Bitcoin Forum

As of today SegWit is losing to Bitcoin Unlimited. We can actually get done with this block size debate. Please spread the word and install Bitcoin Unlimited full node instead of Core. This debate has been holding back the price for too long now. It's time for change. Let's make Bitcoin great again.

https://s10.postimg.org/4a10j9qix/Screenshot_from_2017_03_09_08_24_56.png
Graph source: http://xtnodes.com/graphs.php



https://i.redditmedia.com/lj3p2zsqWBxUvopdfJjWix-5Iuvcd-FqlUc59FAI89Y.jpg?w=1024&s=8e56bcdf3ebb1d1a9a74d9d36fdbb2ab

https://coin.dance/blocks
OMG!! i'm updating it right now and i've got suprised. Okay, let's imagine how the rogerver is laughing right now. There are less than a percent of the gap between the result of BU and SegWit.
So, BU is for real. But i've curious about how the BU it works. So, can the miners try to run a vote about the transaction fees?

Because i've heard if LN can steal the reward of the miners and it looks like terrible.

I added a Bitcoin Unlimited philosophy description to OP.

Also I find this explanation very good, also taken from BU's home page under FAQ section:


Bitcoin Unlimited is a vote for free markets. SegWit is like a communist centrally planned economy.

Ok so please correct me if I'm wrong, but 25% of BU and 25% of segwit blocks mined sounds like a whole lot of nothing!

With the community split right down the middle how will either way get the necessary support?

Both camps will get nowhere imho. Thus 1mb will stand...bitcoin core prefers that anyway...and eventually BTC will likely FORK ..just because if they have
not agreed to a compromise by this time..they likely won't.....wait for bitcoin core to push an alternative way to do this as a softfork and the BU miners
will fork...

As long as I'm talking doom here....the 'supposed satoshi' 'craig wright' continues to claim on Jan 1st 2020 he will get a big trust of BTC set aside for
the founders/him/etc...that would be annoying..the 'tweb' imho will flush most of it and currently is making patents on the supposed proof he is such
by getting into the supposed trust with satoshi addresses on that date

figure only 1 out of 20 odds of this being true...but BTC can still go pear shaped...

The free market always finds a way.  Once people understand how BU actually works instead of just parroting the propaganda it will be seen as a reasonable approach.  Yes, it needs more testing.  No, it won't cause an immediate fork once it gets to some magic threshold.  What it does do is provide a mechanism for miners and exchanges to allow blocksize to be driven by the costs involved in processing transactions.

There should have been a way to also signal an option like "SegWit, BU, 8M, any of them, just do something". It should have been designed to allow supporting one or more...
Of course, the pools can find their way! I see Slush Pool (on https://coin.dance) signals on some blocks BU and on some blocks SegWit  ;D

We still Dont know what Will happen Tomorrow Guy's Lets wait And see
If this good news Will infect the btc price then iT was sky rocking already But iT isnt
Still waiting... we hope the best Ofcourse

Do you realise that once 51% of blocks are signalling Unlimited (according to Coindance today it is 33.3%) then the very first block mined by an Unlimited miner who cares to create a block of any size above 1 MB, will create a fork. BU miners will be able to follow that fork. That fork will be invalid for Core miners.

The reasoning from some BU community members is that everyone will be sensible enough to wait until something like 75% of blocks support BU, before a miner creates such a block. I ask anyone following the whole scaling debate from both sides, are coordination and cooperation the hallmarks of this situation?

The moment we reach 51% of blocks signalling BU, a whole new opportunity opens up for manipulation, for example for a miner to take a short position on Bitcoin and then mine +1MB blocks, before a more sensible threshold is reached.

Bitcoin has always been about one chain, one history, no split, immutability. This is going to be the biggest paradigm shift since the genesis block.

For months the talk has been ETF, China, etc. Scaling is by far and away the no.1 critical issue - has been for two years. I don't think people fully understand what's coming.

For disclosure, personally I'm not heavily on one or other side of the debate.

LN does not "steal" anything. Even with LN you must do some real transactions (at least two, to open and to close a payment channel). These transactions will have fees like now. It is only a way to "bundle" transactions.

And LN in my opinion does not fit all user cases. It's a better alternative for centralized online payment systems like Coinbase's wallet-to-wallet payments. With the same logic applied, these services also "steal" transaction fees from the miners.

my thoughts are that all this will lead to a hard fork. BU closes their eyes, but that's just what it is. the minute two BTC currencies are listed anywhere, we'll see which one will be dumped faster. my bet is BU-BTC will tank. followed by 1-2 years of black clouds over btc. well done roger ver!

The all time high was 2-3 days ago!  I don't think the price is really being held back ba anything!
BU sounds great, until you consider the size of the blockchain, which means that full nodes will become rare and dominated like mining is already.

It would be good if small transactions could be resurrected by BU, but I still think a limited (but bigger than 1mb) block size would be best.

Just goes to show how fatally warped mining has become. I've not been impressed with how Core has addressed the grievances of others, but I really won't be impressed if one Chinese penis pretending to be multiple mining pools manages to blow up Bitcoin. That doesn't really feel much like a free market to me, more like economic thuggery.

No, you're just dumb.

Think about it. If blocksize were higher, bitcoin could immediately have 2-3x the # of users it currently has. Marketshare would STOP flowing into altcoins almost overnight. Bitcoin would regain its utility and businesses would be able to start accepting it again.

This would almost undoubtedly put us in the 2-3k per bitcoin range

Which is why, when BU overtakes Core - it will be even bigger for the price than the ETF

For those of you that want cheap coins, you should actually be thanking Core - they have kept the price down significantly

Utter bilge.

People are using alts to make more BTC apart from a few weirdos. That's never going to end. And you're telling me there are millions of potential users checking GitHub hourly waiting to pile in?

Merchant acceptance is a dead end at present no matter what the blockchain's functionality looks like. Most people don't want to spend it.

Schizophrenic delusional Hyena is back at it with the "wow BU up = price up" nonsense.

How about the other day when Jihan Wu mined some BU blocks the price insta tanked from 1250 to low 1100?

Get real, BU = doesn't work, it's trash, will never get anywhere notable.

BU is far closer to activation than Segwit so if anybody is blocking anything its Segwit supporters

I wish i was able to understand what those half-wit and non-limited things actually meant...

BU supporters sayin SW is evil and SW supporters say the opposite.

Can someone explain the basic differences between them? Not anything technical. Just basic.

For example; will BU lower the transaction fees?

We could consider that way as BU and SegWit at same level but I don't think any of those solution will implement in the nearly future, so none of those wins for now., We just wait for them to decide it, if one or another already set and being used and we will have bigger block size and huge market cap.

So far I gather that

-Segwit is making BTC more efficient, so transactions consume less bytes
-BTC unlimited allows miners to set a block size but ALL US IDIOTS still need to download the super-bloated blockchain to our harddrives

Why does OP like Unlimited and hate Segwit? U selling harddisks?! ???

It's simple, OP does not know how bitcoin unlimited works beyond the promise of solving the "scaling problem once and for all" which is a vapid concept.

BUcoiners do not understand game theory. They don't understand tradeoffs. All BUcoin will do is centralize the network even more, miners will be kings.

Anyone not supporting Core + segwit + LN route is an idiot in 2017. If you can do better than them, let's see the code.

That is not how BU works.  Miners have an "excessive block" (EB) setting.  They will not produce or mine on top of a block that exceeds this setting.  If an excessive block gets more confirmations than their acceptance depth (AD), then they will mine on top of it, but will still not produce their own larger blocks.  99% of miners signaling for BU have a EB setting of 1MB.  At 51% you still can't cause a fork unless you can mine enough blocks to exceed the AD of half the miners, which is highly unlikely since most have an AD of 6.

So, I'll repeat myself and ask people to put some effort into understanding how BU works instead of continuing to spread false information about it.

When BU gets near 50% things are gonna get reaaally interesting. What crazy things will Core do? Will they accept defeat? Will they create their own minority hashrate altcoin?

Whatever happens, the Bitcoin hodler wins. This stagnation has been a cancer.

Is there some where someone can find a good objective review of the pros and cons of both BU and Segwit and legitimate reasons why people are so viscously apposed to one or the other? 

I've so far seen some coherent reasons for why people are not a fan of Segwit, but I really haven't seen much a rational argument from Segwit supporters. 

I'd really like to make an informed decision on which one I support.

You have to look at  a list of who would benefit:

BU-chinese party apparatchiks and their deciples in form of Jihan and Roger. Why?
Because it precludes second layer privacy inducing protocols that ALSO will compete with Jihan's mining "empire".
Chinese communists don't want privacy and don't even want bitcoin to be used in goods trading (see latest PBOC statements).
Case closed.

Segwit/LN-practically everybody else would benefit. We can see now where BU is heading-linear increase of blocksize and fees. Maybe good for some near-sided miners (only in a short term), bad for EVERYBODY else.

BU=improvement from 14.4baud modem to 28.8 baud modem to 56k modem.

Segwit/LN/privacy enhancements=going from telephony to cable to fiberoptics equivalent.

It is all crystal clear to me (for now).

I'm a life long software architect and a programmer. Having said that, as a specialist in my field, I can say the following:

Bitcoin Unlimited is a clean and elegant way how to upgrade the Bitcoin protocol one step at a time. It is philosophically sound, it is simple and effective. This is how software should be developed.

SegWit is an abomination to all self-respectful software architects. Shortly put --- it is a really ugly hack. It tries to accomplish many goals all at once. This drives up code/protocol complexity and increases the attack surface on the Bitcoin network by an order of magnitude. What is more, it will scare away open-source programmers from the Bitcoin project because no one enjoys working on a codebase that has become a labyrinth due to all these hacks and quirks. Does anyone remember the Heartbleed vulnerability discovered in OpenSSL? Well that's the kind of stuff you will get for code that no one enjoys reviewing. I don't want OpenSSL Heartbleed analogy to happen to Bitcoin and that's why I reject SegWit.

Those who keep saying "SegWit because of LN, TX-malleability, quadratic hashing fix" are demagogues. By saying this they make it seem as if Bitcoin Unlimited is not going to solve those issues. This is brutally wrong. You will get Lightning networks, a fix to TX malleability and a fix to quadratic hashing with Bitcoin Unlimited or even with Bitcoin Classic. You will get those features the way software is ought to be developed --- modularly, so that different features are logically separated and can be individually reviewed.

I don't care about attack surfaces, but i DO care about not falling under a PBOC-driven cabal, present company excluded.

From what I've read, there is no reason why side chains can't happen without Segwit implication so I'm not sure that that is a valid argument.  

To me it seems forcing transactions to side chains is a form a centralization.

It also seems to me that incentivizing mining is a key component to the stability and security of the network.

It also seems to me that no one is precluded from having an "empire" on mining, since anyone can start mining.  Perhaps this Jihan person has the most miners, but I would assume it is because Jihan invested a lot of resources into achieving these miners, which is also investing in the bitcoin network, helping to secure it and creating its worth.

The equation of X(mining) is profitable and Y(Jihan) is doing a lot of mining so Z(we must create something that disrupts that) doesn't make sense except if you were looking at it from the point of view that you wanted to find away to profit  but didn't wanted to bypass the free market competitive process of also mining.

Mind you coming up with an improvement of the network or system that benefits everyone on average and finding a away to derive profit from that is totally fine.  But the reason that X+Y should equal Z (from above paragraph) does not validate its usefulness or benefit to the community.

Please show me anywhere that I am wrong, I definitely won't pretend to see all the ins and outs of this.  But please refrain from using unsubstantiated statements like:
This doesn't tell me anything besides your opinion on the matter.

That is not true, that solves temporary i'm agree (short term) the problematics of high fees and increases the capacity of number of transactions /s but the total blockchain size would become exponentially faster a problem than with little blocks, this isn't elegant at all this is just basically a brutal short term approach, with that said the code of BU would cause many security problems and uncertainties on the immutability of Bitcoin now and that will mean the end of the project and would mean a big NON SENSE for investors who are searching a mean of storing value via a secured and immutable system.
And by the way The Core blocks represent still 73.4% of the blocks, BU is a minority which want to spread political rhetoric and non-scientifics argues to divide the Bitcoin community and kill bitcoiin because of their greed and their egocentralized point of view

...it is your job to read more on the subject...i am not writing a dissertation here on a message board post.
In simplest terms: linear increase the size of the block does not equal new technology, but segwit combined with LN does mean NEW technology, hence the comparison with modems vs cable/fiberoptics.
Re Jihan, please educate yourselves on "monopoly".

BlockStream bankster maffia is no better, so this really isn't a valid argument you have there. If SegWit goes through BlockStream would have monopoly over Bitcoin development. Someone truly being the "Bitcoin CEO" won't be a joke then.

That was my original plan, but I'm having a hard time finding anything objective and rational especially in regards to segwit. This is why I asked if anyone happened to know a balanced source of information on the two and the reasons for and against them.

BU is in control of a few Cinese miners, i think this central mining cartel isn't so decentralised, right? How much does Roger Ver pays you to mine ChinaCoin?  While Satoshi's vision is already absolute, the majority of the whole economic infrastructure wants SegWitt, NOT BU, BU miners will eventually mine for a loss sooner ore later. Blockstream ore Core's behaviour is irrelevant, ceo's, Exchanges, walletproviders, merchants etc the all dont care about it, except BU supporters :-\

what you just said is not true. stop spreading lies.

