coindesk is owned by DCG. which funds blockstream and other companies which have a certain idea of how bitcoin should be.

another thing about DCG is they own BTCC..
and yet here is the funny.
BTCC has virtually disappeared. but you dont hear news about it. big BTCC names like samson mow. shifted from BTCC to blockstream and coindesk has been very quiet about the strip down and shut down of BTCC.
bobby lee is now concentrating on the convention/conference organisation circuit that ar usualy dirctly or indirectly funded by coindesk(dcg)

so that might help explain why you were reading a coindesk article that was trying to influence readers to suggest bitmain was in trouble, when it wasnt. as there has been ongoing social drama between the two

anyway
bitmain continued to make s15, and now funding to make s17. if they were in trouble they would have gone and 'done a BTCC'. but instead bitmain are just carrying on doing what they do each year.

in my eyes coindesk and DCG are butt-hurt that they invested into the wrong pool company

first of all profits and losses sheets of revenue do not declare unsold investments
they would however declare income from goods services / sold shares/sold investments

so numbers of revenue has nothing to do with coins HELD. but more so to do with fiat generated through mining/selling asics and costs of doing such

so talking about coin HOLDINGS is irrelevant

also. seems the article cant do maths

"However, Bitmain previously disclosed it had grossed profits of $1 billion in the first half of 2018. Subtracting that from a $500 million profit for the first nine months leaves it with a net loss of roughly $500 million for the third quarter."

2018 q1: +500 selling s9
2018 q2: +500 selling s9
2018 q3:  -500 designing s15
= still + 500

i would say with selling s9's in q4 and s15 in q4 the q4 would be a + number too

so article and forums topic seems to want to subtly imply a loss (subliminally hinting/worded) as an overall loss
but.. where reality is they just used SOME income of q1-2,  to spend on outgoings in q3 and still had money left over

think about it.
imagine you get $500 one week. $500 second week. then you have to buy groceries and rent the third week. would you go to your spouse and say "i declare a $500 loss." or would you say "i stil have $500 after 3 weeks"

as for the s17 next range of asics.
in q2-3 i was expecting that q4 to show high hashrate rise. but yea doing some maths on the mining cost of s15 vs s9 ther wasnt much between them so when they sold off most their s9 and replaced them with only a moderate amount of s15 that didnt show a large hashrate rise. butif these s17's are going to show a significant difference compared to s9's then maybe 2019's future will show sharper hashrate rise upon release of s17. as it appears that people were more interested in s9's in 2018.

yet. you can also just buy a domino's giftcard/voucher and cut out the middleman and the current LN issues.

btc->LN->route->fold->giftcard->dominos
btc->giftcard->dominos

DOMINO'S has nothing to do with bitcoin.
its a middle man service called fold. they buy dominos vouchers for cheap.

you pay fold via LN and they use a voucher/giftcard and your home address, and make the order on your behalf

dominos has no clue of the LN involvement or the fold involvement or the indirect bitcoin crypto involvement. all dominos sees is customers delivery address and a paid with giftcard/voucher

as for a place for learning, i used to spoonfeed people until your buddies come up with their rekt campaigns and social drama to just say "wrong coz franky".. so i then just said "do your own research if you dont wanna learn what i learned.
and now its back to getting spoonfed.
seriously. i know u love wiki or only the first search result of google. but try upping your game.
if you really dont want to read what i write. and think its just fud. atleast DO SOME RESEARCH instead of just proclaiming "wrong coz franky".. as that just maks you sound as bad as doomand and your buddies who lack the info
its also an old outdated social drama tactic that lauda, carlton used to do, but they too learned the hard way.
so it appears they passd the mantle down to you guys. but you seem to have not progress any further then them as you still echo the same sentiments and myth rhetoric.. so its just boring

anyway with an easy bit of research taking 10 seconds you would have found
https://www.coindesk.com/pizza-lightning-bitcoin
"The largest barrier to conversion was setting up a new lightning wallet,” Reeves said, adding there were roughly 1,500 orders but only a 10 percent conversion rate because people struggled to use lightning-enabled bitcoin wallets."

