectly. So something like SegWit is the better solution to the scaling problem, but I would have wanted it to be without all the bells and

whistles. You will never satisfy everyone's needs, and most of the criticism is actually just politics and has nothing to do with the code.  ::)

if you are talking about bloat. w all know its not a hard drive killer. 8 years of data fits on a fingernail after all.

but cores 4mb deadweight for future features vs communities desire for real 2mb lean tx's...  2 vs 4 which sounds more 'bloat'

Both run the risk of being labelled an altcoin, BU especially if they achieved 51% and forked.

Fucking politics... Why do we need this threshold of 95% at all? There're always people trying to disturb just because they are assholes.

Ok, so what does your "bells and whistles" comment have to do with Segwit's code? I'm assuming you mean "frivolities" when you say that, please tell us all which parts of Segwit are frivolous

What do you think happen if BU activates ? I'm sure BU drops in first 3 days at 0,001 of Bitcoin. and become another useless alt.

I see a big difference in relation to Ethereum, what was done with the ETH was decision totally thinking about the self interest of some people (who lost money). Whatever is done with the massive support of the community with the intention of improving I do not see as a problem.

You technically need over 50% to activate SegWit via orphaning other blocks. But I agree it would split the coin because you would piss off good fraction of Bitcoin users (lot of individual miners losing money, plus those who oppose dirty methods to achieve something) if the activation goes through orphaning attack.

This whole system is supposed to be decentralized, and therefore no one can really impose anything on anyone else, so these threshold numbers are proposed as what would be projected to be the safest to get the most folks going along with the longest chain and preserving the longest chain and avoiding some of the ETH/ETC bullshit, if possible.  

95% seems as if it would be pretty safe to get everyone sufficiently going along, but it is possible that 88% or 92% may be deemed to be sufficient, when the time comes and a calculated risk of whether, in the end, the forking off of the minority (whether that is 5% or 8% or 12% or more) would have any sufficient negative effect on the majority coin..... and maybe in the end, it may be o.k. to just let them fork off into a minority coin, in order for the overwhelming majority to implement the largely unambiguous advantages of the innovation and what an overwhelming majority want to do.

As long as you want this BTC thingie majigie to be related to the values of humans (rather than bots), I just don't know how you get around the politics of the matter while preserving decentralization  - in which no small group is imposing their will on the others.  What is a better proposition of going forward?

read my post again .. edited to further clarify
"just to clear the terminology up
orphaning off a block not because its invalid but because of which pool sent it. is controversial because its not an invalid block. meaning different nodes are accepting different blocks. this causes orphan drama (which will eventually sort itself out to one chain with the minor chain unable to sync)
[this is a contraversial fork that just creates orphan drama then settle down as one chain,  and minority unsynced from network]

that then [can] lead to needing to ignore the opposing nodes too [if you want the minor chain to start building its own chain without orphaning.. or if the major chain doesnt want to see the minor chain endlessly requesting and rejecting blocks.]
this is not consensus, [nor controversial, this is a intentional split aka bilateral fork]

consensus is agreement to accept the same data and same rules where the majority accept all the valid blocks (without any biased pickyness) leaving the minority simply unable to sync [ignoring blocks and nodes simply due to a 'brand war' leads to an intentional split] "

Do not fear a network split.  Network splits are how we get to the most efficient system the fastest.  Who cares if 'bitcoin's reputation suffers'?  Who cares if the price goes down?  Only the speculators.  Price will go up even more if we achieve a very high performance system in five years.  Network split only fucks up the price in the short term and messes with speculator profits.  However, if we have 10 network splits, or forks, we will have ten great versions to learn which one kicks the most ass. 

So, where is your long-threatened split, splitters? 8) You've been saying "hard fork" for, how long is it, 2 years yet?


Hurry up. I actually mean that, get on with it

everyone ignore the troll with the initials C B
he does not know the difference between a consensus fork and a intentional split

especially when its only been core that have been begging everyone else to intensionally split(bilateral)
kind of foolish for him to bait a reply with twisting the rhetoric of who wants what, by pretending its the community wanting it when its obviously the segwit fans..

a hard fork is just an empty umbrella term that has several subcategories.. a hard fork buzzword is meaningless if you dont understand which subcategory has been proposed.

softfork: consensus - >94% pools no banning/intent of minority. result: small 5% orphan drama then one chain. minority unsynced and dead
softfork: controversial - >50% pools no banning/intent of minority. result: long big% orphan drama then one chain. minority unsynced and dead
softfork: bilateral - intentionally ignoring/banning opposing rules and not including them. result: 2 chains

hardfork: consensus - >94% nodes, then >94% pools no banning/intent of minority. result: 5% orphan drama then one chain. minority unsynced / dead
hardfork: controversial - >50% nodes, then >50% pools no banning/intent of minority. result: big% orphan drama then one chain. minority unsynced / dead
hardfork: bilateral - intentionally ignoring/banning opposing rules and not including them. result: 2 chains

funny how when they say softfork they use best case scenario.
funny how when they say hardfork they use worse case scenario. as if worse case is the plan, when its not.

the community want in general "consensus", preferable one where nodes have involvement (harder to achieve).