Bitcoin Unlimited is much more than just block size increase. They are implementing all the nice feature SegWit has slapped together except BU is doing it conceptually in a correct way --- one feature at a time. The most urgent one is block size increase. So basically what you just said is warm air, no content.

I think it's laughable that Core supporters won't stop whining about Roger Ver, as if he were really some kind of Bitcoin Boogeyman.

The fact that one side has to engage in personal attacks & smear campaigns against the other side is really, really telling.

It is a sign of weakness if you have to slander your opponent with blatant lies and exaggerations.

Roger Ver is buying up hashrate...just wait untill his ''social money'' runs out. He's also trolling in his latest interviews so i dont blame the ''blamers''.

So you just admitted that the BU is just about block size increase for now  ;D

You didn't answer on technical problematics : _What about the total blockchain size which will grow exponentially faster with a block size increase ?
                                                              _What will be the block size with BU ? By choice of miners ? So the security problems and immutability problems that will result ?
                                                              _I'm not saying that segwit is essential, i think it's the best solution for now but of courseall solutions could always be better  ::) but if segwit will be rejected well i wouldn't think bitcoin is dead but if the chain split or if BU become the established chain i would reconsider my position on mid-term long-term investments due to the problematics that will cause

It's sad that so many bitcoiners are dumb enough to support B(F)U Chinacoin.

SegWit is in control of a few banksters from BlockStream and their lap dogs (Johnny and other Core devs). Roger does not pay me anything. I am exposing the SegWit lies from my free time for free ever since Bitcointalk mods censored my free speech in here. I made a Bitcoin Unlimited topic under Bitcoin general discussion and it got moved to altcoin board. The censorship guys made a powerful enemy that day and I promised publicly to do everything in my power to expose the corrupt SegWit/Core devs. And censoring tells really a lot about the agenda of BlockStream/Core. It's a big red flag.

So what do I get out of this you may ask? I'm a bitcoin hodler since 2012 and I just happen to be technically adept enough to understand that SegWit is really bad for Bitcoin. It just happens that BU is currently the only good alternative. Ideally there would be many dev teams all around the world working independently on improving the Bitcoin protocol. Wallet implementations should also be decentralized and that's why we must ditch the Core team. Core team's bitcoin-core implementation does not equate to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a protocol not a protocol implementation and a technical variable such as the block size does not belong to the protocol layer. Block size is already limited by network speed, it does not require an arbitrary limit imposed by a bunch of self-proclaimed Bitcoin-CEOs.

SegWit supporters are like Hilary Clinton supporters. They play it dirty and they are sore losers.

Blockchain size is not a problem of the Bitcoin protocol. It is a technical problem that can be overcome by technical means. It is a full node implementation related issue and thus not even worth talking about. Block chain size is never going to be a problem because digital storage does not cost much at all and technically it is possible to store the block chain in a decentralized manner. Instead of every full node storing the whole copy of the block chain they could only store parts of it proportionally to their disk capacity. When every full node stores random parts of the block chain then the block chain will still exist but is simply spread over the whole network rather than duplicated on every device. We also have block chain available in the torrent network so don't worry, nothing is lost. It's just a technical issue and it can be solved. Right now there just isn't big enough incentive to solve it and for that reason full nodes are still storing full copies of the block chain.

Core 0.14 allows manual prunning of the blockchain, to a minimum of 450 MB(<- that is the number that I remember).

Yes, this is a really nice feature. So block chain size in general is a non-issue. People should just stop spreading paranoia about it, it's embarrassing.

This is one thing I noticed a lot of coming from the Segwit side.  From previous experience in other situations similar to this, it doesn't paint a pretty picture of what they have to give to the public.

It is especially concerning that all the "coin news" blogs seem to be biased and in favour of SegWit. A news reporter/blog writer should generally remain neutral, research both sides and try to give an objective evaluation of the situation. What I see more and more are attempts to manipulate the public opinion in favour of SegWit. It's utterly disgusting. I know I know BlockStream would go bankrupt if SegWit is rejected. Their whole business model is to gain sole control over the Bitcoin network similarly to how Ethereum Foundation is a central entity having a private block chain they call Ethereum. So they reverse transactions just like that. No wonder we see censoring and brainwashing, it's all backed up by the money of Blockstream investors who were sold the promise of becoming the owners of the Bitcoin network.

I think that doesn't necessarily say a lot about the actual people who are in favour of SegWit.  There will always be people on both sides of anything who are nasty about the other, but this doesn't say anything about what SegWit itself is actually presenting to the public or about the majority of SegWit/BU supporters.

Of course, I wouldn't base my decision only on that.  Unfortunately I'm hard pressed to find a rational argument in favour of Segwit over BU.  I thought surely there would be one since I would assume the group that is working on Segwit is full of highly intelligent individuals that understand the nuts and bolts of Blockchain and Bitcoin very well.  I usually end up reading the reasons to support segwit are:

-slanderous statements against individuals that are in support of BU
-claims of impending doom to the network should BU be implemented with no technical explanation or reasoning, or ones not based on facts.
-claims that BU creates a centralized model, but without explaining how increasing block size above 1MB does this?  At the same time not explaining how forcing the majority of transactions to be done by centralized off chain hubs with need for trusted third parties in the "dark" does not create more of a centralized system.
-claims that BU is bad because it incentives mining, even though that is how the blockchain and bitcoin maintain their security and strength and incentive to mine is core to the maintenance of the network.

Here's a snapshot of this week's debate regarding this new altcoin "SegWitCoin" that wants to become Bitcoin.

Johnny (of Blockstream) vs Roger Ver - Bitcoin Scaling Debate (SegWit vs Bitcoin Unlimited)  (https://youtu.be/JarEszFY1WY?t=1182)

https://s15.postimg.org/74c2jswi3/Screenshot_from_2017_03_10_00_05_41.png

Body language doesn't lie. Johnny is aware of his weakness and is afraid that he is not able to defend SegWit well enough to please his bankster masters, rightly so.

Lol, yes he had pain in his back. Before he start he did few back exercises.


They were talking about Bitcoin and nothing else. What his weakens you talk about. or you talk about Bitcoin weakness.  In OP you posted graph with totally identical support. How come you did that altho as you said one side finally totally won. Please explain.

With a DASH shill in the background..

The problem some people have with SegWit is that it not pure protocol upgrade and Blockstream will try to appropriate bitcoin network using SegWit as a backdoor.

Bitcoin Unlimited main point is removal hard coded blocksize limit of 1 MB, and instead introduce soft limit, which can be easily be increased to 3MB, 4MB, and so on in the future.

Bigger blocks will have mainly 2 effects - it enables BTC to process more transactions per second and will lower transaction fees.

this isn't quite right.
BU does not remove the limit.
BU isn't even much of a change for the status quo
BU keeps a limit.
the only real difference as that it doesn't require a 1 line edit + recompile to change that limit.
ofocure the code is more involved then this, BU clients take EB and AD and such into consideration, but thats besides the point.
the point is, BU doesn't remove the limit, it just makes it user define instead of hardcoded.

I believe the biggest plus to making this blocksize limit "market driven", is that it will allow for a stable TX fee market to form.

with a static limit the size of blocks will never be optimal and always lead to a screwed up fee market, either their is simply to much blockspace ( 8MB ) in which the fee market dies and all BTC TX get in a block with no fee at all, or the blocksize is to small (1MB) and miners loss out on potential fees of including a few more TX on each block.

with this market driven limit we will not see 1MB 2MB 8MB blocks.... Nope, miners will quickly realize that its in there best interst to have a blocksize limit which creates SOME fee pressure. besides the whole "bigger blocks will hurt decentration"  rhetoric, there will be a real economic incentive to agree on a minimalistic blocksizelimit.

we'll see block size incress at rate which keeps fee pressure at an optimal rate, and honestly i just dont see TX demand going up 10X  in a year. what is more likely IMO is seeing blocks grow like  1.1MB 1.25MB 1.4MB .... up to 8MB 4 years from now once fee paying BTC TX demand has increased about 8x

I agree with Slark but his answer was obviously not the whole answer.

I have a giant problem with BlockStream using SegWit as a trojan horse to gain control over Bitcoin. I also have philosophical reasons how software should be developed and I don't think bundling a bunch of untested features into one package and deliver it to the users is a good thing to do.

I also agree with Killerpotleaf because he is right, BU will enable truly free TX fee market and it is going to be awesome. We have already powerful features such as block chain pruning, prioritized mempool, child-pays-for-parent and estimatetxfee command (all of them empower free market). Now the only thing remaining is to get rid of the block size limit and let it be driven by the free market. When that's done we should focus on lightning network and other such nice-to-have features.

Also, here's a today's update on SegWitCoin losing to Bitcoin Unlimited even more day-by-day:
https://s22.postimg.org/ly0v9mn41/Screenshot_from_2017_03_10_08_50_41.png

Bitcoin Unlimited doing good. We can make this altcoin bubble burst, just keep supporting the good stuff.

https://s28.postimg.org/vkwan4hot/Screenshot_from_2017_03_12_15_14_21.png

From the day when antpool mined based on bitcoin unlimited the network has been gaining potential. This time as mentioned the altcoins too were experiencing a bubble and supporting the good stuff leads to a better profiting with ease. These days the complications in transaction and it's fee to have decreased a lot.

BU is bugged.

https://i.imgur.com/85xDwQr.png

Yeah - miners thought they are in control here - but they forgot that they need devs (and exchanges also - but that is for another argument).

Amateur code, what did people expect?

This is small, the biggest bug in BU has still not been fixed and is not even recognised as such.

i.e. Emergent consensus failure bug

The 'emergent consensus' mechanism means miners can increase profit by increasing the blocksize.

The only thing stoping increasing the blocksize is the increasing cost of bigger blocks due to orphan rate.

To optimise for profit miners will have competitive pressure to reduce orphan rate and that is easily done by centralisation of  mining.

With centralised mining Bitcoin is led to a permanent failure mode as it devolves into a fully centralised system. Centralised mining and centralised nodes.

This is a massive, massive, catastrophic bug that would slowly kill Bitcoin if the network would run on BU (unlikely). This still has not been fixed by Bitcoin Unlimited.

OP, you are a dumbass for supporting BU... especially since you actually want bitcoin to appreciate in price

The bug in Bitcoin Unlimited is fixed already, updated all 3 of my full nodes and actually none were even attacked. Bitcoin Unlimited blocks continue to rule over this ugly thing SegWitCoin. Pic related, SegWitCoin sucks. And only dumbasses like Dafar (more like Jaffar) support it because they clearly don't understand that SegWit = Trojan Horse which will not serve the Bitcoin community but instead serves the interests of global bankers who want to gain control over the Bitcoin Network. They are such sore losers, just read what BlockStream's president has to say in the article linked below.

https://s16.postimg.org/oax34af51/Screenshot_from_2017_03_15_09_05_31.png

I remember bugs like this happening to core wallet back in the day when they still made effort to enhance the Bitcoin protocol. Now the core team is just stagnating. And they are so egoistic they are unable to accept defeat and unable to see that the Bitcoin network has rejected SegWit. It will never activate, they know it and they are not making any other proposal.

Many of SegWit supporters blindly think it is for the good of the community but in reality it will just fill the pockets of BlockStream CEO and other corporate gangsters. Also it will centralize Bitcoin around the Lightning Network hubs.

An Undercover Interview with Adam Back, Blockstream’s President (http://www.trustnodes.com/2017/03/13/undercover-interview-adam-back-blockstreams-president)

Can you explain how miners increase profit by increasing the block size, this doesn't compute for me. Currently miners are gaining the most out of everyone from the current status quo because of the rising fees. They could be thinking long term ie lets not make $1 on 100 transactions, let's make $0.001 on a Million transactions, but that's a long long way off and might not ever happen.

Orphans with bigger blocks would be a problem sure, which is why from what I have read, any increase that comes about will be done slowly and incrementally, again they have the most to lose if they move too quick and get orphans.

The days when everyone could mine in a significant way have long since passed, and we just have to accept the reality of what has happened, mining is now fairly centralised amongst a number of very large private farms, I don't like it much either, but it's a done deal and I don't see any way that 'bitcoin' can change that now.

Centralised nodes is just a red herring, even if blocks jumped to 32Mb tomorrow which is not what will happen, most nodes would cope just fine, and for those that can't maybe pi users with small cards then prune is available already.  Although I run 2 nodes (one of each btw) I'm not convinced that they are that important anymore and most people don't need the full blockchain anyway.

BUcoiners are at an all time high in terms of denial. BU's developer incompetence got exposed again, and not only that, all the fake nodes got taken down at once.

http://bitcoinist.com/bu-critical-bug-millions-fork/

If someone was stupid enough to consider BU, after this is definitely over. The price didn't even move because no one cares about BU, yet delusional BUcoiners will make up some story on their mind justifying the BU's shitshows time after time lol.

What's even more shocking is, they steal 99.99% of code, add 00.01% and still manage to fuck up at such level.

Bitcoin is open source so no one is stealing anything. Any one can edit and play with the codes and if it is good or will make things better then the new codes/functions will gain support.

Even if BU is shit , do they have valid critism
Of Segwit?

