6 months? based on?... oh wait the theory that bitcoin will have 7 billion users by midnight tonight. (blockstream centralists doomsday distractions)

also core themselves now deem 8mb safe but prefer 4mb in mid 2016 wait to stay below safe.. but while they stifle legacy transactions by halting them at 1mb.. the rest of the community see that the communities compromise of 2mb last year should have been allowed all along now that blockstream backtracked.

if we went with your 6month growth imaginary target, lets throw that into a scenario:

so imagine 2mb happened mid 2017.
we can go to 3mb start of 2018.
4mb mid 2018....
and re-evaluate the 'safety' of 5mb, 6mb, 7mb. 8mb.. which would be 2 years after core admit 8mb ok but 4mb super safe.

funny thing is:
millions of people UPLOAD livestreams without issue. requiring 750kbit/s upload.
=93.75kbyte/s   =56250kbyte/10mins   = 56mbyte every 10 minutes

even satoshi himself knew this in 2009 but went with a 32mb hidden ultimate limit concerning the max data / 'messages' bitcoin would transmit, to avoid packet loss.
but later in 2009 added 1mb rule. not due to bandwidth and not due to bloat.. but due to spam tx mitigation

yep bitcoin can handle more. but core want to limit tx count purely to limit tx count.. nothing more

funny thing is:
even bottomline computing that could handle bitcoin in 2009-2016 = Raspberry Pi1
but things have moved on since 2009
raspberry Pi3  and also bitcoins own efficiency tweaks (libsecp256k1, etc) make current bottom line tech able to handle 25x legacy(old) data specs..

as for the storage of data.. do i need to paste in the fingernail size of the last 8 years of bitcoin data (128gb microsd) and do i need to paste in a hard drive thats under $100 that can store much much much much more

better to word it in the same mindset the blockstream centralists try calling anything else not a core implementation an alt

1. its not bitcoincore, its LND, so it must be an altcoin - use their own stupid and failed rebuttles against them

but then use rational reasons

1. N stands for network, meaning its a separate network
2. it just has "copies" of bitcoin transactions.. but is not sitting in a bitcoin implementations mempool or blockchain.. it later copies and pastes their separate network data back to bitcoin days/weeks later. meaning bitcoin 'compatible' not directly part of bitcoin itself
3. its not a pure bitcoin compatible separate network. they are hinting to add another prefix to multisigs from just '3' to being 'btc:' to later add other alts to be compatible.. hint LTC is going to be a sidechain. (they are already prepping LTC with their segwit tests, im guessing gmaxwells monero will be there too)

agreed to both statements.. but my messages usually point at one person but the context is usually aimed at helping a broader audience learn something at the same time. if i wanted to reply to only the person i quote in, id do it in PM

also to note. i can sense a rebuttle by the centralists that love LN will pretend LN is not centralist because of the hop ability
eg
if thre were 4 separate channels..
A<->B
B<->C
C<->D
D<->E

but A decided to pay E one day, centralists will hide their end goal by saying a pays b who pays c who pays d who pays e

the issue is that B will refuse to pay C with A's funds because it costs B a 'small fee' to pay C
the issue is that C will refuse to pay D with A's funds because it costs C a 'small fee' to pay D
the issue is that D will refuse to pay E with A's funds because it costs D a 'small fee' to pay E

in short for A to pay E.. A has to pay 4x the LN fee to cover B,C and D's costs.
but if A only wants to buy things from B.. A only pas 1x fee

which is what the centralists want. to commercialise it where someone in the middle gets paid to manage swaps.
which they know will end up as a star network

A<->C
B<->C
D<->C
E<->C

where it saves on hops because everything now loops through C so now A paying E only costs 2x..
but if A only wants to buy things from C.. A only pas 1x fee

but now C earns a tx fee from everyone
this is the HUB manager the centralists love so much... also known as paypal2.0 that blockstream want to be to repay their investors

edit
thanks sportis for showing blockstream centralist Rusty Russel (main LN dev) admitting the Hub requirement


also to add... check out the neon red flat words in the github to see all the signs
"hypershachains", where the hub owns all the seeds to revoke codes...... seriously, getting very centralistic there blockstream! cant deny it now
"funding manager"
"servers"

here is a great idea for LN devs.. only let CSV revoked funds go back to the origin.. meaning back into the LN multisig to open a new channel... never to be used to divert funds into a second persons personal address as a 'punishment'

that way it cant be abused by scammers to rip people off.. but instead funds go back into contracts to get a new mutual agreement again

those wishing to increase the blocksize are not suggesting ridiculous sizes
infact if a node cant handle it they wont flag desire for it. meaning it wont activate consensus for it.. thus it will only grow at a natural acceptable rate. so eat that logic bomb, its a feature built into bitcoin.. its called consensus

its also LN hubs that become paypal2.0 where customers have to get the hub manager to sign off on funds locked in with the hub manager.
EG walmart will be paypal2.0, starbucks will be paypal2.0. need i remind you that these hubs will impose >48hour 'funds unavailable' maturity locks even after confirm.. (CLTV: like how block rewards are locked for 100 confirms.. like banks hold funds for 3-5 days) need i remind you that while waiting in maturity funds can be revoked (csv: like bank and paypal chargebacks)

might be worth you doing your research.

