Bitcoin Forum

The forks are shaking the very foundation of BTC's attraction ... that is away from the whims and motive of a controlling cabal. One could have been dismissed, but now a 2nd one starts establishing a pattern.

I suspect that they are not trying to kill BTC, but rather control its development path and promote protocol ossification. Who are the most entrenched players in the game? Bitmain (largest miner and chip manufacturer). Bitpay and Coinbase -- their business model depends on cheap fees. Investors in such companies -- like Roger Ver. And they've all been pushing for hard fork block size increases all along. It's all about their business interests.

And their business interests should interest us. If their business interests are able to get greater adoption of Bitcoin we all win. You sound like someone who hates business...maybe that's true, maybe it isn't.

Regardless of how you think about it, businesses and business interests aren't the problem. Corporations are the enemy. Corporations don't live or breathe or grow on their own. It takes people. It's people who can be the problem, who can be the enemy. Dismissing actions done in the name of business simply for the sake of forsaking "business" is foolish. It's naive.

I do think that forkers have purpose to innovate to make the BTC platform/ system more efficient but the problem is the idea of including some centralization in fork soon is the one who will kill one of its main purpose.

Of course, They are trying to kill legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto. BTC will be the biggest currency in the world. There will be many parties will earn side effect from this. They tend to kill BTC if they can if not they will destroy the community at least the bitcoin community that is stable since 2009. If the community split they will easily hardfork. Now few miners support BCH, in fact BCH hardfork completely failed then in NOvember 2017 There will be hardfork again, BTC2x. I think after that there will be other forks.

I also have the feeling that a lot of people are coming with their series if forks just to create confusion here and there and the issue I have with them is to stop using the name bitcoin call it any other name you so wish and stop making it seems you are  working in the interest of bitcoin. I am sure when this other fork happens, then a lot of panic will happen with several crash prices and at the end, it won't really solve anything. I just wished Satoshi can come and lock the whole thing to avoid all this adulteration.

The forks are just all part of the process....They're a necessary part of the evolution of the platform.  The problem isn't really the forking---> the problem is that the forked chains aren't dying fast enough, right?  If you think about it, as long you're hodling, then you're guaranteed to be hodling something on the winning chain.  They're ALL bitcoin, just different species of bitcoin, and you want to be hodling the species that is the most adaptable to this ever changing environment, right?  Maybe it's time to start thinking in non-binary terms----> it's not REALLY one or the other because they're really all just one interconnected "fuzzy chain."

EDIT: Can you tell that the weed's getting good in California?

What if those business interests are in conflict with the interests of Bitcoin users in general? What if they are in conflict with the network's level of decentralization? Here's an example:

If an entity like Bitmain could use AsicBoost to improve its mining output by ~30%, that's perfectly rational. But it would be a very centralizing force, given that it could force many mining outfits to shut down since very few will be able to compete with Bitmain's output.

Is it wrong to then oppose Bitmain's business interests? They seem to be at odds with my interests as a Bitcoin user...

The problem is that some forks become altcoins with quite confusing names and quite big claims on Bitcoin legacy.
But it's about money and power, so it's not unexpected for this to happen.

And we may have forks even this year, however, the last fork was imho a bigger success than many have expected.

problem is the platform itself is no longer "immutable" in the sense a small cabal can change it.

The fact of the matter is that human nature is greedy. That is why there are people trying to control bitcoins their own way. This is the reason why there have been a lot of talks and proposal about having a bitcoin fork. Though what is nice about bitcoins is that before something gets implemented that would mean the community must approve such a change. However, this results into politicking among the majority players of bitcoins.

A new fork means a new airdrop for us like with BCH. You can only win. Either sell it for profit or keep it and hope that the new Altcoin rises in price. But the most important thing is that the main Bitcoin gets stronger afterwards.

I think there are two groups of forkers:
Those who actually want to improve things, and those who see the fork as an option to make money.
For the second group, they do not care what the consequences for the whole cryptocurrency sector are.
Even if that would be the end of all crypto.

*does not compute*

if we keep splitting the network, we're diluting the base of prospective investors (now they have multiple forks to choose from to invest in). more than that, they'll be confused, especially since there's supposed to be only 21 million bitcoins, but apparently, there are multiple forks of bitcoin. this throws into question the whole idea that bitcoin is deflationary, since it can just be forked and new supply created.

if it were just "free money" that would be great. but if you can sell it, it means someone is buying it. it means there is *demand* which means less demand for BTC. i don't see how that makes BTC stronger.

The question is then begged:  how are the forks damaging the original protocol?



The ledger is still for all practicality "immutable."  It even preserves itself across chains....Now, the platform was never meant to be immutable---> that's the whole purpose for the pulls, the commits, and the consensus algorithms....right?

Metcalfe's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law

If the value of the Bitcoin network is increasing based on the increasing number of users on the network, the reverse should also hold true. If BTC users are migrating to BCH, that shrinks the the size and utility of the BTC network.

I've seen some math on the subject; I wish I could remember where I've seen the charts (maybe one of Jimmy Song's posts?) Anyway, the idea is that if a major network split occurred (like 50-50), the damage to the value of the combined networks would be significant, and together, they would be worth far less than the original network. This makes sense, since each network would be far less useful than the original (combined) network.

I think you are confused buddy.  Blockstream/Core is the 'business interest'.  Roger Ver is Bitcoin Jesus.  Bitcoin Jesus is the savior of Bitcoin and he does this from the purity and goodness of his heart.  He has only the interests of the community.  Bow to Jesus like it says in the bible.

So let's look at this from a slightly different perspective.  If you willingly rely on someone to do something for you, are they in control of you?  

Keeping in mind, if you don't like what they're doing for you, you can rely on other people to do that exact same job the way you want them to do it?  In order to use Bitcoin effectively, there have to be miners and non-mining nodes securing that chain.  But everyone has the freedom to chose which chain they want to interact on.  So if the miners you currently rely on to use the chain you're interacting on, suddenly decide they want to use a different chain, does that sound like control to you?  Or is that freedom?  