Bitcoin Unlimited (BU), which has been touted as being the fix to Bitcoin’s blockchain transaction backlog, has suffered a blow after attackers unleashed a new bug that crashed the system.

That was one of the more convincing statements I have read so far. Holy cow, I am glad I do not have to decide over this  ;)

It wouldn't matter if BU was the greatest code ever written. The consequences of a hard fork would be disastrous. (https://vinnylingham.com/a-fork-in-the-road-70288fd3c046#.njevxhrch)

Yeah it has been crashed and 900,000 transactions waiting to get cleared will stuck on the blockchain when system runs over capacity. One among the developer said when the bug is found we'll fix and move on. The same is not possible in a short, as blockchain has got problems because antpool is the one mine and we have got several other mines working on fork.

users won't put up with  increasing fees forever, if it continues going up, soon people will stop using bitcoin for transactions and move on to other things and transaction count will fall and fees go down again and because of people leaving price will also fall and in the long run it is miners who are fucked!

(this may take a long time but eventually it will happen)

i am not sure about what are the downsides of bigger blocks but to answer your question, bigger blocks means more transactions in one block and a higher total fee miners can get hence a higher profit. and more importantly it means scaling to match the need of 2017 not remain the same thing as it was back in couple years ago and can lead to more adoption, higher price and again more profit.

BU isn't going to produce "bigger blocks" tho..
BU is going to produce "slightly bigger blocks"


with BU, miners control block size collectively.
no way in hell will they collectively decided to create enough blockspace such that everyone can get in a block with a 1cent fee
thats nutty!

given today's TX demand, a blocksize of 1.2MB will maintain fee pressure AND generate 20% more TX fees pre block
this is what will drive blocksize growth! the growth in Fee Paying TX.
often poeple say TX demand is unbound, thats true, but 50cent Fee Paying TX is NOT unbound.
miners will look to maximize fee revenue by balancing the free market through minimal blocksize increases.

Core will be constantly pressuring miners to "keep blocks small Because Decentralization", this + the idea of maximizing fee revenue is going to prove IMPOSSIBLE for miner to ignore.

it will literally be  IMPOSSIBLE ... because step 1) they maximizes fee revenue 2) miners profitability goes UP 3) because its more profitable , more miners come online 4) more miners == less profitability 5) miners are now completely DEPENDENT on the fee market being optimized, they will need to make sure to keep fee pruess strong, and that means no unnecessary blocksize incress.

1.2MB 1.3MB  1.35MB 1.39MB

these are the increases to be expected

they need to collectively decide on blocksize, so... all that is require is a small % of hashing power to understand the profit in keeping blocks small and we'll have this optimized fee market.

You are talking about long-term benefits of bigger block size for all the people of bitcoin ecosystem. But miners prefer smaller blocks as of now for their own benefits like they can enjoy higher transaction fees along with usual mining rewards.

Bigger locks will pick more transactions hence there will be no huge amounts of pending transactions so people will start enjoying lower tx fees. But miners will suffer high resources needed for their mining processes.
The mass adoption and price increase will not happen in a week nor month but miners need to face losses (compared to their today's benefits) till price increase will happen.

In future (after one or two halving) miners will start earning more tx fees than block rewards hence they will always aim for higher tx fees than higher bitcoin prices.

As you say miners wan't to earn the most possible, which is why it seems counter-intuitive that they are the ones pushing for the bigger blocks, unless it's long term thinking.

With scaling in place, a balance will be found between block size to keep orphans low and high transactions to keep the backlog low.

I think fees replacing block rewards was part of the vision from the start, but to do that it has to handle a lot more transactions than at present.

It's strange to view any similarities in the code as theft of it.  Bitcoin code is open source, and there's always going to be amendments made based on what the new developers feel is needed at the time.  What people could argue is that BU's code is poorly developed, along with reasonable justifications why.

Since the date you posted this BTC has struggled and now especially that the exchanges are talking about incorporating it. BU will crash the price even further I suspect. The miners will pull back then try again and pretty soon they should be crystal clear the market does not support it at all.

While Segwit was in the ascendancy BTC was hitting new highs, was resilient after the ETF was declined and was on track for moon.

who is paying you Roger , GAVINI, CIA, to destroy bitcoin
you will win an altcoins BTCun and destruction of cryptocurrency

I don’t know about that, BU is winning but then this opens the possibility of a hard fork, what will happen then? I think the price is going to plummet for a time, and for some that is going to be the opportunity of a lifetime and will try to get as many bitcoins as possible but I don’t know if we will be able to even get back to the prices we saw before.

segwit's been solid and steady but hardly going crazy.

it's clear that the status quo is much preferred to any unlimited uncertainty. if it really did look like unlimited was gonna happen everything would turn to shit.

at the same time i dunno how much longer the status quo will remain attractive to newcomers. maybe we do need to swallow the uncertainty pain wherever it comes from to get some progress. 

Although that sounds logical to a n00b, who ever wrote that and believes that must have forgotten or flunked their high school (or perhaps as late as 2nd year university) probability and statistics math class. Reminds me of when I found a high school level probability error (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1219023.msg13288915#msg13288915) in the masternode security model in Dash's InstantX white paper, not to mention how egregiously flawed (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1219023.msg13282251#msg13282251) the Dash the Instant X design is. Evan Duffield replied, but then ran away (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1219023.msg13291423#msg13291423). Even the economic arguments for Dash's flawed design were refuted (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1446996.msg14635609#msg14635609). Note that Dash's required premixing (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1290263.msg13553695#msg13553695) (and even not premixing if not employing homomorphic encryption of transaction values, i.e Monero before RingCT) eliminates the possibility of merging UTXO balances and thus causes an exponential blowup in UTXO, which is an issue for scaling to trillions of microtransactions given that performance requires keeping UTXO in RAM.

The probability that another block solution will be found within the propagation time t (not to be confused with at the time t (http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/67600/likelihood-of-multiple-event-times-modeled-as-independent-poisson-processes)) is the Poisson process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_point_process#Interpreted_as_a_counting_process) (λt)e^-λt where n = 1 (i.e. only one or more occurrences required). Which as λt becomes smaller than roughly ¹/₁₀₀ then e^-λt is closely approximated by 1 - λt or approximately 1. Thus, we can see the probability that another block solution will be found within the propagation time t approximates a linear proportion λt when λt is less than roughly ¹/₁₀₀.

So with a block period (aka block time) λ of 10 minutes and a propagation time t (for finding a second block) of less than 6 seconds (and propagation will usually be less than 600 milliseconds so that is even a more linear relationship at  ¹/₁₀₀₀), then presuming roughly (on average) that doubling the block size doubles both the transaction fees and the propagation time, then the miner has the same income on average with the largest possible block they can make because doubling the risk of another miner finding a block also doubles the miner's income per block statically speaking. If you don't understand this, then read it over and over until you grasp the mathematical (statistical) point that the quoted statement above is incorrect and there is no free market limit on block size and no fee market. The point being that yes the risk of another miner winning the block increases, but the miner's income commensurately (proportionally) also increases, so statistically the miner loses nothing by creating a larger block and thus is leaving tranactions fees on the table for some other miner to take if the miner doesn't make a larger block. However presuming some transactions pay less per byte than others (and higher valued transactions can afford to pay more per byte), the economic converse effect occurs wherein the miner has the incentive to make the smallest block possible or below the size where propagation latency is linearly proportional to block size (i.e. the latency that is a constant factor independent of data transferred), which is again not a free market limit on block size and not a fee market. So the same Tragedy-of-the-Commons occurs that has always been argued as the problem with unlimited block size, in that the power vacuum must be filled by a collusion of miners which pool their (at least 33% of the systemic) hashrate and selfish mine against the rest of the network enforcing a block size which maximizing their profit which is basically the highest level of fees x volume the market will bear. I had even argued (I claim successfully) against @ArticMine that Monero's algorithmically adjusting block size suffers from a similar Tragedy-of-the-Commons outcome (ultimately due to the power-law centralization of mining economies-of-scale). No matter how you slice and dice it, Satoshi's PoW will become centralized so choose your poison how you want to get there, Bitcoin Core (aka Blockstream) funded by banksters (https://gist.github.com/shelby3/c786018a8bb2d8d837abce3a4cf4e799) or Bitcoin Unlimited (with insufficient developer resources) lead by technical incompetents such as Roger Ver. This is why I designed (a yet unpublished) solution for blockchain consensus which is not PoW and not PoW (something totally new, which I am working on now).

Even if you try to argue that propagation out to the minority hashrate can take up to minutes, the most profitable (i.e. winning) economics models selfish mining (https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0243) wherein only the minimum propagation time to only 33% of the hashrate is relevant, thus it is likely to be (and currently is (http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/10821/how-long-does-it-take-to-propagate-a-newly-created-block-to-the-entire-bitcoin-n/17536#answer-17536) even to the average network diameter, i.e. the majority) less than 6 seconds.

Bitcoin has taken a big hit because of Bitcoin Unlimited. Roger Ver with his recent affiliation with the technologically flawed Dash (and his Dash pump) and attacking Bitcoin with big blocks is really trying to shake things up, but as I had explained (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1811798.msg18052858#msg18052858) Roger Ver is somewhat technically myopic. Also perhaps some people may be speculating Winkervoss twins might liquidate.


P.S. I liked @gmaxwell's explanation (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1001642.msg10922949#msg10922949) of why cryptocurrency fundamentally must rely on cryptography.


Edit: @aklan made me aware of (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1739268.msg18247656#msg18247656) a Bitcoin Unlimited white paper, which I am reading now and will respond soon.

The math in Bitcoin Unlimited is incorrect:

---

Here is another way to realize how ridiculous @Peter R's (Bitcoin Unlimited's) thesis is.

Let's assume every miner had the same hashrate and the same propagation delay, i.e. perfect equality, and so the equilibrium block size was established at rate at which the waste costs of orphans for the entire system was balanced with what the market was willing to pay for transaction fees. But every miner would have an incentive to have a higher share of the hashrate and a faster than average propagation delay, because those who did would win a disproportionate share of the rewards (if you don't understand why then you need to study the original selfish mining paper (https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0243) and the followup on optimal mining strategies (https://arxiv.org/abs/1507.06183)).

So the natural market outcome is that miners would sign their blocks with a public key representing their reputation to not send invalid blocks. So then miners (pools) would be economically incentivized to trust each other and send only the signed block headers so they can begin mining on the new blocks as fast as possible with only constant factors of propagation (independent of block size). Of course they can still propagate the block data for verification but propagation delay no longer matters. Miners who didn't participate would be less profitable and lose share of hashrate over time. So then you end up with no free market limit on block size, i.e. no fee market. Once again a power vacuum ensues and there must be winner-take-all power-law aggregation of economies-of-scale. This is why Satoshi's PoW is flawed as a decentralization paradigm.

Q.E.D.

It doesn't matter whether you choose SegWit/Core or Bitcoin Unlimited, both are centralized control paradigms. But Bitcoin Unlimited means massive chaos and market confusion (thus probably a cratering price which destroys many miners) until the power structure takes form that takes control over the chaos (which will then be no better than Core because again a monopoly over block size and extracting maximum transaction fees the market will bear). At least with Core, we already have the banksters in control and leading us over the cliff. Continuity is what the miners need right now, until someone invents a real solution. So the miners will reject Bitcoin Unlimited unless they want to shoot themselves in the foot with chaos and cratering price. I think the market will quickly rally behind the most continuous path and reject the copycoin, same as it did for Ethereum Classic. If you don't actually bring a solution for anyone, then don't go fucking up the market and creating needless chaos, because the market will reject it.

its reassuring knowing all these crackpot theories of DOOM will be put to the test.

Let's put that to a test right now. I am going to refute you and let's see if the market is paying attention, because miners damn well better be paying attention (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1819153.msg18252539#msg18252539).

Perhaps you haven't noticed that before I made my shocking math post, the Bitcoin price was declining, since I made my post then the BTC price has risen 5% and miner support for BU has declined (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1833771.msg18252777#msg18252777). I think the market is paying attention and that is why I am following up with more explanation (when I should be sleeping instead because it is 2:30am where I am and I am on medications).


One thing is very clear, and that all those strategies were already in play. What unlimited block sizes bring that is new is they hand another club membership tool for the large pools and mining farms to use against those who don't adhere to their cartel (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1819153.msg18252539#msg18252539).


But it is instantly the case when the block size is unlimited and transaction fees can be as small as any level of spam one wants to incentivize (or even miners paying themselves the transaction fees so they can spam the other miners will huge block sizes with the disproportionate profits going to those with more hashrate, faster propagation, and secret signing agreement cartels (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1819153.msg18252539#msg18252539)).


Incorrect. I refer you to the research on optimal mining strategies. You are behind the curve of the current knowledge of the experts in the field.

I agree that the BU FAQ is incorrect - there always has been a fee market and always will be a fee market, no matter how slack it may be at any given point. The only time it is readily apparent is when there is extreme stress on the system.


There is no free market limit on block size and no fee market, yet miners will enforce the highest level of fees x volume the market will bear? Unless my interpretation of what you stated is mistaken, this appears to be a contradiction.

Miners are the fee market makers, but they are beholden to market forces external to Bitcoin. The free market still determines the limits one way or another, directly or indirectly.

Finally: yes, centralization is still inevitable with either BC or BU.


