Why in the hell would anyone want a prepaid card that costs $40 and charges them 5% for the privilege of using their own money?
Well, the Shift card is $10 for the card itself and zero-point-zero to use, but why let the truth get in the way of a good bout of hyperbolic ranting? Personally, I don't find a one-time charge of around the cost of a good hamburger to be too much to be able to convert my Bitcoin into merchandise at will, at literally every merchant that accepts Visa. But maybe I'm unique in that regard.
What is the point though? Do you hold most of your money in Bitcoin? I'm really trying to see what the incentive would be for someone that is not paid in bitcoins to use it as a mean of exchange at this current stage of its evolution. What problem do you have with spending fiat like everyone else? It seems rational to me, if you value your coins, to hold them and rather spend inflationary fiat for your expenses. |
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So one guy with an industrial mining rig has set up a couple of nodes under his GB/s connection and is transmitting larger blocks back and forth on testnet... That's supposed to tell us what exactly? That under the most optimal technical environment "the network" can substain large blocks? I'm shocked  |
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Um, were exactly did you read that from? I did not write that. brg claimed that wikipedia is unreliable and i answered that wikipedia is the equivalent of a decentralized approach of collecting knowledge. If someone doesn't want to use that then he has to trust centralized approaches of knowledge providing. Where you read from that i would prefer the latter sounds a bit strange. I mean you realize that i suggested wikipedia, right?
And it's funny that you claim i side with corporations. Which would that be then? The bitcoin-xt corporation? I never supported it beside the need of bigger blocks. Or are you of the false impression that iam a fan of blockstream maybe? I can assure you that is not the case, be at ease.
Seriously...you need to stop with this decentralized vs. centralized nonsense. So if I don't trust Wikipedia to provide me with their cherry-picked presentation of facts then that means I'm stuck...... reading a book? actual scientific research? use common sense or my own judgment? To hell with that! Why go to such effort right...? Let's just defer to Wikipedia, they seem to have gathered "consensus".  |
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But even so, wikipedia is a try to decentralize knowledge. If you don't want to use that (Wikipedia) you have to trust other parties, like government or whatever.
That is just about the most stupid thing I've read on this board this month. Congrats. *lol* So you add a word to my sentence and make it another sentence only so that you can claim that it is now a stupid sentence. Congrats back to you then. What i meant is that you either trust a decentralized approach of collecting of knowledge or a centralized one like governments, companies or whatever. I think it was more the part where you suggested that trusting government information was a useful alternative to trusting Wikipedia. I can see how you are the sort of person that trusts government information and Wikipedia. Yes. Maybe a Wikipedia article can help him? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma |
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But even so, wikipedia is a try to decentralize knowledge. If you don't want to use that (Wikipedia) you have to trust other parties, like government or whatever.
That is just about the most stupid thing I've read on this board this month. Congrats. *lol* So you add a word to my sentence and make it another sentence only so that you can claim that it is now a stupid sentence. Congrats back to you then. What i meant is that you either trust a decentralized approach of collecting of knowledge or a centralized one like governments, companies or whatever. This obsession you people have with sticking buzzwords to your statements absent of any relation whatsoever with its content... Wikipedia, while open-source in theory, is obviously not "decentralized". Speaking of Wikipedia, this article might be relevant to you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify |
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VS there's literally hundreds of implementations waiting for you : http://coinmarketcap.com/Freedom of choice!  Seriously, pick the one you like and fork off already. |
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I am a person. I don't find that statement altogether convincing. - 3. He said "competence", not "support"
He did use the word "support" actually. Furthermore I would also consider both XT and BTCD to be competent, Bitcoin unlimited has not been released yet but I am confident that it will also be coded well when implemented. Freedom of choice! And the irony is, XT is a highly competent piece of software; the 99.99% of it that was coded by competent programmers, of course. The handful of lines added by Hearn & Andressen have been widely derided by both the technical and user community, hence it's overwhelming popularity. Why would extending the same design approach, as used with XT, constitute a broadening of meaningful choice? Exactly the majority of the code is lifted off the Core code base anyway. Bitcoin XT, BTCD and Bitcoin Unlimited all significantly broaden peoples choice. These three implementations increase the blocksize whereas Bitcoin Core does not, simple. What blocksize we choose will determine the future of Bitcoin, it is very significant, after all people are saying on both sides of the argument that this will lead to the death of Bitcoin as we know it if we make the wrong choice. This is why these alternative implementations are providing people with the ability to express their will which can not presently be reflected by Core.  