I'm still not sold on this point.  Different devs teams don't (and can't) take "control" of the other team's code.  No single dev team owns or controls Bitcoin, nor should they.  Any developer can publish any code they want and any user can choose to run any code they want.  It's not as if one team suddenly absorbs the other if network rules change.  Whatever code consensus decides on, Core and Unlimited can still continue to publish whatever code they please, providing they ensure the code conforms to the network rules as defined by consensus.  No one can take away their right to do that. 

And if the network rules do change, it's not because a developer made it happen, it's because the users did.  People keep talking about "hostile takeovers" and "power grabs" as if they simply can't comprehend this fact.

by going soft they went against node consensus.. thus its only having to convince 20 pool managers into a limited consensus, instead of 5600 node users..

this is another reason pools think soft is wrong because its pushing something nodes are not ready for, and it can change the network dynamics. but because its the pools that decide.

the devs however can take the glory if everything works, saying 'see soft is better'
BUT devs can blame it on the pools if it goes wrong. saying 'well they consented to it, they activated it'

Miners will wait to see if the nodes are in support before activating.  It's hardly a nefarious plot.  And again, the same argument applies, whether you personally agree with the code or not, Core can release whatever code they choose, Unlimited can do the same.  Users can run whatever code they choose.  If users opt for the SegWit softfork, cool, if they opt for a hardfork and a larger blocksize, also cool.  Neither option precludes the other from happening at some point.  We can easily do both (and probably should).  Also, neither option is beyond reversing if it doesn't work or causes adverse effects.  It really isn't the crisis people make it out to be.

I have brought my response over to this thread because I do not claim to be any kind of expert in seg wit versus bitcoin unlimited, and I was also participating in that wall observer thread because that is my area of interest (prices, etc).

My understanding is that seg wit solves a variety of problems in regards to maleability and scaling without having to add bloat to the bandwidth or the overall size of the blockchain data.

I partly am relying on the technical expertise of a variety of technical folks who were really behind seg wit when it was first introduced in December 2015, and there was no real opposition to seg wit and a bunch of praise for it.

Most of the subsequent criticisms that I have been hearing about seg wit seem to be fabricated by various big blockers who are ultimately seeming to want create division and have other agenda matters, such as governance concerns.

From my understanding, seg wit is clean, pretty well tested and really should get implemented in order that we can see how it plays out (in terms of further developments, etc).





I don't know.  I thought that seg wit was cleaner in this regard, and ended up removing more than 50% of the storage space because of the separation that it allows for.


I don't understand why so many folks seem to have such a hard-on for hardforks.. it seems stupid, especially if the hardfork would be likely contentious.

Surely, if you have a situation in which 95% or more folks are behind something because it is a really obvious fix and it is non contentious, then a hard fork would likely be cleaner and faster.

My understanding of part of the preference for a soft fork is based on the matter being currently contentious and no fork is done at all until a certain high level of consensus.. currently set at 95%, but maybe at some point there could be a decision to either increase or decrease that number depending on whether there seems to be any kind or risk of two forks (like what happened with ETH/ ETC or something like that)



You may be correct, but the matter is not even close to 95%, yet... so why do I even give a shit... sure a hardfork may be better than a softfork, once a certain level of consensus is achieved.... There are certainly folks that know the topic much better than me, and I just go along with the majority anyhow.. especially if it were to get to that level of consensus and if I was not sure about the difference between the two.





I thought that there is always some potential for issues during transitional periods, and probably, once seg wit is implemented (assuming that it is some day) then at that point there is already a proscribed way of transitioning that almost turns it into the same thing as a hardfork, even though before reaching the threashold consensus it was not really live, yet.

I find nothing wrong with looking at original reasons etc, but in the end of the day, we still need to look at what situation exists at this particular time, and then what is a feasible next step based on what situation exists today.

Also, my understanding is that if there were a problem with block size limits, then there would be an issue with long transaction times and high fees, but currently, we have neither of those problems.  So in that regard, there is no real emergency reason to make a hard increase in the blocksize limit, at the moment.

But at the same time, seg wit does indirectly address the issue, and would likely give several more years of capacity while also improving the ability for some technologies like lightning network, which would take some transactions off the blockchain while at the same time allowing for fairly decent syncing with the blockchain.

Some folks claim that we currently do not have spam problems, but we do see spam problems from time to time.  Of course, the exact source of the spam and or the evidence for the spam is not always apparent to lay persons; however, from time to time we witness sudden 10x spikes in the mempool backup, and likely some of that is due to spam attacks.  I doubt that increasing the blocksize limit is going to be a good trade off.





O.k. great.. so there is a disincentive to mine large blocks... still does not mean that it is a good idea to just implement some untested increase in the blocksize limit.




Yep... it can be done.. does not mean that it should be done.  Satoshi wrote that in 2010.  A lot has happened in bitcoin since 2010, but it does not necessarily mean that the next best step is a hard increase in the blocksize limit - especially when it seems that seg wit is the next best step... to do next.. and then if necessary down the road, there may be a need for a hard increase in the blocksize limit.

Maybe those who cheers unlimited just want bitcoin to fail. If they have short possitions. Or they may be paid by gov to discord the bitcoin community.