Bitcoin had a high-volume low on the 18th and broke up through an hourly downtrend on low volume over 9 hours ago. It broke up through a second downtrend only a few hours later, again on low volume. I bought at $988 based on the charts, before reading your BU critique. It was time.

Additionally, the markets have risen at times when both BC and BU were gaining. They've likewise fallen in a similar manner. While your analysis is important, I am far more inclined to think that forces external to Bitcoin have a much greater weight on price than the BC/BU issue.

As for the BC/BU debate generally... due to centralization, I expect Bitcoin to rapidly become a beast of coercion and control instead of the territory of freedom (http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09971.html) that held for several years. Regardless of technical merit on either side, the actions of "core" have been beyond reprehensible. A doctor with the greatest ability and skill eventually amounts to nothing if his bedside manner is derogatory and dismissive. The core team chose to stand on a platform of abuse and control and that has resulted in market forces ultimately resisting the proposed solution.

From what I see the price is headed higher despite the division, not because one side or the other is gaining. For every person engaged in the debate, there may be a hundred using the system that remain unaware.

Well yes there is a natural Invisible Hand outcome (if natural is what you mean by free market), but the fee market will be centrally controlled by a cartel extracting the maximum the market will bear instead of a competitive, decentralized market where demand curve meets supply curve (see @Peter R's video for an excellent visual explanation), thus not a free market in that sense of my interpretation of the meaning of the term free market. But that can't be avoided with Satoshi's PoW design no matter which direction we choose (centralization it is an insoluble attribute of Satoshi's PoW concept because of optimal mining strategies give disproportionate rewards greater than their percentage share to those who have greater share of hashrate and/or faster propagation). The reason everyone is fighting is because PoW has no decentralization future (no matter what we do and it can't be fixed, not even with SegWit). We'll need to find something else other than PoW before we all lose our idealism, but (D)PoS and Byzantine agreement (e.g. Tendermint, Casper, etc) are also centralization. So nobody has a solution to offer (I am not going to promote my work here right now).

So we are in agreement on the outcome, just a different interpretations of the definitions of terms.


Just because it was time for someone to write the posts I did, doesn't mean that my posts didn't help convince a lot of people who were scared and read this Speculation forum. Others have been writing similar points, but afaik (?) not directly refuting the math of @Peter R and BU's white paper.

I agree it was naturally time and also naturally time for someone like me to be motivated to take their head out of the programming cave sand and say, "hey n00bs, enough is enough on these incorrect technology arguments from Roger Ver, here are the bottomline facts". I mean really Tone Vays is not the best technically qualified person to be matched up against Roger Ver in a debate, nor the best (most succinct, direct to the winning salient point, etc) debater.


I do seem to have an uncanny timing lately eh? (probably just blind luck or am I just by very naturally well in tune with the biorhythm of the community since I have 1% of all posts on these forums?)


Core is simply a manifestation was has to happen in order to motivate what ever comes next.

I happen to believe a solution is coming, but you know I am very biased. I better put my head back in the sand and continue working on what I believe is that solution so it might be ready when it is really  absolutely needed.

We'll get 2 Mb soon and hopefully that will give us a little bit of time yet... hopefully creative destruction is underway...

And I agree we can move above $2000 with Core...

I think you are letting your ego fool you into thinking correlation = cause and effect.

And your proof is? So your opinion is more correct than my opinion, except I have a correlation and you have only an opinion. Besides, didn't you read my reply to @miscreanity where I disavowed having any such power that you are insinuating that I claimed to have.

You don't consider that maybe I posit a different sort of power...

@miscreanity, even if your $988 is violated and we move lower, it could still be an accurate channel if we view BTU+BTC as a combined price. We may end up getting BTU for free which we can trade for BTC. However, it appears BTU is not going to add the necessary replay attack prevention in order to get listed on the exchanges. BTU appears to understand that their coin will be sold off as an inferior altcoin if they add replay attack prevention. Seems like they are already admitting defeat and acting desperate maniacal now.

Although nobody likes the current problem with the 1MB blocks, an unlimited blocksize is not a viable technological solution. Sorry but incompetents aren't going to be trusted to lead Bitcoin. Roger Ver and Julian Wu are not competent enough to pull off what they attempted.

I am very very sleepy (8am here haven't slept whole prior day and night), but I wrote this further explanation for someone who didn't understand what I wrote above:

You need to watch Peter R's video which I linked. The orphan rate is what % of the block solutions get thrown away because another block was found and formed a longer chain. I hope you understand orphans. So the % of orphans is the amount of wasted hashrate in the network. The hypothesis is that as we increase the block size to accomodate more transactions, then the orphan rate increases due to higher block propagation time across the network of nodes (and that time t is in the equation for the orphan rate). Thus we say there would be an equilibrium point at which the level of transaction fees the market would bear meets the cost in wasted hashrate. That is Peter R's (and Bitcoin Unlimited's) thesis (in their whitepaper). But I explain that thesis is incorrect, because it assumes that miners all have the same hashrate and propagation delays. Then factor in what I wrote after that, "optimal mining strategies give disproportionate rewards greater than their percentage share to those who have greater share of hashrate and/or faster propagation". Now re-read my explanations with that in mind and perhaps it will make more sense to you?

Yes, and the clarification was helpful.


Fair enough, solid point.


Chalk it up to experience :)

I'm looking at a range of $950-980 and anything consistently below that falls into very dangerous territory. I think a split would lead to a major shift into Ethereum with a period of decline and consolidation for Bitcoin.

Unlimited block size may not be a technological solution, but I think the end-game would be reasonably far off - at least a year or two. Personally I'd rather risk choosing the BU team since they can learn and add to the team, whereas core is so sclerotic that it would be game over immediately.

So if I understand you correctly, you assert that the fact that not everyone is willing to pay the same transaction fee rate in BTC/B, this is somehow demonstrative of a failure of free markets? Cause that's what it looks like you are claiming.

You seem to have successfully demonstrated the central argument that each miner is incentivized to include as many high-BTC/B transactions up to the point where transaction fee = marginal orphanage cost. So what is the problem? Why do you consider this as 'not free market'?

I see nothing in this that suggests BU is worse than core in this regard. Help me understand.

And chaos in the meantime possibly enabling Ethereum to take the #1 position and run far ahead with the ecosystem network effects. Bitcoin potentially killed once it loses is #1 position.

I've already hedged by trading some BTC to ETH as I wrote today (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1663070.msg18259888#msg18259888).

Thus I expect the market to kill BTU when the opportunity presents itself. Because the competition from Ethereum by this summer is going to be forcing the Bitcoin camps to strangle each other and have a winner. I am hedging because it appears that many n00bs (even so many proclaimed experts who comment in these threads suck as @franky1) are technologically ignorant enough to believe that unlimited block size is good.

It doesn't mean I like Core's attitude, politics (see my prior fights with @gmaxwell for example), and their bankster funding, but I am just being pragmatic about the fact that there is no fix for Satoshi's PoW, and at least LN provides some hype about moving forward towards instant transaction scaling (although it must be through centralized hubs to actually work and even then it has many flaws).


But look how incompetent BU is! They totally mucked up the game theory and math on unlimited blocks. Roger Ver has been spreading incorrect technological argumentation about 0-confirmation security.

So I don't want them in charge. They will surely destroy Bitcoin because they are young, inexperienced, and incompetent. And they don't have the level of technological peer review and IQ that the collective 170+ developers on Core have.

And worst of all, they think they are so righteous yet blind to how their proposals are objectively worse (or they are deviously hiding what their true aims are). Given that Roger Ver is apparently now involved with the fraud model of DASH (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1814789.msg18255081#msg18255081), it makes me ponder there is more going on than the eye can see.


Here we go:


Although this wall of worry is a buying opportunity, because there must be a winner. But there is the possibility that ETH is the winner. Thus I am now hedging because too many Bitcoiners (especially too many talking heads) follow incompetents such as Ver and Wu.

---

Adding the following from an Altcoin Discussion thread, because I want to emphasize to Bitcoin maximalists that Bitcoin Unlimited is tarnishing BTC's flagship position:


My 2 cents summary... (since I also had to make a decision on this today)

ETH also appears it will end up having the first secure instant off chain transactions system (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1739268.msg18260129#msg18260129) (although realistically via centralized hubs).

BTC is failing into paralysis and self-destruction (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1819153.msg18260626#msg18260626), which is tarnishing its former flagship image.

DASH is a fool's pyramid pump scheme (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1832869.msg18261590#msg18261590).

Monero (XMR) doesn't have instant transaction scaling so I can't put it in the same league as the others. @AnonyMity (and privacy) is a feature every serious ecosystem can offer as an option so IMO it isn't sufficient as a sole selling point. Monero has a self-adjusting block size algorithm (but I've argued all PoW systems are subject to the same centralization effect as they scale regardless), but adoption is about scaling and ecosystem applications. Monero might be a good diversification, but speaking for myself as currently a risk adverse speculator, the chart isn't the same as BTC, ETH, and DASH so there might be something else going on there (although one could argue it is same or exaggerated first hump due to BTC millionaire @rpietila shilling it in 2014). Not sure. Ditto Byteball's chart doesn't give me enough confidence to bet big on it (and also know it has major technical flaws such as the transaction fee design and the witness replacement mechanism), although for speculators who want more risk they might consider it.

Thus I've diversified into ETH (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1739268.msg18260129#msg18260129) (with BTC that technically isn't even mine as it was given to me by my angel investor). Best of the worst. Except I do agree that Ethereum has more app-specific (aka smart contract) ecosystem development than any other.


I agree about Bitcoin except Bitcoin is putting that #1 position in great danger by mucking around with HFs such as the technologically myopic Bitcoin Unlimited.

I agree on Dash.

I agree the possibility of hacks in Ethereum is great, but I am not diversifying into it long-term. I'll be back out of it again when I see the next YUGE smart contract which a hacker can target. I think Ethereum's community will be much more diligent about not letting such a concentrated accumulation occur again at this nascent stage of the new pump that is just getting under way (as it passed its ATH recently).

The real world use is that is a massive experimentation platform for figuring out which applications of blockchains might be worthwhile. And a speculators ICO paradise. Massive amount of smart contract ICO app activity kicking in now. ETH is the next hot thing coming as Dash's pump gets nearer to its apex.

BTC is undergoing turbulence and I think ETH will step on accelerator for the next month or two at least, while BTC and BTU slug it out. ETH and ETC already had their war and Vitalik won.

Im also looking at how to profit from the BTC/Bucoin situation and I was considering ETH, but im not sure what % should I move on there.

Where are you holding your ETH? even if it's short term holding, I don't trust poloniex.

Also, you claimed Core will eventually win and BTC will see $2000 because BUcoin is fundamentally flawed and compared it to the ETH/ETC situation.

Seems clear there is a good chance to potentially double your BTC holdings for free (minus the % you move to ETH in case BTC actually becomes a mess... let's hope this does not happen)

My problem is: ETC never had any relevant amount of hashrate, BU has 40%+ already. Hashrate is supposed to follow price, but im worried it will be the opposite: people will get scared and move to BU if we see a bigger hashrate.

Then we also have Roger Ver loaded with up to 300,000+ BTC ready to dump to crash the BTC price and trigger fear and get people buying BUcoins in a DASH pump style (in fact he may crash DASH in the process, to make it look everyone is moving into BUcoin)

Interesting poker game.. if it wasn't for the fact that my entire fucking portfolio is on the line. And I can't move to FIAT because as soon as I move to FIAT i'll be raped by the taxman, that is if I don't get my bank account frozen if they see I dealt with crypto... ffs.

There's also the option to simply hold in USDT (Tether) but im not sure if you can hold this safely outside of poloniex.

Edit: bonus option... there's also the possibility that Jihan Wu backpeddles and doesn't hard fork. But I think his ego is too big and he will go to the end, assuming he isn't being paid to try to kill bitcoin that is.

Much to contemplate...

@iamnotback

you write a lot of text and you fail to deliver your point. please go rant somewhere else or learn to explain your thoughts more briefly. yes, there are a lot of cool words in the English language and I'm sure you'd like to use all of them but if you want people to bother to read your texts then keep it short. I believe this is not a poetry subforum. I've seen your kind in the university, you have a lot to learn how communication works on the Internet. I'll bet you're not good with girls either.

I guess your fallacy lies in the fact that you assume everyone else is as egoistic as you are. You're probably also an atheist. Well, here's a big shocker for you --- people are not as egoistic as you think they are. Miners care about the future of Bitcoin and since they have invested a lot in mining equipment they will most likely defend their investment. If miners vote for bigger blocks then so be it, that's Nakamoto consensus and it's the Bitcoin I signed up for in 2011. If you don't like it GTFO and start your own shitcoin with a different ruleset.

Only to those who lack the intellect/patience to comprehend/contemplate the point. I've had numerous smart people (very highly respected members of this forum but I won't name them) peer review this and tell me in private messages that @Peter R's thesis is flawed.


Sorry if math and blockchain game theory and economics can't be reduced to a sound bite. I think you'd prefer Twitter.


Then they better not create a protocol with unlimited size blocks, because then they will end up fighting a war between themselves for winner-take-all. But you didn't understand my explanation of the game theory. And these BU miners apparently don't either. But actually I think they do understand and they must know that they do want a winner-take-all control. And so they are trying to take what they think they own from us the owners of the actual tokens (but then later it turns into a battle between themselves and that is one humorous irony of it).

