No, it isn't the point at all.  The point is that no coin has proven the viability of larger blocks because those coins that supposedly have them are totally unable to fill them on a regular basis.  It doesn't matter if they can fill a large block once.  Or even a few times.  They have to do it consistently over a long period of time without losing nodecount before it proves that it can work.

I find this graph particularly telling in terms of what difference the maximum size of blocks actually makes:



Notice how, despite supporting larger blocks, the fork coins still aren't growing their overall blockchain size as quickly as Bitcoin is.  Those other coins could set their blocks to 1 GB per block, but it wouldn't make any difference in practice if the demand isn't there.  But if Bitcoin increases the size of its blocks, even a little, people are likely to use that additional space and the overall size of the blockchain could grow even faster than it currently is.  That's why non-mining full nodes on this chain are being cautious and not permitting larger increases.

Since he is a compulsive liar, hopefully he'll take this opportunity to perjure himself, get caught and subsequently locked up for a nice long time.   

I'm kinda with o_e_l_e_o on this one.  I mean, you can certainly describe it a yearly high, but when you say "all time" and then narrow it to the space of one year, it does become somewhat contradictory.  Otherwise how far do we take it?  Has Bitcoin reached an all time high for the last 5 minutes?  It loses all sense of meaning.

In terms of scaling, it should go without saying that the vehicles with a larger number of wheels do tend to have a larger capacity.  So thank you for highlighting the very reason why we're doing what we're doing.

Or, rather than trying in vain to make it sound worse than it really is, you could just concede and admit you might have actually learned something for once and that spreading FUD doesn't work.

If you had deposited funds on-chain to a dice site and your balance was in credit, they would have 100% control over those funds.  If they don't want to acknowledge your withdrawal for the funds that are rightfully yours, you would get nothing, because there is nothing you can do to make them release the payment to you, other than perhaps involving law enforcement which probably wouldn't work anyway.   You are wholly reliant on them being honest.  The Bitcoin protocol is trustless, but any services you deposit funds to on-chain absolutely rely on a healthy (or possibly unhealthy) dose of trust on your part.

In a payment channel, powered by smart contracts, any funds left in your portion of the channel could be reclaimed even if the Dice site choose to be uncooperative or dishonest.  Having to wait for a timelock is preferable to not getting your funds at all.

Next load of FUD for me to obliterate, plz?  

I'll refer you to the Bitcoin Wiki, specifically Poon-Dryja payment channels.  There's a distinction between a payment channel that is closed unilaterally versus a payment channel that is closed with both parties in agreement.  If the Dice site have acknowledged your withdrawal (and it would be bad for any desire they might have for repeat-business if they didn't allow their customers to withdraw) you shouldn't face any issues.  The on-chain timelock is to prevent cheating and for when there is a dispute.

That, or you aren't understanding the timelock part correctly.  You seem to be of the impression (or possibly just attempting to mislead less experienced users and give them the false impression) that you have to wait for the timelock to end before you can settle to the blockchain.  The idea is that you settle to the blockchain BEFORE the timelock expires.  It's a bad idea to wait for the timelock to run out.

Once they're up and running, I give it a year before they get hacked.  "Secure custody solutions" in crypto are a pipe-dream by people who haven't understood the concept very well.  The moment you introduce a custodian, you weaken the security.  The only difference between this and all the exchanges that have been repeatedly hacked is that these guys somehow have insurance.  All I can say is, whoever is underwriting that insurance is incredibly brave and possibly a little insane.  If this is what institutional investment looks like, they're in for a bumpy ride.

There are some ways to improve privacy in Bitcoin, but they're not quite as extensive as the privacy-oriented coins.  Have a look at the Dandelion protocol for starters.  Some of the other ideas like Bulletproofs, Taproot and Scriptless Scripts are still in the pipeline. 

Says the person who seemingly doesn't agree with a single thing happening on this chain.    

How is it you expect everyone to agree when you can't yourself?

The extraordinary dichotomy of a dissenter who follows a blockchain he fundamentally disagrees with.

Astounding.



Then they can run different code to show that they disagree.  That's the entire idea, isn't it?  You run the code that enforces the rules you want.  But if people do run code that isn't compatible with the rules on the Bitcoin network, they might find themselves leaving the network, either by their own choice or by other users' choice.  And this is what it boils down to.  How is it you think you can enjoy the benefits of the security and the network effects provided by this network if you run code that has the potential to remove you from the network?  You can't have it both ways.  Either you agree with the transactions that are included in the next block and you're part of the network, or you disagree and suddenly you aren't part of the network anymore.  Anything beyond that, you're just running your mouth.  Prove your ideas are viable.  Then I'll take you seriously.  But you'll never prove it.  So I'll never take you seriously.  It's as simple as that.

People on these boards do have an unfortunate tendency to trash-talk certain forkcoins, but at least those users who forked away had a strong enough will to run code that enforced the rules they believed in, even if that meant giving up the advantages provided to them by using Bitcoin.  That puts them several orders of magnitude above you in terms of the respect they're due.  You just linger around like a bad smell, mouthing off about all the things you could change, but won't, because you know you'd have to do it on your own.  

You know you're never going to leave this network by choice because you don't have the support you need to build a network that could even survive, let alone implement all the totalitarian crap you'd like to see.  So you just sit there sniping at things you don't like but completely lack the spinal fortitude to take any real action to change them.  So here you are.  Business as usual.  Impotent but loud.  Unable to change a thing.



