While there is nothing wrong with blockchain.info (I use it myself for small amounts), you do NOT have total control of your coins.

Websites can get hacked, and their owners can steal, there have been numerous examples already.

Most users will probably be happy with any proposal that increases the block size, the BIP100 revision also seems sensible.

The BU group are anti-segwit/ln (for obvious reasons) but may also be against their own proposal, IE it's just a blocking and/or leverage position.

The core group are very unlikely to roll back back their position either as too much time and money has been 'invested' in their solution.

Supporters of both groups are quick to blame the other for the downturn in the current BTC price, but they are both to blame IMHO, the fact that no solution is currently likely is just a plausible a reason, but unless you talk to all the people selling there is no way to know for sure.

Status Quo, seems the likely winner, and Bitcoin will continue to suffer as a result, maybe it will take that suffering for a consensus to emerge.

I concur, I think stalemate or a completely new proposal will win as I don't think either side is currently ready to compromise, and neither have the support currently to force through their version. It's impossible for segwit/ln to get 95% as it only takes one of the top ten pools to block. I suppose BU has an outside chance, but I don't see them doing anything until at least 75% are in favour that seems extremely unlikely and probably not even then.

It's already centralised, sorry to break it to you.

But then on top of that even without exchange fees there is always a difference between what you can sell at and what you can buy at, that may cost more that the original bitcoin transaction fee.

It's allowed sure but no it's not smart to keep everything in one place, after so many scams and hacks over the years, diversification is the key, and my rules are simple.

1. Never keep more bitcoins on any website than you are happy to shrug off if lost, so blockchain.info or exchanges, maybe BTC0.1
2. Keep a slightly larger amount in a secure local wallet, Electrum, Core, Mycellium etc, maybe BTC0.1 - BTC1
3. The rest or bulk in some form of cold storage, be it paper or hardware or both, maybe BTC1+

You can adjust the figures to what you feel comfortable with.

You are probably going to be bombarded with scammers, first thing don't even think about using paypal for anything to do with bitcoin, you can very easily end up with nothing.

Try localbitcoins.com and pick a seller with a large amount of feedback plenty with 20,000+ trades. The site holds the bitcoins in escrow, you transfer money by bank transfer, they send you the coins.

You said what I was trying to more eloquently, so have cut the rest out.

Can you expand on this paragraph, and the reason you think that pools seem to be the ones driving the charge to larger blocks and thereby releasing the fee pressure. I get that is the reason they don't want Segwit/LN, but then why are they supporting BU or similar alternatives. Is it just the only tool they have to fight Segwit/LN and they have no intention of actually going through with it, ie it's all a big bluff.

I don't btw, scaling isn't that big of a problem, and increased usage outweighs any short terms pitfalls, and the pitfalls are relatively easy to manage by just going slowly.

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.

I didn't say it would work in reality, and I'm not claiming there are 6 billion users and I'm not advocating 32MB blocks, so no I am not mad.

I am just illustrating that the common argument that larger blocks = centralisation of nodes = bad is rubbish.

And even if it somehow did, how many people actually NEED the entire blockchain, and would the network still function if there were only 500 nodes, yes it would. Also, I'm sure there are plenty of ways that the blockchain can and will be stored in the future that don't require you to have it all anyway.

Someone want to check my maths.

Currently, there are 457,468 blocks, if they had ALL been 32MB and full from the start that is 14,638,976MB, which is 14.6TB hardly an earth shattering size.

Antpool appears to have only moved some of it's servers to Unlimited

https://coin.dance/blocks

Shows plenty of Antpool blocks not signalling anything.

The only thing you can do is read both proposals, and weigh them up yourself.

Anything else you read is just someone else's opinion which may or may not be biased one way or the other.

I therefore offer no opinion 

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.

Diversification is the key, after so many scams and hacks over the years my rules are simple.

1. Never keep more bitcoins on any website than you are happy to shrug off if lost (BTC0.1 perhaps).
2. Keep a slightly larger amount in a secure local wallet (maybe BTC0.1 - BTC1)
3. The bulk in some form of cold storage, be it paper or hardware or both (BTC1+)

I'll go with the latter for starting it, then 'mistake' for the follow up with badly programmed trading bots not being able to handle the sudden huge swing.

It was a fun rollercoaster that's for sure

Now that was either a big spike or my charts went haywire :-)

And now they are all being sold again.

Someone's trading bot is about to get a stern telling off I think

These are good, don't think many object even the big pools who gain the most out of fees haven't an issue with bigger blocks

I have seen this said by quite a few people, how is this conclusion reached. The blockchain will be bigger for sure but storage space is ever expanding and cheap, I bet most people into bitcoin have enough computer equipment around to run a node with multiple TB's of data

True, but I would expect all pools to increase the sizes gradually, not jump straight to 2,4,8,16 or whatever size it could be

With the current transaction backlog, sending urgent transactions is currently (almost) impossible on your site.

You give no indication of the transaction size so I can't work out what fee to put myself, all I can do is take what you recommend, add some to it, ignore the warning that there is 'no need to spend this much' and then still sit waiting for 4+ hours for the damn thing to confirm.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr 

Here endeth the rant.

Indeed, for those of us who prior and just after their arrival of machines thought that it was a huge $10,000 black hole, it has turned out to be the best piece of mining equipment for both profit and longevity that I have owned.

The big profit came from holding all the litecoins it made and then dumping them during the run up before the litecoin halving, but even here in the UK with our ridiculous energy costs it's still making me about $12.50 a day, not a lot but considering the lifespan of all the other machines I have owned that is impressive.

There is a lot of animosity towards KNC, but every machine I bought from them made me a profit, and that is based on BTC Received - BTC Price Paid - Electricity, whilst other machines from Bitmain/Spondoolies etc have been profitable they have relied on BTC received when sold to make them so, or things like the insane profits during the Paycoin XPY bubble.

Yes, you need to login with username 'pi' instead of 'admin', then screen -r will bring it up.