Because the project was to issue securitized assets in "a blockchain" to allow transfer among users.

The bitcoin protocol allows the creation of and transfer of zero value coins. From a technical perspective this is quite useful, for example-- if there were ever a desire to increase the granularity of coins or deploy confidential transactions in a backwards compatible way.. this would be used. Zero value coins could also be used as semaphors in complex smart contracts.

But in the present without applications it's an obnoxious DOS vector and so Bitcoin Core won't relay or mine them; but miners can easily bypass that restriction and already do so.

Plus, even if zero was blocked blocked... the alternative would be to use 1e-8 BTC payments which is so tiny as to be almost nothing. (A single Bitcoin in 1e-8 BTC payments would use 6GB of blockchain space).  The point that these "applications" can be done without any use of the Bitcoin currency _at all_ just lays bare what an abuse of the system they are.

BlindMayorBitcorn, I can't help but observe that flooding a thread with tripe-- as you appear to be doing-- when it isn't going your way is literally straight out of the GCHQ public communication subversion playbook. Also, did you forget to switch accounts? You're responding to yourself.

Presumably because "Bitcoin Classic" is probably the most offensively newspeak-ish name in the history of software development.

It's important to speak specifically about what this proposal was.

What they wanted to do was use payments of zero bitcoins to track non-bitcoin related assets by storing their data in the Bitcoin network. No Bitcoins would have been involved in this project, likely not even for fees: bypassing the network anti-spam rules would have required a relationship directly with a miner-- and then they could have been paid directly in fiat (saving them exchange fees).

No remotely sane amount of block size would have reasonably satisfied this application in any case (you'll note that this kind of ask never comes with the requirement spelled out: the business requirement is almost always, "as large as we need"-- something which is fundamentally impossible in a decenteralized network like this).

I think those of us who actually own Bitcoins should be looking at this, with a sigh of relief and not concern-- a situation where the system's costs were increased tens to hundreds fold by someone not using the Bitcoin currency would be potentially devastating to the systems' decentralization. If it means anything at all to us, that project should be considered a great example of why a blocksize limit is important and protective even over miner imposed soft-thresholds.

Yes, they are.. which means they're available to be used in the future when a need arises. The transactions that are CLTV or P2SH spends used to be non-standard, and now they're frequently used. Prohibiting larger transactions would be a really unfortunate reduction in capability.  Some people don't think so, because they believe that Bitcoin is centrally administered and that all users can be forced to upgrade in less than a month should the administration decide to undo that decision.

1KATWALSHTHECuz5DFHoNqJax6hnDbL6KN  (I can sign with it if you want)

Any vanity pubkeys category? If so, I win:

0200000000000000000000003b78ce563f89a0ed9414f5aa28ad0d96d6795f9c63

As I said, this thread is just a hall of mirrors.

If you actually want a serious discussion you could start by showing some integrity and calling out the misinformation in this thread and stop repeating it yourself. Try acknowledging that even without determining if some people are following Blockstream's interests instead of Bitcoin's (where these interests differ) Blockstream has no special control of Bitcoin Core-- except by being the _only_ company in Bitcoin directly contributing to maintaining the infrastructure.

A few people here here keep arguing about some landslide "community opinion"-- and yet, strangely, that opinion is only visible in venues which are highly vulnerable to manipulation and not in person or, currently, on cryptographically verifiable counters.

The bitcoinocracy poll, as crappy and limited as it is-- both demonstrates that there is significant economically backed opposition to those views, and suggests that so much of that "landslide" is just bullshit manipulation.


You can keep repeating it, but it isn't true. I doubt you really believe it yourself. Otherwise, why aren't you calling your argument lost?

Nah, the forum was kicked off Bitcoin.org in 2011 due to concerns about the lax moderation-- even I was part of that discussion.

In terms of commits: Matt and Luke predated Jeff on the project (by months in Luke's case). Pieter came nine days after him, Wladimir 51 days after that. I was 8 months behind on the commits, though most of what I do has never been coding-- I my logs show that I was the most active person in the development discussion channel the same month as Wladimir's first commit.

Characterizing someone who came later or who was earlier by mere days and less involved as "senior" is a bit of an insult.

You can say it's "implicit" -- but there are also many other lies you can tell.  The paper describes a mechanism where nodes verify and enforce the system's rules for themselves, using POW for ordering. It doesn't describe a system where nodes stop enforcing their rules if the are overpowered, nor is that how Bitcoin was written.


"The fundamental engineering truths diverge from that misty goal:
Bitcoin is a settlement system, by design." -- Jeff Garzik

Ahem.

