Voted for Everyone, you're already seeing signs of this happening across the globe. You're seeing it with Bitpesa: https://www.bitpesa.co/You're seeing it with Rebit.ph: https://rebit.ph/These are some of the poorest nations in the world, so to just say it's an Elite thing or 1% thing isn't actually close to true. Indeed. A major reason why poor nations remain poor is their woeful financial system. Bitcoin is not a panacea, but it will certainly help level the playing field for anyone who struggles to obtain a bank account. A problem which the elites never have. |
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Shits about to go down in Greece again. I hope everyone is converting all their wealth into Bitcoin as we speak.
The situation with Greece is intense , to say atleast, but reading now some articles that are confirming continued financial support from EU to Greece,and statements from leading people from EU endorsing Greece into staying in the EU. Do they have hidden motive, noone can say for sure, but its possible that things in Greece are going to settle down finally. Doubt we will see things like OP's tragic loss again with Greece, but i agree that people will get(allready are) nervous cheers : 20% of bailout money to Greece 80% of bailout money to French, German, Spanish, Italian and Squid banks, 100% of the total, plus interest, for Greece to pay back. |
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It's never before been the case that in order to use a money, I'd need to have a copy of every previous transaction.
Keeping a copy of every transaction is a temporary early state of Bitcoin, which looks like it will be 2009-15. After that most full nodes will be able to have a pruned version of the blockchain: a UTXO database, a full set of block headers, and a random, but complete, segment of the blockchain which can be 1%, 5%, 10%, whatever the full node owner decides. A bootstrapping node will either be able to obtain the full blockchain from one the many archive nodes, which still have it, or build it from the segments held by numerous other nodes. Constraining Bitcoin usage permanently because of a temporary reason is short-sighted and unnecessary. |
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As you can see, there are many splendid reasons for the collectivist to choose from. I'll add another big one: the fear of watching the outsider succeed. When you've lived your life according to what your parents, teachers, priests and peers have told you - you might have a safe spot in society and respect of your peers. Yet at the same time feel like you've wasted your potential. Not lived up to what could have been. Didn't do that round the world trip or write that book. So when you see someone trying to forfeit the cozy spot in society and the respect of their peers in order to try and grasp that singular, unique something their heart desires...you want them to fail. Because if they should succeed, it throws your whole life and what you have achieved into grave doubt and makes you question your self-image. And if there is one thing we can't bear to part with it is our illusions about ourselves.
Personally speaking, it is gems like this which makes reading the internet so rewarding. |
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There are two different meanings of “for everyone”. One of them is: can everyone use it? And the other: is everyone accepting to use it?
I believe we must make the answer to the first question yes even if not everyone is accepting it right now. I really see no point in making it an elitist system when only a few can use Bitcoin.
100% agree. Since we all know that Bitcoin is superior to fiat, where the public are stealth-taxed by never-ending CB inflation targeting, then this is the morally correct action. |
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Simple poll. Assuming technology keeps up, should Bitcoin be usable by everyone who wants to use it at a reasonable cost, which might be a few cents per transaction, or a new elite, where most people are priced away to 3rd-party services?Who are "Everyone"? This means people from all parts of the world, Mali in Africa to Bali in Indonesia, all walks of life, in developed or developing countries. What is the "new Elite"? It is not one of the old fiat elites, like the NWO, or banksters, it is part of the new broom to sweep all that away, a Bitcoin-elite, such as found at Bitcoin-Assets #bitcoin-assets, An elite who have a core principle that it does not matter if ordinary bitcoiners can't use the blockchain where fees might be $5 or $10 per transaction. Bitcoin isn't for everybody.
What do YOU think? Please VOTE! |
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why cavirtex shut down ?  worried about hackers. |
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I thought that the most interesting idea in that log was the one about implementing the fork with a ttl of 2 years. By the time those two years have passed, everyone will have forgotten that this was such a big issue.