I continuously claim that I am not really that familiar with a lot of technical intricacies, but in the end, the bitcoin unlimited folks seem to be coming from the same stream of folks that supported XT and then classic, and now they merged to bitcoin unlimited.

The agenda seems to be the same - to argue for the sake of argument over a blocksize limit  that is not as emergent as they want to make it out to be and to oppose seg wit for the mere sake of opposing something that is actually a good thing for bitcoin... even though it could take a year or longer for seg wit to gain a sufficient quantity of consensus.. .and maybe it is also possible that if some of these anti-bitcoin folks can continue to be obstructionists and ultimately handicap bitcoin because it is not able to implement a robust and powerful change (namely seg wit).

SegWit for me, I know the core team have their own bad side but they have proven overtime that they can be trusted and can get the job done, unlimited team has nothing to offer to space but to block the block size increase they are advocating for. Unlimited development team keep clamouring for hard-fork because they don't have the technical know of how to scale Bitcoin using soft fork.

Both for me.  Either SegWit then Blocksize, or both at the same time.  Even 1.25MB would put my mind at ease at this point.  Anything to set a precedent that 1MB is not set in stone and the network hasn't ossified to the point where change can't occur if needed.  Once that happens, only a small proportion of hardliners will still find something to argue about.  Then we can focus on more interesting things for a while. 

Nonsense.

You seem to be arguing for a change for the mere sake of change, and you somehow seem to be buying into the argument that bitcoin needs to be more easily changed.

The fact of the matter remains that making bitcoin difficult to change is a feature and not a bug, and yeah, it might be be nice if there were some kind of a hard increase in the blocksize limit, but there has not been anything approaching consensus on the matter, and there are not any proposals that have been considerably tested on testnet in order to go through vetting and be adopted.  Segwit is the only software implementation that has been vetted and tested and is currently on the table that is also meant to make some improvements in scaling, too.

In other words, we do not need change merely for the sake of change, that is a nonsense argument, even though some folks have been putting a lot of lipstick (and other make up) on that pig.

The main difference lies in the fact that SegWit aims to restructure the block space to allow more transactions per block, while Unlimited aims simply to raise the blocksize to allow more transaction.

This is all the banks doings, tell me something, what happens if network could handle 400 transactions per second? who really gets hurt?
I know the answer: banks. our masters are controlling and limiting bitcoin as well, satoshi failed big time.

You seem to be misstating your summary.

Bitcoin Unlimited attempts to change consensus thresholds.  That's no minor or inconsequential change.



What the fuck are you talking about?

Bitcoin already, in its current status, is a pretty robust challenge to status quo banks, considering how you use it .. but powerful indeed... even in its supposed "limited" state of affairs (I assume you are referring to the current 1 mb hardlimit in the blocksize).

If I flipped it round and said you were making the argument that bitcoin needs to be more difficult to change, then I would be misinterpreting you as much as you are me.  That's not the argument at all.  The concern is that while optimisations like SegWit are welcome, that's not going to be enough over the long term.  People calling SegWit a scaling "solution" are completely overselling its potential.  It will help, but the problem doesn't magically go away after it gets implemented.  It's merely the first step among many to address the scaling issue.  Eventually, we'll need SegWit, Lightning, sidechains, atomic cross-chain transactions, a larger (preferably adaptive) blocksize and whatever else proves effective at easing the mempool load whilst not sacrificing node decentralisation or the open and permissionless nature of the network (i.e. not forcing everyone off-chain).  People get so myopic about SegWit like it's the only thing we'll ever need.  If you honestly think that, you are mistaken.  Arguing that the blocksize should not be set in stone is not "nonsense".  

Mate, could you please explain me ? What he said is false you said. You did not talked about SegWit so his description is right, isn't it ? And for Unlimited, they want to change how much is required to apply an hardfork or a softfork ? That is what I understand by consensus thresholds.

I am 100% with you

1MB blocks stuffed? Make then 2 or 4MB, work on the other issues separately, and when 2-4MB are too small again, have another discussion

Realistically BTC will be worth 2000-4000$ when that happens so it is nothing to worry about at all  :D

There is no flipping around.  You cannot just take an argument and flip it around and say that it is equally valid.. that is retarded.

We have a status quo which currently includes a 1 mb blocksize limit, and in order to change the status quo, the burden of production of evidence and the burden of persuasion is on the folks who want to make the change - not the other way around... there is no burden to maintain the status quo unless and until the proposer of the change meets both their burden of production and burden of persuasion, then the burden shifts to the status quo.

In this case, the burden of production would be evidence to show that there is some kind of problem with 1mb blocksize limits such as showing high fees or slow transaction times.  The burden of persuasion would be showing that the proposed solution adequately addresses the problems without creating new problems.  The proponents of hardlimit increases don't seem to have satisfied either burden.





You are trying to frame the argument into something that is convenient for you about some hypothetical long term that is pie in the sky.

The fact of the matter is that we have what we have now, and then we have various proposals.  When seg wit was publically proposed in December 2015, it largely had no opposition, and even various XT and classic supporters, such as Gavin Andressen and Jeff Garzik were largely in agreement that seg wit was a good path forward, and accordingly, seg wit continued to be vetted and tested and got to various levels of going live, including going live for the purpose of signaling in mid November 2016.