real funny part, thats 10% success of those that got as far as making an order. think of the ones that tried but didnt even get that far
and i truly am surprised even when you were given a link to a video of LN devs themselves saying the flaws of their own system months ago, your still trying to play the social drama game of "wrong coz franky"
maybe best you take time to do research like i suggest to your buddies who seem to just want to resort to social drama rebuttles of "cant be assed to research so ill just say wrong and include the name of the poster to poke the bear"

...

as for other point
real bitcoins are held on a blockchain and are only 8 decimals which are locked
12 decimal increase utility.. of a token thats pegged

what you have to try to realise and research is the difference between the 8decimal valued tx used for opening closing. which does broadcast to bitcoins blockchain and the 12 decimal used only within and for LN payments. they have 2 different functions/scripts. they have 2 different token systems. you wont see a 12 decimal tx on the bitcoin blockchain.
so you might want to really understand and research things

imagine it like a cheque.
is a cheque a true guaranteed payment. or do people rush to get it cleared/settled before proclaiming the IOU is cleared and settled and any funds owed are no longer owed.
if you think that just handing out signed 'payments' not cleared are just as trusted. then realise that cheques are only trusted due to laws and KYC allowing someone to chase the non paying IOU handler shhould a cheque not clear. .. which LN doesnt have that protection (as yet)
if you stil think that you will happily accept un-cleared chques without the laws/kyc. then you ar risking mor then you care to admit

so be careful using LN and definetly dont over promise/over promote it unless you understand it fully

whats not said by the OP's link is that the 150 orders taken is based on the fact that 1500 orders tried, but only 150 succeeded, with fold saying the issue was due to lightning. 10% success rate..

imagine if bitcoin (not LN 12 decimal pegged payments) but the actual bitcoin network(8 decimal tx's) only had 10% success rate

you also gotta think about the millions of people where an onchain fee is more than an hours wage.
even if they lock funds up to then play with LN.. they still gotta pay upfront just to get into LN

remember the good old days where even a homeless man could just random generate a keypair for free.. publicise it anywhere for free and hope to get paid day or night without authorisation.. needing to be online or having a partner involved in signing for payment.

LN's concept is people need to open channels pre-funded counterparty agreed, just to cover punishments and close session costs. thus LN is not a open system once fully conceptualised start to finish

you also then gotta think about those who wanna get out of LN and just sole-hold their own asset in their own privat key. if its gonna cost them XX to convert the 12decimal pegged LN token to a 8decimal bitcoin.. but far cheaper to convert it to say litecoin.. guess what

18th century banking. gold goes in.. play with unadited paper.. silver and copper come out

anyone saying they would ever pay extra for something, has a motive.
would you ever go to a car dealership and see a car for $30k. and be like.. i dont like the price of the car. so can i have the exact same car but ill pay you $200k for it

would you ever go to a house landlord and see a house for $3k a month. and be like.. i dont like the price of the rent. so can i have the exact same house but ill pay you $20k for it

you can smell the alterier motive, especially if they then go on and say they will use another network to pay less.. and promote how other networks are cheaper and such.
if they wanna pay extra. then they should be the ones that dont use LN. they should put their fee's where their mouth is, stay on the bitcoin network and pay extra if they truly desire seeing fee's rise.

not fee war UP the bitcoin network for others. and then they themselves run off to other networks.

imagine an analogy of transport networks (trains and buses)

its like a bus network. and some train company comes along spouting how buses have issues. but the train driver will happily pay more for buses if buses just up their fee's..
so buses up their fee's and the train driver then just goes and drives a train around giving out cheap tickets telling people to get off the bus as its expensive and slow

then some numbskull bus driver thinks another way to raise up bus fee's is to turn a double decker bus into a single decker bus.. then if it all happens. he then goes and gets a job on the trainline AND gets a back hander from the companie investing in trainlines

typical mr flipfop
1, doomad your own words about compatibility and permissionless drivel was you saying there was no opt in.
you even admit the truth for once in another topic by saying your adoration for cores attempts to push people off the network that opposed segwit1x. BEFORE segwit1x got locked in.

so you now pretending high majority diverse people of 2015-2017 opt-in for segwit goes against your initial flipped mindset.

try to learn what narrative you want to push and stick with one narrative.