wake up to the truth and not the distracting reverse psychology scripts you read and repeat without open minded and critical thought.
everything negative which blockstream try pointing at a different direction, are actually actions they do themselves

so

no history = not a blockchain
no consensus = no independent auditing

in short and simple terms its just a open google spreadsheet of balances anyone can view and download....

now lets address the lies and lack of understanding the OP has.

1. a bitcoin ASIC miner does not have a hard drive, meaning an ASIC is not hurt by the bloat of the blockchain or amount of transactions.
a POOL stores the blockchain and hands a HASH to the ASIC's.
it does not matter how many transactions are on a block, ASICS dont see or get hurt by the bloat of transactions.
in short bitcoin miners are unaffected by data bloat.

2. bitcoins 8 years of tx data can fit on a fingernail


overall this statement from fastercoin sums up the backward thinking

all i can see is some dude asking you to hand him your real bitcoin and then you can play around with his google spreadsheet balance. (no difference than MTGox balance or facebook credits). all while not even understanding how things actually work and while also throwing out FUD/scare stories that hold no merit..

seems unrevolutionary and very backward thinking.. boring.

.. sorry if im just being frank

name one that can be used at 300,000+ merchants.

as for altcoins.. right now they are crapcoins. otherwise they would have already 'taken over'
that said e should not cripple/halt bitcoins utility purely to give a crap coin an advantage.

(EG G maxwell loves his monero but hates bitcoin, he cant wait for monero or the bankers hyperledger take the lead)

im not saying in the future an altcoin may offer something better.. but we should not cripple bitcoins mainnet to win that future altcoin some fame

---

strange thing is that people want to cripple and halt bitcoins growth and remove its utility to directly be spent with 300,000+ merchants. purely to let a permissioned network (LN) or an altcoin(buzzword: sidechain) take over.

all because of false fearful doomsdays that bitcoin needs to be 5000 miles away tomorrow, where forcing it to run now will kill bitcoin. so lets not even let bitcoin walk one step.

bitcoin can get to its destination one step at a time.. dont doomsday the running at lightspeed rhetoric by midnight as an excuse to stop it from walking and growing everyday.

if you buy bitcoin with euros and withdraw to address A
you move a->b
you move b->c
you move c->d
you move d->e

you can say that B was you buying something and B is a totally different person. meaning C, D and E should be left alone and not looked into.
meaning you think your safe at point C->

but if they see E was later linked to you depositing funds into an exchange or you bought something privately that linked to your home address. then all of a sudden A,B,C,D,E are all linked to you and any movements of any funds in the future related any way to ABCDE has some relation to you.

this is why people say only use an address once
for example
dont continually use C and D thinking only A and E are linked to your real life info

you move a->b
you move b->c
you move c->d     x->d  d->f
you move d->e

not only would they consider F is now linked to you too, they would also wonder who X was and why X paid you, and then check backwards at where X got their funds to pay you

OP post and linked article is another FUD topic made to scare people.

what the actual EU stuff concerns is EU FIAT handling exchanges.. <-read 3 times, have a coffee, read three times again until it sinks in

Euro handling exchanges, which need to be regulated anyway, need to follow regulations(logic.. touch their money follow their rules).

this is the same for any money business.

it is not something about european bitcoin users(that dont handle fiat for business use).
it is not something about european developers making fullnodes
it is not something about european developers making non fiat touching webwallets.

it is about EXCHANGES.


coin idol did not factually talk much about the EU statement and instead made a article where they just talk to other bitcoiners about their opinions.

the OP's tx is in block 447934

from blockchain.info's prospective its not linked to orphans. i would say its just blockchain.info having a glitch. it happens from time to time,

usually best to bookmark several 'blockchain explorers' and do comparisons rather than relying on one source of info

but investments can be a tax write off if a loss it made.