So yeah, we don't know what the fuck seg wit is going to bring until it actually becomes a practice, and there are a lot of scaling issues that it addresses that may cause no need for further changes for a considerable time into the future.

Seg wit is actually on the table and those other various hardlimit increases are merely points of whinery  - that have not been officially tested and implemented... apparently BU is being tested in a live way, rather than being put on the test net first.



It is currently on the table, and would likely bring bitcoin forward in a variety of ways, including some addressing of scaling... good enough and largely noncontroversial... except whiners seeming to want to sabatoge it without any real good reasons.




Who is arguing that all the problems are going to go away?  Let's get seg wit implemented, and then go from there.. rather than saying there is something better out there without actually having anything on the table..



"eventually"?  O.k.... so you are conceding that nothing is really needed?  

Why throw the baby out with the bathwater?  You want to wait with seg wit for some reason?  What is your proposal?  Seg wit is already there. and  already ready to make bitcoin more robust.  You have something against making bitcoin more robust?



Who is myopic?  Seg wit is on the table, and if it does not solve matters then more proposals can be made.  From my understanding bitcoin development remains a pretty dynamic place with lots of things going on, and seg wit happens to be one of the bigger and greatest things, but it is not the only thing going on... I am not a technical person so I do not play around in those circles... but I do review some of their activities from time to time... which seems quite dynamic, interactive and inclusive and there are a lot of very smart folks involved in a variety of ways.

I am a layman too in a lot of this, but I do recognize that frequently people who are selling Bitcoin Unlimited are of the same camp as the XT and Classic folks.. and they are continuing with their various attempts to change bitcoin's governance.

They are obsessed with it.  So they try to frame a lot of technical arguments and appeal to folks that change is good, blah blah blah... but in essence, what they are proposing would undermine bitcoin in a lot of ways.


They have hardons for hard forks, and making all kinds of proposals and threats to hard fork and also they want to do these kinds of hard forks with levels of consensus that are much smaller than 95%.. I doubt that folks are going to follow them, but they do succeed, to some extent in their ability to block improvements to bitcoin by suggesting that you are either for or against seg wit which is opposite BU.. blah blah blah. 

If you change the consensus thresholds to 75% or some amount that is much lower than 95%, then you run a considerable risk of producing two chains.. and yeah, probably once you do 75% consensus then you would set precedent and continue to make decisions with relatively low consensus.. which makes changes much easier (but not a good thing for something, such as bitcoin, that is so potentially undermining of various status quo financial institutions).

Unlimited aims to split Bitcoin. There was a hint from Roger Ver that it'd be good

Yeah, hardfork means not decentralized any more, look ETH dumled hard in recent months, ETH will be killed IMO. Softfork is much better than hardfork.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with the concept of a hardfork, as long as the change is not contentious, and that is one of the problems in hardforking with amounts that are much below 95%...

There are certainly advantages to the cleanliness of a hardfork, but many of these hardfork nutjobs (including Ver) are just throwing out those dumb ideas in their own sense of insecurity and desire for influence - and without really appreciating the value of consensus and compromise.

You are correct about Ethereum, they were quasi-centralized before implementing the hardfork, but their subsequent numerous hardforks continued to demonstrate the considerable degree of their centralization.. and also the fact that they miscalculated the level of consensus that they had with the DAO hardfork (which resulted in ETC and really the apparent beginning of their end, seems so, anyhow). 

corrected this guy due to his lack of research. seems he is a script reader. not a fact seeker

DAO was a 'bilateral hard fork'
google --oppose-dao-fork

also the difference between soft and hard is simply who gets to vote.
there are still orphan risks and split risks of doing both hard and soft
core however only want to talk about base case scenario of soft and worse case scenario of hard.. rather than the rational best case of both and worse case of both

softfork: consensus - >94% pools no banning/intent of minority. result: small 5% orphan drama then one chain. minority unsynced and dead
softfork: controversial - >50% pools no banning/intent of minority. result: long big% orphan drama then one chain. minority unsynced and dead
softfork: bilateral - intentionally ignoring/banning opposing rules and not including them. result: 2 chains

hardfork: consensus - >94% nodes, then >94% pools no banning/intent of minority. result: 5% orphan drama then one chain. minority unsynced / dead
hardfork: controversial - >50% nodes, then >50% pools no banning/intent of minority. result: big% orphan drama then one chain. minority unsynced / dead
hardfork: bilateral - intentionally ignoring/banning opposing rules and not including them. result: 2 chains

Maxwell can not, and does not represent Core. Therefore, your statement is invalid. My statement is backed up by the very post that you're quoting.

lol,

please return to the logical open mind you retained for a few months. seems you are wearing the core/blockstream defender cap again.
your suggesting gmaxwell is not part of core?

what are you saying, he done a hearn? and no longer coding any bitcoin code, nor acts as a CTO of devs programming bitcoin implementations?
is that your suggestion that he is totally gone and no longer involved with bitcoin?

