you will always have some greedy hobbiest trying to syphon free cable/electric from neighbours.
the fact they authorities only found 12 people.. is nothing shocking or newsworthy.

as for immorals of bitcoin mining and the cost saving.... is only ~$225 every 6months per ASIC.(based on china's average 5cent/kwh electric)
i dont see this immoral greed outwighing the cost saving that real farms make by manufacturing the ASICS.

take bitmain. at a cost of only a couple hundred dollars to make a rig but retailing it at $1,500.. ever customer they have is literally giving bitmain a couple rigs to run FOR FREE.

EG
customer buys a rig @$1500.. bitmain can make 5 rigs for that. or 3 rigs and have $600 spare in their pocket.
so they hand one rig to the customer.. and then bitmain run their 2 remaining 'free' rigs themselves and have $600 spare to cover electric for both of those rigs for ~8 months

so even if some hobbiest is stealing electric. it still cost them $1500 for the rig.. which real farms (antpool) dont have any upfront costs. so no worries

lol you are really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
the funny thing is
2mb base 4mb weight.
or
1mb base 4mb weight.

amount to the SAME maximum bloat potential either way, for CONFIRMED BLOCKS (not in mempool anymore)

allowing more tx's into a block, does not actually cause mempools to get flooded. quite the opposite

this 4mb max is also on the contingent that EVERYONE uses segwit to achieve the 4mb max. or we will see a more realistic well under 2mb expectation within under 3 months time frame you gave.
after all when any scalability is activated. it takes time for nodes to use the feature and takes time for pools to test the water at 1.001mb for orphan risk and slowly grow once they get confident. so dont expect max bloat straight away

again learn reality and stop exaggerating.

as for running 100 nodes.. why would someone do that and why would running 100 nodes mean anything.
if your currently running 100 nodes then your shooting yourself in the foot with a sybil attempt that is only hurting yourself.

but if you are worried about mempool bottleneck . worry more about nlocktime of 1 hour 59 minutes. that can force mempools to fill up

nlocktime is not an issue. nodes will just reject and not relay transactions if the nlocktime is a year away.

however, double spenders /malicious users can put transactions with 1hr 59 minutes locktime.. try to sway merchants to accept the tx while unconfirmed to prevent having to wait near 2 hours for it to confirm (or not).. and then use RBF/CPFP to then make a new transaction to swap the funds to a different destination after the merchant has lazily and wrongly done a trade based on an unconfirmed tx.

there are other new features that can be used by malicious users to screw with merchants. but thats offtopic to your initial question

if you do the maths. these thefts are not from the big pools.. but from 'hobby' miners.

1000 unit siezed from 12 locations.. that less than 84 units per location on average.

yet the main pools have HUNDREDS of thousands each.. thus unrelated to pools/farms

to me i see this as some 12 poor guys bypassing their residential electricity meter. and has nothing to do with the big players.
the funnier thing is many libertarians and survivalists in america also bypass their residential electricity meters to not have to pay electric to the corps they hate.
many stories in america of people stealing cable from their neighbour.

i dont see this as an attack against the pools.. just the small hobby miners that have no morals but lots of greed

i have recieved many attempts of malleability in the past.. but guess what. i reject them, i never been a victim of malleability because i know what to look for.
however things like RBF, CPFP CSV open up a new can of worms.. the funny part is you snipped off that part because you fear talking about it to realise im right. double spends have not been fixed for those too lame to do proper checks.

if you think double spends have been fixed. your in for a rude awakening.

block inflate??, 8mb... um.. no.. the consensus round tables and multiple debates have settled and compromised to a 2mb base 4mb weight.
i think you need to call your cries a 'block exaggeration'.. because its only you inflating the numbers of the real debate
wake up to reality and learn whats real.




im a realist.
RBF CPFP CSV... learn it.

yes they take away malleability as a way to double spend.. but then open up and give the world atleast 3 NEW ways to double spend. meaning double spend is not solved.

much like someone changing the locks on the front door of your house to avoid you getting robbed but then taking away the lock on the back door.. leaving a window open that cant be locked and leaving the garage door without a lock. all of which used to be secure

no point circle jerking to people that already know bitcoin by using fake adverts that bitcoin is utopia.. when bitcoin still has issues. people should be aware of the issues so that they can do some proper checks on the data they handle. rather then stick head in the sand, ass in the air shouting thank you core now take me up the rear.

the human broadcasted alerts have gone and wont return.
but your node whether its super old or even latest will still alert you when your node itself cannot verify block/tx data

in short dont expect a message from a person telling you of issues.(as this has changed)
 but instead rely on your node doing its own independant checks/validation and alert you if there was a problem(this has not changed)

lol
1. the double spend issue is still a problem RBF, CPFP, CSV and others still make it possible to bait someone with one tx, but have it not confirm due to another tx confirming that goes to another destination.

