Another inane ignorant falsehood. I'm running BU. Have been for more than a year.

I'm impressed how many bald-faced lies you are able to spew in a single post.

Well of course we do. Though, if this new Classic thing picks up steam, it'll be just as good. This is assuming Classic endeavors to operate upon the actual Bitcoin chain, with no new PoW or somesuch.

For in a world with core, Classic, XT (still some support there), BU and BitcoinEC, only core is the one that will crumble when larger blocks get built. I would assume that in the case of such, core would likely change to accept larger blocks as well.

We'd all be one happy family again, working on a chain with larger blocks. No need to fight this huge dispiriting battle until the 8MB limit is nearing. At which point, we will have proved that larger blocks work, and BU's emergent consensus was indeed The Right Idea. Better yet, with the broader community's eyes on the code. Win/win/win.

I think the market is merely an aggregate of individuals. I think there is no requirement for each miner's fee vs orphan balance point to equal any others' for the market to create an aggregate equilibrium.

I think several parties would be well served by re-reading 'I, Pencil': https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil-audio-pdf-and-html/?gclid=Cj0KEQjwzd3GBRDks7SYuNHi3JEBEiQAIm6EIwYR2Fs9fOqpwy_2NVN1xOT4S8hBws9q6EnTWxCLAn4aAn8B8P8HAQ

You mean Qt? Isn't that mostly LGPL 3.0? In what way is the license violated?

'Almost all'? Can you be any more specific on the number?


Of which specific libraries was this a license violation?

Yeah. If you go there, I suggest you read that thread to the end to absorb the manner in which iamnotback's thinking on the matter evolves.

::sigh:: once more, into the breech ....

I can understand those questioning Roger's sanity (I wouldn't want to risk that). But those that doubt his veracity would be well-served to review this first:

http://www.coindesk.com/entrepreneur-roger-ver-1m-bitcoin-donation/

Well, no. Of course there is some variance, but it is currently higher than you represent. 41.7% of the last 144 blocks (i.e., 1 day) is BU, plus 6.9% for 8MB (valid under a BU fork). Not quite half, but a far cry from a third.

I understand that. And it is even worse than you represent. There are no promises in what I said above. I do not speak for BU. All I can do is relay my impression based upon my regular conversations with the principals.

Well, not quite. Rather than handcrafting a new response, I'll just copy this 85% overlap message here:

We don't think of it as an attack, but as an upgrade. I haven't participated in mining in years, yet I am convinced that BU delivers more value to me than does the core plan.


Again, BU is not resistant to a malleability fix (at least as far as I discern). As recent events display however, we have a dev bandwidth issue. We must prioritize the things we wish to accomplish. Abolition of this stupid centrally-planned production quota is the most pressing problem faced by Bitcoin. So we are focusing upon that. Longer term, we would like to enable LN, but not with the current built-in anticompetitive disincentive for on-chain transactions (i.e., the aforementioned maxblocksize limit).

(And LN is still possible without a malleability fix, but that is kind of an aside, in that it is acknowledged that such is suboptimal).

Well, Dean did preface that with "there is a way to:...". Will Dean illuminate us with the way to eliminate the miners altogether?

Stay tuned for news at eleven.

I don't know why you are compelled to replicate discussions all over the board. Fine. I'll play along by copying my reply:


You have stated that, yes. That was my assertion. My point is that this is outcome is not affected by the cap on maxblocksize.


Justification of this assertion would require explaining away the almost linear annual doubling of the average block size, up until the saturation point.

You have stated that, yes. That was my assertion. My point is that this is outcome is not affected by the cap on maxblocksize.


Justification of this assertion would require explaining away the almost linear annual doubling of the average block size, up until the saturation point.

Yes, a new bug was discovered by someone desirous of performing a DoS attack upon BU. This bug was exploited by such attackers to cause a number of nodes to crash. While a temporary inconvenience, we welcome this assistance in hardening the BU system before flag day.


Well, not exactly. I mean, if your definition of 'closed source' is delayed release of the source, I guess so. While I was not part of the decision process, it seemed to be predicated on the fact that immediate release would reveal the precise nature of the vulnerability to additional attackers. It was done to create a window for the patch to propagate.

Whether or not that was the proper course of action is something that can be debated. Indeed, it is still being debated within the BU community. But your characterization of 'they've gone closed source' is beyond the pale.

So you seem to be acknowledging that I am correct above...


Collusion is collusion, irrespective of the protocol. Nakamoto consensus is only possible when a majority of participants are 'honest' as per the whitepaper terminology. Unbounded blocks does nothing to change this.


Yes, minimum advised fee. 'Advised', as not encoded within the protocol. The fact that this worked up to the point that the production quota was finally persistently hit forms an existence proof that the system can work. The fact that it did work may or may not have something to do with all players having beneficial intent, but there it is. Indeed a populist sentiment includes the notion that it is against the best interests of all participants to do anything that kills the system. Which probably explains why our past known-majority miner (Discus Fish?) turned back from their position of mining majority without ever forming an attack from their assuredly-successful posture.

Hey Shelby - I'll circle back to your previous post after this (that one requires more thought). First, I need to say that I don't 'speak for BU'. I'm just a guy that thinks their vision is correct. Most intelligent BU discussion does not happen on the more core-centric venues. I'm just trying to dispel a lot of the falsehoods told here about BU and the intent of its proponents.


Good. That's a starting point for a dialogue.