And yet conveniently that can't be shown at all if a larger blocksize is never put on the testnet.  An easy way to delay a proposal indefinitely is for the developers to simply never test it.   ::)



And again, whose fault is it that larger blocks aren't being put on the testnet by the devs themselves?  I want to see SegWit implemented, but I don't want to see it used as a smokescreen to deny or block other ideas.  Why is that such a difficult concept for you (and others) to grasp?  If the end goal is to force a significant proportion of transactions into payment channels like Lightning, or off-chain altogether, that would be a serious concern.  It's not "merely whinery" if you understood the potential for abuse.  So kindly check your tone, before your condescension leads me to call you arrogant.



Not interested in sabotaging it, just being realistic.



As long as we do "go from there", that's fine.  But it needs to be something more than optimisations, that also doesn't involve forcing transactions off-chain.  It has to remain open and permissionless.  Those qualities will be under threat if transactions on the main chain become a privileged or exclusive domain.



Where are you getting that notion from?  Again, happy to see what SegWit can do, but it's evident that more needs to be done afterwards.  It's probable we're going to be waiting quite a while for some of the proposals like Lightning, sidechains and atomic cross-chain transactions.  So, sooner or later, like it or not, we're going to be looking at blocksize again.  My guess is "sooner".



Erm... apparently you, right there.  We need to consider the long term.  Bollocks to your pie in the sky.  Focusing on the short term at the expense of the long term is myopic.

Without really get into your lack of a differentiation between a hardfork and a softfork, I think that many of us agree that no matter what kind of fork you implement, the results are going to be much better the closer you are to getting widespread consensus - and therefore largely non contentious.

So in that regard, it seems willy nilly to attempt some kind of contentious fork... and sure, if seg wit starts to get close to 95% but does not quite reach 95%, there could be a new implementation that will weight the costs and benefits and decide to implement with less than a 95% consensus.. sure that is risky, but at some point, it may be more risky to not implement and not get the many improvements of seg wit.  Accordingly, if seg wit still has not implemented by late 2017, then I'm sure there is going to be some deliberate discussions about weighing risks regarding differing paths forward.


By the way, maybe I should circle back to your definitions a bit... my understanding is that soft forks do allow for a bit more backwards compatibility and a bit more tolerance in transitioning to the new software.. but I understand that at a certain point, the transition becomes "over" and everyone has to upgrade.  Yet, with a hardfork, the transition is more immediate.. so there is a difference, but it may not matter too much about whether something is a hardfork or a softfork as compared with figuring out what is a tolerable and acceptable level of consensus in order to make sure that a sufficient number of folks are on board and that those who do not want to go along with the majority would not have any significant impact on bitcoin whether they went to form their own coin or if they failed/refused to update... and maybe 5% is an acceptable level, but maybe 10% may be o.k... too, but it does seem like a good idea to attempt getting 95% first before weighing whether attempting to implement another possible lower level might be a decent alternative plan or maybe instead some other tweak might allow for achieving the 95% preferred consensus level.

I think in the near future we're going to see a compromise solution, where BU puts it on the testnet and never tests it, like Classic did 6 months ago with BIP109. For those who don't remember, an invalid BIP109 block mined on testnet (by bitcoin.com, if anyone's surprised by that fact) was rejected by Classic but accepted by Core (which doesn't care about BIP109), causing Classic to reject the majority chain. This would have been an unmitigated disaster had it occurred on mainnet, but since it was on testnet, it went completely unnoticed for nearly a month because apparently nobody was running Classic on testnet.

That is a fair enough comment, yet my understanding is that a BIP is submitted, and then voted on and then if it is approved it can go to the next stage (such as coding and testing).  Of course there could be provisional approvals or there could be denials.

If a BIP is not approved, then the person who submitted the proposal needs to fix it to address any concerns that were raised and to resubmit it.  If s/he does not know the reason that the BIP was not approved then s/he needs to proactively attempt to figure that out by asking questions and interacting.

My understanding is that none of the BIPs related to XT, Classic and/or BU  had gotten past the initial stages of approval.. in order to even get to the testnet and there had been some laziness in follow-up and tweaking and/or making various arguments in order to get them to testnet, and therefore, proponents of those big block changes did not back up their claims with either sufficient evidence of a problem or sufficient logic in order to get some kind of agreement to go to the testnet stage. 

Are you saying that there was some kind of disallowance of BIPS to get to the testnet level (whether intentional or inadvertent).  My understanding is that they complain and go to other systems rather than attempting to go through the proper procedures for submitting BIPs... Part of their reasons for not going through the process remains unclear, but it could be that they are just engaging in shit stirring, rather than seriously going through a vetting process to actually have their proposals implemented.

Furthermore, if your proposals, include language that attempts to radically change governance (rather than merely focusing on technical issues and possible problems), then it becomes a lot harder to get others to agree to changes in the governance when those proposed governance changes could cause precedence that completely undermine bitcoin (by making bitcoin too malleable and too easy to change by any tom, dick or harry - including status quo anti-bitcoin folks).




I don't know?  You tell me?  Who?  I am sure if someone wanted to write the code and test it, then it would be put on the testnet, unless the criticism and concerns about the larger blocks are something other than testing it?

Part of the concern might be that it does not even matter if bigger blocks test out, if they are not necessary, then why go through the testing, when they can be tested and implemented at some time when they are actually needed (for example if fees go up or if transaction times become negatively affected)...


I am glad that you are interested in seg wit being implemented, and I don't know why you need to have so much skepticism about supposed ulterior motives...