2. again your mindset is stuck in the flip flop echo chamber of rpeated thoughts of the "gigabyte blocks" myth pushed by your centralised friends.
reality is that PROGRESSIVE SCALING such as the same as what happened 2010-2015 (0.25,0.5,0.75,1mb) is not a bigger deterrant.
reality is that users can just change settings or decide if they actually need to be a full on supernode.
EG instead of connecting to 100+ connections. they can bring it down to 10 and thus make each of those 10 connections 10x better speed experience due to less speed dilution. while also for the user themselves not having to broadcast out 100x data but only 10x data. thus benefiting the user and the receiver.. win win.


LN nodes will be masternodes monitoring multiple coins so they can coinswap.
guess what. when that becomes popular. YOUR flip flop will change and suddenly you will b saying how home users are not restricted to only 1mb-2mb data.
because the reality is home users are not restricted to 1-2-4mb of data..
the actual issues home users have is that they try to go above their need by trying to connect to hundreds of nodes.

as for the stuff about LN running full nodes. even the devs admit people wont be carrying their desktops and laptops around to go shopping. so LN's design for "starbucks coffee"/groceries/pizza small purchases instantly is for the lite wallet app userbase.

its the devs and your echo chamber that keep on saying bitcoin cant handle X while other networks are the solution, yet the other networks will be dominated by third party factories/watchtowers and then users locked into them using autopiloted phone apps.

atleast try doing some research..


here you go again i, and MANY others including the real satoshi never said slow internet users dont have the right to run a node. your making that crap up about "no rights"

seriously.. go take your social game word twisting flip flops and use that time to actually learn stuff

what was said and is the general sentiment by those not in the centralist echo chamber. is that user nodes can be full nodes but not all users NEED to b full nodes connected to hundreds of others.
your echo chamber centralists have an agenda of wanting to deburden bitcoin of utility, by saying bitcoin is not fit for everyone.
my and many open minded mindsets are that bitcoin can be used by anyone, but that people can have varying levels of utility.

and if the internet speed is slow theres no NEED to try being a supernode connected to hundreds of others. as it hlps no one by going up so high. its far better to themselves and everyone to set their settings appropriately to be connected. but do so efficiently
(doomad learn the difference between no help by being up so high connection count.. vs your blurred vision thinking that it means no help whatsover to even be on the network...
thats where you got things wrong. you wrongly thought it meant no hlp to the network at all.. the reality is no bnfit to go extreme.. there is a difference.. try learning it)

lol. you do realise the quote of pieter. was from a blog, where the original poster was trying to increase his nodecount...
heres a hint. the title of that:
"How does one attain 1,000+ connections like blockchain.info?"

as for my distain for core. thats about distain for centralism and lack of diversity..
again you love centralism, so stop your flip floppy trying to insinuate that im in the same camp as you.
sorry but no. YOUR the centralist. you love core dominance. you love how users follow CORES rules.
im for DIVERSITY where there are DIFERENT BRANDS of full nodes so people have choices

(pre-empt your reply:
doomad will say, 'if you dont like cores rules f**k off to another network
ill say: 'diversity is about different brands on same network where consensus ensures core dont just be dictators/tyrants in control..
but have to be byzantine generals of a level playing field. finding a fair balance of consensus where diversity finds agreement... which is what bitcoins/blockchains original invention/innovation/lightbulb revolutionary new consept was all about)


[/quote]

insults? again lets word count your post history, vs mine for actual insults. see who actually does the real insults.
my comments about users are just following core rules is just that. core have plopped themselves at the core of the network, called themselves the core and reference client, done loads of social drama stuff to keep themselves at the center and thus now there is not really any diversity in the network

even you yourself have spoke loudly about how you would love to REKT core opposers, you admired cores actions about pushing out a few opposing bips.  

whether a node is connected to 1000 others or just 2. changes nothing in regards to tru honest consensus.
users finding a setting level that lets then be full nodes without causing their own 'bandwidth issues' cries changes nothing about their consensus level.

but again. you are just a social flip flopper who knows nothing about the bitcoin network even after i nicely asked you months to try researching it.