Why can't you just rely on some other miners to secure your preferred chain and leave these miners to do what they want to do?

This entire argument seems to hinge on the focal point where people don't understand that miners aren't your slaves.  It sounds like you want to control them, not the other way around.  You people have the whole damn thing completely ass-backwards.

Think on that.

These people will not gain anything if Bitcoin is dead. Because even the altcoin prices are linked to the exchange rates of Bitcoin. Altcoins will crash even more if the Bitcoin prices crash. So my guess is that they just want to control the future development of Bitcoin, rather than destroying it.

Well, they are damn good with creating confusion, I must say. There are many people on this forum who believe it's wrong to call bch an altcoin, for it is the truest btc. Plus, the price bitcoin cash has is absolutely crazy. And it became #3 in marketcap in a week or two, whereas other currencies move slowly to deserve such a high position.
Anyway, I'm glad it doesn't really make a difference to bitcoin, it grows in price no matter what happens.

Users depend on miners for transaction confirmations. This is why, for example, if 99+ % of miners hard forked, that it would be coercive. Due to the difficulty algorithm, users would have no choice but to follow the miners if they want a functioning network.

It's not that miners are "slaves." It's that the protocol was designed to incentivize miners to work for block rewards because of user demand. The way you frame this throws the incentive mechanism on its head.

There's a few reasons why Metcalfe's law doesn't apply here: 1) the nodes aren't equal (monetarily), 2) the network isn't splitting -- it's really duplicating from a non-miners perspective, and 3) it doesn't take into account the positive effects associated with the splitting process.  Right?  Just think, to use a Metcalfe variable,  if we still communicated by facsimile instead of through it's child technology, the world wide web....bitcoin transactions would be quite a bit more precarious.

Not really. They are just trying to create a new cyptocurrency out of an established one - BITCOIN. Another reason why forking happens is that they want to make the transactions faster with lower fees. Before the forking happened on August 1, the transaction traffic (esp. in blockchain) is so slow that it even take a week for your transactions to be confirmed.

It's definitely about controlling the future development of Bitcoin--including securing Asic-Boost and keeping the majority of transactions on-chain, rather than pursuing the Lightning Network.

But regarding your point about altcoin prices: maybe that's true over the short term, but wouldn't exchanges just open BCH markets for altcoins? If it really took over?

And you propose we gauge user demand by arguing hypotheticals for the rest of time?  With everyone speaking for everyone else?  The perpetual tribal conflict with neither side backing down, bickering for the rest of eternity.  Yeah... sounds like fun.   ::)

The only way this works is to get on with it and see what people actually use.  There's also that tiny and persistent non-sequitur where people can't logically make the argument that "non-mining nodes are vital and the network can't survive without them", whilst simultaneously claiming that "miners supposedly make all the decisions and the non-mining nodes are completely powerless to prevent it".  You can't have it both ways, so which is it?  My stance is that non-mining nodes do matter, so if they don't support the miners, the issue should be swiftly resolved and the miners won't build a successful chain (but you still have no right or ability to deny them the chance to try, though, precisely because no one is in control of anyone).  So again, let's just get on with it.  There is literally no other way through this unless one of the two sides starts making concessions.  I don't see any hint of that happening yet.  So the two sides are going to do their own thing.  And fair play to 'em.

Ultimately, it's still an issue of freedom and not one of control.  Whatever else is said, nothing will change this.  I'm mentally deducting credibility points from anyone who uses those phrases.  The "hostile takeover", "cabal", "benevolent dictator", "taking control", etc, because they all imply that the user of those phrases simply doesn't understand the core tenet of permissionless.  Everyone does what they want.  Qué Sera and such.

You always have alternatives, you just don't happen to like those alternatives as much as trying (and failing) to dictate terms and force your own views onto the miners.

 I also think that way, because forking BTC and creating a new coin in the process might make the new coin more valuable. I think that forks are happening to make the services of transaction more smooth, but it creates more unstability in the world of BTC.

No, I don't think that forkers have the intent of killing btc. Many of those innovations are actually carried out for the greater good and solve the scalability problems. I find many aspects of forking pretty sensible. That said, everyone is still holding on to their own business interests.

In the scheme of things, I don't think Bitcoin Cash was coercive. It was an opt-in hard fork intended to split off from the network. That's the ideal way to hard fork. But I do think that Bitmain et al would do whatever is in their power (manipulating the BTC and BCH markets, and using Bitmain's hashpower to give the appearance of market demand when that demand may be fabricated) to see their side win.

There is a question to me why someone want to kill a network that pay them every day. Maybe the answer is that they want to kill bitcoin so they can switch after that to bcash. Is more centralised and can control it very easy. I cant find any other reason.
It seems Satoshi was very idealistic to believe that economical interest will be the main reason for the miners to protect the network. It seems miners has form a cartel and they are against their economical interest and only want to destroy bitcoin.

Bingo. It's been said that AsicBoost could increase Bitmain's output by 30%. Segwit apparently threatens that. The solution? Create market demand for a BTC fork that keeps AsicBoost (and their hash power majority) intact.

They don't necessarily need to kill BTC. They just need Bitcoin Cash to be large enough to sustain demand and remain a top coin in the long term. They are obviously vying for Bitcoin's title, but they don't need to kill Bitcoin to do that, either.

That is exactly what they are trying to achieve, they cannot become bitcoin if they do not kill the current bitcoin, this is a battle about power and the miners are trying to have an even greater influence in the network and the devs of core are doing their best to try to keep that influence at bay, I think at the end bitcoin is going to win but difficult times are ahead of us.

The response to this is very easy, they don't aim to kill the blockchain, they just want to divide this huge power into small pieces so that they can take some pieces under their control. Then they can start to rule. The story is this, for me.

