Bitcoin Forum

Why Bitcoin Unlimited should be correctly classified as an ‘attempted robbery’ of Bitcoin, not a fork

https://medium.com/@Coinosphere/why-bitcoin-unlimited-should-be-correctly-classified-as-an-attempted-robbery-of-bitcoin-not-a-9355d075763c#.r5f6ui934

An excellent article that describes how trying to overtake the name of a project via hard fork is unheard of and nonsense.

Looks like BUcoiners can't accept if they fork they will be an altcoin.

The article is crap and tries to induce in error less savvy readers.

There are a lot of bitcoin forks, litecoin and dogecoin are examples of such forks the same way Joomla! is a fork of Mambo, Bitcoin Unlimited is a protocol upgrade.

In bitcoin development what is called a fork, hard or soft, is different from what the author is trying to compare with.

BTW, the same claim can be made about the changes Bitcoin Core team is trying to introduce.

so anything not Blockstream/core is 'overtaking' the project?   And we should ignore Satoshi's clear statement in the whitepaper that nodes can vote on rules with their processing power?

The only 'trying to overtake via hard fork' is the backdoor UASF , which is probably the brainchild of Greg Maxwell.

No matter how much we disagree with the whole BU thing, i am still so surprised at the amount it has got from proper bitcoiners.  It really worries me that the community is broken and it what will unite us again.

Amount of what? No one should ever put much faith in node counts or the amount of noise a small number of people make. That goes for every camp.

When you got VERY vocal paid shills like jonald_fyookball, it seems worse than it is. This guy spends all day defending BTU and pushing Roger and Jihan's agenda.

So if you're the "impartial voice of reason", as you frequently cast yourself, you're presumably waiting for... what? exactly? Before you tell us your reasonable-middle-ground position? Because you never have one.

Tell us what you think, because it's a little pointless just to keep stepping in deriding everyone like you're somehow above it all, and yet so aloof that you've got nothing that's actually pertinent or useful to add either

How much Bitcoin community is divided can be seen on many tweets. It hurts my mind when reading the tweet comments. I see many BlockStream supporters posting frequently as well, so by your logic they are paid shills as well ?

BTW the blog post is just garbage, the author dont understand how open source software works.

This is a pretty weak attempt to discredit BU.  You (or at least this article) are arguing that BU is a "robbery" despite the fact that it's clearly just an alteration to Bitcoin's open source code.  It's not a robbery of Bitcoin because not only are they (obviously) not actually taking any Bitcoin in the literal sense, they are just using the name that has rightfully continued to be used for all changing versions of the same currency over time.

I think the miner will vote with their hashing power. That is more fair than the so called UASF.

thanks.

I just care about my Bitcoin investment.

Sorry if I find it problematic to massively hedge myself by buying ethers and moneros.  I actually want Bitcoin to keep its utility.

Is there a date for the possible launch of a hardfork?

That's nevertheless exactly what ethereum did.  The old project, ETC, has a new name, and the "alt coin", the forked-away coin, kept the name ethereum.  Most probably because the overtake was done by the centralized core team, and it got the biggest part of the market cap.

75% miner consensus has to be reached first, long ways off.

http://nodecounter.com/#bitcoin_classic_blocks

Doesn't have half that right now.

as far as i am aware, no. but i am by no means an authority, or even well informed...

BU has taken a reputation hit, on top of exchanges considering it as an altcoin. This will all blow over, miners are just milking the tx fees as long as they can before the inevitable upgrade to SegWit.

I don't believe that. The opposing elements are becoming ever more dug in and there's enough of them on both sides to continue the stalemate. The question is whether the most important element by far, them users, somehow manages to assert their will.

I don't know how close we are to Segwit, but I guess you're probably right as to there being a ton of milking of fees going on with miners right now, and that's why there aren't serious pushes one way or the other yet.

I'm kind of curious if that will change anytime soon or if there will be a sudden move to changing the block sizes.