...........................
anyway
seems doomad cant get the hint about which way he wants to flip or flop. and will never take the time to do some independant thinking.
so lets move on
..........
summary
usernodes:mining nodes:merchants have a symbiotic relationship. they ALL validate.
however they all can choose their level of NEED.
EG if there are 1 billion humans using bitcoin. not all 1 billion NEED/WANT to be full nodes. in no way should they be forced to being full nodes with 100+ connections just so some centralist group can shout "the network cant handle it, move everyone off the network"

instead users can choose to lower their setting/involvement as they please. EG slow internet users dont need 100-1000 connections and many devs even going back as far as 2009 have said it too.

but to have a certain group echoing how bitcoin cant scale because of lame reasons that can easily be fixed by settings changes.. is not the right ploy to then promote alternative networks.

its far better to allow settings to change so that it increases utility. unlike a certain group who want users to get pushed off the network if their opinion doesnt match CORES roadmap of centralised commercial networks

doomad, its your echo chamber that wants to deburden the bitcoin network of users.
now go do something useful like some code/network research instead of your flip flop social drama

your favourite quote shows that you and others FAILED totry flopping issues that slow internet users have.
you failed to realise its a known researched thing since pre 2011 and yet you try to insinuate it as a myth brought about by a scammer in 2016.. sorry but you failed. so yea. thats why i say try doing research before hitting reply

anyway the thing about home users is this:
their bandwidth/bottlnecking issue can easily be solved by just not being what used to be called "supernodes" (nodes with over 100 connections) to being nodes with just a few connections to give best effiecient experience for not only home user but the recipient of the data. thus reduce the "it uses too much bandwidth" cries

pieter wuilles quote was saying about dont change the setting UP, due to scare resources..

home users do not NEED to be super nodes as it doesnt help them or others by pushing their systems too hard.
this does not mean home users are useless to the network. it just means they have the wrong settings and not helping themselves. which is a different topic to the whole symbiotic relationship of code rules and auditing of data..
the home user bottleneck thing is more about use of speed to be efficient so that there are no cries and thus able to be an effctive node

your the one that wants home users to have bad user experience by trying to twist words. and you try to insinuate that home users should stick to high connection counts (meaning slow diluted internet speed per connection) all coz you want people to dislike the bitcoin network to persuade them to other networks

seems its you that wants home users to give up and just use LN

so just man up. find just one narrative of flip or flop and stick with it. be honest with yourself and others about your goal.
you pretend i have a campaign. and yet its obviously you that wants LN populated and bitcoin depopulated. so just man up and admit it

real funny part
i have tried to keep this and other topics on topic. and yt its th usual echo chamber tribe that meander in and turn discussions about bitcoin and the network. and turn it into poking the bear social drama of frankys said x/y/z
atleast windfury linked where he got taught his tactic and is now subtly trying to link doomad into learning how windfury does it so that doomad improves his skills of offtopic personal insult
because it has become noticable that doomad has become boring and empty of context in his attempts.

i can show you and your echo chamber of buddies many posts where your mindsets is in favour of
forking people off the network.
telling people if they dont like the centralist LN is the future solution thus deburden bitcoin, the only solution you see is those that want to keep bitcoin populated/have utility.. is telling true bitcoiners to f**k off.

and once again. dont try the flip flop wishy washy card that your a victim of social drama, when its ur cho chamber that meander topics into such by poking the bear.