If seg wit ends up solving all problems (but I doubt it), then why not accept that.. instead of wanting to make up a problem that does not exist.  If there is a problem, then the prudent thing to do would be to look at what is the problem exactly and then figure out various possible solutions and then to implement the better of the possible solutions (or even the best solution, if that is possible), but if there are shortcomings in some potential solutions, then there might be disagreement about what is better and what is the better way forward.  At this point, it still seems that seg wit is the best intermediate step forward, but there is no denial that at some point an actual hard increase in the block limit may be a good and better next step forward.. but that does not seem to be the case at the moment, so why just make a block limit increase when it is not necessary (as seemed to be your initial suggestion to just go to 1.25mb as a kind of compromise - which just seems ridiculous, if it is not really solving anything except for maybe temporarily appeasing unjustifiable and unsubstatiated whiners).








I am not sure about what I am supposedly having a hard time grasping.  I don't claim to be any kind of expert, but you have not really pointed out anything that is beyond my grasp, have you?  Maybe if we assume that the blocksize limit needs to be increased, then I cannot grasp that assumption because it does not seem to have a basis beyond a bunch of folks claiming that it needs to be increased without providing either sufficient evidence or logic for such ongoing baseless and whining claims?



I doubt that there is any one set of end goals.  Seg wit allows for all kinds of builds, including the ones that you listed, but it also addresses other issues including but not limited to scaling, better sidechains, maleability and quadradic calculations (whatever the fuck that means)... There are a lot of folks that build on bitcoin in its present state and in its future state, but some of the future is unclear, so there is risk involved.. and sometimes, we are not really going to know whether some other fix needs to be undertaken in order to address something that comes up with seg wit or if it does not end up performing as anticipated or if there are changes in adoption or attacks by governments and/or financial institutions.  I doubt that there is exactly any kind of end goal because these kinds of matters are decentralized and people have all kinds of ideas about how they might build on something or use it or even not use it.  You seem to be assuming much more conspiracy than likely exists in any kind of going along with or approving of seg wit.





I think that my tone was appropriate for whatever I was addressing.  Yeah, sure sometimes in writing, any of us might not go back and review our text or the way that we may have said something, but referring to some of the big blocker folks as unsubstantiated "whiners" is likely not going too far based on a lot of the unsubstantiated whining that I have seen and engaged with on the big blocker topic.

 I doubt that I was referring to you.. not yet, anyhow in respect to whining... hahahahaha.  I usually will only go on the attack if I feel that I was personally attacked without reason.. or if I think that you are purposefully engaging in a kind of conduct that is disingenuous... and I am not afraid to do it... On the other hand, I doubt that you should reasonably conclude that I have attempted to attack you on any kind of personal level, and I am not even really familiar with your posting history or anything like that. I am mostly merely attempting to stay substantive and respond specifically to points that you made.. maybe I don't do the greatest job in the world and maybe I add a bit too much flavor, here or there, but I am not attempting to avoid any substance that I might be able to attempt to address (and maybe learn something along the way, too?) 




Fair enough.  I doubt that we can judge everyone in any particular camp as being locked in or even being the same as someone else in that camp.  Accordingly, there can be a lot of variability and sometimes any of us might evolve our positions to some extent when we engage in these thread dialogues or even disagree with folks who may mostly be in the same camp as us.



Aren't we too early to judge if privileged or exclusive is going to be any kind of meaningful outcome in a post seg wit world?  Sure, matters are going to evolve under the market, but if such an privileged and exclusive domain were to evolve, it seems that it would take several years for such to evolve (probably more than 5 years minimum, but I don't know).  Anyhow if such a privileged and exclusive system were to evolve on the bitcoin main chain over 5 years or so, then as individuals we can also adjust our behaviors and shop around or whatever.  I doubt that your scenario is very likely making bitcoin exclusive to the rich and elite.. I think that the exact opposite is what bitcoin is offering, and personal banking remains a considerably great threat to mainstream institutions, and I doubt that seg wit is really undermining any of that secure immutable decentralized value storage and transfer.. and the market will likely take a while to play out in terms of how much it costs to engage in various kinds of transactions.


While maybe I had mistakenly pegged you (from your comments) as one of those who is saying block limit size increase first (and opposing seg wit until a blocksize limit increase is implemented)?


I understand that there are already quite a few companies and individuals looking at potential ways to monetize some of this and also just to attempt to make some of it work.. so some of the various second level solutions may be further along than we think.. but I am not really claiming to know too much about this and sometimes some of the companies and individuals will keep some of their ideas secret because they may want to be the first to market on their particular spin.


