The hope would be that, as adoption increases, real-world use cases would become more prevalent on Lightning.  Retailers providing tangible goods and services would ideally start to see as much traffic as exchanges.  But obviously we'll have to wait and see how that pans out.

I'd say it's not that uncommon for most of our daily financial transactions to be with businesses rather than other individuals, so it's only natural that most of the money will flow in a similar fashion in Bitcoin as it becomes more mainstream.

It's not easy, but then it should only be a concern if the value of your coin is high.  If Bitcoin had the mining difficulty it had in 2010, but the price it has now, as an example, you can bet there would be some problems.  But as long as your difficulty keeps pace with your value, you shouldn't be a victim.  

If you do stick with PoW, sensible steps include:

• 1 - not championing CPU-only mining because Botnets
• 2 - not picking an algo that already has huge amounts of ASIC power dedicated to it, because that's the opposite extreme of 1 and equally likely to cause issues
• 3 - not manipulating the price of your coin because you'll make it a more tempting target

There's kind of a delicate balancing act between 1 and 2.  Those are the tricky ones.  3 should be a no-brainer.

You might be missing the point just a little bit.  Sure, the network will readily cope with the occasional large block, mostly because all the others are so proportionately tiny.  But if they were to produce the maximum size block every single block, that's where you might find some issues creeping in.  That's when some of the people trying to run full nodes will suddenly decide that's no longer an option.  That's when the claims that BCH is centralised start to gain a bit of credibility.  For the record, I don't think BCH is centralised, just that it has a greater potential to move in that direction.



So why have the 32MB limit?  Why not remove it altogether?  It seems largely symbolic at this stage, doesn't it?

You haven't proved anything until you can fill an 8mb block and sustain that throughput.  BCH only twice managed to exceed a paltry 200 KB worth of transactions in a single block within the last 48 hours.  

You.  Are.  Not.  Producing.  8.  MB.  Blocks.

And you definitely aren't producing 32 MB blocks, which I understand is the new cap.

You're producing an average of ~50 or 60 KB blocks with a maximum threshold you've not come close to reaching.

My understanding was that Hal Finney was pretty much the driving force behind the implementation of the 1MB cap.  Contrary to what anonymong is saying, Satoshi was quite reluctant to even consider the idea at first.  It was Finney's original idea to implement a limit and he had lengthy debates about it with Satoshi and Cryddit.  Finney eventually got his way and the cap was introduced.  If Satoshi and Finney were the same person, he was either a brilliant actor or a bona fide schizophrenic.  Neither seem plausible to me.  Particularly with that level of healthy discourse between them. 

I believe that, in each other, Satoshi and Finney found someone they could bounce ideas off and get the other person's perspective.  Something that isn't all that effective if you're talking to yourself.



a)  That's the exact opposite of what it indicates
b)  You should demonstrate your great pride by not registering 25613146 alts to flout it

In essence, now is certainly a better time to buy than a few weeks ago, but we won't know when the best time to buy would have been until after the price goes up again.  That's why it's called "speculation".  Place your bets.  If everyone knew when the best time to buy was, that would be a rigged market, which we don't want.

It's arguable whether it improves existing economies, or simply stands apart as a separate, more transparent and predictable alternative.  I tend to lean towards the latter.  What we're doing is still generally thought of as something almost disparate and incompatible, rather than supporting any existing infrastructure, but that may change as crypto matures.

Translation:  Some hardline traditionalists are running some outdated code because groupthink.  Now they talk shit about hypothetical SegWit theft whilst further isolating themselves from the rest of the community because they're too butthurt to accept reality for what it is.  While it would be more fruitful to make constructive contributions, they instead opt to spit venom in the face of the wider community.  They can keep believing the rest of the world will come around to their way of thinking eventually, but if their prognostications of mass-theft were to come true, their delight would be short-lived when it transpired that their vast holdings suddenly lost a noticeably large proportion of its functionality and value.  What purchasing power do you think you'll have when no one wants to use Bitcoin anymore?

SegWit is optional, so feel free not to make use of it.  But don't wish upon it to lead to a major security breach unless you want this little cryptocurrency experiment of ours to end.  No one will take crypto seriously for the next 100 years if Bitcoin were to fail in such a spectacular fashion.  Your riches won't be much use to you when you're dead, so it seems pretty self-destructive to want to make them worthless while you're alive.  As I stated in the other thread, you can't simultaneously have Bitcoin as a global reserve currency and have SegWit balances being stolen, causing everyone to think the network is insecure.  That's a clear logical fallacy.  You can root for one outcome or the other.  Not both.

They wouldn't "have nothing left" unless they made some really poor trades.  Are you sure you aren't exaggerating?  