2. even the glossy roadmap explains the problem and hints to the solution. 'this caused accounting issues by services that only verify by TXID'
merchants should fully check the tx and wait for a confirm.

3. block inflate.. oooh so ur against blocks being above 0.1mb in 2009, 0.3mb in 2012 0.5mb in 2013 0.7mb in 2014. 0.9mb in 2015..
do you even grasp code/logic/understanding of how bitcoin works, it seems not. or are you just spitting out the same script as blockstream fanatics, like some christmas carol singers

3. as for LN
did you know it requires dual signatures..
meaning the tx is only valid if both sides sign the same thing. meaning a malicious party cannot then create a second malleated tx because the second party would be needed. and that second party wont sign something with obvious changes. thus it wont even be accepted into pools with only one signature.
the truth is LN solves malleability, not the other way round. by dual signing only one correct tx is acceptable thus malleability is not even a process that could be used within LN even if it wasnt fixed

there are over 300,000 merchants that accept bitcoin. but only ~5400 nodes (most are using middle men.)
making the business to node %/ratio small
there are only a few thousand 'dev's' but ~5400 nodes.
making the devs to node %/ratio LARGE

though we cannot easily know exactly who is running what. it is atleast fair/logical to say that most businesses are not running nodes. and most devs are. although some businesses. single devs may be running more then one node per entity

transaction malleability..

what does it solve. you show me what you think it solves and i can easily counter it with how that is an over hyped exaggeration used to push bitcoin in one direction that does not really give us any more expectations than the 'possibles' of 2009-2013

when asking a question about how many use fullnodes. the question seems to not be right.
by asking how many of them are run by Bitcoin focused businesses and Bitcoin developers?
it will be the majority. because your literally covering the majority of use-cases within the question

it would be better to have maybe 3 different polls

businesses
individual devs
individual users

or even as more specific questions.
how many CLUSTERS of nodes are run by a single business/individual (minimal sybil)

eloquently put

^ this guy gets it

a better option is not to get random company to accept bitcoin.. but be more strategic.

EG
elon musk
if he accepts bitcoin when selling cars, offers bitcoin to pay for the recharge stations, car insurance and repairs. knowing elon must is both the manufacturer and the retailer. it all becomes a full circle economy, from end to end.. rather then a front end gimmick.

if you know a green grocer that gets its stock from a particular farmer, get the farmer to accept bitcoin. then sell its farm produce for bitcoin and then get the greengrocer to buy its stock with bitcoin.

more success is found if you know/ask about the behind the scenes of the business and find solutions/reasons they can use/need bitcoin

insurance companies are already partnering with the bankers hyperledger. because hyperledger will be the backbone of the IMF. where promissory notes and 'financial products' are created to then trade/gamble against. while offering the front end user (fiat2.0) to the general public

i have spoke with a few institutions and to them, bitcoin is just gimmick.
yes they can accept it. but within minutes they are converting it to fiat to then pay office costs and in cases of insurance to pay out repair costs of customers.

they would only see it viable if national car dealerships/repairshops, utility companies were accepting bitcoin.

in many industries they all claim the issue is not about being able to accept bitcoin. they understand its easy enough. but there is a lack of utility.
put simply why would an independant retailer in lets say texas. where all of his bills and costs are dollars. why would they accept Euro's.
even if there are MORE people in europe using the euro than there are americans using the dollar.

put simply why would an independent retailer in lets say texas. where all of his bills and costs are dollars. why would they accept chinese yuan.
even if there are MORE people in china using the yuan than there are americans using the dollar.

the reason is the texas retailer has no need of euro, yuan. even if they are more popular than dollars around the world.

now bitcoin. only has a couple million users. the pound has 60million users, the dollar has 310million users, euro has 340million. yuan has over a billion users.

so why would some american company accept bitcoin vs yuan..