What nonsense is this? Clearly the people have expressed their will and it sits with the Core implementation. Stop entertaining fantasy. If the economic majority truly felt misrepresented by Core they would've moved on already. By all evidence they're waiting for Core's rigorous due diligence process. Even BTCD, the most recent victim of your pathological tendency to bend the truth your way, have clearly expressed trust in Core's ability to come to a consensus on the necessary course of action. As it stands their implementation increases the block size as much as Core does which is to say not at all. So basically you're left shilling about an implementation that doesn't exist (Bitcoin Unlimited), another that has been widely rejected (XT) and one that does not support your position except in an abstract, distorted type of way. |
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I disagree, I think that Bitcoin is ready for the world now, we should not hold it back any further. It started with one person and it has grown, this is just continuing the evolution of this process of further distributing development. For the millionth time it's not a matter of you agreeing or not This is my point that you seem to not to understand, it has everything to do with people agreeing or not. it's the current reality that no collection of people* have so far challenged Core's group as far as technical prowess, ingenuity and deep understanding of the complex matters of distributed systems and cryptography. I do not care if Core is the most qualified group of people technically, especially when I have a fundamental ideological disagreement with the direction that they are taking Bitcoin into. In this case ideology is more important then technical expertise. You're aware that Bitcoin is software right? It's not some kind of magical creature that's created out of thin air. What happens if your "implementation" forks like Bitcoin did back in 2013 largely because of Mike's incompetence and this time there's no LukeJr&co to save Bitcoin from Gavin? |
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It's not like Frap.doc spent years exhorting us to avoid spending our BTC too early because they will someday be worth much more than gold.... Exactly.  I remember when we used to debate sidechains he took great pleasure in accusing me of attempting to turn Bitcoin into a "WoW marketplace" while he was apparently busy disrupting the world's forex markets....So much for that. |
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I disagree, I think that Bitcoin is ready for the world now, we should not hold it back any further. It started with one person and it has grown, this is just continuing the evolution of this process of further distributing development. For the millionth time it's not a matter of you agreeing or not, it's the current reality that no collection of people* have so far challenged Core's group as far as technical prowess, ingenuity and deep understanding of the complex matters of distributed systems and cryptography. Why do you think the creator of BitTorrent hangs around them and has started collaborating on development to a lesser extent rather than spinning up his own implementation? You can lie to yourself as much as you want about the feasibility of "distributing development" at this point in the game but the facts are there is simply no one that can step up to the plate with enough support, experience and abilities.* **(Actually there is: the #bitcoin-assets folks, although I'm not so sure you'd get along with them) What are you actually disagreeing with here? My freedom of choice to choose an implementation that best aligns with my beliefs? That this freedom further extends to all people, what could you be possibly be opposed to here? Unless you are concerned that the majority will not choose your preferred choice? I think that is something you must accept if you accept the conception of freedom within Bitcoin which it does seem like you are opposed to. I do not understand what else you could possibly be arguing against otherwise.
If you do believe that we should have top down control, and the economic majority should not have any say and that the five or so people within Bitcoin Core should decide on the future of Bitcoin for us, then that is fine. I can even respectfully debate with fascist, totalitarians and communists. I don't care for your strawman. Your inability to perceive the utter idiocy of proposing that an open source project is somehow a totalitarian form of governance exemplifies how little you understand what you attempt to debate. |
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Update: XT propaganda folk doesn't know the definition of freedom of speech. "Freedom of speech is the right to communicate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship." This is obviously the case here since theymos is the government. BS. Everybody knows what censorship is:
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CensorshipAre you really going to start moaning about 'teh sensor ships' again?  It does. http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/ |
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For the future of Bitcoin to be decided on by a small group of technical experts is a concept that I outright reject, this would represent top down control, as opposed to consensus being an emergent phenomena with grass roots which would be more in line with the concept of bottom up control of the protocol by the economic majority. Which aligns better with the ethos of Bitcoin, maximizing freedom and decentralization.