Hey I also want a larger block size. It is ridiculous we are still stuck at 1 MB. There needs to be some reasonable balance between fees and block size. But unlimited (unbounded) size is a different thing entirely.

It is Roger Ver who doesn't understand technology and game theory issues as well as he thinks he does, who is messing everything up by going around putting incorrect lies into the minds of n00bs such as yourself.

I realize that Core is also probably doing something sneaky as well. And I realize that they put things in SegWit such as the ability to softfork version changes which can basically given them unlimited power in the future. I understand there is likely evil going on there. But as a holder of BTC tokens, I don't want chaos. I want continuity. And I also don't want people who propose broken ideas, to have the power to create chaos. If you want to challenge Core, you shouldn't be promulgating an incorrect white paper which was not peer reviewed.


I empathize. The 1 MB block is holding back Bitcoin and thus harming miners' investment. I am not saying that I agree with the 1MB block. There is this battle between Core and miners for control apparently. If you wanted to upend Core, then you should have more competent people who would have advised you that unbounded block size doesn't have an equilibrium.


Fact is that if no one wants to buy tokens from their unbounded size blocks protocol, then they can burn their excess hashrate at a loss until they go bankrupt. That is the reality. Excess hashrate supply doesn't force demand for tokens. It is demand for tokens that determines the supply of hashrate. You've got that backwards.

The polls I've seen and the policy of the exchanges seems to show that your mining cartel buddies are going to lose. But we'll have to see how this plays out.

My popcorn is ready. I don't really have any vested interest in this fight (I had planned to ride BTC to $2000+ until this fight with BTU came on to the scene and forced me to look into this and diversify a bit). I am more of an observer, except that I wanted to set the record straight on whether unlimited size blocks are a solution (they are not).

Yes I am making a shitcoin where "miners" have no power at all to do shit like this. But that is not here nor there relevant right now.

@iamnotback
what is the current max block size BU miners are willing to accept

I have no idea. Wasn't there originally a compromise offered at 8MB by some group? I haven't been following the ongoing wranglings.

But unbounded block size was a proposal that killed my trust in their competence. And having Roger Ver as their spokesman making incorrect statements about for example 0-confirmations security makes me not trust BU's competence.

Currency is about confidence. I don't have sufficient confidence in their competence (nor do I trust that their intentions are totally sincere and good because unbounded size blocks is a weapon against smaller and non-cartel affiliated miners).

But Bu is just an altcoin. does it mean that bitcoin will become just like any other altcoin?

BU is not an altcoin, it is a proposal to solve the Bitcoin's block size issue. Bitcoin's consensus is working as originally intended by Satoshi Nakamoto (miners vote with their hashing power). Right now miners increasingly prefer Bitcoin Unlimited. BU does not actually mean unlimited block size. It means unlimited potential.  Doing nothing hurts Bitcoin more than increasing the block size a little.

@iamnotblack

Long text = shit text. If you can't deliver your arguments reasonably briefly then your arguments might not be worth reading. Conventional rhetoric does not work in the Internet whether you like it or not. And believe me, you wouldn't want to raise your annoying voice in the jungle either. Those who need long paragraphs to explain a simple idea are basically executing a Denial of Service attack on the readers. My response to your DOS is simply to ignore it.

You have this unreasonable paranoia of potentially unlimited blocks and then you have this wild fantasy of how you imagine market equilibrium playing out. You refer to "smart people" and you think you have nailed it. Don't make me laugh. If you're so smart then why aren't you rich yet? Because everyone else is too stupid to believe your ideas and see the light? Let me tell you something about online debates. You can't win them. So if you are writing long texts and I am refusing to read them then you are the jackass DOSing yourself while writing stuff that no one bothers to read. At the end of the day I believe even more in the Bitcoin Unlimited project and you will probably believe even more in this new altcoin called SegWitCoin that innovates by introducing Proof-of-BlockStream where consensus is dictated by the best interests of the BlockStream company.

Consistency of blockchain state within the protocol is an orthogonal concept to decisions to change the protocol, which only the token users have the power to decide. The miners are just the paid workers for the former activity. They have absolutely no power to change the protocol. For example, a 51% attack is not a change in the protocol.


Afaik, there is nothing in BU's protocol which insures that the block size can only increase "a little". Your third quoted sentence above is not even wrong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong).


Well those who make the wrong decisions end up bankrupt. So let's hope we all get a chance to decide whether to hold BTU or BTC. Because I understand BTU is incompetent and its supporters don't understand blockchain technology.

thats what core wants us to think!

devs provide options, nodes(users + miners) pick and choose the best options.
thankfully the devs do things like signaling so we can see who's willing to accept what so we can work toward consensus.

believe it or not devs to not get to force consensus.

we are all kind of nessary to the consensus process.

we need devs to provide the code
miners must be willing to run it
nodes must also be willing to run it
and most importantly ( but the easiest to sway ) , the economic majority must be willing to go along with it.

Sometimes a key developer is not fungible and not replaceable.

But miners are fungible and when the token has a value, then the miners come. Miners are just paid fungible slaves. They better accept their role and STFU, unless they want to 51% attack BTC but I am hoping they don't start that war (and I think they know it wouldn't make much sense to do it).

As a full node operator I have a power to reject blocks larger than my threshold of confidence. Core does not even provide the users with such an option which is incredibly selfish of them. It puzzles me how you are quite reasonable with constructing the arguments backing up your own philosophy but when trying to undermine the opposing philosophy you suddenly lose the way of reason and give in to emotion. As a market equilibrium expert you should know that miners are definitely not going to increase block size to infinity. Even if they wanted to it would be physically impossible due to orphan rate.


That's right. You cast your vote and I'm casting mine. But those who have so far been neutral in this debate will most likely choose the side that does not censor opposing arguments (which by the way is a big red sign of weakness).

Depending on miners is probabil bitcoin's biggest flaw. But people think satoshi is modern jesus so they will fight you for saying otherwise. He who left us the 10 commandments cannot be wrong. It is said.

Then that open source project has failed, whatever it is.

IMO miners are working perfectly

there is a large % of the community that wants bigger blocks, and now we see that being reflected in hashing power.

make no mistake, poeple aren't looking at BU "because miners", miners are looking at BU "because people!"

How so ? In bitcoin miners can have all the power and they can do whatever they like. And probably not even 1 out of 100 miners can further develop the protocol. And what iamnotback meant by that is generally true in crypto space because there aren't really too many alternatives in a programming niche at it's inception. Imagine replacing vitalik. Who better to understand what he created if not him ?

when consesus abot segwit and bitcoin unlimited is end
or now consensus is end, and bitcoin can use block size bitcoin unlimited

A miner can always reject a block and continue mining on the current block or next block in Satoshi's PoW. That doesn't necessary stop unbounded sized blocks in BU from being the winning block. Read on for why...


The very large blocks are a weapon that the mining cartel can use to bankrupt those who aren't in the cartel. If you had read my upthread explanations, then I wouldn't need to repeat myself.

The orphan rate rate doesn't impact the cartel that wins 51% of the blocks, because they see the winning blocks instantly (whereas the non-cartel miners have to eat the propagation time of those slow blocks and thus the high orphan rate).

Your extreme ignorance of blockchain technology is on display.



Gmaxwell was very condescending to me in the past as well and censored my posts numerous times. Core has some arrogance, but they are collectively very darn smart about the technological details. Hey I'd love to kick Core's ass in the market place (and I am actually hoping to do it!). So don't think I am in love with Core.

I am not condoning all the political fighting that has been going on. But personality issues are not a justification to switch to an extremely flawed protocol of unbounded block size.

If you would just realize that I support everything you want in terms of we need a solution to the block size problem. I just don't want you to destroy Bitcoin because you don't know what you are doing. Blockchain technology is complex.

please tell us more about how BU is vulnerable to 51% attack.

I didn't write that. You don't even understand what I am writing. Even with only 33% of the hashrate, I had written the cartel has a 0 orphan rate on the blocks they produce which gives them a disproportionate advantage (c.f. the famous selfish mining paper). I understand why Core blocked you guys. It is impossible to have technical discussion with those who can't comprehend it. It becomes noise.

---

oh ic
" if miners have 51% they can be rendered immune to block propagation time. "

I didnt realize that!
i'm going to run a core node now

thanks!

You have entirely not paid attention where I wrote upthread that the cartel can sign their blocks and propagate the block headers and begin mining immediately on the next block with very low propagation times. But for the non-cartel members the cartel can propagate the entire block. That applies no matter what % of the hashrate the cartel has, even as low as 33% (or even lower).

Just because you can't assimilate all that I've written, doesn't mean I have the time to convince you about your forthcoming errors and noise.

You Bitcoin Unlimited people are not competent about blockchain technology and game theory.

Core probably got tired of repeating the same explanations and seeing your inane replies that evidenced to them that you had 0% reading comprehension.

will you stop with the superiority complex.

how about to start thinking about what you're going to say when the miners dont create huge blocks, and incress blocksize little bits at a time such that fee pressure is low-ish and relatively constant, in order to maximize fee, and ehhhhhhhh NOT destroy bitcoin.

So if I read this correctly, your insight is that a collusion of parties can force their will upon the network? Yes - we've known this since 2009.

If you have successfully demonstrated  that unbounded block size cannot reach an equilibrium outside a majority-collusion environment, I have missed it. If your argument is that there is no equilibrium in a majority-collusion environment, then your fear is as valid for today's Bitcoin than it is under unbounded blocksize. Nakamoto consensus is -- as far as we know -- dependent upon 'a majority of honest [miners]'.

And as a practical matter, Bitcoin operated just fine for multiple halvings with no practical bound on blocksize. This may be partially explained by a relatively amount of mining centralization, but such does not seem monotonically increasing. Certainly, we've had actually naked over half hashpower in a single entity before.

Yes you missed it. I have already explained the math (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1819153.msg18270284#msg18270284) for why there is no relationship between an average orphan rate and a cost per byte (which is a necessary prerequisite for a supply curve as explained by @Peter R's paper). In other words, if we model that every miner has the same orphan rate, then there is no level of block size which is more or less favorable to the miner, because difficulty adjusts to the same level for all the miners. In other words, the wasted hashrate of the orphan rate is paid for by income from the block because all miners have the same costs (@Peter R's model inherently presumes that hashrate and propagation delay are uniformly distributed).

It is only when we model relativistic orphan rate (which @Peter R's paper doesn't even consider) that we will see any relative profit levels and able to model orphan rate as a cost. @Peter R should have realized this, but he apparently didn't quite realize that his model was meaningless although he did mention some of these issues that perplexed him in his concluding remarks.

Once we do model differing orphan rates for different miners, then the optimal strategies for mining come into play. And if you work out the game theory of that, you realize that collusion and centralization are the only possible outcome.


Also I received a reply in private from one of the people I asked to peer review the issue:

---

You are making a similar error as those two others did upthread. A 51% (or even 33% selfish mining) attack is not a change in protocol. In other words, in BTC the miners can't make huge blocks, because it violates the protocol limit of 1MB.


There was minimum advised fee and there were pools doing anti-spam such as I think I've read that Luke Jr's pool rejected dust transactions. I haven't studied that period of time in great detail, so perhaps someone else would be better qualified to discuss that with you.

To all Bitcoin Unlimited supporters, I am not against larger blocks. I haven't been following all the detailed developments, so the following might contain some errors.

My thought is reformulate your protocol to have some where between 2 - 8MB block size limit increasing with the Nielsen Law of bandwidth increase (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/law-of-bandwidth/) (slower exponential growth than Moore's law). Also you must adopt some of the bug fixes in SegWit, such as the new opcode which fixes malleability and enables Lightning Networks.

But do not adopt all the rest of the complexity of SegWit, including do not adopt the ability to softfork version changes as that hands too much power to Core.

Go do that, then maybe you can win. Because likely users will end up choosing to support your protocol because their transactions are not being delayed. But you need to build confidence in your competence to lead.

You can possibly win, if you get competent people working with you.

But you need to rein in these talking heads who are not sufficiently competent, i.e. Wu and Ver. They can talk when they cite competent developers. Those guys need to understand the limits of their role and competencies.

You are apparently competing against banksters who are funding the Core developers (paying their large salaries and incentives). Perhaps that may explain why you ostensibly can't attract the most competent developers?

I am not against what you want in terms of fixing the block size problem. I am just being pragmatic. Find a confidence building and realistic way to win. I don't like being on the losing side.

I highly advise that you all back down from your current ultimatum and reformulate and get the token holders on your side before you proceed. You really need a more capable leader than Wu or Ver. But don't enlist me, because I am too busy on my own "shitcoin" project and I am not interested in investing my effort in Satoshi's PoW. It is good to have those guys on your side, but not as the outspoken de facto leaders, because they have by now proven they are rash, irrational, and somewhat technologically incompetent.

Great words, sir.

