but Linux is an OS.

the question is, does Bitcoin as Money need, require, or want a Redhat of Bitcoin?

Financial incentive:  Exactly!  We can't determine the financial incentive without knowing what the company does.  In other words, the financial incentive is going to be getting paid for whatever real value that company delivers, not due to appreciation or speculation of some app-coin token.  

Trivial example: you could create a document registration company.  Company creates a registrar sidechain with some modifications to add document registration data fields and retention time.  To use it every transaction has to transfer .0001 scBTC to the company, per year retained.  And as a bonus no BTC dev is whining about BTC blockchain spam.  Company makes additional $ with related services like testifying in court.  Sounds like not much money?  But e-bank statements have always been bullsh*t.  "Click here" to see the bank statement today, click tomorrow and you may see something completely different because the company's web server serves the statement.  Every e-statement worldwide should move to a blockchain based validation system.  Those .0001 BTCs would add up pretty quickly.  But if on the Bitcoin blockchain it would seriously hamper Bitcoin scalability -- note my registrar sidechain has a retention time -- old blocks can be forgotten.

but he's a CS from Oxford.  here's what he said which is flat out erroneous and incomplete.  maybe he didn't mean it but still:

In Bitcoin, a miner that earns the right to publish a block on the main chain is currently paid 25 BTC (~$8500 at current prices). This provides adequate incentives to have highly specialised hardware running in datacentres across the world. If the reward halved, as it is set to do in 2016, the incentive to provide these proofs would halve and we could likely see a scenario where the proofs would now be far less reliable (partly due to the excess hardware that could be bought on the cheap). In other words without a high token value on a blockchain there is little security or integrity of the data contained within.

i don't want to argue on this as we have plenty of other things to argue about going forward re: SC's.  this is the last i'll say on this. 

you may be right.  i had a little trouble ascertaining the article's true message while in a rush.

i think it was this part: "it this does not have to be the case forever."  and this part which i said above:

he then doesn't even mention how tx fees can make up for lost blockchain security incentives after a block halving which is a disingenuous and incomplete discussion.  a mention that tx fees "need and can" increase to compensate for decreasing block reward would have been totally appropriate and complete.

when someone makes an error of omission that is so basic like he did, i immediately become suspicious.  he should know better.

i hate articles like these, esp from guys like J Levin who i think is generally respected in the community b/c of his Oxford CS training and Coinometrics.  i however have not been impressed with his previous thinking as he is one of the geeks who doesn't fully get Bitcoin:

https://medium.com/@jony_levin/i-love-the-blockchain-just-not-bitcoin-354c511ad3e5

same reason, same hate from me:  he implies that the Bitcoin currency unit can be changed or that it can somehow be replaced or added to with another token (currency unit).  he then doesn't even mention how tx fees can make up for lost blockchain security incentives after a block halving which is a disingenuous and incomplete discussion.  a mention that tx fees "need and can" increase to compensate for decreasing block reward would have been totally appropriate and complete.

this is still a problem i have with making protocol changes; how do you insert a protocol change that doesn't favor a certain group of ppl or disadvantage the ppl that have come before the change?  b/c Bitcoin is an open community, outside voices are allowed to be heard loud and clear.  however, we never know to what extent they are personally invested in the former rule set (protocol) as opposed to the new rule set they are proposing.

I would like to push for blockchains with native tokens rather than just blockchains (innovative, probabilistically immutable databases) which have far lower utility if any.

wow, after 200 pgs we have an agreement.

i would love to see SC's fulfill their primary goal; that of innovating Bitcoin esp for fast tx and anonymity.  i just fear the unknown secondary effects, one being the perverse strengthening of altcoins via the bolt on.

how do you propose to assess the efficacy/success of these utility chains over time?

so you understand my argument about why the vast majority of altcoins will bolt on to Bitcoin MC utilizing the 2wp and how it might be a bigger threat than it already is to Bitcoin in the long run?

calm down and listen.

a BTC speculator is convinced by over the top Dogecoin advertising (similar to TC) that he wants exposure to Dogecoin price volatility speculation.  he doesn't want to use a centralized exchange.  he decides to transfer into the Dogecoin SC via an available 1:1 peg that gives him scBTC in a holding position on the Dogecoin SC.  he waits until the appropriate time to convert scBTC-->Dogecoin at his strike price.  now he has a position.  simple as that.  there will be plenty of ppl who might want to do this just like keystroke wants to do with TC.  you can't say it won't happen or that it is even a dumb move.  it's all a matter of opinion.

my pt is that SC's have done nothing to kill off Dogecoin and may have in fact strengthened it by facilitating the above process via the 2wp.

Dude 100% of the top 7 coins after btc either have no features or are projects that reject btc-style pow mining entirely. Side chains are irrelevant to them. By market cap that is probably 99% of alts and 99.99% of crypto.

Stop wasting your time talking about alts. Btc devs too

but devs wanna make money just like everyone else.  the altcoin is what monetizes their innovation. they don't get paid anything, per se, innovating on Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin community differs in both those respects. Your crankery is not cute. You are not a cryptographer, and yet are releasing a homebrew cryptosystem, misrepresenting your own qualifications, and encouraging others to store value in your creation. These actions are incompetent, dishonest and reprehensibly dangerous. If somehow you are doing this through honest cluelessness, I dream that you’ll read this article and realize the error of your ways.