Might as well scrap the whole Bitcoin project then... How totalitarian of Satoshi to impose on us the source code for his project! How dare he not consult "the community" and act in such a top down manner? Releasing Bitcoin under a single implementation is clearly the work of a dictator! A single implementation made sense for the early days, now Bitcoin needs to grow up, it needs to evolve. This is also the process of the Bitcoin community starting to realize and understand the governance and body politic of Bitcoin, a political awakening is taking place. Bitcoin cannot be divorced from pre-existing political theory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaaknMDbQGcHaving multiple implementations of Bitcoin doesn't threaten Bitcoin, just those who think they're in charge of it. Why did it make sense then and not now? Did we somehow manage to attract dozens of ready teams of programmers willing to maintain a number of different implementations absent of financial rewards? As far as I can see there is still only one team competent enough to not only maintain a stable and secure implementation but also innovate and port significant software improvement validated under extensive peer-view. |
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For the future of Bitcoin to be decided on by a small group of technical experts is a concept that I outright reject, this would represent top down control, as opposed to consensus being an emergent phenomena with grass roots which would be more in line with the concept of bottom up control of the protocol by the economic majority. Which aligns better with the ethos of Bitcoin, maximizing freedom and decentralization.
Might as well scrap the whole Bitcoin project then... How totalitarian of Satoshi to impose on us the source code for his project! How dare he not consult "the community" and act in such a top down manner? Releasing Bitcoin under a single implementation is clearly the work of a dictator!  |
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this would represent top down control, as opposed to consensus being an emergent phenomena with grass roots which would be more in line with the concept of bottom up control of the protocol by the economic majority.
Here we go, only a couple of days after joining the bitco.in circlejerk he's already regurgitating Peter R's propaganda, word for word. |
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That deranged man posted the exact same thing to /r/bitcoin didn't he? That's his modus operandi. Develop talking points and repeatedly spam them everywhere until he gets censored moderated and then proceed to go cry about it and incite uproar amongst his little circle jerk. |
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I am concerned that it does make it harder (more costly) to run a node, but I think those costs are worth bearing, I lean more towards the idea that people can transact without a trusted third party, than people must be able to transact on their own node. I think the broadcasting of a transaction to the network is reliable and 'decentralised' enough for smaller value, and if you are in the business of making large transactions such that you need the security of running your own node then you bear the cost of this and factor it in. I don't follow how it would be in any way sensible to throw all caution to the window because you consider the network "is reliable and decentralised enough" now, ignoring that what we're trying to prevent is for this aspect to slip away from us in the future. I'm curious to know if you've read this article and if so what did you think of it? http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/measuring-decentralization/It concerns me that bigger blocks *could* favour big miners, but I don't think that's a certainty. I don't think that either side has provide conclusively that it will or it won't. I think ingenuity in the market place will prevail, as it typically does, and that the larger miners will be contained by inertia, and the smaller miners will be dynamic enough to squeeze out value in niches. I think the 'centralisation' of mining by referring to pools is a red herring, I think the 50% attack is 'self-limiting' and mitigable - I think anyone that attempts it is 'one' and the 'others' will move away, I think the protocol allows for this (and any future development should always pay heed to not forfeiting this). We have factual evidence that propagation issues have lead a certain portion of Chinese miners to coordinate their transaction validation by way of SPV mining, a clear centralization threat. On the other hand I'm afraid most of what you've written above sounds to me like "let's cross fingers, knock on wood and hope nothing bad happens". I'm sure you'll understand others have similar concerns and would like to avoid for the security (and decentralization) of the network to rely on more than "hope". I think that having bigger blocks does not provide a lasting solution to scaling the bitcoin network in terms of transactional throughput. I think its essential that other technologies are investigated. It occurred to me the other day that one solution already exists in the form of alt-coins. Sure they are not pegged, and sure they are volatile, but isn't that exactly the same argument levelled at bitcoin!? If we believe that over time bitcoin will capture a significant portion of the value in the world that fiat represents then it must inevitably stabilise. I think alts are probably on that same path just a little farther behind, and that this just mimics the current situation we have with competing fiat currencies. As one