Bitcoin is killing itself!  Have you tried purchasing a cup of coffee, lately, with bitcoin?  Fees: https://bitcoinfees.21.co/  <---This is ridiculous ---> it costs more for the transaction than it does for the product itself.  This cannot hold....the forkers are trying to fix the broken platform, not kill it.

The fork, blocksize debate and transaction DDoS spam could be intended to replace core developers with stooges who will do the bidding of miners.

Core developers have good reason to oppose a fork. There aren't any good arguments for a fork other than wresting control of btc away from core devs.

Give it time. Segwit is locked in and will be activated soon. Much testing has been done on the Lightning Network, and conceivably, transacting on LN could be much cheaper than transacting fully on-chain. And without any trust involved! But without Segwit, it will be much harder to implement. Even Segwit itself will provide a capacity increase, lowering fees in the interim. I'm not too worried.

That's at least partly the goal. Jihan Wu and company has been pretty open about it too. I think they invented the word "De-Coreifying" while mass deleting commits from Bitcoin ABC after it was forked from Bitcoin. Part of the selling point here is that Core is being "replaced"; that's been what the r/btc and Bitcoin Unlimited crowd has been clamoring for for years now.


I think some of the forkers may actually have good intentions, but their arguments and solutions are terrible.

And yet...


Credibility points deducted.  Core do not control Bitcoin, thus there is no control to wrest.  Developers cannot be replaced because they can always contribute code to the chain they want to support.  Again, you have the concepts of control and freedom completely ass-backwards.  

Miners can't force Developers to follow them.
Miners can't force Non-mining Nodes to follow them.
Developers can't force Miners to follow them.
Developers can't force Non-mining Nodes to follow them.
Non-mining Nodes can't force Developers to follow them.
Non-mining Nodes can't force Miners to follow them.

All participants are free to do whatever the hell they want and, one way or another, some combination of those participants will create the greatest incentive to follow their chain.

The flaw in your thinking is that it's somehow a binary choice between miners and devs about who "leads".  It isn't.  Neither one should be "in control".  Neither one is "in control".  So the two have the freedom to go their separate ways if that's what they want to do (and don't forget about the non-mining nodes and the role they play in balancing it all out).  So keep playing conspiracy if that's what helps you sleep at night, but in the end, all the hype and drama is a feeble distraction to what's actually happening.  And what's happening right now is a clear and vivid demonstration that at least half the people on this forum who think they understand Bitcoin, haven't got the slightest clue.  Reality is biting hard, yet still people somehow refuse to see it.  Right in front of your eyes, you have clear and undeniable proof that control has no relevance because no one is backing down.  

No one is in control.  

Permissionless.  

Learn it.

---

LOL.  All hardforks are opt-in.  The argument you appear to be trying to make is that hardforks are okay as long as there aren't too many people that disagree with you.  But if a majority disagree with you, then it's bad because you don't want to play with the people you disagree with.  But at the same time, you're less incentivised to play with those who do agree with you if it meant issues transacting due to minority chain issues like lack of hashpower.  So either way, you're between a rock and a hard place.  There's still no force or control involved though.  There is only the alignment of incentives.  Everyone does what's best for themselves, even if the choice isn't always easy.

The simple fact is, you don't get to decide how many people disagree with you.  You can label it coercive if there happen to be a lot of them, but it doesn't change anything.  They still disagree with you and you still can't tell them what to do.

This is the kind of thing that happens when people wake up and realize they have been letting a central authority tell them what to do and how to manage their assets.  It's called 'rebellion.' 

As the supposed shepherds of bitcoin (because they control access to the primary bitcoin repository and get to decide which changes to allow), Bitcoin Core overstepped the bounds of authority for a decentralized system by kicking out one of the primary core developers (who tried to fix a problem) and then sitting on their hands and refusing to fix the scale-ability issue for which the masses were pleading.  (I suspect that someone with deep pockets and a strong interest in maintaining the status quo was influencing them.)

So what happens?  A couple of groups of developers, took up the challenge to fix the issue, and since they couldn't get their work incorporated into Core, the only logical choice was to fork the chain, start a new currency, and let the markets/users decide.

Unless there are other major changes, I suspect that we will see a stability develop in which one chain becomes the 'store of value', like gold in a vault, and one will become a truly spendable currency/medium of exchange.

None of these players want to hurt bitcoin.  They just want it to work like they believe it should.  Perhaps they are both/all right...

The code devs have so far failed in their attempt to resolve the scaling issues. Please check the number of unconfirmed transactions. The number has swung between 50,000 and 100,000 for any time during the last 2 weeks. This can't go ahead in the long term, especially as the number of users are rising. There needs to be a permanent solution, and the core devs don't have any.

Credibility points deducted.  

This is pure BS!!  Bitcoin Core is a small group of devs who control access to the Bitcoin Core repository (the only bitcoin repository until recently).  They decide what code gets included.  

Just ask Gavin Andresen (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/06/bitcoin-project-blocks-out-gavin-andresen-over-satoshi-nakamoto-claims), or Jeff Garzik (https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/segwit2x-dev-jeff-garzik-expelled-from-bitcoin-core-repository/) about how much control they have.  

there is a difference between literal threats and force (coercion) and the idea of economic coercion. economic coercion is when the controllers of a vital resource (say, 99% of miners in the ETH/ETC split) uses their advantage to compel people to do something they wouldn't do if this resource were not monopolized.

in other words, if users and services believe that in order to have reliable transaction confirmations they need to switch to the miner's hard fork, this is coercive. they wouldn't necessarily have followed the hard fork if not for the supermajority of miners exercising control over a vital resource (hash power).

Core have control over their own repository.  Different developers have control over different repositories.  The important distinction to make is that the code in those different repositories is not Bitcoin until a supermajority of those securing the chain, a combination of both mining and non-mining nodes, enforce the rules in that code to make it Bitcoin.  