Although I do not agree with the sentiment against Core (I think Greg Maxwell and most others are very reasonable people who truly care about censorship resistance and monetary freedom), the points 'iamnotback' raises about the technical and game theoretic incompetency of BU and their supporters are correct in my opinion. BU can't win in their current state, even if they get a large majority hashrate behind them. I used to be critical of Core and supported Bitcoin XT for a short while, but that was because I didn't understand Core's position and reasons for not supporting a larger blocksize limit and they weren't exactly communicating much with the community at that time. This has changed and I understand their reasons a lot better now, and so they have earned my support back. My opinion on the whole blocksize issue also blinded me from looking critically at XT, and this is a bias I do not wish to repeat with BU or other alternative implementations. I don't like entrenched positions and opinions, I prefer an unbiased and open look without assuming bad faith upon the other one. I see both sides assuming bad faith here and it saddens me. We should be more united as a community, even if we have individual disagreements about the way forward. Ditching Core is not the solution, we can't throw away the best developers in the field because of unfounded conspiracy theories or because of censorship on reddit. We should adopt SegWit as soon as possible and then work together forward towards Lightning and a HF with wide support from the entire community.

If this is not possible, then just fork already so we can move on with SegWit and no longer have to listen to these endless debates that are going nowhere. I'm sure BU supporters have their own forum somewhere where they can discuss their stuff.

i do not agree the difference is only 10% based on the chart, they are there, just more number of percentage for BU because a pool decided to test the new chain, antpool is not fully going with BU yet, don't be deceived, until it pass 50-60% i'm not worried about a hard fork for good reason

Hey Shelby - I'll circle back to your previous post after this (that one requires more thought). First, I need to say that I don't 'speak for BU'. I'm just a guy that thinks their vision is correct. Most intelligent BU discussion does not happen on the more core-centric venues. I'm just trying to dispel a lot of the falsehoods told here about BU and the intent of its proponents.


Good. That's a starting point for a dialogue.


But BU has a block limit. The difference here is that it is adjusted in an ongoing manner by a community process. If 2 or 8MB is the proper value at one point in time, then that will be the limit. If we go with some other fixed value, we'll just be fighting this battle again in no time, with all the wasted friction, animosity, and market turmoil that it entails.

I realize there are skeptics that scoff at the emergent consensus idea, but there is science behind this concept. Granted, its application to this field is novel. At least as surfaced in this manner. But in the end, each party has the ability to change the blocksize they'll accept anyhow, by a localized change to source and recompiling. We are just making it easier for the user to make this change on the fly.

From my perspective, no. You are not going to convince me to abandon the scalable blocksize vision. With the caveat that I'm still thinking about your previous post.

I detect no deviation in the BU community at large from this principle either. Especially as -- after over a year of hard effort -- the tide seems to be turning in our direction.


By and large, there is no effort against adoption of segwit (the targeted feature in isolation - not the bundle of cruft which is The SegWit Omnibus Changeset) within the BU community. We recognize that malleability is something that is worthy of addressing. However, it is really a tertiary concern. For all the heat and light, I have yet to be shown that malleability has actually caused any systemic failure. Or significant value loss. The restriction of ~250,000 transactions per day, on the other hand, is a systemic problem that needs fixing RFN.

So yes, let us fix malleability. Once we are past this tps barrier. If my read of the BU community is correct, segwit (likely without the centrally-planned magic number signature discount) is a contender for this fix. There is a conversation comparing and contrasting with (e.g.) FlexTrans that first needs to happen though.


Agreed. Note that the feature of which you speak is _not_ the actual segwit feature, but what I refer to above as part of 'the bundle of cruft which is The SegWit Omnibus Changeset'. I don't believe that the majority of the BU community supports this either.


(I've taken the liberty reorder a couple of your paragraphs)

For the most part, the BU community realizes that our dev workforce is not comparable to core's. We have no illusions on this point. The fact that the most significant core devs are highly paid is likely a factor, but probably not the only factor. Personally, I think a very large factor is that devs naturally want to work on the market-leading implementation of a given idea. Up until recently, that has unambiguously meant core. However, from my perspective, there has been a recent swing in the thought-space towards BU. If indeed BU can wrest the market share title, I would expect a commensurate movement of devs from core to BU. Of course there will be attrition, but we don't need many to double or quadruple our dev bandwidth.

(One other factor would be untruths repeated far and wide about features, capabilities, and even motivations of BU - some intentional and some merely repetition of falsehoods. But getting into shouting matches over this would be unproductive)

Yes, there have been bugs. Fortunately, none have caused persistent or systemic issues. And likely, more will be found. (Of course, more will likely be found within core as well). But a mediocre implementation of the right design is infinitely more valuable than a nearly-perfect implementation of the wrong design. For the former will asymptotically approach the ideal, while the latter will always be targeting off in the wrong direction. We expect BU will be that goodness.


Look. This narrative really ought to stop. Neither Ver nor Wu have any official relation to the BU community. Are they visible BU community members speaking their minds? Yes - but only in their personal capacities. The idea that they are somehow official thought leaders in the BU community is merely a false redditism. Neither of them were responsible for brainstorming nor initiating BU, and neither of them participate regularly in discussions in the primary BU venue.


Backing down is unlikely at this point. I'm certainly not.

The majority of Bitcoiners are likely unsure or ambivalent of a choice between core and BU. There is a hard core minority and a hard BU minority. I don't know the proportions, but BU seems ascendant at this moment.

No discussion of sentiment would be complete without mention of the intentional manipulation of the dialogue. While this has recently lifted to a large degree, it is undeniable that the discussion in this and other venues has been steered to marginalize BU. Accordingly, many BU supporters have left these controlled venues for others. As a consequence, core supporters -- whether out of ignorance or out of malice -- have had free reign to poison the discussion by parroting untruths re: BU. This has two consequences: 1) the actual number of BU supporters is likely larger than you perceive; and 2) this number is likely to grow as misconceptions are corrected.


Again. Neither Ver nor Wu are in any way central to the BU project. They are merely passionate supporters much like myself. They just have bigger megaphones than I due to their stature in other Bitcoin areas.

And yes - I would like to see you devote more time to your alt. While I am skeptical, not having seen your paper -- and despite our occasional inability to see eye-to-eye in the past -- I respect your intellect. Someone will make the next breakthrough in cryptocurrencies. It might be you? I have no way to judge currently, but I would not find it inconceivable.

The biggest problem in all this is that both solutions are somewhat shitty in their feature set.

Why are we at a point where only two solutions exist? The good thing about signaling is you could signal multiple options, within one "dev camp"/bitcoin client.

Core should give more options for example:
- SegWit + no block increase
- SegWit + block increase to 2MB
- NO SegWit + increase to 2MB
- xxx some other option

That way the network would decide and the Core team would not damage their reputation by "forcing" SegWit as the only option.

I still consider Core the most competent of taking care of the code, but I can't get my head around this, why not provide an alternative option to signal...

The problem with only two solutions is that one usually gets picked, even if both are bad.

(I am not counting the 8MB solution as an option since its just lazy and too extreme :) )

Edit: I read through the whole thread, good reading :)

That's perhaps the biggest problem many people have with Core. It's their way or the highway. There have been lots of meetings, conventions, and dialogues of all sorts where they pretended to negotiate. It soon became clear that the negotiations were just stalling tactics, and they haven't given an inch to anyone, nor did they ever intend to.

I agree that they're probably the most competent code caretakers, but they're absolutely terrible at management and community relations.

Seems there is another option missing in all this.

A good idea right now would be for some competent developer(s) to fork the core code (leave everything as it is) and insert another signaling option (2MB blocks for example or whatever). And keep it up to date with the core branch for any security patches not related to the scaling stuff. And still call the version BitcoinCore, just with SegWit + "xy signaling option(s)".

If the change gets voted on, core can still continue maintaining the code.

One of the reasons I dislike BU as much as I do, is not so much the actual block size implementation solution, but more about the rest of the stuff that might be buggy in the BU client.

The network needs more (reasonable - not so extreme - small step change - well maintained client) choices.

Problem is Core is a diverse bunch of people without leadership, that is kinda what it means to be decentralized. They code and review and test, but they don't have someone pulling the strings or someone who can speak for the entire team. I'm sure other options have been reviewed within their team, but SegWit was found to be the best option for the moment as the other options would all require a hard fork and that would take more time to properly prepare for. Also at this point I don't think we'll be able to find a wide consensus for SegWit + 2MB hard fork, which is what some seem to prefer here. As SegWit already provides 2MB blocks, would the extra 2MB really be worth the trouble to do a hard fork for? I believe Core would like to prepare a much better hard fork later on to increase the blocksize limit together with other things that are on the hard fork wishlist. But I don't know, maybe you should try asking them if you're curious? Like nicely? The answer may be more technical than my explanation above though.

Well I found one: https://bitcoinec.info/ :)

This is very rushed because it is 4am, I haven't slept yet, and I have a serious health issue (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1739268.msg18278379#msg18278379). Thus this may not be carefully worded nor well thought out...


It is controlled by hashrate voting per your FAQ. Look I don't want to get into another long debate, but BU does not have a protocol limit on block size and the optimal mining strategies will come into play by secret selfish mining colluding hashrate (driven by economic opportunity cost of not colluding), which afaics your models don't fully take into account.


Your researchers are ostensibly not well peer reviewed. I already I think demonstrated that upthread. I don't have time to peer review Andrew Stone's whitepaper also, because you are not paying me and from my perspective, I have more important work to do.


Unfortunately Satoshi's design is fundamentally centralized and there is nothing you nor Core can do to fix that. That is why your idealistic vision has to be myopic, otherwise you'd give up. I gave up already and let Core have the centralization and started to work on a replacement. Analogous to I wish Trump would give up already on the dysfunctional protectionism and let China eat the dying Industrial Age.

It seems y'all think you are going to achieve some decentralization, but IMO you're deceiving yourself... but to paraphrase Satoshi's rebuff of Daniel Larimer, "I don't have time to convince you...".

Not trying to be condescending though and respectfully I apologize I can't put enough effort into this to engage on every last detail needed to make you depressed and give up.  :P

I tried to suggest a K.I.S.S. compromise as reasonable middle-of-the-road scaling interim measure for the next few years while we prepare a suitable replacement for Bitcoin. But my perspective (which drives my priorities for Bitcoin, see below) is way too far out-of-the-box, so I don't bother to try to convince anyone right now about vaporware. Just do what ever you want. I am hedged.

---

Lightning Networks isn't a priority, even if for the confidence building value of at least deluding ourselves into thinking instant transactions are coming soon?

Ethereum is preparing to launch a beta of a LN clone Raiden. Python code.  :-\

(I don't have enough time to study that code)

I suspect LN will lead to centralization and bad things, but is there really any other option within the current design?


My priority need from Bitcoin right now is for it to not blowup while the experimentation to find real solutions is ongoing in the altcoin arena. Ditto I guess for most of the SegWit Takeover Omnibus thing...(a simple blocksize increase would have been sufficient and Core is probably lying!)

For me you are treating Bitcoin like an altcoin. I say you go make your own BTU fork which is what you are really doing.

You can't just say you will gradually build up competency to be BTC. In that case, you are an altcoin.

IMHO, you really can't have it both ways. But you can try and find out the hard way.  ;)


Reality is that as long as your have de facto spokesman that make your fork look like another RogerCoin (e.g. Dash), then many in the community are going to view the affiliation that way.

You can reprimand me, but IMO it doesn't rectify what I believe to be the confidence problem. Fooling n00bs via simplistic incorrect technical summaries is altcoin marketing strategy.

Sorry not trying to be a pita, so I'll try to STFU now.

I intuitively expect Core masterfully justified the necessity of their takeover (as funded by the banksters). The influential leaders can influence the flock of followers.

But I don't have time to go argue that. But I bet you I could.  ;)

So now both BU and Core hate me. Perfect.  :P

I also expect you have factions who are fighting to have the control over the centralization inherent in PoW. I expect there are powerful entities behind BU (and Core) that the useful idiots (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLqHv0xgOlc) aren't aware of it.

I am not saying this because of being in love with conspiracy theory. It is because I know as a technical fact that PoW can't be decentralized. So I expect it to be factions fighting over the control.

And so now all you hate me. Sorry. Nevertheless I continue to think Bitcoin is important and must be protected for as long as we can. But I also accept the Invisible Hand is in control.

the war debate continues to escalate, since on one is an a position of absolute power. the power struggle is complex and very real due to bitcoin's decentralized nature.

meanwhile...
"Satoshi's design is fundamentally centralized"

lol.

iamnotback
do let us know when your vaporware is ready to go, its always fascinating to learn about a new type of crypto

Not going into the ins and outs of the arguments but there is one certainty Bitcoin will hard fork shortly and what will happen to your stored bitcoins is anybodys guess.If we finish with two chains could one run zero protocol?could be a good time to integrate it

No hate from me. Crypto needs bitcoin as the poster boy first mover, but I think it's going to get eaten by the financial establishment. Same goes for ethereum, by the looks of things. Good luck to anyone trying to make something robustly decentralised!

Yes sounds perfect and convenient for someone who is trying to create a new altcoin to compete with Bitcoin. Obviously it would hurt your cause to say anything else. At the same time you need Bitcoin to stay big and healthy as it's the heart that pumps blood into all the other altcoins, including yours if your own idea ever comes off the ground. Which I have my doubts about because if I remember correctly you've been writing about creating something that's better than Bitcoin and any other altcoin for many years now. You are Anonymint are you not?