EG put it into a "foundation" and you already save ~20% by not paying tax on profit(corporation tax) as its wrote off before its even made 'returns'. just by putting it into a foundation (AKA linux foundation)

then if you make a loss you can offset the loss of one investment against other investments that profit to average down the profit and pay less tax on the eventual profits of all investments longterm.

so its more like
0% make a loss 70% break even and 30% profit.

but with that said. inviting bankers into a closed door event. will have obvious hand shaking and ass kissing for the devs that love their millions of fiat income.

again bitcoins mainnet should not become a reserve currency as thats just pushing it into the background and using LN/crapcoins as the front-end.

as for saying bitcoins mainnet cant scale. and then twisting the plot to suggest that if it could scale it would still be a reserve currency in the background is foolish.

bitcoins mainnet can scale as a front-end payment network, but you need to wash away the failed doomsdays scripts you may have read that it needs XXgb blocks by tomorrow.

instead put a rational/logical hat on and realise that bitcoins mainnet should make baby steps forward periodically to expand naturally.. we are not gonna get 7billion people in a day.. its a years-decades scaling not a one day superman jump to extremes.

these safe onchain scaling babysteps should have happened last year. but instead it has been halted using fear of superman flights.

analogy:
yes babies should not take thier first baby steps because mummy and daddy fear the baby will run into a car withinin 10 years. so lets fearmunger all parents that all babies that take their first step will guarantee to run into a car tomorrow. so wrap up your baby and tie it to a cot. and call it your reserve baby. and then adopt a second child to be the one you push around the streets

also wash away the concept that bitcoin will become the 'one world' currency' for 7billion people.. instead think about the current 0.0266% using bitcoin and imagine it settling at about 1-5% of world population(after NATURAL not SUPERMAN growth). definetly dont assume 100% uptake. as that then becomes no 'free choice' option if its the only one.

1. but if bitcoin is not a front end currency because its utility has been taken away and pushed into the background.. all people end up using is permissioned services like LN. where you have to hand funds into a multisig and need the hub manager to sign off on all of your transactions... does not sound better to me

2. 99% of population in the fiat economy are using government funding without knowing how it works. they wont jump across to anything else, so dont be fooled into thinking that the governments will just disappear because bitcoin has been pushed into the background. yea pushed into the background .. i said it.. by making bitcoin a reserve currency pushes it away from peoples ability to get their hands on even more, pushes it away from peoples ability to use daily.

wake up people

altcoins are crapcoins.. and making bitcoin no longer the useful front-end coin by becoming the hidden reserve currency of crapcoins is not the future we want.

and while we stupidly let devs dismantle bitcoins front-end utility, the same devs are helping the real IMF with their hyperledger to build the real SDR reserve currency and world finance ledgers (controlled by banks)

seriously wake up and stop thinking that taking bitcoins front-end utility away is a good thing

we are ahead of schedule.

side note rewards stop at the year 2141.. just to help you realise where you were getting your "140" number from*

based on 2016 blocks that are meant to average fortnightly. and the number of weeks to get to 210,000 blockheight (block reward halving session)
the maths works out to suggest the schedule is 4years and 2 days and 8 hours per reward halving

this would have made the first reward halving occur january 5th 2013. but we were a month and 5 days ahead at the first reward halving late 2012

this would have made the second reward halving occur january 7th 2017. it happened on 9th of july last year. meaning we are now over 6 months ahead.

imagining say an average 3 monthly differential every block halving. it could reach maxcap about 8 years earlier

if you want to do some maths.

in total there are 32 block reward halvings before maxcap,
each reward halving happening every 4 years=128..
then add on 4 years of the last session that DOES Not lead to a halving =132

*giving you 2141 from the 2009 genesis(beginning)

then you just think up a rational number of how many months gain per reward halving occurs, due to the difficulty adjustment not quite pegging the hashrate right. and deduct it.

basically if you think we will average 1month gain per halving on average. it equates to 2 years 8 months before january 2141
1month/halving=~ april 2138
2month/halving=~ august 2135
3month/halving=~ january 2133
4month/halving=~ april 2120
5month/halving=~ august 2127
6month/halving=~ january 2125  
 

put it this way

in 2009 we knew what the scarcity limit was: 21m
boom. no more.... its a fixed amount, no surprises.. no shocks.. nothing up its sleaves.. hence LIMIT