now go try doing some bitcoin research and spend less time on your social drama

SV (craigs drama) was november
bitcoins hashrate was OCTOBER

chicken / egg

the whole idea of SV was not to actually do anything. but to take an oppertunity of buying/leasing cheap hashpower and falsely proclaim he is influencing and stealing hashpower and doing things/causing trouble.

again, dont give him the pleasure of making him think his fake fame game is working, ignore the altcoin drama

the reality is a shift from old ASICs to new asics.
those involved knew before summer that a ASIC switch over was going to occur by Q4.
the SV drama was a effect, not a cause

both cash and SV didnt 'take' hashrate away
both cash and SV didnt influence bitcoin

in sepember/october (BEFORE SV) there was news of new next gen ASICs hitting the markets by december. so pools slowly wanted to sell off the old (s9) asics whil the S9 had value still. so an october(emphasis BEFORE SV hashdrama) curvedown of hashrate occured.

ofcourse the altcoin drama thought they would take the oppertunity to buy that cheap old tech and start some drama pretending they were somehow involved/cause or effect...

meanwhile. bitcoin network pools thought they would see an early influx of next gen asics and a few pools getting to be the testing ground (QC checks) before the actual release.
but things have been sluggish on that front. whether it be TSMC not producing asics quick enough or just holding out and spreading the batches out a bit to avoid a massive onramp of hashpower on the network.

either way cash/sv did not influence bitcoin.. it was the other way round

because there is a big conference/convention thing happening soon where all the devs and merchants and miners get together and they try to discuss possible movements forward.

the thing is if certain devs can distract the topics. and get merchants and miners only talking about staying as is or decreasing. .. the devs win the true desire of not increasing.

they tried it before by trying to turn a comfortable and acceptable growth(small regular increases like 2009-2015 had). but then exaggerated it into a myth of "gigabytes by midnight" to sway even topics of small comfortable SCALING to not get discussed.

now i believe they are gonna try the opposite try to make the options only stay same or drop down.. just to avoid any comfortable SCALING onchain..

and if that fails. the devs will just pretend that they are just mere chimney sweeps and have no coding talent to implement anything that opposes the core roadmap

firstly
learn multisig, learn revoke codes/punishments. learn blackmail attempts learn co-signing.
there are multiple ways to run off with funds.

here ill even pre-empt you with an attack vector when schnorr is incorporated

imagine a multysig. person A and B
person A believes it to be a 2-2 multisig channel of duel/even control. which is the bases of LN's trust of mutual trust-mutual destruction.
2 parties have to agree else there is no agreement
both agree both win
both dont agree both lose

now. imagine its not an actual 2-2 but in reality is a 2-3.. where by person B has 2 keys and A only has 1
suddenly B has control. and guess what A wont even realise it. A wont even be able to tell who signed what.
whether it was a 2-2 where A got hacked and someone stole A's key or if B did make a 2-3 under schnorr and hid the 3rd key

.. there are other ways to mess and steal funds right now under LN. LN devs know about a few of them. and yes the LN devs themselves have mentioned how they (even while they are the devs) have been victims to thefts

secondly
LN is not a solution to anything. its just another network/service/choice. it should never b though of as a solution to bitcoin.
thos that call it a solution. or call it the only way forward are those that have already given up on bitcoin and think alt networks/centralised services/fiat-esq business models are superior than bitcoin

lastly
LN does/will function like an exchange. heck in 2012-13 i was arbitraging btc between 2 exchanges without the blockchain, by doing so with exchanges features using their locked reserves.(btc-e/mtgox/bitstamp codes)

locking funds up with others. (custodian)
using the confirmed 8 decimal blockchain UTXO, to then create lists of non-blockchain tx's(12 decimal) in some google/mysql database(exchanges have a separate 'blance/trade' database thats not blockchain)
atomic swaps(market orders)

every time there has been big "bitcoin consensus" meetings/conventions. seems some 'hey look what CW is upto' drama begins.

seriously folks. he aint worth anyones time.
if you care about bitcoin. stick to looking at what the bitcoin devs are upto not the altcoin social drama.
let the CW drama belong in a court room

do you know the funny part.