The issue seems to be that we've spent so long with centralised development, some people have deluded themselves into thinking that's the only way it can work.  Evidently that isn't true.  Despite the different codebases competing for market share, we're still able to transact.  That's all it is.  A free and open market.

Again, no one single developer, or group of developers has control.  No one can force anyone to run any code they don't want to run.  Everything is opt-in.  Please refer to my previous post in full.

---

If you feel strongly enough about it, there is literally nothing stopping you (aside from possibly the confines of your own wealth) from buying some hardware and pointing it at the chain you want to support.  You don't have to rely on their resources, you merely choose to.  That doesn't mean you get to decide how they use their resources.  Use your own if you can't agree.  

I keep hearing this argument that "everyone" agrees with this one single development group and that "everyone" thinks the miners are wrong, yet no one seems to want to put their money where their mouth is and point some hashpower at the ruleset "everyone" supposedly agrees with.  I mean, there's a whole forum full of you all.  Surely if you all chipped in, because you believe in this, you could muster adequate hashpower of your own to do what you want with.  Just a thought...


//EDIT:  And to the owners of this forum and bitcoin.org, you must have a crapton of wealth being involved since the early days.  Where is your hashpower?  Why are you part of this ever-expanding, something-for-nothing, self-entitled bullshit culture that seems to permeate the community?  If you started mining, maybe you wouldn't feel quite as much pressure to tell everyone else what Bitcoin "should" be, because you could influence that directly for yourselves.

That was true when home mining was viable. Engaging in a viable mining operation nowadays runs at least six figures USD to cover overheads and long term contingencies.


Maybe there is something to that. It wasn't clearly a problem a year or two ago. I think a lot of us have been blindsided by the fact that miners with entrenched interests and average BTC users may have conflicting interests.

Actually, I agree with your larger point, that anyone may choose to use whichever code-set they choose, and you are absolutely right with your statement regarding centralized development, which is why I applaud the guys who had the fortitude to stand up and present an alternative, knowing they would be accused of all sorts of things along the way.

Your discussion on centralized development is the point I was trying to make, until recently Bitcoin Core had the 'bully pulpit' of the bitcoin world by means of what figmentofmyass (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=136484) was saying.

 

If you're operating on a completely separate chain, remember that you wouldn't have to equal the hashrate of the miners on the chain you disagree with.  You could get by with lots of smaller mining operations working in unison towards your desired goal.  The world is only as you want to build it.  Contribute what you want, where you want, when you want.  Just don't tell others what/where/when they can or can't contribute.  If they don't share your interests, just leave them be and do your own thing.  Such is the beauty of open-source crypto.  

As a reminder, the alternative to this is closed-source crypto.  This requires you placing total 100% trust in a group of developers to make every single last decision.  If you don't agree with those decisions, you can't take part anymore and you can't fork the code either.  That's what I'd call control, force and coercion.  Luckily that isn't Bitcoin, so I suggest everyone stops trying to turn it into that horrid scenario and just learn to appreciate it for what it is:

Freedom.

(Not control)

What you say here is exactly the problem. There are so many greedy people in crypto, and because it's unregulated by governments, they can do whatever they want within the current laws.

Look at all the scammy ICO's. People are loosing tons of money on shitcoins, and promises of greater things, and in the end there is only one winner. The team behind who is milking all the ICO money into their pockets!

As for bitcoin cash! they should have made a new altcoin with a new blockchain instead of trying to call themself bitcoin cash. They will never be bitcoin, they will always be "something"cash.

It really depends on the fork, i can say that the soft fork is much safer than hard fork because in soft fork there is no split and only the block size is being change and just some modifications like the segwit which is a kind of soft fork and that is safe because it will just add more size into the block size and modify the current system and implement lightning network unlike hardfork that there is a proposal of having 2 chains which is very risky for the original coin because the users might migrate to the clone coin.

This is where it gets a bit murky. Soft forks can absolutely result in network splits. I actually thought that BIP148 was incredibly reckless. There is a big difference between a miner-activated soft fork (which results in no split) and a user-activated "soft fork" which can cause an incompatible chain split that is basically indistinguishable from a hard fork.

I'm torn between being thankful to the BIP148 crowd for getting Segwit activated, and feeling embittered that they operated on so much deception about how UASFs work. e.g. Luke with the "if miners don't follow the UASF, they are 51% attacking the network" and "Twitter polls are good enough to suggest consensus for BIP148".....

The goal is not to destroy Bitcoin, but to get control of it's development, either by convincing community that some new team is better than Core, or by pressuring Core into accepting decisions of forkers, under threat of network splits. SegWit2x is basically about miners threatening to stop mining Bitcoin, so the network will get disrupted and unsecured, their ultimate goal is to force Core accept 2x fork. Forkers realize that they need Core to keep developing Bitcoin, because it's the best group of developers right now.

Well that is their main agenda. Because they want to start a business from a successful thing. It is like getting the best employees out of a great and successful company. Well I think that morality does not exists in forking. In forking they are trying to kill the company by getting their best employees. And using the minds of the newly collected personality they can continue the progress and create new ideas.

You can't claim the moral high ground here. The developers behind the fork are by no means unethical or immoral. Yes.. I agree with the fact that they are starting from an already successful venture. But these people also played their part in making Bitcoins successful. You can't ignore the contribution made by them, and you can't overlook the way the Core developers treated them.

Oh christ, don't say that without wearing a crash helmet, lol


The "control" of the source code is only temporary, but it is control nonetheless. Only one group can control, but the users can change who that one group is. [/controlarguments]



Ultimate credibility points, for explaining it simply, IMHO :D

Yeah, the non-agreed hard forking control battles are a valid feature of Bitcoin, even Core could start making questionable decisions (although this actually depends on which trolls you ask :D)

Really, it's a good thing overall. It forces Bitcoin investors to either understand their investment (and hence the computer science behind it), or sell up and let those that believe they understand it make the investment decisions. Which doesn't stop people believing something that doesn't work out, but hey, nobody's perfect

they really taking advantage since they knew that they can accumulate more success after doing some change and with how people support cryptos most
of the holders and believers will also invest with new ideas and instead of making great development they will generate new project instead.

