Am I the first here to say that I don't think it looks like a good idea at all?

If you are familiar with the now deceased exchange called WEX (former BTC-e), they took a similar path by adding a possibility of betting on Bitcoin prices. Indeed, it was not poker or dice or anything which is typically meant by gambling, but they didn't end well (they scammed in the end if you are curious). Overall, it is better to have different sites for different purposes (like gambling and exchange), and I think you will come to this understanding yourself in due course. Basically, if things go awry somewhere, you are screwed everywhere

Well, I actually didn't mean like we should literally link them together (like one after another into one big file). It should be more like having a few separate blockchains on your hard disk. Each of these "closed" or "locked" blockchains would provide an entry and exit point (sort of) that would allow some application to run over a chain of transactions starting from the very first block and ending with the most recent one (or in the opposite direction)

The point is to remove information which is not required for current operation

I'm more inclined to think that it is an instance of stovepiping

Maybe, this SEC commissioner himself has bitcoins and he decided it might be the right time to pump Bitcoin a little (it may also be any altcoin). Maybe, someone close to him asked this dude to say a positive thing about Bitcoin. As far as I understand it though, it is not considered a good practice when officials make premature statements about things which could strongly affect prices. We may have to wait for a rebuttal coming out soon (like people and mass media having misinterpreted his words and he didn't actually mean anything to that tune)

I was thinking about the ways to make the blockchain smaller, and the most obvious and simplest solution that I came up with consists in restarting the blockchain one day. For example, we can start with an empty blockchain every year with only initial balances written on it and without any transactions. I think that would make the whole network more reliable, while full nodes easier to maintain

Of course, the previous blockchains should be available at all times as well, whoever may need them. We may have to tie them up into one whole using links or whatever so that we could always trace all transactions back to the genesis block. Note that we don't necessarily have to restart with an empty blockchain as we can, for example, save the last 2-3 years of transactions once the blockchain is restarted

Is this a good idea?

Disclaimer, I can't say that I'm qualified in this matter

But from what I heard, bigger block sizes (like 8-16M) are not good for the resilience of the network since they lead to excessive centralization of mining. Bigger blocks will propagate slowly, so small miners will be at a disadvantage. There are probably other reasons why big blocks are not good. Further, if we want real scalability, Lightning Network is the way to go, not increasing the block size

Regarding pruning the blockchain, I think it is also possible. For example, it might be possible to make a "cold reset", so to speak, i.e. switch to a new and empty blockchain with only initial balances set without the overhead of transactions which led to this state (and we can do so as many times as we need)

We have risen measly $200

And now you are saying that we are on our way to 5k. We will be there if we reliably break the 4k resistance and stand there, with it becoming a new major support level. But considering for how long we had been stuck at 3.5k, it doesn't look like a plausible assumption unless there is some major news (positive, naturally) followed by real events that add value to Bitcoin (I don't know what it could be). Obviously, some random comment won't cut it

I basically agree with this scenario

Though I don't actually expect prices to break out beyond 4k any time soon. The market doesn't look strong now, so the smart ones will likely start selling earlier if they haven't already. We had been staying for too long in a very tight range to penetrate easily current resistance levels as they had likely also been going lower over time (read, it may take time as well as some effort and a few up and down cycles)

Put differently, we should now start thinking in terms of hundreds of dollars, not in thousands, when analyzing possible price action. This may be our new base scale

Regulated exchanges are also caught doing all kinds of nefarious things

But I don't really think that it is manipulation and lack of regulation which is the root of the problem here (i.e. speculative and manipulative show we have right now). Even if there were no manipulation going on, that wouldn't change things to the better in a big way. Probably, we wouldn't have such extreme levels of volatility, but you can't really expect stable prices from a highly speculative asset. Volatile prices are an inevitable result of Bitcoin's speculative nature

The only way to turn off this show for good is to change Bitcoin into a real asset having real value by far surpassing speculative one. How to actually do that is a one zillion dollar question, though

I don't think it is going to die

As long as you can exchange Bitcoin directly for some good or service, it will have value. Ultimately, this is what the whole shebang is about, i.e. turning Bitcoin into a full-fledged currency in and of itself. If it becomes that, it won't need fiat. I could even go as far as to say that without fiat sticking around it would fare even better in that case (as a means of payment). Money is not bestowed on us by our financial gods (though you may still believe in Mammon) as it is created by us in pretty mundane ways with utilitarian purposes in mind

No rest for the wicked

It looks like folks at the SEC are busy earning dough, and it is kinda understandable if you you take into account the government shutdown in the US. So everyone earns money as they can and while they can. In this way, we are to expect more such "leaks" in the future without actually anything being approved at all (as it would kill the cow). At least, not until these "comments" make no effect on prices anymore (no more milk today), and then we can hope for real action. As the saying goes, action begins when hope ends