now imagine 2 words.. scarcity... and scarce.
now please take a breather and realise.. these are 2 different words with 2 meanings. even if they look similar, they mean different things.
you may be mind blown. so take some time and have a coffee..
 ..
ok now then
how scarce<->abundant is the supply and demand question WITHIN.
again dont confuse scarce and scarcity.. might be worth having another sip of coffee and let your thoughts play it out a little longer
 ..
ok now then
how scarce<->abundant is the supply and demand question WITHIN.
 ..
so,
even on day 1 of bitcoin in 2009 we know the scarcity limit..
and separately we want to think about how scarce<->abundant bitcoin is
 ..
remember this is where we are talking about supply and demand.. not scarcity limit
remember supply and demand is speculative
 ..
well even on day 1 there were only a few coins and only a couple people held them thus dominating circulation.. so some would say scarce..
but, yes here is the but.. (remember the supply demand/scarce<->abundance  is just subjective and speculative)
no one was trading, people were just accumulating them for little to no work. so others would say abundant. especially if there were still 20,999,xxx coins to go
 ..
now we move onto a different day, different amount of coins being shared. people start competing over them and the 'bitcoin pizza' proves bitcoin has utility. the sliding scale shifts abit, but its speculative with differing mindsets on both sides

fast forward 7 years. mega mining farms.. 300,000+ merchants.. 2mill plus users.. from a macro nation overview of the whole thing now its treated as speculatively scarce by many people.. but.. abundant by others.(more claim scarce than abundant)
again we both agreed scarce<->abundant is subjective/speculative

here is the kicker
although thinking about it from the whole network view in last sentence, inside an exchange is a micro nation of speculation where supply and demand is at a fight.. most dont know about the supply within an exchange. so its more of a game around the reasons for or against demand..

so now we separate the argument about supply..... where your rhetoric of trying to highlight scarcity drops away and becomes unimportant..

and we move onto the reasons for or against demand..
so demand.

people desire it because they can spend it, move it hold it. get things for it make profit from it.
people dont desire it if it costs to much to have, costs to much to spend, isnt easy to use.

which are all about utility..

take away utility then demand dries up
if demand dries up those holding the supply drop their prices to try getting shot of it before they lose to much if they see no future plans for increased/new utility.
snowball effect

i corrected your post.
i see where you are trying to slide words in to confuse the matter to then twist the matter to then ultimately say what i originally said but you would say im wrong because of the words YOU slipped in. i see your game. nice try though

21M bitcoins is the scarcity limit

we both agreed that scarce<->abundance is the measure within the limit
scarce<->abundance AKA the measure within AKA supply/demand is the measure of scarcity

but no one takes much notice about supply. because they cannot say exactly how much supply an exchange they are using actually has or how much % of circulation or the end limit that works out as.

all they care about is the demand. which is derived from UTILITY
have a nice day

now back to the topic
UTILITY creates value, lack of UTILITY removes value

which is where i said being scarce.. abundant.. is a separate detail to scarcity.. where scarcity is a sliding scale

my reasoning is not that. i stated a few posts ago.. bitcoins limit is known. has been known since day one.
the scarce<->abundance is separate question within the sliding scale.

my approach?? lol sorry but your the trying to confuse the matter. by ultimately saying im wrong but then saying the exact same thing i said to claim your right.


seems your trying hard to muddy the water..

things can have scarcity..
but how scarce<->abundant is a separate question (remember the WITHIN word you failed to pick up on)
also yes scarce<->abundant is an abstract concept.. hense why in earlier posts i was saying no one cares much about it and its UTILITY thats important.

but if you think no one should talk about utility (the important thing) until they circle jerk you about less important things.. then you are a fool

now lets just drop this unimportant scarcity meander you have rabbit holed down. and get back on topic.

UTILITY creates value, lack of UTILITY removes value

im more of a traditionalist.
if i cant afford something then i dont buy it. if i want something then i use my own savings to buy it.
ive never been into becoming a slave to a bank while making them profit

---

i know how banks do it. because you need to nearly sign your life away first. they even create the money(money out of nowhere by signing a credit agreement) so that its still a no risk game, even if you do default. they never lose even if you default at day 1.
they even sell the agreement onto debt collectors so its no cost to them chasing you, and instead let a debt collector chase you. while the bank takes the agreement sale (pennies on the dollar) as their profit. they(debt collector) only chase you with a wet fish to take your house, as more of a deterrent to others aswell as to make sure they(debt collector) breaks even/gets profit.

---

but in a decentralised world where your thousands of miles away, and costs to slap someone with a wet fish are higher. the scam risk is higher.
and if someone did have collateral.. the problem then becomes how to secure it.

which is where i was more thinking about stupid examples around the forum i have seen, where people use their forum username as collateral. or a picture of a car they say they own (i was facepalming reading those)

---

yes altcoins are an option but you would need to ask for alot more altcoin value than the loan request is for. because (thinking about repayment) if the loanee took the loan but the altcoin he then wants to buy did not rise to sell for profit to repay you. you not only dont get repaid. but you also lose because the price did not rise.. meaning it fell so the collateral is worth less that the time of the agreement.