Another poster made & posted this graphic awhile ago. It highlights how unconfirmed transactions peak when block size pro fork agenda is being pushed.

https://i.imgur.com/9Nr8hRe.jpg

One issue with larger blocks is, it assumes a significant increase in transaction per second performance can be gained by increasing block size despite these claims being untested and unvetted.

Larger block supporters also assume these positives will outweigh any negatives associated with nodes becoming more centralized due to higher hardware requirements & possibly better attack vectors with larger blocks.

And it seems like there are being some concessions suggested by the Core/small blocker/Blockstream contingent. For example, Samson Mow recently said, "No one ever said '1mb4eva,' just plan a hard-fork safely with rationale, engineering, & most importantly: Consensus." That sounds like backtracking to me. Blockstream engineer Rusty Russell, who works on a Lightning Network implementation just posted an article about how to hard fork Bitcoin, called "The Consensus Path To A Bitcoin Hard Fork." https://twitter.com/rusty_twit/status/900220500017905664

I'm not sure how to feel. Long ago, I took the position that hard forks (at least ones where a supermajority of miners coerce users into switching networks) were unacceptable save for some existential protocol flaw (whereby every user is necessarily incentivized to fix it). I still feel that way today. But it seems even Blockstream folks are starting to suggest that a hard fork is acceptable under certain circumstances.

we cant just say that they are trying to kill the bitcoin but i guess there are no reason why they are going to do that in my opinion i guess they wanted to make the bitcoin market value to increase in the market thats why they are doing split or forks and they are being successful in this situation.

That sounds great and all, but it takes time, effort and lots of money to organize such an effort. Powerful, entrenched miners know this and can leverage it against users. The unfortunate reality is that most users don't want to bother with mining; they just want to invest. Maybe this will change with time, if miners try to flex their muscles too much.

At this point, though, a small fry like me has very little to contribute and no technical know-how to even get the process started. Again, miners know this. Like everything else in capitalism, those with large amounts of capital can easily outcompete the small fries, who have no idea where to begin organizing the required capital.

I think that's a misrepresentation of what happened. If you kept up with the mailing lists and discussion on Github, the vast majority of developers were opposed to Gavin's scaling recommendations. Yes, there was a lot of debating for years, but it was nearly two years ago that Core (a collection of many dozen or even hundreds of developers) agreed on Segwit -- particularly because they wanted to address scalability (including fixing transaction malleability for the Lightning Network) without the messy consensus issues associated with a hard fork.

The obstacle was the miners, who refused to activate Segwit for the better part of a year, until BIP148 forced the issue.

Nonsense. It is pre tested and pre vetted a priori. Because, first grade arithmetic.


Ok, here you have a valid point.

Well, it's looking like bitcoin isn't quite the platform we imagined we could build to engage in the markets equitably....It's too slow, too expensive, and involves too much maintenance.  It makes one wonder: what good is bitcoin?  Maybe bitcoin cash will solve some of these problems so that we can start engaging the markets again.  When a six dollar fee is required to make a five dollar transaction, then something's wrong!  I don't care what the bitcoin Luddites say --->  BITCOIN IS BROKEN!  We need something that works.

You are right dude and this is why we need the Lightning Network. I can't even imagine Bitcoin going past $10,000 without some major development (like LN) otherwise who in their right mind would pay 5%-10% fees on every transaction when credit cards are far lower? (2.9% and under)

It just doesn't make sense and hopefully there is a solution very shortly or Bitcoin is screwed!

5-10% sounds absurd, but as you mention, we don't need micro-transactions to be confirmed on-chain. If Bitcoin is really to be digital gold (thus achieving much higher values), we can expect that on-chain fees in fiat terms will appear absurd. What you're paying for are confirmations on the most secure payment network in the world. That can't be cheap judging by the expenditures miners make.

For redundant consumer payments, particularly with companies like Coinbase and Bitpay, the Lightning Network will hopefully make Bitcoin micro-transactions tenable.

The other day I wanted to purchase a 5 dollar e-book; the transaction fee was greater than the price of the merchandise I was trying to purchase!  The book cost 5 bucks, the minimum fee (Xapo-dynamic fee) was six bucks, so the total transaction was 11 bucks!  That's not going to work!  Right now the standard transaction fee is ~5.44 USD (https://estimatefee.com/).  <--- That's not going to work and I don't care what color the smoke is they're blowing up my ass!

It's frustrating, I know. I used bitcoin for my last month's VPN payment... same situation. The fact is that Bitcoin, as is, isn't ideal for micropayments. This recent network spam isn't helping, either. There's a lot of progress being made, though. Segwit is now active; as people migrate to Segwit outputs, new capacity will be created for everyone on the network.

The Lightning Network isn't far off, either. The Zap wallet was released in beta a week or two ago, and it's a Lightning Network wallet. Eclair is around the corner, too. The wheels are in motion! :D

The micropayment markets have been gone for awhile.  Now the markets in the moderate ranges are being effected....many (almost all) of the early adopters were the moderate ranged markets ---> e-stuff, coffee shops, vape clubs....this is going to have a longer lasting effect I believe....confidence in the platform is waning.  Who's going to invest in a merchant gateway that's unpredictably fickle and subject to becoming obsolete?  I don't know, I'm beginning to think the bitcoin cash syndicate was right all along.