So you think competition in the cryptocoin space being made irrelevant helps free market driven innovation how again?

yes, that's exactly what i'm saying.  Dogecoin will bolt itself to MC as a SC b/c it has nothing to lose and everything to gain by siphoning off whatever BTC it can get whether you think its logical or not.

the Dogecoin SC can be designed to carry scBTC as well.  that was my original condition.

you didn't even read my original post above about this.

what Bitcoin dev is going to waste their valuable time devving a Dogecoin utility chain?  how do you even do that anyway w/o the Dogecoin itself?  the feature of Dogecoin is the coin, idiot!  that's the pt, Dogecoiners like the inflationary nature of the coin itself.  how do you build that into a utility chain?  even if you could, what Bitcoiner is going to use it, and for what utility are you talking about?  inflation?  if no Bitcoiners use it, then it can't be MM'd either. 

then they'd have to go thru a centralized exchange idiot.  maybe they don't want to do that and they'd prefer to use a decentralized exchange process like the SC which is costless and potentially more anonymous. 

let's backup a step brg444.

you said SC's would destroy altcoins.  show me how when they can bolt onto the MC as a SC.

that's the pt idiot.  by allowing these altcoins to bolt themselves onto the MC, they will conduct over the top advertising which will attract BTC speculators to transfer into the altcoin via scBTC.  just like IRL keystroke would with TC.  sorry son, this is reality.  get an imagination dumbass.

this is exactly the problem you create with SC's.

as you said though, free market head to head competition is best.  politically trying to block out competition while at the same time trying to profit from it introduces all sorts of self interested financial conflicts. head to head competition would force them to come to consensus on MC or testnet instead of using SC's.  i view SC's as an excuse to do the hard work. there is every reason to believe the altcoins will immediately bolt themselves onto the MC via the 2wp as there is no downside for them.  altcoins can't move to BTC.  there is only the potential to attract BTC--->scBTC--->altcoin as they can sell the concept of a risk free put.  there are plenty of current BTC speculators who are unhappy with the last 11 mo of BTC price action and might be willing to switch to a new flavor of altcoin thru the cost free 2wp.  TC is just the first example.  

as far as altcoins and SC's are concerned, let me come at this question from another direction.  

right now, we have 538 altcoins in existence of varying kinds with diff security models.  what are SC's going to do to make all of them go away?
brg444 has said "someone" is going to reduce them to utility SC's w/o the altcoin but only with the "innovation" and that will be what causes their destruction.  really?  who's going to waste their time doing this for 538 altchains?  who's going to dev a utility chain for Doge inflation?  who's going to dev a utility chain for Freicoin demurrage? who is going to dev a chain for any one of the 538 altcoins most of which have weird monetary models?  let alone mine them to make them secure? the answer is NO ONE. it's b/c it's too much work and there is no upside to doing so for a Bitcoin minded dev precisely b/c there is no altcoin! Bitcoiners won't use them as well. ppl are supporting these altcoins precisely b/c they have speculative upside and most of the time don't involve the sound money properties of Bitcoin.  they will continue to exist as they are and is why you're not seeing a selloff since the whitepaper.  SC's do nothing to altcoins. which removes a major argument for SC adoption.

now, let' take it one step further.  if we now allow all of them to bolt themselves onto the Bitcoin MC via the 2wp with 1:1, i ask again, exactly what has changed and what is going to make all these go away?  first off, not only will they not go away but now i think they get stronger. it is fundamentally worse for Bitcoin.  i suggest that these altcoin devs are jumping with joy at the opportunity to get into the Bitcoin house and siphon away valuable BTC.  let's use Dogecoin as an example.

let me very clear about the scenario/mechanism and my assumptions here so brg444 won't distort them yet again.  i'm suggesting that there will be 2 separate coins riding on this new bolted on Doge SC, the original Dogecoin and the new scBTC created from the 2wp in a 1:1.  there will be a Doge blockchain that continues to create Doge from its own block rewards, which is inflationary as we know.  there will be tx fees generated by mining tx fees from both scBTC and Dogecoin. in this scenario, i'm suggesting the 2wp will only more easily facilitate the movement of BTC<-->scBTC<-->Doge b/c of the risk free put along with the logarithmic increase in advertising claims that Doge will be able to use as we've seen with Truthcoin (TC).  the exact opposite of what SC devs expect.  i am NOT saying that Doge will be able to convert directly to BTC via the 2wp. it will only be exchangeable for scBTC.  consider that Doge already has its own security.  it already has it's own brand.  it already has its own attraction.  it already has its own followers.  and it already has its own philosophy which happens to be different from Bitcoin.  it can advertise that philosophy with logarithmic intensity to those ordinary Bitcoiners (who only care to make a fast buck and may not care about the inflation) just like we've already seen happen with TC.  

furthermore, if successful at siphoning off BTC, Bitcoin miners might want to follow defecting users via direct mining as well as MM as they now have the revenue from Dogecoin block rewards, and tx fees from both Dogecoin and scBTC.  

you see, the problem with brg444 and the SC proponents is that they think everyone thinks like Bitcoiners do.  i got news for you, they don't.  that is what the whole speculative altcoin movement is about and SC's do nothing to change that.  in fact, it might make it much worse for us by letting those altcoins into the house next to our core engine business (MC) and sucking out valuable BTC.