As they are the entities deciding on the upgrade, I don't understand your logic.  Miners will decide in any case, because they build the block chain users can, if they wish, download with their nodes.  Miners have not the slightest bit of interest in adopting segwit.  They don't have much interest in adopting BU, except for one thing: a miner that can mine a bigger block than his competitor, can reap in extra fees.  However, his competitor has to be willing to build on his bloc, also reaping in a bigger bloc and more fees.... except that if they accept too many of them, they release the pressure on the fee market and their fees will go down.
So, for a miner to switch to BU, he is torn between different strategies
1) accept his neighbour's big bloc, build on it, and reap in more fees (for the moment)
  -> advantage: more transactions and hence more fees ;
  -> disadvantage: fluidifying bitcoin transactions, releasing pressure on the fee market
  -> risk that this bigger double bloc will be orphaned by peer miners

2) reject his neighbour's big bloc, and build on a previous bloc
  -> advantage: keeping pressure on the fee market
  -> risk that most miners will accept the bigger bloc and his new bloc will be orphaned
  -> possibility to keep doing so, and produce an alternative chain, the former bitcoin chain

So, long-term thinking miners are against any relief on the fee market, and want transactions in general to be difficult to get through ; however, they have to comply to the wishes of the majority of miners.  It is best to follow the majority.  But if the majority is not clear, one can decide to fork to keep the small chain with its lucrative pressured fee market.

If miners are not too stupid, they will only pay enough lip service to BU to make other consensus hopes idle ; but they will limit lip service to BU so that it will not become reality, because for miners, desperate users not getting their transactions through is the most lucrative fee market they can imagine.

I think it should be because it is an attempt to defame and manipulate the true blockchain with this deformed version of it's successful contribution to all that use bitcoin.
It is certainly a huge attempt to destroy the blockchain and all that it has tried to accomplish for the past 8 years.

BU is not the one with the ban hammer. BU and MANY other implementations can all communicate all on the same level playing field.

BU would only activate with majority consent. meaning core if they dont play on the equal playing field with the rest of the community. then core will be the ones banning nodes.. no one else.



also it is
core that is trying its hardest to push for activation
core that ban certain nodes from being upstream if they activate
core that will orphan off and ban pools that have valid blocks but simply not be using a core brand of software
core that will treat anything not core as second class.

atleast get real with the facts. and admit who really is looking for domination

What makes you think the users aren't represented in the debate? Why wouldn't the users be interested in expressing their thoughts and attitudes, when the value of their BTC assets are at stake?

This is a bizarre distinction you're creating, as if none of the people debating have anything at stake (BTC assets or otherwise).

Don't worry.  Nothing will happen.  Segwit only activates with 95% consensus which will never be reached.  BU will only fork with 75% majority, which will not be achieved.  Bitcoin is bitcoin, and will not change.  What you have now, is what you will always have.

If larger blocks provide greater utility value to bitcoin through increased transaction throughput, the value of bitcoin increases. So the value of the block subsidy increases, and the value of the transaction fees collected increases.

Depends how much the market price moves up when more transactions are available.  At the moment, the fees make out about 15% of the miner revenue.  If the market price would move up by 15% with larger blocs, then this is in the advantage of miners (fees essentially to zero, only bloc reward).  But 3 years from now, there's another bloc halving ; and the fees are on the rise now.  So fees become more and more important, and they would probably drop to near-zero if the pressure on transactions were relieved.

The problem is that a hard fork will probably PLUMB the (BTU) price more than it will gain.  Segwit is to be avoided at all price for miners, because then, they can forget about the fee market for ever, if LN is successful.

Which would be better than a loss of confidence in bitcoin, due to the artificially restricted capacity. Fees should not be that important for quite a while. Last one to leave, remember to switch the asics off.

As far as I can tell an operating Lightning Network would mean a vast increase in on chain fees. Even if people kept coins in channels for a long time, there'd still be waves of others coming and going and each and every one of them needs to interact with the daddy chain at some point.

Or do you think we'd have places like Coinbase offering direct USD/LN interaction with barely any on chain transactions?

Why is everyone afraid of BU that much? It is not a robbery, it is a perfectly legal upgrade.

If the community decides to go with BU, then that's it. If you don't like what BU offers, you can still use your oldschool core code.

It shouldn't be forced on us, it's just a matter of choice and people should be given the chance to choose between Bitcoin unlimited and core Bitcoin.

No.

Your logic is entirely wrong. LN aggregates multiple transactions together. Assuming that your "daddy chain interaction" description is valid (it's not), channels need 2 on-chain transactions, 1 for opening, 1 for closing. Simple arithmetic should be telling you that so long as you make 3 or more transactions before closing the channel, that's one less transaction than would have ended up on-chain. So it frees up space on-chain, and so does not take space away from it.


And you're even more wrong than you realise: the closing part may never need happen. The channel concept is flexible enough to allow the aggregated transactions to flow from one channel into a different channel.

In practice, this means that the more people on Lightning, the better connected they are to each other, no different to the internet itself or the regular Bitcoin network. As long as everyone co-operates (which is a big if of course), then BTC moved over Lightning can keep circulating through the Lightning Network forever.