But BU has a block limit. The difference here is that it is adjusted in an ongoing manner by a community process. If 2 or 8MB is the proper value at one point in time, then that will be the limit. If we go with some other fixed value, we'll just be fighting this battle again in no time, with all the wasted friction, animosity, and market turmoil that it entails.

I realize there are skeptics that scoff at the emergent consensus idea, but there is science behind this concept. Granted, its application to this field is novel. At least as surfaced in this manner. But in the end, each party has the ability to change the blocksize they'll accept anyhow, by a localized change to source and recompiling. We are just making it easier for the user to make this change on the fly.

From my perspective, no. You are not going to convince me to abandon the scalable blocksize vision. With the caveat that I'm still thinking about your previous post.

I detect no deviation in the BU community at large from this principle either. Especially as -- after over a year of hard effort -- the tide seems to be turning in our direction.


By and large, there is no effort against adoption of segwit (the targeted feature in isolation - not the bundle of cruft which is The SegWit Omnibus Changeset) within the BU community. We recognize that malleability is something that is worthy of addressing. However, it is really a tertiary concern. For all the heat and light, I have yet to be shown that malleability has actually caused any systemic failure. Or significant value loss. The restriction of ~250,000 transactions per day, on the other hand, is a systemic problem that needs fixing RFN.

So yes, let us fix malleability. Once we are past this tps barrier. If my read of the BU community is correct, segwit (likely without the centrally-planned magic number signature discount) is a contender for this fix. There is a conversation comparing and contrasting with (e.g.) FlexTrans that first needs to happen though.


Agreed. Note that the feature of which you speak is _not_ the actual segwit feature, but what I refer to above as part of 'the bundle of cruft which is The SegWit Omnibus Changeset'. I don't believe that the majority of the BU community supports this either.


(I've taken the liberty reorder a couple of your paragraphs)

For the most part, the BU community realizes that our dev workforce is not comparable to core's. We have no illusions on this point. The fact that the most significant core devs are highly paid is likely a factor, but probably not the only factor. Personally, I think a very large factor is that devs naturally want to work on the market-leading implementation of a given idea. Up until recently, that has unambiguously meant core. However, from my perspective, there has been a recent swing in the thought-space towards BU. If indeed BU can wrest the market share title, I would expect a commensurate movement of devs from core to BU. Of course there will be attrition, but we don't need many to double or quadruple our dev bandwidth.

(One other factor would be untruths repeated far and wide about features, capabilities, and even motivations of BU - some intentional and some merely repetition of falsehoods. But getting into shouting matches over this would be unproductive)

Yes, there have been bugs. Fortunately, none have caused persistent or systemic issues. And likely, more will be found. (Of course, more will likely be found within core as well). But a mediocre implementation of the right design is infinitely more valuable than a nearly-perfect implementation of the wrong design. For the former will asymptotically approach the ideal, while the latter will always be targeting off in the wrong direction. We expect BU will be that goodness.


Look. This narrative really ought to stop. Neither Ver nor Wu have any official relation to the BU community. Are they visible BU community members speaking their minds? Yes - but only in their personal capacities. The idea that they are somehow official thought leaders in the BU community is merely a false redditism. Neither of them were responsible for brainstorming nor initiating BU, and neither of them participate regularly in discussions in the primary BU venue.


Backing down is unlikely at this point. I'm certainly not.

The majority of Bitcoiners are likely unsure or ambivalent of a choice between core and BU. There is a hard core minority and a hard BU minority. I don't know the proportions, but BU seems ascendant at this moment.

No discussion of sentiment would be complete without mention of the intentional manipulation of the dialogue. While this has recently lifted to a large degree, it is undeniable that the discussion in this and other venues has been steered to marginalize BU. Accordingly, many BU supporters have left these controlled venues for others. As a consequence, core supporters -- whether out of ignorance or out of malice -- have had free reign to poison the discussion by parroting untruths re: BU. This has two consequences: 1) the actual number of BU supporters is likely larger than you perceive; and 2) this number is likely to grow as misconceptions are corrected.


Again. Neither Ver nor Wu are in any way central to the BU project. They are merely passionate supporters much like myself. They just have bigger megaphones than I due to their stature in other Bitcoin areas.

And yes - I would like to see you devote more time to your alt. While I am skeptical, not having seen your paper -- and despite our occasional inability to see eye-to-eye in the past -- I respect your intellect. Someone will make the next breakthrough in cryptocurrencies. It might be you? I have no way to judge currently, but I would not find it inconceivable.

I think it is unfortunate that the funding mechanism (AMP) is the same as the fuel needed by the masses for the vision to work (AMP).

In order to benefit from investment, we would like the value of the AMP we hold to be high. This argues for the burning of the big pile of AMP.

OTOH, in order for the vision to work, AMP needs to be spread freely to the potential users of the technology - i.e., all denizens of the Internet. This argues for the team to make AMP available at low cost to the world at large.

It's a conundrum.

Sure, the team could use the big pile o' AMP in order to enrich themselves. But for now, I trust them to steward this resource for the benefit of us all. The dev team seems from the outside to be focused upon delivering on a fairly unique vision that may someday be very important. If indeed this vision is in their hearts, rather than a quick cash out, then their interests are aligned with the investors'.

I still have some nagging skepticism in the vision*, but the idea is pretty intriguing.

* as just one example, I think that there is value to the user (of e.g., FB) of having a consistent presentation. This reduces friction and allows rapid cognition due to the unvarying format. By comparison, surfing across multiple layouts will be a turbulent experience. Time will tell.