Maybe Bitcoin was never ideal for micropayments from a design perspective. They worked initially because there wasn't much demand for transaction confirmations (not many people used the network). Now that there is so much demand, we need off-chain solutions like the Lightning Network, which don't compromise the trustless model. LN's model may be different and off-chain, but it is trustless and fully compatible with Bitcoin. That's good enough for me.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I'd argue it's working exactly as intended.  Some of the other people who also perceive that to be a problem have produced some code and released it into the open market to compete.  Whilst others are working on some different code and will release that in November.  

Everyone's doing what they think is best for the future, even if a decidedly vocal rabble constantly bitch about it or call it an attack.   ::)

We've literally never had it so good.  At all times, users are free to decide which code they wish to use.  And even if you can't decide, or want to wait for a while before you decide, or don't want to make a decision at all, it doesn't even matter if you hold coins before any fork.  You can just watch events unfold and decide to switch clients later, or go with the flow.  I don't get why people are so upset about this, aside from being misled by the utterly mistaken belief that there should be a centralised authority in control, which runs wholly contrary to the entire concept behind Bitcoin.


The amount of control in Bitcoin is limited to the following.


As a user, you have control over:

• Your private keys (and corresponding wealth)
• Which software you choose to run
• The chain you wish to transact on
• Whether you run a full node and influence the rules enforced on your desired chain, or just rely on SPV

and how much you complain about how the other two groups don't agree with you (but you don't get to tell them what to do).



As a developer, you have control over:

• The code you produce and the rules you ideally want your own client to enforce
• Which direction in development you would like your own client to follow
• The chain you wish to develop upon
• Any repositories you might be in charge of

and how much you complain about how the other two groups don't agree with you (but you don't get to tell them what to do).



As a miner, you have control over:

• How much you wish to invest in hardware
• What you do with your block reward coins
• The mining pool you want to contribute to at any given time
• Which software you choose to run and, causally, which chain you choose to mine

and how much you complain about how the other two groups don't agree with you (but you don't get to tell them what to do).



And finally, you also have control over being involved in more than one of these categories, if you so choose, or even all three.

But that's about it.  

No developer overlords making all the decisions.  No miner overlords making all the decisions.  No user (activated softfork  :P) overlords making all the decisions.  If anyone advocates any of those things, they need to seriously consider what it is they're actually asking for, because I think any of those outcomes results in a weaker Bitcoin, not a stronger one.  As paradoxical as it sounds, everyone has just enough control in order to make it so that no one has overall control.  That's how it should be.  

Everything else is a mix of freedom, incentivisation, competition, equilibrium and consensus.  

The forkers are NOT trying to kill BTC.

I don't think that they are "purposely" trying to kill bitcoins. They are just businessmen who keeps on thinking how to make huge profits out of what is currently available in our community. You might also want to think that they are trying to compete with the mainstream - like visa when it comes to transactions. If they happen to kill bitcoin one day then you must not cry like a baby... if you want to get rich (granting that is your purpose with your bitcoins) then you must be prepared with the constant change.

There is no such thing as safe haven. Maybe for a while... CAVEAT!

I don't know but i heard that BitcoinCash it was created to overcome the BTC , now i don't know if this is true but BCH had a big increase and people have chosen to invest in her.

Well said! I guarantee you're not alone in this. There are still far too few camps to be the only one in any :) By words and action, I see myself in the biggest camp of them all: users who wait, see, and choose the solution that works and is (or seems) easiest. And that actually works too, as developers and miners ultimately are influenced by what (they perceive) users feel is best.

Like you said: we've actually got quite a good system that is actually working. Anyone is free to do as they will or are able to, and yet cannot dictate on their own what others must do. And as you point out, none of the discussions, arguments, even the whining, are forced on anyone. We're free to be annoyed by them, add to them, or stay oblivious.

Bitcoin isn't broken, and no one is trying to kill it. It's playing out the way it was designed to.

Yes, they’re purposely doing it. That’s what I believe. But, the main purpose of doing this is to maintain the Blockchain, though some people are having personal interest. Anyone with a plan to end Bitcoin, might be someone in support of an altcoin, which I know there are people with such purpose.

Would you agree that miners have more control than that, if they control a majority of global hash power? The chain with the most cumulative POW is considered the strongest chain (i.e. the main chain). Consideration of validity aside, a majority of hash power therefore is very meaningful to a lot of bitcoiners.

So I think it's helpful to think about this not from the perspective of individual or casual miners. A group of miners (which could be malicious), or a single chip manufacturer (i.e. Bitmain) could control said hash power. What then? What I'm getting at is, should we (as users) simply put up with such actors, and continue to follow the strongest chain? At what point (re, for example, miner centralization) would you say that splitting off from the network is worth it?

I agree that everyone is free to do whatever is in their power (how Stirner-esque)...the biggest hurdle I see is that users, by and large, are relatively new to the ecosystem. Many are largely non-technical and investment-oriented. In the short term, it makes sense for the herd to follow the longest chain, even if that might be detrimental to the system (re decentralization) in the long term.

If bitcoin's speed is 3 transactions per second and 2MB blocks scale to 6 transactions per second with 8 MB blocks scaling to 24 transactions per second...

Bitcoin will still be incredibly slow by the standards of credit cards & other payment systems which achieve thousands of transactions per second. 24 transactions per second with 8 MB blocks is still extremely slow.

Many 1 MB blocks on bitcoin core are mined are not 100% filled to capacity. There are many 1 MB blocks which contain only 600 kilobytes due to miners imposing conditions on transaction fees to limit which transactions they mine. Even if block size was increased to 2 MB or 8 MB there would be many blocks which were only filled to 25% or lower capacity due to miners only processing transactions containing above a certain threshold of transaction fee.

Transactions per second is a theoretical number which can vary. It is possible to increase block size and see transactions per second increase a smaller than expected amount.

False comparison. On a human scale, bitcoin transactions post in about the same time as credit card transactions - a couple seconds. Bitcoin transactions settle in several ten minute intervals. In contrast, credit card transactions settle in thirty days or more.