Because of the necessity of good behaviour to allow that perpetuity, I think it's more likely to be used between people that trust each other strongly, and one's regular IRL brick & mortar stores are the best fit (they're not going anywhere fast, and need to uphold a good reputation as a result). Also, Lightning transactions defy the confirmation concept, because they're not waiting to be confirmed in a block. And instant clearing is exactly what bricks & mortar retailers want.

Ok NOOB question but for all these bitcoin holders who haven't quite got their head around the fork..

Say for example I have BTC with a value of £6000 in total and after the fork the amount is split into two, BU and core coins.
Is it split into £3000 worth of BU and £3000 of CORE or is my coin total doubled? £6000 of each?

Nothing to do with the GBP valuation. The amount of Bitcoins you have will be doubled because you'll have a carbon copy of Unlimited Bitcoins on the other chain. Both of them will exists side by side initially at least.

And they're almost certainly going to suddenly both be worth an awful lot less.

You're guaranteed 6.85 BTC on both chains at the current £ exchange rate. £6000 is not guaranteed.



I hope you understand Lightning better now, mandy

Was worried that was the case. I just can't decide whether to exchange BTC for Ethereum.
Thanks banks and mandy

Despite what the heat of squealing may imply, the possibility of a hard fork is a long, long way away at present.

If you really do want to diversify then putting that into something that rose threefold in the space of a few days isn't the most prudent choice but do what makes you happy.

I would agree with you if there were no altcoins. Bitcoin is only so good as it is both safe and convenient. Users double every year apparently, so the status quo will only get worse, until people move on to something else.

Miners are important, but if bitcoin becomes slow and expensive, I wouldn't put my fiat in it, many wouldn't.  It would drop value and make mining and transaction verification less lucrative.

Sounds reasonable, however, if BTU were to split the blockchain (which is likely) it would devastate Bitcoin's value for the foreseeable future until a clear winner emerges from the split. Both sides would likely drop massive amounts of coins on each others chains trying to destroy the other. BTU users dropping their BTC in favor of more BTU and vice versa.

To sum it up, we're between stagnation and a hardfork both will lead to decreased value of Bitcoin and increased adoption of alt coins.

I've never seen that solid bitcoiner supports BTU. All BTU shills write, from time to time, that Bitcoin is dead, like rawdog or fyookball, some write that they are altcoiners like kiklo.
Andressen hearn and Ver are also constantly trying to ruin bitcoin price by posting their delusional ideas that bitcoin is a fail experiment and that Kraig is satoshi etc.

It will not be as simple as declaring Bitcoin Unlimited is a protocol upgrade. Maybe if Core, the big blockers and the other developers come together and agree "BitcoinX" is the protocol upgrade, then yes. But if something is risking the chain to split in 2 then the divide will grow wider. How then can you say that it is a protocol upgrade? It is a fork.

 Is this hardwork will even occured? As long as the community is half decided i think this will never happen in many years.
I think the consensus is still at 30% or 50% ?
When will we stop arguing and debating and actually solve the problem. Some say that this hardfork will have an negative effect of bitcoin, why is it bad to hardfork bitcoin?

As a very ordinary Bitcoin owner (heck I only own some), I find this debate sometimes beyond my comprehension as I am not technically-inclined though I am really trying to catch up. It is sad that all of these debates and accusations and counter-accusations are hurting Bitcoiners all over the globe. What I actually realized is that we are bringing the very core of human nature into Bitcoin. Nothing has changed, actually. We remain to be greedy, divided and manipulative. This is just my opinion and there is no need to rant over this. :)

Hmm,
That is a load of Bullshit, everyone has been almost begging BTC Core /BlockStream for Months to just Fix the transactions capacity issue with something the miners could agree too and drop their segwit/LN takeover attempt at BTC. But they have done nothing , so the Unlimited guys are stepping up to fix it.

If unlimited has the Longer chain with the most difficulty , buddy they are bitcoin, get used to it.
You want to pick NITWITCOIN instead with it's offchain corrupt banking structure , feel free, but Offchain banking with deadwit & LN is the Alt coin, because they are the weaker & shorter chain.


 8)

Food for thought:
https://twitter.com/desantis/status/842919995717926912

BU is apparently not just about block size.

I think that it'd be ublikely for BU to receive overwhelming support over the next period of time and hence it is destined to fade away just as XT did. The non-organic support it receives at the moment will simply not be sustained as supporters see that it is not catching on and start moving onto doing better things with their time and hashrate.

https://coin.dance/blocks

BTU Support  32.6%
Deadwit        29.2%

Deadwit is the one most favored to fade away.
Deadwit needs 95% to activate

BTU only needs 55% minimum for 2 weeks to activate,  ;)
They will probably wait til it is 65%, but it is doable at 55%.