or two (or 4 or 17) alts emerge as the silvers to bitcoins gold, then I think they will gain the credibility, and assurance through hash rate that their chains are secure enough to handle, say, starbucks purchases. I think the concept of alt as some sort of liquidity source for lower value transactions is not certain and IMO quite unlikely. I am of the belief that there can be only one POW coin and competitors will slowly but surely wither away. In other words, I don't think they're the solution we're looking for... Then there is Blockstream and the lightning network. I think that, they certainly think they are doing something great. I didn't at first but thats because I was afraid. Who am I to say they are not? I think there is enormous capacity for the development of a wide range of new crypto-financial-institutions. Much as I have my head in the idealogical cloud of bitcoin destroying TPTB and bringing about a new era of cashless, bankless anarchy, I think that the reality is that many of the existing structures will remain they'll just pivot on a s/USD/XBT/g
So let Blockchain set up a trusted third party scheme, with subscription fees so that exchanges can swap XBT off chain. Let anyone else who feels they can add-value to BTC set up a service, sell it, win customers and profit. At the end of the day capitalism is a great system, that is let down by accountability and 'cheating' amongst other things. BTC can address a couple of those things imho. Lightning network and Blockstream are two things independent of each other. There are multiple implementations of the Lightning protocol being worked on, one of which is supported by Blockstream. Moreover Lightning involves no custodial trust. It is quite simply an intelligent use of Bitcoin's existing scripting features that allow for a superficial write-cache layer to be surimposed on top of Bitcoin's blockchain. To address your distinction of solution vs. "evolution", I consider Lightning and Sidechains to be exactly that: natural evolutions of Bitcoin's stack supported by a limited but robust base protocol and improved through layered innovation. More details here: http://lightning.network/lightning-network-summary.pdfNow with regards to my philosophical take on what is going on. I think on the one hand people talk about how great openness and sharing is and how letting the market decide is better because its more 'decentralised'. I think now bitcoin is big though, people are scared because there is more to lose and so automatically revert to the old hierarchical models of thinking. I think people assume that, despite the countless examples throughout nature, science, history etc that humans can be smarter. I categorically believe that no individual (or small group) is smarter than the commons. I think there is something fundamentally successful about evolutionary process. I think that the imposition of restrictions on any system introduces points of failure.
Have you considered that removing the block size limit does not leave the decision into the hands of "the market" (if it exists in that context) but up to individual miners, according to their respective resources? Who would you rather have influence the security and decentralization of the network? Miners who are largely profit-driven actors and have shown worrying disregard for the network's health at times or the code dictated by existing consensus amongst network peers (full nodes) and investors? |
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Um, you mean the topic of discussion that was initiated by the great mind of Peter R. Rizun?
In other words, no matter what happens, nor how much evidence/facts someone summarizes they will still go around telling people that XT or BIP101 is the right choice. We have already figured out the two possible reasons for which they are doing this. If they want a discussion about ideas, here is one: "Both XT and BIP101 are bad." Discussion concluded. Notoriously lying won't help. BU is our preferred and right choice. Lauda against Lauda: "Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people": https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=101872BU does not exist and will never see the light of the day. Whether or not we get larger blocks the majority of network peers will still be running Core five years from now. |
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But even so, wikipedia is a try to decentralize knowledge. If you don't want to use that (Wikipedia) you have to trust other parties, like government or whatever.
That is just about the most stupid thing I've read on this board this month. Congrats. |
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It is pretty simple. Go to wikipedia and search the corresponding article.
Yes, Wikipedia, the indisputable bearer of scientific truth |
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yea, mySQL databases does not need tokens.
Their digital tokens will be represented in USD and Euros primarily. For the time being these provide relatively stable forms of currency with low volatility(although the euro was more volatile than bitcoin week to week for the first 2.5 months 15' when it radically dropped in value) but just make sure you spend those currencies quickly as they aren't stable long term stores of value. Not quite. Banks, so far, are not trying to digitize currencies but titles which is pretty much the difference between Bitcoin the asset and their databases. we all know their dirty secret is to ban cash and digitalize your influx so they can track tax you better. Of course but now we have Bitcoin |
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