Also, telling more people to panic sell just because you and your friends made some bad choices doesn't help matters.  Markets go down as well as up.  Make sure you know what you're letting yourself in for before you part with your money.  If you're repeatedly selling for less than what you paid for it, evidently trading isn't your strong point.  Sure, there's some luck involved and maybe you didn't have much of that.  But whales can't be a catch-all excuse for every decision you made.  I don't want to sound completely heartless, but you have to take some personal responsibility.

And if you think there's "no market manipulation whatsoever" in the traditional markets, I have some magic beans to sell you.  

Personally, I'd rather see the FCA placing more of their attention on the idiots who keep losing peoples' card details.  That affects a far greater number of ordinary people who are just going about their everyday lives than the relatively small numbers who fall victim to crypto scams.  Priorities much?

I didn't think BTC ever had much chance of being declared a security, in the US, at least.  It doesn't really fit their criteria.  ETH was slightly more doubtful because people were trading it before the coin had officially launched, which blurs the lines a bit.  ETH fans should probably breathe a sigh of relief.

I'm also hopefully optimistic that, because the article completely neglected to mention Ripple, there's still a chance they might categorise that centralised crapcoin as a security.  

Anything launched as an ICO is at high risk of being labelled a security by the regulators.  


//EDIT:  Plus, ditto to what LeGaulois said just below, heh.  
*Insert post about the SEC being "loudmouth dumbasses" here*
All it would really do is cause a temporary blip to the fiat prices anyway.

Exactly.  The savvy ones will be buying from the weak hands, not jumping off the cliff with them.

There is absolutely nothing related to price swings that would cause me to sell.  It would either take a serious network security breach, or Bitcoin losing its way and abandoning the fundamental underlying principles (permissionless, open-source, transparent, neutral, etc) which I signed up for, that would cause me to consider selling.

And miners were signalling for NYA because...?  They clearly desired more blockspace for more fee-paying transactions.  Just about every single argument you've ever made on this board would only make sense if you don't live in reality.  You can't rationally argue that miners want a 1MB blocksize when we've seen demonstrably that they wanted larger blocksizes.  The fact they didn't get their first preference of the "2x" proposal is evidence enough that the non-mining nodes still hold ample economic sway over network governance.  We all saw it play out.  We got a compromise in the form of SegWit, which most of the miners and users accepted.  Those that didn't accept it have the option of BCH.  That's what happened in the real world.  Nothing in your fantasy world of make believe is going to happen.  You are a renowned kook.  Get your meds adjusted.  Come back when you're not having some sort of perpetual paranoid-psychotic episode.



The entirely fictitious miners that only exist in your head?  The ones that act in a manner wholly contrary to their own future success and longevity?  Tell them the real world says hi for me.



Except it doesn't enable theft.  The game theory was all done before the code was even written.  Read the whitepaper again:

"The incentive may help encourage nodes to stay honest.  If a greedy attacker is able to
assemble more CPU power than all the honest nodes, he would have to choose between using it
to defraud people by stealing back his payments, or using it to generate new coins. He ought to
find it more profitable to play by the rules, such rules that favour him with more new coins than
everyone else combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own wealth."

The Schelling point of pay-to-anyone non-immutability doesn't change this incentive to remain honest.  If it did, SegWit never would have been devised, let alone implemented.  Again, no amount of telling us "but look how many bitcoins they could steal" is going to change the fact that doing so would seriously impact the value of those bitcoins going forwards.  The wealthy won't be wealthy anymore if they lose their shirts in the attack.



Ah, you've been drinking the MP kool-aid.  Not surprising that he attracts your ilk.  The mentally unhinged always rally around MP's deranged war-cries.  I can't take anyone who references or quotes his gutter-spiel seriously.  

You'll have to be more specific now that you've written about the Schelling point in every single post you've made in this thread.  Do you mean the first utterance under the Traxo alt?  Or one of the other multitude of uses?



LTC at $13, BCH for free from the fork.  Doing just fine, thanks.  Not sure what relevance that has.



You can't replace legitimate network traffic, actual real-world commercial activity, with miners running some extra nodes.  That's not where the utility or network effects come from.  Having access to specialised hardware doesn't magically maintain an economy all by itself.  The people who generally feel the need to have a "real-time objective view of the network" are the ones who contribute an above average proportion of that real-world commercial activity and they don't want to rely on others to know for certain that everything is valid.  Everyone paying a fee for their transaction is economically relevant.  The network won't survive over the long term if people aren't transacting.  It's likely that people and businesses running full nodes account for a large proportion of Bitcoin's fee-paying traffic.  You can't describe them as expendable or replaceable.  Bitcoin needs those users.  It needs more users if it really is to become a global reserve currency.  Which is why scaling is necessary.  