Cryptocurrency is already an established term

So when someone mentions it, everyone and his dog (and probably his grandma too) understand what is being meant by that. However, I can't really agree with your use of the term "decentralized money" as some cryptocurrencies are not decentralized at all (like private coin issued by some company behind it in a centralized manner). On the other hand and strictly speaking, you can't call fiat a centralized currency either as it is mostly created by banks in a pretty decentralized manner

All in all, you may not want to use that distinction when referring to cryptocurrencies in general as it only adds unnecessary complexity possibly leading to misunderstanding and confusion

Okay, let's see how it goes

In about a week it will be clear what was all that about and whether it was about anything at all. Actually, I don't think it is about Bitcoin in the first place. If you were following the prices closely, you would know that this so-called bullrun had started with Litecoin being pumped (and it is still pumped, by the way). And I agree with you that the volumes don't look astonishing, apart from Litecoin, which is evidently receiving a lot of attention from market makers recently

It may not be stupid to think so

But it will be stupid to act based on that assumption when everything is crashing down. Well, today it may not look like that at all but we don't know if the surge we are experiencing now is not a game to make an exit. Regarding zooming out, I don't think you can zoom out enough to hide the crash of this size. Actually, I think you are in fact kidding

Bitcoin supply is neither scarce not capped as far as the law of supply and demand is actually concerned (read, it can increase and decrease in pretty wide limits). If it were otherwise, price crashes like 6 times (and surges of equal scale, for that matter) wouldn't be possible. This is what real understanding is about

In no case I would equal Warren Buffett and John Macfee

And I'm not sure if the latter is really able to move the market in either direction. I suspect many people now think of him as a clown. Truth be told, when I read some article and see John Macfee mentioned in it in a serious manner, I stop reading any further as the value of it instantly falls below 0. Basically, he's become highly toxic

On the other hand, Warren Buffett is very reserved in respect to what he says (regardless of the topic discussed) and that makes his opinion matter (given his expertise and understanding)

That made a good read until you spoiled it by making reference to everything being decentralized

"Decentralizing everything" is an example of hype gotten out of control. It has little to do with reality, if anything at all. So while Warren Buffett may have been wrong about the companies you mentioned, though I'm not sure about Microsoft at all (I mean that he didn't invest in it), it doesn't on its own make him wrong on crypto. In other words, we have yet to see him proved wrong provided he ever lives up to that, of course

I don't think either

But Bitcoin is too small to make a scratch in the gold market and affect the gold price in any meaningful degree. Many people are gauging the cryptocurrency market by its market cap. But it is a wrong metric to use in this case (and in almost any other case). In order to make a meaningful assessment we have to take into account the liquidity of the market, i.e. how many bitcoins can be sold without crashing the price. That will be the amount of fiat which can be invested in gold, and it will be negligible given the size of the gold market

You may want to read the OP in its entirety first


Being careful and aware of security concerns doesn't seem to help exchanges much

As they are continually being hacked with coins stolen. So we need something which would stop hackers at the protocol level itself, something which they can't possibly beat (then no improved hacking techniques will be able to help them). I think an option of locking addresses at this level with a whitelist of addresses attached would help a lot in this department. Can anyone ask Bitcoin developers to think about implementing this option?

It may backfire strongly

As it doesn't say so much about Warren Buffett as it is telling about yourself. But who am I to judge you, after all? So you are on your own here. With that said, though, I can't add that you are basically calling Buffett an arch-villain (like "next time your bills go up, Buffett is added new billion $ to his account") without providing any solid evidence for that. So the question is begging to be asked, that is, can you substantiate your claims in any plausible way?

That's not necessarily so

And while it certainly sounds plausible, if we take a closer look at bigger timeframes, it doesn't always work like that (it may not even look like that in the recent surge). For example, if people have been suffering heavy losses for long months (say, since January 2018), they may be inclined to sell at these surges and call it a day for good, not buy more. Maybe, this is the next step in the development of a typical long-term bagholder who is so tired of waiting that he doesn't care anymore and wants to drop his bags at the next stop, so to speak

That's not my point

The whole idea behind BIP70 (as I got it) consists in you wanting to buy something from someone who is ready and willing to send you an "invoice" (let's call this code so for simplicity's sake). Obviously, it limits the application of this scheme to a very specific and narrow use cases. That's likely the reason why support for BIP70 has been dropped as it is not something worth having at the protocol level


In the latter case it actually helps a lot as it allows you to see the balance of the wallet and understand that something is probably wrong and you likely sending your coins to a wrong destination