Fantastic! It is now only 4 days until two years since I was concerned enough to post a topic and poll on the 1MB issue. Only 4 days until everyone forgets about it and maybe Gavin can do what he thinks is best without any blowback?  The poll result in Feb 2013 was: Leave as one megabyte - 20 (21.5%) Let Core Dev decide - 34 (36.6%) Agree to increase - 39 (41.9%) Looks like the vote to leave as 1MB is still just 20% and unchanged in 2 years. Note: this topic was posted when Litecoin was the only alt with any real potential. There are 1000 alts issued since then, and some do have the potential of making Bitcoin the Myspace of cryptocurrency, if it trips up. Also, the prediction of running out of block space in 2013 was based upon SatoshiDice pumping out 50% of the transactions and only getting bigger. Erik Voorhees slowed it down and Core Dev increased fees to eliminate a lot of spam. That is how we have reached 2015 with the 1MB limit still intact and not yet being consistently hit. Max Block Size Limit: the community view [Vote - results in 14 days]Satoshi Nakamoto decided upon a one megabyte block size limit for Bitcoin. He viewed it as a temporary measure, but because it has remained fixed for so long it can reasonably be considered by some as a permanent limit. This means currently that the Bitcoin blockchain can not grow faster than 1Mb every 10 minutes. If the limit remains fixed then Future A will be the road ahead. If the limit is raised or set by an algorithm, then Future B lies ahead.Future A: Bitcoin will never handle more than 7 transactions per second. This is a tiny fraction of that handled by major payment systems. Evenutally 99+% will need to be handled by third-party services (such as Coinbase), bitcoin "banks", trusted transfer layers or even alt-chains. Only large transactions (with high fees) get included on the main blockchain. Bitcoin never makes large payment systems obsolete (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal) but full nodes can be run by individuals with moderate computing power and bandwidth. People can personally verify the integrity of the bitcoin network, even though it operates analogously to an internet backbone, but for currency, and people's transactions and holdings are held elsewhere. Mining the main blockchain will remain a niche business, Future B: Bitcoin grows to handle hundreds or thousands of transactions per second. Perhaps Moore's Law can keep up so that some individuals can run full nodes, although lightweight nodes will be necessary for nearly all. Big companies run nodes. All transactions which people want to have on the main blockchain (with low fees) are supported. Third-party services do not have to be used unless they add value, faster confirmations, etc. Existing large payment systems will wither. Mining the main blockchain will become a big business. It is fair to say that this subject has been exhaustively discussed in many threads. There are many arguments for and against, so people are invited to wade through the history of the debate before deciding to vote. Any change will require a hard-fork i.e. everyone will need to upgrade their software. It will likely be necessary before the end of 2013 based upon transaction growth rates. Of course, if no change is decided upon then the limit will become a real constraint, fees will rise, zero-fee transactions will no longer be processed, third-party services must fill the gap. Jgarzik > [PATCH] increase block size limit https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347.0caveden > Block size limit automatic adjustment https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1865.0barbarousrelic > Max block size and transaction fees https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=96097.0Jeweller > The MAX_BLOCK_SIZE fork https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.0Misterbigg > Why do people pay fees? Why are free transactions accepted by miners? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144421.0Retep > How a floating blocksize limit inevitably leads towards centralization https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144895.0notig > The fork https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145072.0hazek > Why the Bitcoin rules can't change (reading time ~5min) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145475.0 |
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http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/12/adam-smith-hates-bitcoin/?_r=0You ignore the wealth of nations, and point out what would happen if we rendered bitcoin as a gold, higher velocity currencies would arise. What you point out about other clones is not observable as reality in a non vacuum because bitcoin is real and so what you point out must be related to bitcoin. There is only one first to the market; such is its value. I think this should be clear. The gold and silver money which circulates in any country, and by means of which, the produce of its land and labour is annually circulated and distributed to the proper consumers, is, in the same manner as the ready money of the dealer, all dead stock. It is a very valuable part of the capital of the country, which produces nothing to the country. The judicious operations of banking, by substituting paper in the room of a great part of this gold and silver, enable the country to convert a great part of this dead stock into active and productive stock; into stock which produces something to the country. The gold and silver money which circulates in any country may very properly be compared to a highway, which, while it circulates and carries to market all the grass and corn of the country, produces itself not a single pile of either. The judicious operations of banking, by providing, if I may be allowed so violent a metaphor, a sort of waggon-way through the air, enable the country to convert, as it were, a great part of its highways into good pastures, and corn fields, and thereby to increase, very considerably, the annual produce of its land and labour. First, Krugman is always wrong, and secondly Adam Smith did not live to see the amazing technological development of cryptocurrency. We can't just "render bitcoin as a gold", only the global marketplace can decide that, not a few random people on the internet. I suggest a smaller block size, that creates a less transactible material in the velocity sense, would effect price.
A smaller block size can only serve to drive up user fees (to a point of exhaustion), to compete for space, but price is exogenous to that, and is a measure of the value of the whole network. Only if the network is nurtured (by software improvements to make it bigger and better), not crippled (by the deadweight of high fees, and transaction frequency rationing) can price rise. I am certain that cryptocurrency is the electronic gold of the future, whether it will be Bitcoin is still unclear. |
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No this is not logical to say. Another coin would take over as a highly transactable commodity, but to say "take over" is incredibly vague. I am suggesting such a low size renders this "commodity" like gold, and this would have an incredible utility in relation to our current financial system. This is the issue I see, people want bitcoin to be both a fundamental basepoint and a highly transactable material. I suspect it cannot be both, should not be both, and won't be both.
Are you sure, that at such a low block size, bitcoin is worthless? I suspect that the only true issues with price is uncertainty. And so once we solve this issue, this will change.