Think your game theory through to conclusion.  If the only people transacting on the network were people running specialised hardware, Bitcoin would have far less functionality and adoption than it currently has.  It would no longer be accepted by vendors if the network only had a small number of active participants who used it solely as a store of value.  It would no longer be accepted anywhere if people didn't believe it was secure because miners had stolen SegWit balances.  No one would even think of it as a store of value if we set the precedent that stealing balances was somehow okay merely because the wealthy would deem it morally acceptable and therefore that means everyone would agree.  That's beyond a stretch.

Again, you are advocating a system where theft is commonplace, but still somehow held value and utility.  No amount of theoretical manoeuvrings will ever make that a reality.  What other "global reserve currency" can you name that only circulates amongst people running specialised hardware?  There isn't one.  You can't have a reserve currency if no one believes it has any value.  No one would believe it has value if balances could be stolen or transactions could be tampered with due to hashrate attacks being viable.  Ergo, they aren't viable.  Because Pyrrhic victory.

If there were a UASF Bitcoin with no miners and just users, that would be a weak Bitcoin.  I'm pretty sure we agree on that point.  
If there were a SegWit-theft Bitcoin with no users and just miners, that would also be a weak Bitcoin.  Why can't you grasp that simple fact?

There's a balance of influence/control/power/call it what you will between devs, users and miners.  All three are needed keep Bitcoin strong.  You can't discard any of them without consequence.

I hope the wealthy are as monumentally ignorant as you are when they carry out this supposedly inevitable feat of pure magic that defies all conventional rationale.  Since, if they have a clue in their head, they aren't going to bother.  

I love how you keep saying "Schelling point" in an attempt to make yourself look more intelligent than you are (hint:  it's not working).  

Also "[50+%]" is still grossly inaccurate as it's possible to pull off with 49% or even less.  We'll add that to the growing list of things you've demonstrated you haven't "grokked" about Bitcoin.  Just call it a "hashpower attack" (or better yet, shut up completely until you can talk sense).



Yes, just like all the other times in the past when we've observed your flair for the dramatic.  All your other "end is nigh" prognostications were wrong too.  You've attempted at least a dozen other post-mortems while the patient is still alive and kicking.

Indeed.  It seems like people forget there were plenty of other manufacturers.  I'm certainly no expert on mining, but even I know that KnC, BFL, GAW, HashFast, etc all had their various issues (to put it mildly in some cases) over the years.  Some of them were involved in some shady behaviour, others simply weren't profitable operations.  They were either marred by criminal proceedings, went bankrupt, or both.  Bitmain effectively won by default, simply because they didn't have much in the way of serious opposition.  I don't know why some people think it's a damn conspiracy.  It's just basic market forces at work.



Yeah, sorry, but no.  That's precisely what caused many of them to fail.  They played dirty, they suffered the consequences.  Consequences like their customers gave them negative publicity because the goods were delivered late, or worse still, never arrived at all.  Consequences like the owners got arrested.  Things like that.  Cause and effect.  This isn't revelatory stuff here.  Sad to say, but Bitcoin has simply had a pretty sordid history when it comes to hardware manufacturers.  Any one of those failed companies mentioned above could have done things differently and maybe we wouldn't have that one dominant company with a monopoly like we do.

And then the miners can transact amongst themselves.  Just them.  Alone.  If a successful attack occurred, who else would want to be on a network run by thieves?  Pyrrhic victory.  Devastating to the attacker.  As the block reward diminishes over time, miners will become more and more reliant on the transaction fees.  They need the other network participants for their efforts to remain fruitful.  Repeat yourself or don't, it doesn't matter.  You're still talking crap.  Miners are not the economic majority.  They don't provide the overwhelming transaction volume that will ultimately sustain the network.  Block rewards are finite.  Part of the design.  You should probably try to grasp at least a vague understanding of that before you attempt any further statements about how all this works.



Not all of the wealthy participants are miners.  If these users are stolen from, they won't store their wealth in Bitcoin anymore.  I can't understand why this point isn't glaringly obvious to you.  I fully understand the point you think you're making.  I'm just telling you that the premise is fundamentally flawed.  You're talking about a network where miners can steal what they want and there would be literally no consequences.  That somehow other network users would think that's just fine and dandy and continue transacting and storing their wealth in Bitcoin like nothing had happened.  That, in this bizarro-world of yours, rampant theft of property was totally okay and no one would care in the slightest.  It doesn't matter how tempting the "score" might be, theft will not be tolerated in Bitcoin.  Miners understand this.  Apparently you don't.

You've given some highly entertaining Chicken Little "sky is falling" tirades before, but even by your standards this is impressive.