 8)

You don't know shit about bitcoin. You don't get to say what is and isn't a protocol upgrade. BUcoin introduces a deep protocol change with something demonstrated to not work called EC. satoshi was against getting his software forked for a reason.




satoshi qualified BUcoin literally as a "menace to the network".

All exchanges already spoke: BUcoin will be an altcoin, they all will support the BTC token for Core, your BUchina will never be BTC. I will enjoy dumping BTU or BTE or whatever is called for more BTC.

I'm also going to increase my amounts of bitcoins this way. Maybe in first hour there'll be chance to even double it  ::)

The BUcoiners as you term them will have no other choice but to accept the fact that their efforts will turn into a new altcoin and that is BTU. If they cannot accept it then they should just accept the propositions of the core developers to finally get on with the consensus. But if they just accept it then they must work hard so that BTU will also meet success on the long run.

And Satoshi is dead so he is not as smart as you think he was.

BTC will also die , if the transactions issue is not fixed.

Have you bothered to count the lines of code, segwit is a bigger change than anything unlimited has done.

The design of PoW coins itself defines that the miners have control of BTC , not the exchanges.
If you have a problem with that , you are going to have to remove the PoW code from BTC and add something NEW.  :D


 8)

FYI:
I dub BTC core coin, SegPal , Might as well just use Paypal, both are offchain.

FTFY

Like you said, it really is a very excellent article, it clearly states the current state and manifestation of bitcoin. Everything is said clearly. I like it so much, let's share it with everyone. Of course, BU is making a lot of changes with bitcoin, its value is falling sharply, the bitcoin market is in trouble, it even loses alt altogether like ETH. Allow me to say that it lost to other coin, because in markets, ETH is extremely developed, it can overcome bitcoin at any time. Meanwhile, bitcoin has fallen into the troubles of innovation. This is bad

im laughing at the article.. it actually debunks itself..


where does:
BU, xt, classic, nbitcoin, bitcoinj, bitcoinruby, btcd, ever suggest that they are stealing "core"
i have not seen any brand called core2.0... thus debunked..

bitcoin is an open project.. there have for years been many brands running on the network.
so where is the proof that other brands are stealing "CORE" brand.

core actually rewrote their entire codebase recently and the other brands have not followed that. thats cores problem. the other diverse brands have not followed core

so you cant even claim they are stealing code. even though the code is opensource and licenced to be allowed to be used.

so the "attempted theft of "core" is debunked.

and then separately if you think only core "own" bitcoin.. you are fooled by the notion, by which your then pulled into the corporate agenda of core wanting dominance and centralism

This comment means nothing, you're just loudly agreeing with Pettuh.  If the miners decide to go with BU (miners should rightfully have the decision) then there will be a hard fork and there will be a new BUcoin.

I don't think you quite understand the way that this works though.  When the hard fork happens, you will get the exact amount in your BUcoin that you had in Bitcoin and still keep the Bitcoin.  So you will have both coins, therefore even if democratically the miners decide to go with BU you will still be able to use your old Bitcoin and people don't like BU then its price will fall and Bitcoin will still be the prominent coin, which seems increasingly likely to happen now that most major exchanges have agreed to list BUcoin as an altcoin and process their withdrawals in Bitcoin.

I disagree. XT did not have the support like what Bitcoin Unlimited is enjoying right now. Look at the charts of the growing support for BU and the diminishing support for Core. The trend has never been clearer. If BU reaches 50%, which I think it will, if the current trend continues, then it would be good to research more about replay attacks and what steps to do to ensure that you will receive your share of BTU.

I agree - and here is a poison pill to stop the robbery

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1833046.0

the actual signalling for segwit has held very steady which means it's real. this unlimited run up is a moon shot that needs to capture the attention of more people in a short space of time for it to actually happen.

i don't believe it can sustain itself, especially as more players pick their code apart, come up with alternate proposals or come out against it.

and if it did look like it really was gonna be a reality i think many would pull back from that. it's easy to make a pose. it's harder to risk everything.

Yes, an altcoin but the original coin will still existing as a store of value at least.

Are you saying that support for Bitcoin Unlimited is not real? The hashing power provided by the miners speak for itself. Check the charts online on Core and BU, they are both real. Segwit activation has plateaued while BU is trending.


BU appeals to the miners more than Segwit and the Lightning Network. I do not think they are very concerned much with the code because they have shown that they are willing to split the blockchain in 2. The actions they have taken show it.


I think the same but that is still a maybe.