And now we've reached the stage where I honestly can't tell if you're trying to deliberately twist what I'm saying, of if it's just a matter of you being too simple to understand it.

I'm not saying you have to follow Core.  You are a total moron if that's the conclusion you somehow manage to draw from my words.  Developers do not decide what the consensus is.  Stop telling people to "learn consensus" if you believe developers get to choose what that is.  Users determine consensus.  USERS.  Do you need it written in brightly coloured crayon or something?

The users who secure the network either by validating transaction with full node software or by mining  decide what consensus is.  Your software needs to conform to the wishes of the users.  If you do not conform to the wishes of the users, you can be forked off.

But no, keep telling those fairytales about "bypassing consensus".  Some gullible noob is bound to fall for it sooner or later.  

Bitcoin is decentralised.  You're free to run alternative clients if you remain compatible with the code other users run.  Bitcoin has a level playing field.  Consensus cannot be bypassed.  Either accept it for what it is, or continue to have zero credibility while you've got your tinfoil hat on.  It's not a conspiracy, the users just don't agree with you.

Exactly.  There are currently ~37 nodes that support EC whilst still managing to follow the current consensus rules.  It's actually not that hard to do.  Notice that, as we have this conversation, they aren't being "thrown off the network".  There are no "mandatory activation dates" affecting them.  There is absolutely nothing standing in your way.  If you follow the current consensus rules, you don't remove yourself from the network.  After all these years, it shouldn't be such a difficult concept for you to grasp.  For all your talk of "social drama", a sizeable proportion of it appears to emanate from you.  It is a level playing field, people just don't like your ideas enough.  You're losing.  It's as simple as that.  If people actually gave a shit about EC, they'd be using it.  Hell, even BCH users can't agree on that crap.  What hope do you think it has of thriving here?  It's laughable.



And how do you propose "REKT abuse" be prevented?  Do you have any actual solutions?  Or just more whining?  You can call it out for what it is when you see it happen.  You could try to present a superior argument (assuming you had any ability to do that).  You can point me in their general direction and I'll defend the developers who dare to write controversial code, as I always do.  You can't prevent people from shitting on things they don't agree with, though.  Life doesn't work that way.



Try learning reality.  If you get forked off, it's because your software was not following the current consensus rules.  Keep crying about "bypassing consensus" even though that isn't a real thing.  I just performed two forum searches.  One for the phrase "bypassing consensus" and another for "bypassed consensus".  Notice how all the results are either your posts or someone quoting your posts.  Why is no one else talking about "bypassing consensus" if it's something that actually happened?  Why is it just you who chooses to believe this total bullshit?  Let me guess, it's another conspiracy, right?   

I'm sorry, but backpedaling just doesn't cut it.  I need to see you retract the statement that Core "should only run current rules" as though it somehow wasn't acceptable for them to do what they're currently doing.  Otherwise I can't even begin to take you seriously.  I find that mentality deeply disturbing.  It doesn't matter if you now go on to sound like the most reasonable person on the planet, because I'm now stuck thinking your true colours are the ones presented in your earlier post.  Tell me that you give all developers (yes, including that one) your full blessing to release whatever code they want to, regardless of how much you might personally disagree with it.  Otherwise you're no better than the "REKT" brigade you claim to hate.



And this is different to 'Emergent Consensus' how, exactly?  

You can already run a client on the BTC network that offers this feature.  What's stopping you from doing that?

And don't presume to tell me what I'm thinking, because what I'm thinking is how much I'd like to insult you when you do that.  You don't do yourself any favours.



We're literally never going to agree on that.  Ever.  

We're fixing more vulnerabilities in finance than we create, which is something the IMF will never understand because they're too busy creating more vulnerabilities in finance than they fix.   

The IMF seriously need to spend the rest of their collective lives trying to comprehend where they went so dismally wrong.  Get your own house in order before you start saying ours is going to cause problems.

I'd like to see "Ripple" obsolete in 5 years or less.   



True enough.  If we take the internet as an example, how many people do you hear calling it the "information superhighway" anymore?  I'm sure that used to be a thing lots of people said, but now it's just too tragically cliché to say it out loud.  It's not easy to predict which terms are going to fall out of common usage and which ones will withstand the test of time.

What a perverse perspective from this "article".  If a fiat bank has to make redundancies because it didn't have a robust business model, is that considered a blow to the national currency?  If it is, that's never how it's reported in the media.  We see corporate restructuring and branch closures all the time with the big banks.  So why portray the difficulties of this particular service as a blow to Bitcoin?  Aside from the staff being laid off, obviously, it's only the users of that service who might be affected.  All other Bitcoin users aren't even going to notice it happened unless they read this drivel.