Except that I clearly do fully grasp the fact that, in a theoretical 51% attack, SegWit balances are more vulnerable than non-SegWit balances.  It doesn't mean a 51% attack is more likely, though.  However profitable the attack might seem at first glance.  Unless miners have grown tired of accumulating usable coins that have value in the real world and would rather we left them to trade their completely worthless thief-tokens amongst themselves.  Tokens that would no longer be redeemable in the real world because, again, Bitcoin would be finished if a successful attack occurred.  No more top spot in the cryptoverse.  It would just be another generic cryptocurrency that merchants don't accept for their goods and services because it isn't secure.  They'd move on to something that was secure.  Whatever that "something" is will be the new #1 coin.  Chances are, the miners' hardware won't be very useful for that new coin everyone uses.  Again, a successful 51% attack on Bitcoin is a wholly Pyrrhic victory.  It destroys everything that gives Bitcoin its value.  No amount of telling us "but look how many bitcoins they could steal" is going to change the fact that it would seriously impact the value of those bitcoins.



Your position is logically untenable.  Bitcoin can't be the most secure network if miners are stealing money.  That's not the definition of secure.  Try looking the word up.  No amount of accusing people of failing to understand you (because you're so unbelievably pompous to think it impossible that other mere mortals might be on your level) will change the fact that your argument is flawed.  It's undeniable that the alignment of incentives is an integral part of the security.  Bitcoin was specifically designed to make it unprofitable to attack the network.  That's what makes it secure.  Miners won't steal the money because it would demonstrably prove Bitcoin is not secure, thus it would lose its value and the miners would be left holding some near-worthless tokens and some very expensive space-heaters.  That's not a win for them, that's shooting themselves in the foot head.  Financial suicide.

To summarise, if value is derived from security, you can't attack security without simultaneously attacking value.  Repeat whatever nonsense you want, you can't refute that.

So are you, it seems.  You've progressed to the Altcoins forum where your idea can reach its target audience.  Congrats!   

Nearly three weeks and still no reply, franky1?  I was enjoying our little exchange.  Still running those scenarios?   

I'll happily give you a bit more time to come up with a convincing argument.  You clearly need it.   

Then it's a good thing we don't have Democracy in Bitcoin.  We have consensus, which is better.

Democracy is a sham, since all that really matters is lobbying and bribery.  Those with the money make the rules and the people merely vote for the puppets that dance along.  Bitcoin has a strong immunity to such corruption.  People aren't just casting a vote, they're actively participating.  And the chances of lobbying ever being an issue in Bitcoin are further reduced with every new participant.  UASF is a bit of a joke because some people believe that non-mining nodes inherently have more power or influence than mining ones.  Clearly that's wrong.  But at the same time, mining nodes don't have more power or influence than non-mining ones.  Neither would be able to make a secure chain without the other.



Another reason why the proposed UASF to activate SegWit would have been utterly moronic had they gone ahead, because they would be voluntarily sacrificing the security provided by the hashrate.  But, provided the network doesn't split in a mining-versus-non-mining-node style of confrontation, the miners, in turn, rely on the "security" of the economic majority.  Hence why the mining nodes don't hold more influence than the non-mining ones.  They need each other.  Consider seriously the implications of a successfully executed (yet poorly named) "51% attack" on Bitcoin.  SegWit user or not, few people are going to stick around if that sort of behaviour was deemed a normal occurrence.  You can't attack the network in that way without harming yourself financially.  You would be attacking the source of your own income.  Biting the very hand that feeds.  Not a smart move.

Crapcoins like BTG can probably limp on after an attack like that, since the "value proposition" (and I mean that in the very loosest sense of the words) is purely speculative.  The bagholders will simply brush that incident under the carpet and whistle nonchalantly, hoping some fresh-meat-to-the-grinder speculator will come along to take their place.  But Bitcoin isn't a crapcoin.  There's a difference between a speculator who is only here to make a buck, compared to those who are primarily involved because they appreciate the ethos and principles behind crypto.  Those users wouldn't deem that sort of attack admissible here.  They would rather accept a successful attack as a failure of the experiment, wash their hands of Bitcoin completely and build something new from the ground up.  

A 51% attack (can someone please think up a more accurate name?) on SegWit or Bitcoin is the end of Bitcoin.  All that would be left after that are the speculators.  The majority of people who run full nodes are not the speculators.  Those who contribute code are not the speculators.  The users who most actively transact over the network are not the speculators.  The ones who provide the real economic impetus that gives Bitcoin its top spot in the cryptoverse are not the speculators.  

The value proposition of Bitcoin is that the network is transparent, neutral and that everyone owns what they own, with no centralised power to block, reverse or otherwise tamper with any transaction.  If you jeapordise that in any way, lots of incredibly expensive mining hardware suddenly fails to make ROI by a significant margin and things start to go downhill very quickly for those who own that hardware.



So you can see why any collapse of that security would mean that Bitcoin loses its value.  You've just countered your own argument.  Well done.