And the claim that Jeff and Gavin are more senior is bunk. Unless you mean to say that someone whos first changes were merged a few days earlier, regardless of how much involvement they've had since is "more senior".

On one hand, you're saying that Bitcoin is fine even with the rewards being 64 times lower (that is what it is roughly 20 years from now.).. and yet you also think that 75% of the hashrate can force people into accepting rule changes.

Why do you assume that, last I checked "datacoin" cost under 0.0005$/MB per data stored.

Because Bitcoin is digital cash, not a dumping ground for other applications. If the load or legal problems that come from use for other applications diminish Bitcoin's utility as digital cash then these activities are effectively stealing from all the people who own Bitcoins.

Is there something you read that made you think this? If so we could go get it fixed.

As others pointed out, connections are bidirectional and you participate too even if you are only inbound.

But the _biggest_ benefit in running a node is having it protect your own transactions and traffic; that is where the decentralized security-- the rules that can't be violated no matter what, and ultimately what makes Bitcoin Bitcoin, come from. And that property is just as true even if you only have a single connection to the network.

Removing the rules against actions that the network protocol expressly forbids against the will of an economically significant portion of users, and risking a persistent ledger split in the process is not a comparable thing. It's something that Bitcoin Core strongly believe it does not have the moral or technical authority to do, and attempting to do so would be a failure to uphold the principles of the system. It's not something to do lightly, and people who think that it's okay to change the system's rules out from under users who own coins in it are not people that I'd want to be taking advice from-- that kind of thinking is counter to the entire Bitcoin value proposition.

The other things you're talking about are fully compatible updates which users can voluntarily choose to participate in or can choose to ignore. Users opt into applying them to their own transactions, and they shouldn't really be anyone elses business.  Neither of them are forces applied to third parties.

In the case of Opt-In RBF-- that is purely local node policy, not even a consensus rule. If even one miner wants to use it it could not be prevented even if all the other users and developers and all miners agreed that it was desirable to prevent. Worse, there are already miners out there doing full replacement without the signaling. Without the positive uses being able to opt in and voluntarily choose to use replacement, we will likely see more of that spread sooner. So you have something that causes no harm, potentially delays harm, and is fully optional being used to attack Bitcoin Core? I think that is really lame. Especially since replacement of non-final transactions was a feature in the _very first_ version of Bitcoin that was only turned off much later because as it was originally implemented it was a flooding vulnerability. In people's zest to politically manipulate others into disliking Bitcoin Core it seems that some have really lost the plot.

We all wait with abated breath while you go and cite that "explicit" definition for us.

It's nonsense in any case: When you're talking about the hard rules of the system-- the limits that make it valuable and tractable-- no amount of hashpower is enough to override it. Not 99.9%.  If a miner violates the hard rules of the system they are simply not miners anymore as far as all the nodes are concerned. This is an integral part of the checks and balances that create and preserve the incentives of the system: Miners can't just steal a bit on the side, their power is very strongly shifted to either participate honestly or DOS attack the whole thing (in which case the users would presumably change the proof of work), but not attack the system while continuing to have it usable.

But really, if any of you have an honest desire to continue a conversation-- go convince the OP to retract the wonky and non-factual claim. Otherwise this is all just a hall of mirrors.

That there is a sockpuppet campaign is an objective fact, and not up for debate. (see the hundreds of vigorous and dishonest attacks that inevitably are posted by single use throwaway accounts.)

There was never a period when it was just Gavin working on Bitcoin; this is a common narrative people spin but it is incorrect.

I can't speak for everyone. But I own a lot of Bitcoin. Blockstream's compensation is setup to make sure everyone receives time locked bitcoins so that everyone at blockstream has an interest there too-- I am aware of no other company in the Bitcoin space that this can be said for... Not to mention that no question ever seems to be asked about incentives or funding sources for the people opposing.

Judging by the lack of coins showing up on the bitcoinocracy polls, the vigorously attacking groups may not be big investors in Bitcoin.

Indeed. Well more over, if someone were out to be evil they could just as well _not tell anyone_. I could _legally_ if not ethically be off working for EvilCorp and not tell a soul.  Based on what I've seen in this, people do a pretty poor job at asking probing questions. It's not the risks that you know about that are the most likely to cause harm, it's the ones you don't know about.

Pedantically, it's 1 out of 5 now.   But yes, it just shows the dishonesty and the hippocracy of the attacks.  They claimed I was the problem. I _left_ and now it's still "blockstream controls bitcoin core". It's just going to be bullshit lies and threats until the end of time.

Part of the answer is that there are lot of people who do not want any work done improving Bitcoin.