You may be correct.  I do kind of watch some of this stuff, and sometimes there are obvious spam attacks on the network, but I remain a bit unclear about whether an actual hard limit increase would actually fix the problem more than it causes additional problems.  I doubt that I am technical enough to really understand.. but I do make quite a few transactions on the blockchain, so I do have some personal and ongoing experiences with delayed transactions and fees.. and sometimes we may need to adjust our own personal systems in order to accommodate the sometimes delays (especially when we can identify spam attacks that seem to be occurring that could cause our transaction to take 2 days rather than 1 hour to go through).


hahahahahaha... I will have to take that as a kind of joke.  I doubt that I am saying to never focus on the long term, but some of your proclamations come off as the XT proposals.. remember?  There was kind of a timeline with set increments of increasing the blocksize limits.. and emphasizing that we must focus on the future.. blah blah blah...  Even if such proclamations sounded good upon first impression, it seem to have failed and refused to address some of the downsides to such exponential scaling.  Furthermore, both XT and classic (and the same is true with BU), framed issues as technical while having the additional goal of changing consensus thresholds.  Maybe any of those blocksize increase proposals would be more palatable if they actually were really focuses and fixes of technical issues rather than muddying the water with changes in consensus (and big blocker proponents have an ongoing tendency to refuse to clean up their proposals and to remove those low threshold consensus aspects).. so yeah, maybe I did overstate the who cares about the future aspect, but I do get folks who are sometimes seeming to focus on something that might occur 100 years from now, and I usually say.. so fucking what.. because it might occur and it might not because 100 years from now is a long time into the future and it is much less important than considering shorter term and more pressing circumstances.

Hahahahaha

Great point!!!

you do know that testnet is supposed to be used to break a chain and find bugs..

if testnet is being biasedly closed off and only used by nodes that have been vetted to not break.. then ofcourse people wont use the main testnet.
those using the main testnet are instead treating breaks as bad, not looking for bugs and only looking for status quo no issues.

even core went to a separate "segnet" because they were too scared to break testnet..(facepalm)

the stupidity is that testnet is suppose to break.. to reveal bugs. its not suppose to be used as a proof of status quo.
its should be in a 'constant state of breaking/forking, until it breaks no more' paradigm.

those using testnet should be always looking for bugs.. always trying to break testnet, to fix the cause... not running with the safety training wheels on only looking for status quo/successes.

being blind to problems but over selling what works is a fools plan.

other nodes end up making their own testnets due to the vetting process of core not wanting random nodes trying to break the main testnet.
you just dont hear or see much chat about it

I did not know that testnet was being biasedly closed off .. I thought that it was open to use by folks who knew how to use it and had software that they wanted to run on it.  So, your representation would be news to me.







seems like testnet would serve no purpose, if that were the case... again,... you are making a representation that I do not know about the underlying facts.



I guess these topics are beyond my knowledge - because I do not know about this either.




your logic seems to make sense.


are you talking about scaling or seg wit or something else?  Who is doing what that is foolish? 

 


It seems that there must be some other explanation besides what you are saying, regarding excluding folks from using testnet.  Maybe they only allow using testnet once a product has been vetted through the BIP process first?   You wouldn't just want random folks coming in to break the system, if they are not testing valid BIP items, right?

and now you start the rabbit hole.

to get a bip, to then be able to testnet,...is like this... (note proposal/idea.. not actual final code, just a proposal)

to get a bip you need to first discuss it on the IRC/forum (moderated by theymos/gmaxwell)

then you need to submit the idea to the bitcoin mailing list. and have people revet/discuss it.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/d9e890a8f27e46806238e298a346397871fd7e87/README.mediawiki

then you can go to github and end up seeing this
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/new/master

where you are then required to be vetted again.. to get it submitted(pulled)

and this is just the process to even have a "proposal" listed, not final code, not working model, just a dang proposal!!

.
its like having to sit down for an interview, a reinterview. and then asking a womens father for the womans hand in marriage, purely to be allowed to ask a woman for a date.!!
and then only allowed to go on a date (main testnet) if you promise to not pass third base

Ugh, here we go again   :(...
Ain't you supposed to be researching instead of making these childish tricks?

how old are you? it's not a kindergarded here and Ver is not your beloved father...
untill you mentally grow up and start some own researchin you never overcome your confined point of view...

you've shown yesterday some aspiration to research, dont lose it now, just get on it, chop chop!

review my post history vs your post history.

you troll.
i explain bitcoin
seems you need a new script.

No, definitely no lesson learned from dillution of supply. Did not Bitcoin started as some form of self defense counter measure against paper bill printing presses?
If you "double the value" you just slice the idea into halfes. This is worse than "just introducing another Altcoin" since Alts at least appear on market as competition and invention (well sometimes, sighs! most are copycoins)

Sure, sounds as if it takes a little bit of work, and if you go through the process a few times, you likely build some street cred and experience and even an ability to get approval. 

I am not in that line of work, so it is not for me, but it does not sound unreasonable - and sometimes there can be a bit of a learning curve with anything like this and also making sure that you are submitting solid code that is aimed at a particular issue that you believe needs to be addressed and try to get others to agree with you may take a little bit of persuasion.. not only submitting facts about the issue that is going to be addressed but also submitting logic regarding how your fix addresses the problem without bringing its own level of unnecessary problems.

https://bitnovosti.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/1-7ty49arcjmutvlkfo9x57a.png

the question the tweet asks should trigger peoples thoughts.. i see problems in the statement. but if you ask the deeper question


if an exchange only plays with lets say 20btc(usually 20k-200k but lets keep it simple). and only has $18,000 to get a bitcoin price of $900 each..

the market cap of say 16,100,000 btc is based on the exchange rate.
but the problem..
the exchange is only playing with smaller amounts of bitcoin.. not the whole 16.1m
so this 20btc being traded and $18,000 fiat holding..