And when blocks are not chronically full, zero conf transactions are reliable enough for the majority of retail purchases. At least they were, until RBF broke them.

Bitcoin can process approximately 3 transactions per second while credit cards can process upwards of thousands per second.

If you drift off topic and discuss "post time" that's something else.

The block size argument misleads people into thinking bitcoin can process transactions at the same speed credit cards can achieve. That they can "buy coffee with bitcoin" the same way they would with a credit card.

Even with 8 MB block sizes bitcoin will still be extremely slow in comparison to credit cards. Bitcoin will never be fast enough to process thousands of transactions per second the way credit cards do. That's the main point that could be relevent in terms of people questioning whether they want to risk security and decentralization for a relatively small gain in transaction speed which may not fix the issues bitcoin has had with unconfirmed transactions.


This is interesting:

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/something-odd-is-happening-at-bitcoins-largest-mining-pool-cm756139


In cases like this, increasing block size won't do anything to increase transaction speed when blocks are full to "99 KB, 369 KB and 860 KB" capacity.

Bitcoin -- in the form of Bitcoin Cash -- can process about 25 transactions a second. And for the interval of time when demand does not outstrip this capacity, zero conf transactions are reasonably safe for many use cases. Which yields a user experience roughly on par with credit cards to the buyer, and markedly superior than credit cards for the vendor.

Will 25/sec be enough five years from now? No, but the incessant march of technology will resolve that issue.

If it is true that unconfirmed transactions are caused by politically motivated DDoS spam rather than block size, increasing block size won't do anything to fix it.

https://i.imgur.com/9Nr8hRe.jpg

Labeling bitcoin's low transaction speed a "scaling issue" is a failure of terminology.

Its like a website being DDoS spammed and choosing to call it a "bandwidth issue".

I think really the airdrops are having the biggest effect rather than the forks.  Why sell your Bitcoin when you can sell from the huge number of airdrops you get just from holding onto them.

Yezzir. To be honest, paying bills in btc is starting to become a pain in the ass (I dont keep money in exchange wallets unless absolutely necessary, so I send money in as I need it, to Coinbase, to use my shift card.) A 100 dollar bill has a 3-5 dollar additional fee on it, a twenty dollar tank of gas has something like a 10-20% fee on it :( . It got so bad, fee wise and congestion wise, that I switched over to my eth wallet to fund my card. Much faster, much cheaper.


Bitcoin is playing a dangerous game. Nostalgia is great, but we are going to get left in the dust.

I think maybe it is getting out of control, and something needs to be done to control and make things remain safe, so I guess that’s what they’re trying to do. Eehm…im not actually perfect in discussing topics on forks, but if what you actually meant was a split, then I will have to let you know that there wasn’t any split on August 1st.

No airdrop from OMG, till now my account of mew still zero balance of OMG. Airdrop is free and anything is free only small numbers. It is imposible to get more than 100 USD airdrop, the biggest airdrop is about 1-10 USD. Nothing to be expected from airdrop. Signature, and twitter campaign aren't airdrop. We work as the publishers and developers as advertisers. So nothing is free. We work and get paid. Never Expect airdrop to be rich.

Well, maybe because it crashes the price badly everytime bitcoin forks into different bitcoins and destroys the network effect confusing people. "Oh wow, there are 3 bitcoins now? what do I buy?"

They know their shitcoin would never gain traction as an altcoin, so they try to steal the bitcoin brand by bribing corporations into accepting their shitcoin altfork.

Satoshi said clearly that he didn't want his software forked for technical reasons. Stop selling this bullshit as if it's good for bitcoin.

If the only thing you care about is the fiat price of your coins, then frankly I don't give a shit what your opinion is.  Freedom doesn't have a price tag.  I stand firmly on the side of the argument that freedom is infinitely more valuable than some government IOUs.  Obsess about those all you like, just don't expect anyone else to care.

And no one is stealing anything, you ignorant asshat.  Stealing implies that someone owns the Bitcoin brand, so perhaps you could explain who that is, exactly?  As far as I was aware, no one own or controls Bitcoin.  Bitcoin is influenced by the code people freely choose to run.  If it turns out that enough people want to run different code, that's not an act of theft.  Either accept that, or go use some closed-source crapcoin like Ripple where no one has a choice.  It sounds like you prefer the ideals of closed-source development where no one can fork the code, so what the fuck are you even doing here?

I keep hearing about this bribery like it was some sort of documented fact.  Where is the funding from this bribery coming from?  Who, exactly, is bribing who?  Do you have any actual evidence for any of these seemingly baseless accusations?  If not, I'd ask that you stop talking shit.

And stop the pathetic appeals to authority about what Satoshi would or wouldn't have wanted.  It's just getting sad now.  Even Satoshi isn't in a position where they can tell people what to do (nor did they ever express the will to do so), so why do you think you are in a position to tell everyone what code they can or can't run?  Everyone has a choice and you can't tell them how to choose.  You and all the other authoritarian fuckwits on this board can go start your own DictatorCoin if you think you can force your views onto everyone else.  That shit doesn't fly here.

I do not believe forkers are trying to kill Bitcoin.  I believe they have great things in mind and needs to do it outside the Bitcoin blockchain to not affect the Bitcoin network themselves.  Besides, if they do their project on the Bitcoin main chain, they would't have a full control of the decision since it need consensus to apply anything to the main Bitcoin code.  They probably just wanted to do things themselves and do not want the burden of asking any consent from miners to developers.

Of course price matters you dumb autist. And I don't care if its against fiat. If BTC goes down against the oz of gold, it's a failure. If what you are doing gets your purchasing power down while centralizing the network with bigger blocks, then why would anyone support this unless they were getting mad fiat gains behind the curtain?
 Hardforking bitcoin into several bitcoins = a mistake. Holders lose purchasing power and gain nothing in return, maybe the illusion that you are now more free because you forked bitcoin into an altcoin if you are stupid enough to think that.