---

retailers want suppliers and manufacturers, shipping etc to accept bitcoin.
they want their phone, electric, and other utility services accepting it.

they dont care much about IRS/HMRC (tax offices) accepting bitcoin, because most large companies know their way around taxes.. but unless they can spend bitcoin on their real and unavoidable costs, they dont see a 'need' for it and only do it as a gimmick. like accepting airmiles or loyalty cards.

at the moment bitcoin is just some "free press" advertising where a business appears in the media for accepting bitcoin. but beyond the gimmick it lacks utility

the article is not dynamic. but FIXED 2mb.
you really think core want to let the community have self control and not rely on core to spoonfeed code every few months.

first of all.. litecoin is not used by 300,000+ merchants, so putting it on litecoin is not a comparison. the only reason litecoin was chosen is due to charlies brother bob. who is deep in the segwit rabbit hole (BTCC)

knowing that AFTER activation, MERCHANTS need to download yet another implementation that requires changing ALL the deposit addresses to new addresses should merchants want to utilise segwit, is not a quick endeavour.

litecoin wont cover that as its test as litecoin is not merchant heavy.
also the way litecoin mines blocks is not the same as bitcoin so thats not a comparison either.

the funny part is how the folk involved in core only spread their positive news and not the reality.
EG
https://bitcoincore.org/en/segwit_adoption/
wheres the big names in merchants (that will do most transactions) coinbase/bitpay. hmm strangely not mentioned.
the hype that it has been thuroughly tested for months and they have been working with the whole industry. yet many are not even ready.
even funnier that even if ready. they end up needing to implement yet another version after activation just to get full wallet key utility.

but hey instead of releasing a version of core with dynamic blocks AND segwit. to give the community a real choice. they now want to waste time trying to get it activated on litecoin(for incompible/incomparable reasons). and then do a 'lets see what happens' and then later just push segwit back on bitcoin... surprisingly blaming one guy with 9% hash for why segwit is currently missing 75% hash.

i do find it funny that people say "everyone wants segwit". yet only 25% of pools do. and only 38% of nodes do..

core really need to make 2 releases..
0.13.1a segwit 1mb base 4mb weight(default fixed) <- the release already available
0.13.1b segwit 2mb base 4mb weight(default start with dynamic)

and then see what the community want. while still getting what they want
and stop this wait 2 years to see if segwit happens before proposing anything else, delay/stall tactics

lastly.. to add detail to BTCC (the main segwit pusher)
aswell as having a few sybil nodes running core to twist some numbers.
they are also running 54 of their own BTCC branded nodes https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/?q=/BTCC:0.13.1/... on AMAZON servers!!

i dont think it will be mad illegal/prohibited. but then again america did have alcohol prohibition 100 years ago. also there is the bitlicence couple years ago that tried not to prohibit bitcoin but strangle businesses in red tape.

so dont expect peace and love. but dont expect a bitcoin war.
all that matters is we recognise the weaknesses and tighten them up so that it doesnt impact or shock us if things change whether minimally or drastically.

EG mining pools ALREADY are prepared with multiple stratum servers and also managers working in different countries to avoid the false 'china will shut down bitcoin mining' rhetoric.

yep but the devs have got paid millions of dollars and now think they are 'market experts' their latest code is about pushing fee's and offering discounts to bribe people to use it. rather than using real code to reduce risk of abuse and issues.

things have changed since 2013-2014, and not for the good

devs need to stop pushing an agenda and instead just stick to utility and expansion.

they pretend its a 'free market' yet their code is swayed to push the price up. even during low demand

to both aditya and karartma

you ar both wrong.
the blockchain itself is not as glamourous as you set out.

imagine it this way
in the 1980's data was just stored on ledgers. technically these were called DataBase Management Systems (DBMS)
in the 90's they realised that they could link one piece of data in a table to another via 'relationships. thus began relational DataBase Management Systems (RDBMS)

now we have a new layer on top of RDBMS where datasets(groups, clusters, tables, ledgers, blocks of data) are linked to previous data... blockchain.

other things like HOW its linked. can differ. it does not need sha hashs, it can be anything. any type of cryptography or 'key' data..
the strength of it is not part of 'blockchain'. as that requires more layers of programming to achieve this.

neither is the decision to be on one system or multiple systems.. as that requires more layers of programming to achieve this.

so blockchain. is just layer 3 of DBMS, where as bitcoin has added more layers ontop. such as sha hashing the block of data(4). then PoW hashing the sha chain link(5) then distributing the data(6) and so on..

bitcoin has atleast 10 layers of security/tech.

where has blockchain is just a lil bit more expanded than RDBMS sitting at 3 layers.

yes blockchain allows more programmability to add more layers. but do not presume that extra layers are part of blockchain as default.
EG PoW, PoS, PoA is not default
decentralised or centralised is not default

yes the extra layers ontop have many possibilities and we have yet to explore them. but dont hype up the term 'blockchain' as if it is as secure as bitcoin