I am absolutely sure that a low block size will be worthless for the reason that the commodity of block space will still not be scarce. On the coinmarketcap site you will see Megacoin, Vertcoin, Quark and many others, all of which are functional clones of Bitcoin. They all offer block space for trustless, peer-to-peer, censorship-free, permissionless, rapid, 24/7 electronic transactions. Why should anyone pay $5 to send a Bitcoin transaction when they can spend 5c of Vertcoin to achieve the same result? If Bitcoin became permanently block-space limited, then it would be quite simple for Bitpay and Coinbase to offer Litecoin or Megacoin as an alternative to customers who are priced away from Bitcoin. The Bitcoin-for-buying-a-Ferrari only works in the real-world if Bitcoin can also (theoretically) buy a million coffees at the same time. You like the pyramid analogy, think of a pyramid of transactions by value. The ability to do a series of low-value transactions supports the ability to do higher and higher value transactions. |
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I suspect that if we somehow locked in 1mb, bitcoin would be super scarce and price would skyrocket? No?
To be clear, Price would not skyrocket, it will collapse when average block size nears 1MB, and remain collapsed the longer the 1MB limit is left in place. Left in place eventually another coin will take over. It seems you didn't address my point/question. If bitocin has a small block size, like 1mb, it seems the price would be higher than for example and infinite size, or a really really big block size.
I suspect, although some would be upset that bitcoin couldn't be used for coffee, that a small very limited block size would be cause for a higher valuation in terms of price. All what you posted is good, but we can manipulate the value of each bitcoin, by making them slightly "harder" to transact no? If true, there may be an inherent difficulty in getting a consensus of a higher block size. I really really think, this discussion is very key.
(btw bitcoin isn't on their and it is 2015 and smart contracts, ethereum get released next monthish)
It is not on the chart, but if it were then it is still near zero on the y-axis. Other coins being released all the time means that standing still is not an option (and it is not happening as core dev are churning out releases). Dooglus! Nice to see you in this jungle of a thread. |
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Indeed. Payment channels between nodes has enormous potential, and Bitcoin is better placed than any other technology to benefit because the payment currency is native to it. People who supply nodes already have wallets to manage the balances which will result.
D&T. I agree that 1MB is a joke, and have recently described it on your own thread as the biggest risk to Bitcoin.
Gavin's proposed change, plus IBLT, plus payment channels will strap solid-rocket boosters onto Bitcoin. I can't wait.
Ok then moving along, and me joining your dialog. I suspect that if we somehow locked in 1mb, bitcoin would be super scarce and price would skyrocket? No? The reason I ask, is if we render it a super gold in that sense, then greedy people might not let us change it to a higher size... I suspect "price" is awaiting this decision. Thanks for joining us. The answer is already known, and "price" has already spoken. http://coinmarketcap.com/#USD tells us what the market thinks. Bitcoin clones have a unit price which reflects their miniscule ecosystems, and the small opportunity value that one of them will ursurp Bitcoin's place, if it were to badly trip up (for example, such as having an artificially small block limit which is never changed). Gold is finite, Bitcoin is finite, but cryptocurrency is infinite. As you, of all people, are fully aware, perfect money has to be scarce, it can't be infinite. So, it is the network effect of many users, the whole ecosystem, the merchants, the publicity, the massive farms of hashing power providing security which give Bitcoin its price, and the potential to fully become electronic gold, super-gold. It's not block space scarcity which will ramp up price, but the total number of users it has and percentage of world transactions which it can process. Realpra sums it up:Well rationally there is no way the present Bitcoin can win over a higher limit fork:
Step 1:
A. Gavin creates a higher limit BTC fork.
B. Anyone else does it.
Step 2:
Present network can never grow more than it is now, because we are already hitting the limits.
Step 3:
New system takes over by nature of being the biggest - which it cannot avoid becoming because it scales!