FALSELY makes people think the entire market is worth $14.5billion
when the reality is that there is not $14.5billion sitting in bank accounts to counter the bitcoins in circulation..

---

hopefully that should wake people up

and then
split it to 2 networks
now there are
20 btcA on an exchange and 20btcB on an exchange
with 16,100,000btcA cap, with 16,100,000btcB cap

again price of btc WAS $900
meaning only $18,000 was ever traded

yep only $18,000 exists in an exchange... but now a total of 40 coins are held on the exchange now

after a split
that $18,000 can go anyway

$9,000 btcA $9,000 btcB or
$8,000 btcA $10,000 btcB or (pick any ratio you like)

maths would still total $18k for 40 coins... which when PROJECTED to the market caps and combining the market caps. still total $14.5bill combined cap

so splitting the coin does not make the coins more valuable or increase the cap... until........

---

however..
if you create a new market page
no longer just btc<->$
or just btcA<->$   and   btcB<->$
but now
btcA<->$  and   btcB<->$  and  btcA<->btcB

no coins are withdrawn coins in this scenario
no more or less $ are deposited.

the exchange still holds 40 coins and $18,000
but now

5btcB <-> $
5btcB<-> $
and 15 btcA<-> 15 btcB

now lets concentrate on
5 btcB <-> $
5btcB<-> $
$9,000 btcA $9,000 btcB or
$8,000 btcA $10,000 btcB or (pick any ratio you like)

ill use $9,000 btcA $9,000 btcB
now ill emphasis there are still just 40 coins and $18,000 in the exchange.

but because only 5btcA are trading against $9000. that makes each btcA worth $1800 each
16.1 market cap of btcA now= $29billion
but because only 5btcB are trading against $9000. that makes each btcB worth $1800 each
16.1 market cap of btcB now= $29billion

combined market cap price of btcA+btcB now = $58billion..
yet on the exchange. before,during and after a split.. only $18,000 was ever held

...
think long and hard about how market manipulations and how the market cap.. is not true value. not even a good estimate of value and obsurdly over valued the market, based on the movements of just a few coins held actually on the market.. it will wake you up

this bip process.. is not about submitting solid code..
its the process just to submit an idea of something. a concept

which usually is one that opposes cores idea.. hense why people need to submit opposing bips to counter cores own bips.

but to submit the idea (proposal/concept... not code) you have to be vetted by them atleast 4 times.(passing through gregs thumb atleast twice)

You have a lot of formulas and logic in there, but you are not really making any profound points, as you are claiming to be making.

The fact of the matter is that when a market is not very mature, it is not going to have too many ways to liquidate, but as a market becomes more and more mature, there becomes a lot more ways in and a lot more ways out, and the price of the coin likely become closer and closer to its utility.

Also, there are going to be times in which there is a lot of pure speculation and there are going to be times of speculation based on present utility and future utility, but in the end, the market is going to fly all over the place, depending on level of interest and number of locations in which the price is determined, which over time will become more and more diverse.

Sure there is going to be price manipulation, but that price manipulation becomes more difficult when there are more exchanges and more avenues to get in and to get out.  Furthermore, if you suddenly fork the coin, it may take a bit of time for the market to adjust to the whole situation, and the price of each coin may be over or undervalued depending upon what is being offered and speculation that may be going on in regards to present and/or future value (and of course public perception, whether erroneous or based in real and true factors).

So, yeah there may be a lot of absurdities and manipulation and FUD spreading, folks with insider information and folks who are lacking information, and the price is going to be set by a combination of these factors, which probably should inform anyone to be careful with his/her investment in terms of tailoring how much to put in and what kinds of buying and/or selling strategies to employ that are suitable to his/her risk profile, timeline, financial situation and view of the present and future value of the coin. 

Likely it would be safe and prudent for a large number of people to invest up to 1% of his/her quasi-liquid investment  assets into bitcoin; however, some people may be willing to invest a lot more - approaching 10% and sometimes young folks may be really risky and invest 70% or more with the idea that they are young and they can afford to take risks (in other words gamble).. I don't really recommend a gambling approach, but instead a more methodical plan that considers how much you are investing and what are your other investments and then what is your entry, exit and maintenance strategy.

And, even questions about forking and seg wit versus bitcoin unlimited can influence a person's decisions regarding how much to invest, if to invest and if so, when.

O.k.  Maybe I used the wrong language.. but it makes sense that you would need to get past some of the concepts and persuasion before code would even be relevant.


It does  not do a whole hell of a lot of good to submit code, but no one really understands the problem that you are supposedly solving and that you are not creating more problems than you are solving.

Yeah, I hear these demonizations of greg maxwell, yet I have seen a lot of posts by him and he seems to be a very reasonable person.. sure maybe sometimes he may have too many responsibilities, but that does not mean that he may not be a good person to convince when it comes to bips (I doubt that he has nearly as much authority as people are making it out to be, even though I understand that he has commit privileges)

There are many features that mostly the same. They are also a bitcoin core. And the first made of them is bitcoin so segwit is copied some features bitcoin and the developers develop it more safer. I think the segwit is on the go, so coming, we do not know if it is long-lasting and even they have a good and better features than bitcoin maybe, it cannot beat bitcoin because it is on the go already.