I don't hate you. I appreciate your writings although I am taking them with a grain of salt. I will agree that 100% decentralization is impossible, and right now mining is surely the opposite of decentralized. Core isn't perfect either, but at least it's way better than giving more power to that which is most centralized right now in Bitcoin, which is mining. Mike Hearn who left Core and Bitcoin earlier to work for the banks had some crazy ideas which would have been disastrous for fungibility and the censorship resistant properties of BTC, but his ideas did not become reality because other Core members and the community spoke against it. So I think we have sufficient defense mechanisms built in to ensure corrupt Core members do not screw up Bitcoin. Now we're going to see whether we also have sufficient defense mechanisms against the miners screwing up Bitcoin. I think we do.

My thought is the power struggle wouldn't exist if Bitcoin was decentralized.

I presume BU supporters think that their protocol will make the block size issue decentralized, but I think they are deceiving themselves. But I am not going to argue that point further to the extent of needing to write about Andrew's white paper and detailed discussions and tangents that would ensue.

And it doesn't matter any way whether I convince anyone.

Thanks for the encouragement. I don't want an undeserved appreciation. I haven't done anything worthy yet. My remarks were not intended to foster animosity.

But BTC could be decentralized. Unfortunately satoshi/team released it flawed.

I think i'm beginning to understand you.
I think that bitcoin is far from perfect.
but i also think that doesn't matter,
its good enough to rally behind.

we have convinced poeple to use bitcoin, we can not ask everyone to pile into some new crypto just because its "more decentralized"

I myself have toyed with SSL, i made an app that would send "coins" to 1 other app on the same localnetwork. my idea would be to do away with the miners completely. after that 1 weekend of coding, i got busy with trolling this form again  :D

lets hope your better at finishing what you start then I

Just sharing a comment from else where that I happenstanced on (bear in mind I am sleep deprived at the moment):


I figured that is why they won't prioritize malleability fix and why they need unlimited block sizes. But unlimited block sizes is a power vacuum that awards a mining cartel.

Also changing the PoW algorithm means someone might secretly have an ASIC advantage already, or someone might get one before everyone else and use it to attack the network.

I don't think the token holders will agree to a PoW algorithm change. Core will be defeating themselves.

Thus we have a standoff. Neither side can compromise because there is no compromise that works for both sides. Core wants massive scaling but with centralized LN hubs for their bankster friends. BTU wants limited scaling at what ever their mining cartel can handle on chain. Neither are decentralized.

It is a clusterfuck. I bought ETH. LTC and XMR are other options.

Edit: some proof:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1835320.msg18267014#msg18267014

@Peter R apparently doesn't agree the token holders should have any choice in the matter and is apparently willing to attack us to force us to choose BTU:

BU is bugged again it's dropping like a rock  :D

https://i.imgur.com/i4bypyv.png

ETH forking history is kinda worse though  :-\

At least the attacker fork failed. And I am not investing in an heirloom to hold for posterity. The Bitcoin fork issue is here and now. I presume ETH is no danger this week nor next nor next month.

hard to know which one was the attacker fork  :o

right i was just ganna say "ehhhh ya attackers won out in the end" lol

Is BU still planning on forking if they don't get their way on a hard blocksize fix? Or are they working towards cooperation now?

(likely I should google this .in that the above remark likely blew blood vessels of members watching this thread as they laughed at the concept of 'comprimise')

but anyway ...a hint? maybe ....someplace? of some sanity on getting this whole issue of block size fixed?

cooperation.
comprimise!
sanity!?
Bahahahahahaha!

no.

i think 90% of users and just everyone in general would want some kind of cooperation, comprimise, and sanity.
but i could be wrong.
in anycase, it doesn't seem likely

So will BU fork or will we simply be in 'limbo' with neither side gaining any traction? IMHO bitcoin core is just fine with 1mb blocks for a long time yet.
Just discouraged....it seems no longer about the best code but power.

Further discussion of @Peter R's (BU's) thesis about equilibrium with unbounded block size protocol:

---

For a moment I got confused and I thought you were referring to which of BTU or BTC is the attacker fork.  :D

I was on the side of Bruce Wanker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O5fdMFKEC0) and immutable protocols too back then.  :P

Roger Ver shorted BTC by getting into bed with Dash right before BU attack began. Then we have the Chinese mining cartel ostensibly leveraging electricity paid for by Communism attacking to maintain their hegemony of mining $1000 tokens for $50 in costs. And on the other side, we have the banksters who want to be able to get the bulk of transactions delegated to centralized hubs on Lightning Networks and Bitcoin onchain will become exclusive for them to use (only for very high valued transactions).


It is really easy to see that we the token hodlers are caught in the middle of a fight between Godzilla and King Kong. Because PoW is not decentralization!

Core tries to make it seem like they are the more rational ones with the softfork, bug fixes, enabling LN, etc.. but their agenda is clear if you really step back and compare who is fighting and the reason they can't compromise.

You keep repeating that, but it is important what is the comparison. Nothing is something without a comparison to how that something is not nothing.

Bitcoin is not competing with perfect. It is competing with the legacy banking/financial infrastructure.

I would say that PoW is not perfect unicorn land decentralization. But that PoW is more decentralized than the existing system.

If it were all that simple and if that statement was true (that PoW is not decentralization) a scaling solution would be forced much faster.

@krile, upthread I was arguing for continuity by sticking with Core (at least then we know Bitcoin won't likely fail due to a bug). I agree with you. I want Bitcoin to remain viable, because it is enabling other things...

But...


Then we are fucked with a 1MB blocksize forever, because afaik the mining cartel will never softfork adopt SegWit?

Either way, Bitcoin is looking more and more clusterfucked.

1. core have no bugs?  oh so segwit is not needed. because there is nothing buggy to fix? cant have one thing without debunking the other :D
2. native keys still work after segwit, malicious tx's will still be a thing. only segwit keypair users(just voluntary key users) are disarmed not bitcoin network
3. by being diverse with different code bases. if a few nodes get exploited. network continues(no big deal). if everyone uses one codebase. boom(2013 all over again)

BU apparently thinks there is no bug since they reject segwit... I'm sorry after all this time I really can't take BU seriously anymore. I am not going to waste more time arguing against them as they've already clearly shown their incompetency several times. If you still don't see it for what it is, you're beyond hope or just a troll. Looking forward to see BU fail at their fork and take down Bitmain with them. I am for segwit and bigger blocks but very much against this amateurish attempt at taking over Bitcoin.

Copying this from another thread, since it continues some discussion that started over here:


There is no outcome that is outside a majority-collusion environment. I explained that unbounded block size cannot reach an equilibrium outside a majority-collusion environment. You said you must have missed it and I explained you did miss it.

You are conflating that the fact that the equilibrium is reached inside majority-collusion with your thought that I haven't stated what occurs outside of majority-collusion. But I have stated what happens, which it is always devolves to majority-collusion.


Conflation is conflation. (Meaning you apparently entirely missed the relevance of the point)

I'm trying to be respectful, but please don't waste my time. You see I have too many messages to reply to.


Everyone was incentivized by the fact that once the 1MB limit was reached, then the destruction of Bitcoin would ensue as is currently happening with the battle between the miner and codester cartels.

It was the 1MB protocol limit that provided the barrier that everyone had to try to swim far from. Also miners had an incentive to get minimum level of fees and they didn't yet have enough centralization to extract higher fees. And the decentralized miners at that time before ASICs also had an incentive to keep spam low since as I explained to @dinofelis today that it wasn't a fully connected mesh so propagation time was a bigger deal than he realized. Also the decentralization at that time when people were still mining on GPUs, meant there was more of an altruistically driven Nash equilibrium than now.

That not at all like the cut throat, big money economics situation now. As @dinofelis pointed out, the only altruism (and internal discord) from miners now is probably all faked to make us think there isn't a cartel.

Honestly I haven't refreshed my memory about all the things in SegWit. I did some research on it for my whitepaper but since forgot most of it (effect of the meds I've been on).

So I've been taking the stance that probably we don't even need most of SegWit, just the malleability fix perhaps.

We could wrangle on and on, but let me refer you to this other thread of discussion for my ongoing pondering about our options:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1837136.0

See you over there.

I don't know why you are compelled to replicate discussions all over the board. Fine. I'll play along by copying my reply:


You have stated that, yes. That was my assertion. My point is that this is outcome is not affected by the cap on maxblocksize.


Justification of this assertion would require explaining away the almost linear annual doubling of the average block size, up until the saturation point.

Might be true. I've been pondering that today. If BU can successfully attack the token holders, then that should be proof that even small 1MB blocks don't stop mining cartelization/centralization.

In which case, larger blocks along with LN would provide more choice to users. As I wrote upthread, Core has masterfully fooled some people into believing they are rational with no ulterior motive.

But then I don't understand how Core could have ever expected to succeed, since the miners would naturally fork the protocol and increase the block size so they can get more revenue. Core's apparent goal of forcing users to use LN appears to be impossible to enforce (mining will always be a cartel and the cartel will not agree to be stripped of revenue).

But on the flip side, the mining cartel ostensibly doesn't want to allow off chain LN scaling (which is why they won't fix malleability) because that would compete with the miners for on chain fees.

Some have argued that enabling LN would increase overall usership and thus increase onchain transaction fee revenue.

So if BU was sincere, they could demonstrate it by including the necessary fixes to enable LN in their planned HF. Because otherwise we can look forward possibly to a monopoly on block size and thus miners squeezing the market for maximum fees inhibiting the scaling of Bitcoin.

(I'm duplicating this to two other places, because readers can't go clicking links off to so many other places to find the key points, but I am linking it here, so you can decide to reply just here if you want. Your decision obviously. I'd like to finish this discussion asap if possible.)

We don't think of it as an attack, but as an upgrade. I haven't participated in mining in years, yet I am convinced that BU delivers more value to me than does the core plan.


Again, BU is not resistant to a malleability fix (at least as far as I discern). As recent events display however, we have a dev bandwidth issue. We must prioritize the things we wish to accomplish. Abolition of this stupid centrally-planned production quota is the most pressing problem faced by Bitcoin. So we are focusing upon that. Longer term, we would like to enable LN, but not with the current built-in anticompetitive disincentive for on-chain transactions (i.e., the aforementioned maxblocksize limit).

(And LN is still possible without a malleability fix, but that is kind of an aside, in that it is acknowledged that such is suboptimal).

My reaction is you need better communication with the token holders. My thought or idea is to raise the level of competence, PR, communication and planning on all levels BEFORE attacking.

You don't win my confidence by having incorrect technological arguments such as the unlimited block size equilibrium white paper which is a meaningless model and can only serve to fool n00bs, which doesn't impress those who try to understand the technology deeply. Core is able to impress us, because they get their technological facts more well organized.

And your promises are as trustable as Core's promises (e.g. to increase block size with HF after softfork is approved), so why should we believe BU will do what you say they will do.

Perhaps if you get more of the community behind your with better communication and admitting that the mining is centralized and there is nothing we can do about it, then perhaps more resources will come your way.

But I guess they've strategized on this already and have reasons for doing what they are doing? Perhaps the war is fake and pre-planned to shake cheap BTC from the trees? Or to sustain the illusion of decentralization? I think the last item is the most likely. Neither Core nor the miners want us to realize the system is centralized, so they fight proxy issues instead of going directly to the point:

I understand that. And it is even worse than you represent. There are no promises in what I said above. I do not speak for BU. All I can do is relay my impression based upon my regular conversations with the principals.

Core wants to raise the block size, no one in Core (except the guy that actually wants smaller blocks) wants to stay 1MB forever, but we must do things right, that means segwit must be activated before any blocksize increase since it solves quadratic hashing problem and so on.

BUcoin can do nothing, they are incompetent. They will last 2 seconds in the wild after a hard fork, tons of bugs and exploits ready to kill it in the case they hard fork, nobody will trust it with their money.

Miners going against a 80%+ of nodes are obviously out of their mind and will meet their mistake via PoW change. Smart devs will guarantee BTC does not become exploitable during this period of reorganization.



Increasing block size = less fees. I don't see why people trust the miners with BU, they could block the blocksize forever and never increase it to keep milking as-high-as-possible fees. The idiot miners supporting BU are either bribed or are stupid enough to not see beyond short term profits.

PS: Yes, we can do nothing against PoW hashrate centralization (thus far, maybe in the future someone comes up with a better idea to end up centralized long term), but at least lets keep the network decentralized so average joes can run nodes and have a say to make balance against mining cartels. We lose this and we are lost.

Bigger blocks=BU right? So adopting BU means less fees. Why do the miners support BU when they are collecting less fees because of it?

Because BU givers miners pretty much unilateral control over block size. So they become kings of the whole thing. They could make big pressure by changing block size at will. "Support us or else meet our massive hashrate" is their weapon. People are delusional giving away power to money obsessed chinamen.

Right now Segwit has more support than BU
Segwit=34%
BU = 33,3%

Isn't that just bog standard variance? The same way that BU was over 40% for a day or two. It would need to continue for a string of blocks to be able to get full sense out of it.

A telling sign as well is the number of community and miners that have not yet signaled either Segwit or BU but are prepared for one or the other.


https://i.imgur.com/LeQIVOh.png

https://coin.dance/poli

Yes, the Segwit miners have had some luck the past 24 hours.