Once Bitcoin plateaus in its adoption curve, then its super-gold status is secure, but not before. And it won't take as long as radio or TV.  |
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I'm liking JR's paper. Micropayment channels is the most constructive approach to permanently dealing with the block size limit, since defenders of the limit are mostly concerned about the data overhead on full nodes. Maybe if the limit was higher. Payment channels still require at least one transaction per payment channel set. How often are you willing to reset payment channels? Once per week, once per month, once per year? The longer the period the larger the initial escrowed amount. How many payment channels if the average user going to have. Say the average user accepts escrowing 6 months worth of future payments and has 3 payment channels payees each. That still requires 6 on block transactions per user per year. 2 tps @ 6 txn per user = 10.5 million users. Do you really think Bitcoin will be a global revolution with an upper limit @ 10 million users? Payment channels, side chains, and cross chain atomic transactions are transaction multipliers. They move us from one economic transaction per block transaction to more than one economic transaction per block transaction. In essence they make the primary block space more efficient but you can't get any kind of scalability out of 1MB permanent limit. I was talking about payment channels between nodes so they can negotiate peering agreements, not for replacing regular user transactions. Indeed. Payment channels between nodes has enormous potential, and Bitcoin is better placed than any other technology to benefit because the payment currency is native to it. People who supply nodes already have wallets to manage the balances which will result. D&T. I agree that 1MB is a joke, and have recently described it on your own thread as the biggest risk to Bitcoin. Gavin's proposed change, plus IBLT, plus node services payment channels, will strap solid-rocket boosters onto Bitcoin. I can't wait. |
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I'm liking JR's paper. Micropayment channels is the most constructive approach to permanently dealing with the block size limit, since defenders of the limit are mostly concerned about the data overhead on full nodes. Existing relay (non-mining) full nodes are providing free services to support the network, where holding BTC and hoping for a capital gain, is the only compensation. "Let’s put our trust in natural economic forces to automatically regulate the block size
A functioning payment system built into the Bitcoin P2P network is very doable. We have participants in the market, services for them to buy and sell, the micropayment channels to facilitate payment, and the capability of computer science and software engineering to develop the algorithms necessary to facilitate price discovery. This is the approach we should take to safely uncap the block size limit and allow Bitcoin to scale along with market demand."
What's the best approach? An add-on to facilitate 2-way payment flows for all nodes types (SPV users, miners and non-miners) ? Does this call for a lighthouse project? |
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Is Huobi down?
Any clues about the cause of this rise? The Google rumor perhaps? Coinbase overseas?
Huobi as ropey as an old fishing net lately. They go offline for a while then reappear as if nothing had happened. |
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HForks will become virtually impossible in the future as too many opinionated developers bash each other. My only hope is that the important scalability changes are made before there are too many dependencies. Ossification is rapidly approaching.
That is why the 1MB limit is the single most important threat to Bitcoin, because ossification is rapidly approaching. The limit can irreparably damage Bitcoin's future growth, its winner-take-all honey-badger image. Its default status as an "electronic gold" store-of value is badly tarnished if it can be allowed to run into a brick wall when there was years of warnings, threads and discussions beforehand. For non-technical supporters and investors the fear will remain that other major problems are latent and ignored. Some people argue against increasing the limit because they "want Bitcoin the way it is now", that "it is working fine". The reality is counter-intuitive. The way it is now is that it has no effective block limit, and that allowing the average block size to approach 1MB is to introduce a massive untested change into every full node, simultaneously. I say untested because the only comparable event was the 250KB soft-limit which rapidly went wrong, and the major mining pools had to come to the rescue and increase their default block limit. With the 1MB the number of nodes which need to quickly upgrade is several thousand times larger. Chaos. People are worried about government action, yet for every government which tries to ban Bitcoin another will give it free rein, for every government that wants to over-regulate it, another will decide upon regulation-lite. The threat is from within, not without. Off-chain solutions are developing. An Overstock purchase by a Coinbase account holder does not hit the blockchain. There must be many business flows which are taking volume away from the main-chain. But this is not enough to stabilize the average block size. Challenges are also opportunities. A successful hard fork, executed as Gavin suggests with a block version supermajority, will take many months and allow a smooth transition to a scaling state. Hard forks on the wish list, and ideas like stale dust reverting to the miners, (if there is majority consensus) will be seen as achievable. Ossification might be delayed a little to allow other hard-fork improvements if this first challenge is successfully handled. |
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(...)
And that leaves people mining protocol version A With <5% of the hashing power AND <1MB blocks. Protocol version A will be unable to handle any transaction load at all.
Very interesting, thank you. So basically if MP wants "bitcoin legacy" to survive, he has only two options left : - to invest in mining capacity right now so as to keep at least 10% of the network hashrate, or - to try to convince miners that Gavincoin is a bad idea, and hope that they will make the correct choice... Knowing that "hope" is not exactly in the man's personality, he will have to start mining now (something that he always has refused to do). So he will need 10x the hashing power of this farm vvv, and mpcoin blocks will still take 1.5 hours to mine, the rewards of which won't be spendable for a week, and no exchange will accept them, including MPEx! MPEx will have to announce that it will use the >1MB mainchain, because otherwise it will have loads of its customers exiting while the number of version-4 blocks climbs to the supermajority threshold.  |
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Ok, so say we go ahead with a hard fork to a > 1MB max block size ... are we also going to see a couple of other hard forking issues put through all at the same time or will this one be done alone?
Could it become like those congressional bills where all the crap legislation gets stuck inside the fine print of the guns 'n drugs 'n terrroists 'n kids cover page?
While in theory that is the most sensible idea, in practice, adding other changes will only slow down the implementation of what already has proved to be very contentious (yet shouldn't have been). |
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