banks hold the money. but its VISA/Mastercard demanding banks pay more..
maybe banks should just swap out visa/mastercard for a different service provider.

in the end its all about chargeback scamming and the costs involved. however by linking a card to things like applepay,square, stripe,

EG (how things evolved)
bank (bank is liable for charges)
bank <> debit card (debit card is liable for charges)
bank <> debit card <> phone app service (app service is liable for charges)

thus applepay(+others) handle the chargebacks.. meaning visa/mastercard dont. meaning end bank dont. meaning its just going to push people to prefer to link to things like applepay. to avoid the visa/mastercard excess charge by avoiding making visa/mastrcard liable.

this is what visa/mastercard want anyways. to push the risk off their shoulders for those that use an app as the risk taker, making visa/mastercard. just a zero risk middle service(pure profit)

but
eventually applepay(+others) when they start becoming more of the defacto payment method of fiat, and start to see their exposure to chargeback scamming increase. they too will start increasing their fee's to counter their liabilities

no,
it means getting rid of PAPER cash. thus everything is electronic and locked in custodian(banks) managed by the same financial industry.
banks and governments wont give up control.
just look at how they treat exchanges. you can google it and find LOADS of examples where exchanges KYC and report users. and some who go over certain thresholds are told that a service(withdrawal) cant be offered unless KYC/extra data is provided as required by a higher threshold.

something not needed when storing and handling PAPER cash.

what will change is the lack of need of a walk-in bank branch. and instead payments and exchanges can b done online or via ATMS.
banks save on alot of physical costs:
less rents/transport/maintenance

banks save on staffing costs:
less security personnel, auditors, IT staff, cleaners, supervisees

but in the end average joe who just about knows hw to use a debit card would not notice much difference in spending experience wither its old fiat on card or new bank managed crypto

read the CODE squatter



no where is there any consensus about majority of user/pool acceptance before initiating that rule.
no where is there any consensus about it not activating if there was only a minority

148 and this topics bip are MANDATED controversy.. thus HARD

also Luke is trying to push it into CORE.
he isnt just trying to run it on his own node

doomad

not everyone does NEED to be a full node. thats what SPV is for. for the folks that dont need/want to be full nodes.
not everyone does NEED to have 100 connections. infact the more connections made the more your diluting your own benefit

no where, no how, no when, no why. did i ever say there is no NEED for regular users.
no where, no how, no when, no why. did i ever say there is everyone shouldnt be a full node

here is a basic summary:

so doomad go turn your social drama brain and go play with someone else
or atleast spend more time on researching BITCOIN and lesstime with social drama

seems you dedicate more time trying to poke me then you spend learning or talking about bitcoin.
here is the simple lesson.

bitcoin is code.
code is not wrote by AI
code is wrote by devs.

so when i talk about bitcoin, code and devs. its very much ontopic for this forum.
when you want to meander and talk about me.. thats just social drama

again(from different topics). before you hit the reply button, trying to poke the bear in any topic. ask yourself.
are you going to talk about bitcoin and devs.
or
just poke at some social drama and people that have talked about devs, and bitcoin issues less than optimistically

and dont play the victim card like your the one thats receiving the social drama, because your an instigator of social drama
instead spend more time learning
or a better challenge.
for every post you have wrote in say the last 6 months containing an insult. try learning a bitcoin fact to atleast balance the ratio

FTFY

seems its you that cant define it.
a "soft-hard...."




easier to just admit it was hard.. and just social drama marketed FALSELY as soft, by use of baseball caps and twitter tags
it was never coded to be soft
the code itself shows as such

a soft fork would be something that only does something at high majority acceptance thats doesnt cause controversy.


148 and this new block lowering topic are not soft.

they are both set to activate at a DATE
meaning no vote, no consensus, no compatibility. just at date X do Y which affects anyone not following Y
thus hard

anyway.. you can spend months searching blogs and quotes...
ill stick to code, blockchain data and real events

have a nice few months