Precisely.  It's not practical to expect every single person to agree on everything forever.  Forks are inevitable.  At all times users are free to decide which forks they choose to transact on.  That's what guarantees decentralisation.  Developers can't force changes that users don't agree with, because the users would simply use other software.  As such, there's no point in trying to place restrictions on what developers can or can't create, because only the users can give that code any real meaning or substance.

---

Core doesn't need defending and I'm not worried about them.  I'm defending decentralisation.  Consider what it is you're actually proposing.  You are (once again) advocating restricting what certain developers can do because you mistakenly believe that's how you achieve decentralisation.  Tell us how you're going to make it so that Core "should only run current rules" and "all the core devs should have their own releases" without introducing centralisation to enforce that.  It's not rationally possible.  No one can force them to do any of those things in a decentralised system.  



Then you're not very good at explaining yourself, because that's exactly what you've proposed on more than one occasion, including this one.  Or are you now retracting your "core, if it wants to be a reference client should only run current rules" and "all the core devs should have their own releases" statements?  I don't see any other way to interpret those words.  You want to change they way they operate, but that's not your call.  I'd say this if you tried to tell any other developers what to do.



I'd love to see some code you wrote, where is it?  I'll support and defend your right to create that code.  I won't try to tell you what that code can or can't do.  It's perfectly acceptable for your code to have activation dates and fork Core clients off the network if that's what you want your code to do.  Users will then be free to run that code if they want (a somewhat dubious occurrence, but that's not the point).  That's freedom in action.  Consider giving it a try, maybe?



You might portray it as an act of hostility because you disagree with it, but it's really an act of freedom.  The users securing this network through both full node validation and mining freely chose to run the code that did all those things.  It was their choice.  That's how consensus works.  You know that's how it works because you literally saw it happen with your own eyes.  Users wanted those things to happen.  So they did.



Then why, over the years, have I also defended XT, BU, 2X, etc?  I certainly wasn't winning any popularity contests doing that.  But decentralisation and freedom means they were free to release that code.  So I'll continue to defend their right to do it.  Why am I always the one who is stating categorically that they are not an "attack on the network" and that they are merely filling a niche in the market if I'm such an ardent Core supporter?  I aim to be as neutral and impartial as the protocol itself.  As such, neutrality means all developers are free to do what they want.  



How would it be a level playing field when you are suggesting restrictions on certain devs?  Logical fallacy.

---

For the topic as a whole:

If you want a truly decentralised network, that means everyone is free to create to the code they want to create.  You don't have to like it and you definitely don't have to run it, but no one can stop anyone from coding anything.  It's something that's easy to forget when people propose controversial ideas or release a client you might not personally approve of, but ultimately, there's no way to prevent people from doing that without closing the source and making Bitcoin centralised.  That said, it's also worth remembering there are some risks to having multiple clients on the network.  It's a fine line, but things seem to be working out okay so far.

We have something beautiful here, so let's try to focus on that and not undermine it.

Back to the topic, then.  Do you get more decentralisation from a system one where no one is in a position of authority and there's no way to restrict others from creating the code they want to create?  Or a system where someone is in a position of authority and people can't create the code they want to create?  The general opinion presented in this topic so far is that Bitcoin is less centralised if there's no one in a position of authority and I agree with that.

Allude to my prior post being off-topic if you like, but I think it's quite salient to this particular discussion.  My point isn't that I want to forbid franky1 from trying to dictate things (because he's clearly free to fail at doing that all he likes).  The point is that while he claims he advocates a decentralised system where no one can restrict people from creating the code they want to create, his instinctive reaction to achieve that goal is to wish in vain that Core was restricted from creating the code they want to create (which could only happen if Bitcoin was more centralised and someone was in a position to enforce that).  I honestly don't see the harm in pointing out both the futility and the hypocrisy in that stance.

Bitcoin doesn't have centralised development or a "monarchy", it just happens to have a particular group of developers where many users choose to run that client because they believe it to be the best code available in the current market.  Consensus hasn't been "replaced" and it's still the users who ultimately decide what that consensus is.  There are no "mandatory code changes", there are only the rules enforced by the protocol (and again, it's the users who decide what those rules are).  The only way Bitcoin could work as franky1 describes is if it was more centralised.  

Because most of the "improvements" you propose for Bitcoin involve depriving people of their right to do something which they already currently do.  You think you can just ban all the things you don't like, as though you were some sort of dictator.  That's not progress, that's oppression.  Something which is generally considered the opposite of progression.  It's also a mentality which is largely impotent in a permissionless system, so good luck with that.

Is that before or after you eliminate ASICs, mining pools, off-chain development, free will, etc?  This seems to be a common theme with you.  Is there anything you'd leave intact in the horrific scenario where it was left up to you to decide these things?