Your default position is that Bitcoin is being "deburdened".  It's not realistic for you to assume that everyone feels that way about off-chain transactions.  Many would be happy enough to just keep using Bitcoin as they currently do and simply not use Lightning's functionality.  But yes, if you are fundamentally ideologically opposed to something you can't possibly hope to change (and it seems that you are), what the hell are you even doing here?  It goes without saying that you'd be better off leaving if you can't even accept the existence of this technology which you appear to blame for denying you your precious on-chain scaling.  If you believe on-chain scaling is better, why not use another chain where the users opted to focus on that?  Maybe it's because it's not better.  It's only better if that chain with the on-chain focus has equal security and network effects to Bitcoin.  But none of them do.  And they probably never will.  So I'll say again, here you are.  Again, business as usual.  Again, impotent but loud.  Again, unable to change a thing.



What you think consensus means is observably untrue.
  
You tell us consensus means voting.  Proven false by observable events.
You tell us consensus means everyone has to agree.  Proven false by observable events.
You tell us consensus means we have to wait for features to activate to decide if we want them or not.  Proven false by observable events.

Everything you have ever told us about consensus is false.  All of it.  Every last word.  I'd tell you to learn consensus, but you could spend the rest of your life trying and you'd still never get it.

Please name the Bitcoin users who give the slightest shit about your stand.  You keep thinking that everyone agrees with you, so surely you'd have some idea of who some of those people might be, right?

For all your talk of doing what is best for Bitcoin, you do nothing but attack the path that users on the Bitcoin network have empirically chosen to follow.  I'd tell you to find some people who agree with your stand and form a network with them if you don't like how the people on this network have decided to go about scaling, but it's pretty obvious that anyone who might agree with you has already forked off to one of the altcoins you don't want us discussing.  If people are drawing comparisons between your stand and those altcoins, the reason for that is that your stand is not compatible with the rules other users on this network have chosen to enforce.  Your stand is empty, hollow, insubstantial and ineffective.  Your stand is not recognised or acknowledged by the Bitcoin network.  If you want a network that isn't "deburdened", there are other networks catering to your desires.

Then they're idiots who don't understand what cryptography is.  It's simply a branch of mathematics.  Last time I checked, it wasn't actually possible to ban numbers, so I wish them the best of luck in trying.

I saw reference to the Bitcoin-ABC client in pull 10982 with a post from deadalnix saying that they would be rolling out a new magic, so I naturally assumed it hadn't been done when the BCH fork was announced.  I understood that 2x was the main reason for that pull request, though.

You asked for words from developers and that's exactly what you got.  You then claimed the developer was wrong, but the only reason you could possibly thing Gregory Maxwell is wrong in what he said is if you lack the technical understanding to comprehend his words.  You clearly aren't in any position to comment if you cant understand why he's right.  BCH definitely changed their network magic to avoid tangling with the BTC chain, but that didn't happen right away.  Read the code.  

And if you're still banging on about UASF, that code was forked from Core's repository and may have shared some contributors with Core, but UASF is not an official Core build.  That's why it has its own repo.  As I've pointed out to you in no uncertain terms on multiple occasions.  I know that doesn't fit with your pathological need to blame Core for everything, so I'm sorry that reality can't be more accommodating for you.

Indeed.  BCH had to make a few important changes.  First and foremost was updating their network magic, so that they would not be following the BTC chain, then they needed the EDA to compensate for the lower-than-anticipated hashrate their chain had. 

Either way, it takes two to tango.  But I'd personally still argue that BCH announced their fork prior to agreeing to change their network magic, which is why Core responded by implementing the code they did.

To clarify, "Amazon" are not accepting payments via Lightning.  Someone has made a third-party plugin for people to use on Amazon's website that will enable Lightning payments to be made.  Amazon are not directly involved at this stage.  It's a small but crucial distinction.

That's genuinely saddening.  It seems the governments of this world aren't willing to let people prove that not everyone needs them.  It doesn't serve their interests to allow people to live independently from the state, otherwise more might follow, which is why they'll fight it at every opportunity.

I said tell us HOW, not "make a fantasy list of improbable things you'd ideally like to see in Bitcoin".  How would you get the rest of us to run code supporting any of that?  Even if you could convince someone to write code to enforce all four points (and I'm highly doubtful that you ever will), we could all just keep running the code we currently run to completely ignore all your bullshit changes and keep doing all the things we're currently doing to piss you off so much (and it's fun to watch, so I'm personally in no hurry to see it change).  The only way you can have your sad little wishlist is if other users want it.  You need to find people who share your beliefs.  This is what you are incapable of comprehending.  None of your tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy crackpot lunacy changes any of it.  If people on this network wanted the things on your basket-case wishlist, they would run code to enact it.  So you need to find a network where people want what you want.  Clearly that isn't this one.  Now go be a pathetic crybaby loser somewhere else, please.

We're doing Lightning.  Decision made.  You can't stop us.  No one cares if you think it's fair or not.

D'awww, does poor widdle fwanky think someone didn't play nice?  Diddums.

Tell us how you're going to make us meet your definition of "fair" going forwards.  Oh that's right, you can't.  

Bitcoin doesn't acknowledge or recognise whether you think it's fair or not.  Bitcoin is only what the users instruct it to be.  Those users continue to decide with every single block that this is what Bitcoin is.  You've been crying about it for a couple of years now and you can keep crying for a couple more, because you don't have the numbers behind you to make the slightest hint of difference.