No one owns the bitcoin brand, but it's obvious hardforking it and paying bribing miners with FIAT money so they mine your hardfork then try to claim that is the real bitcoin is a bitch ass move, but idiots like you would call this freedom and good for bitcoin. Get the fuck out of here.


https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/roger-ver-from-bitcoin-jesus-to-bitcoin-antichrist-69fc7a17c622



Do you think if there is bribery going on they are going to make it public? connect the fucking dots you mong. Im not going to do the homework for you. If you think miners (the most profit seeking people in the game) and all of these devs with obvious ties to the government are hardforking bitcoin "for the good of bitcoin" because they are good samaritans you are deluded as fuck. Understand the game theory at play then come back and try to argue why your hardfork is good idea again.


I don't give a fuck about satoshi, but since you hardforkers usually appeal so satoshi, I did it myself to show that even satoshi was against it.
Hardforking bitcoin because fiat corporations are behind it is a bad idea objectively no matter who says it.



Last time I checked, it was Bitcoin Unlimited releasing closed source code. Segwit2x was making the slack and github private and Garzik is trying to put his bloq shit on there, Bitcoin XT had anti privacy shit on there, the list goes on. What have any of these idiots contributed to bitcoin other than get fiat corporations and miners on board by everyone knows how? Get real buddyboy.

I'm just gonna skip past the rest of the specious shit you're slinging, and focus on one assertion at a time. Let us start with this one:


Wild-ass assertion devoid of supporting facts. Put up or shut up.

Quoting for emphasis:  "If BTC goes down against the oz of gold, it's a failure".  I see where the issue stems from now.  No wonder you think the situation is so delicate.  A temporary blip in material value is more important to you than permissionless freedom.  Purchasing power is the icing on the cake.  It's not the sole reason for using it, unless you're just a greedy shit, which is what I'm starting to suspect might be the case.  

If Bitcoin can't settle disputes utilising the consensus mechanism it's equipped with, it's a failure.  And that remains to be seen.  As such, there is no problem here.  You've got yourself all roiled up over internet drama.  Bitcoin will be fine.  As I've stated before (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2050950.msg20468982#msg2046898), Bitcoin doesn't want or need your pampered, mollycoddled, nanny-state, protectionist foolishness.  Bitcoin survives in the wild and grows stronger and more robust through adaptation and freedom of choice, selecting the best code available from the open market at any given time.  Bitcoin does not need you to defend it from would-be attackers.  It can do that all by itself and, whether you personally approve of the code being used or not, Bitcoin will come out stronger at the end of it, as I suspect will the price if that's your primary concern.  This is the kind of shit I'd be expecting to explain to newbie accounts.  How the actual fuck have you not got it into your thick skull yet?



Idiotic bribery part aside, I do think it's good for Bitcoin that it's possible to hardfork and that miners can choose whichever chain they like, as can users, non-mining nodes and developers.  Are you suggesting Bitcoin would be somehow improved if we could put guns to the miners' heads and tell them what they have to do with their own hardware they took the risk investing in?  But whether I'm correct in my views or not is irrelevant.  The simple fact is, I recognise it's a natural part of the ecosystem I willingly joined.  A free and permissionless system where no one dictates anything.  You seem to be upset that it doesn't do what it said on the box and that it would be better if we could control the miners and tell them what they can or can't do.  Bitcoin can fork at any time for any reason if enough of the participants deem it worthwhile.  There is demonstrably nothing you can do to change that, so sit back and enjoy the ride.



Okay, sure, let's take a closer look at that (https://bitcoindevelopmentgrant.com/en/).  Your image is a little outdated, it's actually $1.2 million now.  

Which one of the following do you take exception to?


I personally see no problem with any of those tenets.  They all seem perfectly reasonable to me, so what, exactly, is your problem with it?  Aside from you being a fascist who thinks there should only be one dev team, since that goes without saying.  You know you're fighting an unwinnable fight here, right?  Aside from incessant mudslinging, which is clearly all you've got in the arsenal, there is nothing you can do to stop people writing code and releasing alternative clients.  There is also nothing you can do to stop people running those alternative clients.  And nothing you can do to stop people funding those clients.  There's not a lot you can do about anything.  Why do you even bother?  You are the embodiment of flailing sperger.  

Further to that, if you think Bitcoin can't cope with what's happening now, what do you think will happen when some big multinational company or bank gets over their initial walled garden naivety (just like you need to get the fuck over your walled-development-garden naivety) and releases a client?  It's bound to happen one day.  You won't be able to stop them either.  As such, you want as much diversity in this ecosystem as possible to prevent one of those big companies gaining too much influence.  Believe me when I tell you that you will definitely want the option for those people to fork away when they can't turn Bitcoin into what they'd prefer, so we need this little test to see what happens.  Think about the long game, dumbass, that's how game-theory works.  

I have enough faith in this little experiment to believe that everything will be fine (and genuinely, I really do), but I'd still like to see it proven empirically that Bitcoin can survive contentious hardforks.  Resilient honey badger is resilient until proven otherwise.



Let's assume just for a moment that we agreed that these people are as bad as you say they are.  We categorically don't, but we'll just pretend for the moment.  Despite however untrustworthy, ill-intentioned or downright bad these people are, you still don't want them to leave?  You could be rid of them.  Separate.  Gone.  If the Core devs do decide to change the mining algorithm, these evil usurpers might never have influence over your preferred chain again.  These people are perfectly willing to leave you alone and do whatever the fuck you want.  Why can't you leave them alone?  Why are you so obstinately controlling of others, despite how utterly and truly impotent you are at doing it?  Keep throwing your toys out of the pram, baby.  It accomplishes nothing.

This is impossible to kill bitcoin and it is the strong coin of this 21st century so the people who know deep web cannot get into it and just flourish it. Investor who had invested in it has believe in it and no one can divert his mind from this and he will invest and invest to earn more and more.