So they did it, but tried to continue the illusion:

@jbreher, I finally analyzed Andrew Sutton's research and I found it is flawed:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1837136.msg18323030#msg18323030

Ah the plot thickens. Looks like a change in PoW hash is imminent (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1837136.msg18323609#msg18323609). The DAO hacker is going to strike again. Unless the Chinaman aborts. Core is possibly luring the mining cartel into a trap.

thats some HQ fud man  ;D

I think not many realize the consequences for crypto at all in case BU wins....

Bitcoin will loose trust and won't find mass adoption anymore. People will be even more confused, hence there will be 2 different Bitcoin. Which one is the real one?
I definatley would not accept BTC payments in my shop anymore...

So if BU were to get its bug issues fixed what would be the problem?

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0148.mediawiki

what about this....could it be this easy? or would BU just fork and take the name brand of bitcoin and downsize it ..due to FUD of 2 camps?

This is it! Bitcoin Unlimited will be the real bitcoin and there will be no hard fork, it is now certain. Read the below paragraph.


On the emerging consensus regarding Bitcoin’s block size limit: insights from my visit with Coinbase and Bitpay (https://medium.com/@peter_r/on-the-emerging-consensus-regarding-bitcoins-block-size-limit-insights-from-my-visit-with-2348878a16d8#.yj5b16ttn)

I see BTU as a corporate altcoin
president, investor
paid dev for closed source updates
like they said BU = paypal 2.0

Listen, it doesn't matter. The debate is not about BU, it is about bigger blocks. We need bigger blocks now. If you don't like BU, that's fine. Just support whichever wallet implementation has enabled bigger blocks.

It is reality.

Why the Bitcoin whales must have small blocks (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1837136.msg18329865#msg18329865). This is very important.

One question. Is it possible that once bitcoin is forked, the remaining hashrate makes Segwit pass, and later activating the lightning network we finally survive this scaling chaos?
And that BTU would be abandoned by miners because of the low price and no profitability?

right now the lightning network will only process payments up to 0.042 btc. i don't know if that's a totally artificial limit or whether there's some type of technical reason behind it.

in its present form it's a cool addition but wouldn't do much to address any on chain strain, plus you need an on chain transaction to get it going. it's been a while since i spent so little with bitcoin.

Well that's currently ~$40. So you could go to the shop and use a LN card to pay.

SegWit just passed Unlimited in blocks mined last 24 hours.

https://coin.dance/blocks

Just a dead cat bounce

exactly.   

Besides, it's hard to argue BU s more centralized then Core. Blockstream is the most centralized team there is. Way worse then BU.

Blockstream pays one dude full time in the entire Core team, give me a break. Core team is way more decentralized than BU, stop believing in fantasies.

Jesus, we need SegWit.

There will be no winning or losing, there will be no hard fork, they just needed another excuse to drop the price for their accumulation I've repeated this many times already, someone earning more than $500,000 every day will not split the network to start mining useless coins probably $5000 a day will be their income of mining :D just please hold on to your coins and stop dumping, you are donating your bitcoins

Unlimited has lost 10% of hashrate, they're now at 29,9%. Between segwit support is growing fast. Maybe, just maybe, we will have segwit implemented soon.
And the price would go badass.

So less btu equals more price. That ain't exactly surprising.

The unlimited people had a chance but they blew it with crappy coding and authoritarian overtones.

All they had to do was be a better bitcoin in every way.

BU hard fork will happen this incoming week too many signs to ignore

It won't fork, there's no chance.  ::)

i've just searched long and hard and i can't see one single sign either in my room or anywhere on the internet.

Forget about BU, Bitcoin Classic is going to fork (https://archive.fo/zpHrm)! :D

I'm with Bitcoin Classic, they have really nice conservative philosophy about the development of Bitcoin. No bullshit SegWit soft fork hacks.

Given up on your beloved BU after a few weeks?

;D

Did Classic offer you more money to shill & FUD than BU were willing to? Like the draft so you were transferred?

I hope ALL the BTU Chinacoin shills join Hyena and move to classic.

Merged mining LOL

Perhaps I should start my own wallet implementation and name it Bitcoin-Hyena (BitCH) with black jack and merged mining

When I can start double spend on both chains?

No matter which side ends up winning, a conclusion to this debate would be good for bitcoin either way.

Personally I'd prefer it if BU wins though, because I want bitcoin to remain decentralized.

I think you have chosen the wrong side for decentralization lol.

BU is a centralized company trying to do a hostile takeover of Bitcoin. Core are a bunch of volunteer developers (some of whom are paid by MIT and Blockstream) but any developer can volunteer to work for core and help make Bitcoin better. BU want in install a president of Bitcoin, not all the BU code they release is reviewed, not all the code they release if visible for anyone to see, and all developers are paid employees. So if BU ever manages to take over the Bitcoin chain, Bitcoin will lose 90+% of its value within 2 years, people will move to independent alts. Who wants a company managing Bitcoin, might as well use Visa.

BU's bigger blocks can also mean smaller blocks, the miners decide on the blocksize, so in theory they could vote for smaller blocks and thus higher fees. The other issue with larger block is the larger the block the more decentralized the miners become. If the blocksize went much larger quickly only data centres would be able to mine as no one else would have the bandwidth or storage needed. If the blocksize were to hit 4mb in the next year or 2 then the whole of Austrialia and Africa would be unable to process the data needed to mine due to bandwidth. So that is 2 continents without any possible mining.

I'm impressed how many bald-faced lies you are able to spew in a single post.

Ok, you are calling me a liar. I would like to see you disprove what I have written.  I accept that "Bitcoin will lose 90+% of its value within 2 years, people will move to independent alts. Who wants a company managing Bitcoin, might as well use Visa" is my opinion based on what I know. Im pretty sure the rest is truthful.

I think that larger blocks have some merit, but I do not think that BU has any merit at all.

I think there will be a consensus about the increase of the block size. So Most hash will go to one chain and there will be very short time with two chains.

false


false


false


false


false


false


false


speculation. faulty speculation


faulty speculation


false

satoshi hated BUgcoin

Guys we really need to stop fighting, it's obvious that there are powers interested in keeping us divided so BTC development will stall and it will not be able to scale. SegWit is here now and it will bump up the blocksize to 2-2.5 MB. This is what Classic wanted a year ago so why reject it now? BU requires a contentious hard fork and thus has no realistic chance to succeed or if it did it would be catastrophic, but SegWit actually has a chance to be activated if we stop this infighting and move forward together. Miners need good information about SegWit and realize that it's also in their best interest to activate it. If we are able to come together and activate SegWit it would be a major positive signal for Bitcoin and it will lead to more transactions per block, lower fees and a much higher Bitcoin price. If we do neither then we'll stay stuck in the current deadlock, another bear market will begin and the manipulators and social engineers get their way. Maybe this is what needs to happen before miners wake up, but I'd prefer we not go through this difficult period at all. :-\

BU will fork regardless of the voting outcome.Anyway if you read the whitepaper and look at some of his posts here Satoshi said Bitcoin would need to hard fork when this scenario of Bitcoin congestion arrived.I believe he thought it would happen before now.

With Segwit an off-chain transaction will be enabled making miners lose profit.  If  you look at this at a miners perspective, it really is a foul since they are the one securing the network and is competing with one another to get the reward.  they had been like this ever since.  We can say miners  gone greedy now a day skipping low fee transactions,  but I think it is the senders fault because they feed the miners greed by adjusting their fee higher to confirm easily.  I am not a pro BU, but with segwit and LN, isn't it centralization already? If it is not, care to explain to me why it isn't?

Explain how Segwit will make miners lose profit? Lightning I can kinda understand but even here miners will make more profit due to much higher BTC price and there's nothing blocking miners from running Lightning nodes themselves and earn those fees. In the end more users will be using Bitcoin and this is also good for miners.


Everyone can run a Lightning node, I don't see what's centralized about it? And Segwit just fixes malleability and several other issues, plus it bumps up the maximum blocksize.

Wow u are ruthless! I like you!

Compromise or watch someone else eat our lunch.  Chop Core into bite-sized pieces and find the right subset that appease BU et al.

Miners; sorry, but one way or another you are eventually going to lose your grip.

BU is doing a hostile takeover. They refuse to implement relay protection. The devs have stated their main reason for doing this is to attack the old chain. Also miners supporting BU have stated they will attack the old chain if there is a fork. It's not a "peaceful" fork, they're actively attempting to force people onto their chain.

SegWit on the other hand is optional, you are not forced to use it if you don't want to.

Currently running a small listening node needs ~2TB of bandwidth a month. This is way too much, and the people that say it isn't don't run a node. Increasing blocksize will only increase this even more and make it more difficult for people to run nodes. Many p2p file sharing systems in the past have failed due to nodes becoming too few thus too centralized due to prohibitively high resource consumption, making them vulnerable to DMCA takedowns etc.

Even at 72MB blocks (which is the largest the Satoshi codebase can currently support) Bitcoin still cannot scale anywhere near the size of visa. While increasing the blocksize may help with scalability in the short term, clearly increasing the blocksize is not a long-term solution.

After Napster was taken down due to having a centralized server tracking which nodes had which files, a fully decentralized p2p filesharing network called gnutella was created in 2000. This was a fully decentralized p2p file sharing network. It had some fairly advanced features for it's time, including a decentralized file searching system and TLS encryption between all nodes by default. It is in some ways similar to Bitcoin and Satsohi had mentioned this network before in his posts. Early versions of Bitcoin written by Satoshi included an IRC bootstrapping mechanism that seems to be lifted right out of gnutella. The gnutella network got huge media publicity and it grew very fast and eventually ran into scaling problems. The original dev team had abandoned the project, and so the community had to come up with scalability solutions. Many different solutions were pushed, including the use of "trusted" ultranodes. Concensus could not be formed by the community and eventually the network forked into hundreds of smaller networks, such as LimeWire, FrostWire, WinMX, Kaazaa, BearShare, eDonkey (developed by some Core developers IIRC). The large gnutella network had essentially been split into hundreds of smaller networks. Each network by in large didn't share files with one another, or if they did it was very buggy. Some networks such as WinMX got sybil attacked  because of their small size(funnily enough this attack went on for 12 years and only subsided a few months ago). Some networks such as LimeWire lived on for a while until the devs were sued by RIAA and the "trusted" ultranodes shut down, but the split kicked off the death of gnutella, which was basically replaced by BitTorrent, a much less decentralized network but one that doesn't have scalability issues.

Splitting and centralization are things we should avoid at all costs.

BU is a BIP, just like SegWit. It is not a "second version".
Bitcoin was designed in a way so that it can be upgraded with hard forks. BU is about removing the block size limit, which was meant to be removed at some point.

Though such bugs shouldn't exist. BU developers are disappointing.

Geez, it's like watching Libertards vs Trumpets.

Not quite. BU is doing a network-wide upgrade.


Of course they refuse. It is the only way to ensure that the upgrade takes. Besides, it is not the majority chain's responsibility to protect the minority chain. Especially as a significant existence of a minority chain ensures losses for one or more branches, while a dead minority ensures retention of value for everyone. Lastly, replay protection can be handled within the client. There is no purpose served by polluting the protocol with it.

From what I read, it seems that miners are against segwit as this may prevent them from charging higher fees. But I don't get it, if segwit and lightning were able to bring greater adoption, the increase in the number of users would allow them to earn more money anyway.

Just because BU is slightly ahead doesn't mean everyone should jump on the bandwagon and support it when Bitcoin's hard fork would not automatically make it a good choice for people to put their money in.

I don't think the community is as divided as some people say. I also believe this will be resolved soon, most people are getting tired of it...

In my opinion segwit is not losing yet. In the long run though there's a high probability that bitcoin unlimited will lose since right now it got many flaws but btc will go up in price even if none of these two is implemented. I really do hope that block size problems be resolved soon, I want to see bitcoin again having fast transactions just like the old days where the block confirmations are fast and transactions are settled within less than 30mins.

No one is winning right now, and bitcoin is losing.   

The only one who profits from the current stalemate is altcoins.

Even if you think BU has too many bugs, then EC is still a good idea, and you can run Core with EC or Classic with EC, it doesn't matter, as long as the blocksize debate is resolved.

Who is responsible for EC? How good is their offering?

Anyone coming up with a Core alternative really shouldn't put their head above the parapet until it's A1. Anything will get scrutinised until it passes or pops.

Alts are running out of steam for now. Hopefully the heat of the last few weeks/months will inspire enough people to actually start taking some action.

EC = Bitcoin Unlimited. AKA BUgcoin Aka VerJihadCoin.

That is true, Segwit is not losing the fact that there are some that do not vote means they are okey of what are bitcoins now, they do not like the Bitcoin Unlimited either the Segwit though they are comfortable to what is bitcoin right now, I am not saying that even with the problems about the transaction and fees the users are still comfortable, I mean the way the bitcoins are used. There will be no fork and these debate must be ended soon.

No, Bitcoin unlimited is just 1 implementation of EC, you can have EC without BU.   
   
If you're going to call things childish names at least make sure you know the facts.

Most people are tired of it, and they are voting with their feet. They are migrating to alts and this is pushing the market cap of alts back.
This cannot be good for Bitcoin.

That is right. The price of altcoin has risen a lot. Now the bitcoin price is also rising.

The impression is that the price is rising As planned. I mean that Bitcoin always rose first before a sudden fall. This drop in the Bitcoin price of business is the friend of large whales who manipulate large volumes of Bitcoin on the market.