There are people who do not want sidechains to exist; because it undermines their plans with altcoins and, especially, "spinoffs"... or want there to be drama in bitcoin so they can peddle their "hardfork upgrade to ethereum's design" as the grand solution.

There are people who do not want strong personal and commercial privacy to exist: They run services predicated on undermining the privacy of users or they own an interest in competing systems that bill privacy as their advantages.

There are people who don't care if Bitcoin is decentralized at all, but have raised millions on promises to store random third party data for practically no cost into the Bitcoin ledger.

And so on...

I don't believe there are many of each of these type; but there are some without scruples who don't mind faking it. And they're super busy spinning up lies like one of the only companies funding bitcoin tech development _at all_ somehow "controls" Bitcoin core because they employ one person that has commit access, or pay a half dozen people who have contributed out of several dozen while other companies pay no one to contribute.  And that is why we see that forums that are easily sockpuppeted like reddit are overrun with fabricated "increase blocksize at any cost" yelling, places like here less so.. and in person gatherings or [cryptographic measurements](http://bitcoinocracy.com/arguments/if-non-core-hard-fork-wins-major-holders-will-sell-btc-driving-price-into-the-ground) see far less.  

All this fabricated noise, right out of a GCHQ playbook (not that really think any state actors are involved)-- and it just may win: Because at the end of the day, the few with the courage to stop it gain nothing but the preservation of a dream of decentralized currency that changes the world; and too many others sit too quietly, hoping that others will take the heat. Dreams only go so far.

And some decades from now when your grandkids ask where were you when they took the shining hope of decentralized money away, more than a few people here will be able to tell them how they were fooled and fought to make it happen, or how simply stood idly by.

The same force that prevents you from spending my coins: the hardcoded rules that define the Bitcoin system, autonomously enforced by every user.

Who decides what a bitcoin is worth?

What reason do you have to believe that 200 TPS is viable in a decentralized consensus system or will be in an interesting timeframe?

What happens if 200 TPS _is_ in fact viable, but at the limit of it... but the offered load at a 1ct fee is 40000 TPS? Do you expect the miner(s) to turn down an extra $34m/day in income to preserve decentralization?

Why do you believe $172k/day is adequate security?  That is only $1200/block.  If someone accepts a single confirm, then it would be pretty profitable (200% ev) to attempt a reorg attack against them if you have access to--say-- 10% of the hashpower and can make a vulnerable $12k transaction with them.

Indeed, you can look at it like that. And one that can be avoided in the standard way: by not allowing unrestricted exploitation of the commons.

Indeed, and absent a limit, flexcap, or forced collusion (or something no one has described yet), that is the one that involves taking pretty much all transactions that pay any fee at all.

Peter_R's argument was that a limit isn't needed to achieve this effect because orphaning will accomplish it, but we see now that he finally agrees that volume related orphaning pressures can be more or less completely sidestepped by miners:

And then he goes on to describe one of the schemes I emailed him.

Or until they screw up their RNG again. Or until their website gets hijacked or XSS or until they get hacked...

Care to back up your defamation with hyperlinks?

If you're aware of this, why do you keep repeating as fact that it isn't possible? e.g.



By "easy to come up" you mean it's easy to copy them from the previously linked private email correspondence I had with you on this subject months ago? -- even including the time constant:


I am cannot fathom what you are thinking.

I'm not suggesting that miners engage in a wild scheme that acts against their own self-interests.

I'm pointing out that they merely need click a box and lose orphaning risk from adding new transactions. Miners who do this will be more profitable, even if some did not-- they will be out competed by more profitable miners who do, end up operating at profit levels that are uninteresting and exit the system.

It is _locally_ more profitable for them to do so-- the scheme you describe is NOT an equilibrium. Any miner can add a commitment for what they'd like to include and do so at no cost. Any miner can use any existing commitments to decide to include transactions earlier. No coordination is needed-- beyond the one time act of someone writing the software, no orphaning cost taken to move out of that state.

Miners making local decisions that are somewhat adverse to the health of the network but profitable for themselves is not a hypothetical-- it's an observed effect. Without it we never would have had huge mining pools, to give one example. (arguably: we'd have no GPU or asic miners, either!)

Expecting miners to continue indefinitely to take considerable orphaning costs against their own self-interests in order to uphold some abstract 'good of the network' that comes from the 'virtue' of orphaning is isomorphic to expecting them to just pay a $1 sin tax for every transaction they include without any enforcement mechanism. They simply won't.  

Even if you assume the existence of some conspiracy to punish people who behave locally rationally-- and ignore the potentially devastating effects this would have on the other properties of the system--, these schemes can be arbitrarily undetectable... anyone who didn't like it couldn't even tell it was happening.