Wrong as usual. 

You don't get to dictate what any group should do or what they need to do.  That's not how Bitcoin works, Mr Authoritarian.  Everyone can do what they want.  You don't have to like it, but there is no obligation for them to do what you want them to do. 

Privacy is something that takes a little effort, but there are definitely ways to enhance it.  You can utilise mixing services, the Dandelion protocol, TOR and even the simple things like change addresses and also ensuring that you don't re-use addresses when receiving transactions from different people.

There are other things in the pipeline that would also help, such as Bulletproofs/Confidential Transactions.

I don't think I've ever been on a forum that doesn't have some kind of ranking system.  You're free to disregard the ranks and weigh the validity of each post based solely on their content, but it seems unlikely that ranks are going away.  One thing that's definitely worth considering is that those have have been around for longer will, generally, have more experience.  There's a greater likelihood they might be in a better position to make an informed judgment on what constitutes a good or bad post.  An experienced member, for example, might point out that this thread doesn't really belong in 'Bitcoin Discussion' because it has nothing to do with Bitcoin and would have been more appropriate to post it in 'Meta' instead.  

That's what rank should hopefully reflect, but understandably there are exceptions and it's not a perfect system.  

I'm afraid you haven't been given very good advice there.

Physical bitcoins in an actual 'coin' form are generally seen as collectors' items.  It might sound like a good idea, but in practice, they're not common enough to be used on a regular basis.  The "trust" issue also shouldn't be understated.  If someone gains access the private key, that physical coin loses its value.  And since pseudonymity makes it difficult to tell who accessed the private key, someone might accuse you of trying to scam them if you inadvertently gave them a physical coin where the BTC stored inside it had already been stolen.  You would have to manually check each coin on a blockchain explorer before you try to spend it.  

Trading paper wallets is dangerous, as the person who made the paper wallet could easily keep a copy of the key.  There are serious security risks to trading physical bitcoins.  Exchanging private keys hand-to-hand is not how Bitcoin is designed to be used.  I strongly advise against doing that.

It's far safer to get a hardware wallet and then learn how to use PSBT to send "offline" transactions from them.  And accept payments from those who have done the same.

That's precisely the part which I find very concerning.  Again, the tories somehow believed they could ban an entire branch of mathematics due to vague and indistinct concerns over terrorism.  They don't know the meaning of the word "reasonable".  

Tory 1: "But dangerous people might communicate with each other using encrypted networks."
Tory 2: "Well, there's no other solution, we'll just have to ban numbers."
Tory 1: "Great idea, we'll announce it during PMQs!"

*shudders*

Not even a pause to consider the implications.  They didn't check with any of their own intelligence services first (which, as it happens, advocate greater public education about encryption).  They didn't even ask big businesses what they thought of the idea or what risks it might pose to the economy.  They just went ahead and announced what they thought they were going to do.  Nothing but blind, reactionary ignorance.  

It's mostly a distraction to make people look elsewhere while they continue selling public assets to their wealthy friends at bargain-basement prices.  And even if they did care about blockchain technology, this is the same government that genuinely thought they could ban encryption.  They're far too ignorant and incompetent to do anything constructive for crypto.  It almost sounds like you think it's a bad thing they've had no involvement whatsoever, but I'd argue that's the best outcome we could ever hope for, heh. 

The only impact I can see it having is if the UK economy falls off a cliff and the value of Pound Sterling plummets with it.  That outcome would certainly drive increased adoption as people look to secure their wealth in Bitcoin.  People will naturally flock to something that is highly resistant to political and economic turmoil.  There certainly shouldn't be any negative impacts on Bitcoin, though.

Oh, I thought aggregating signatures helped with privacy.  Or is that only really effective for multisig transactions?

Good timing on posting this question now.  Some recent advancements have just been made in this area.  The latest version of Bitcoin Core has implemented 'Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions', or PSBT for short.  It will effectively enable users to send transactions while offline in some circumstances.

Nearly all the articles I can find on the subject are outdated now, but you can still read them to get a better idea of it:

https://bitcointechweekly.com/front/bip-174-psbt-partially-signed-bitcoin-transactions/
https://bitcoinnews.com/bitcoin-improvement-proposal-for-offline-transactions-published/
https://ethereumworldnews.com/bitcoin-improvement-proposal-bip174-offline-btc-transactions/

I wouldn't say that's fair.  They're introducing this feature for starters, but then Schnorr will bring some more privacy benefits once that's good to go.  It sounds like testing is ongoing with Bulletproofs and Confidential transactions. 



We can only provide people with the tools.  We can't force people to use them.  It's up to them how much privacy they want to maintain.