The blockchain remains and the hodler value is safe and sound within it.  Workarounds for whatever happened will be invented.

If the workarounds or a long down-time requires a code change, patches will be available to bring the system back up.  There will likely be multiple competing efforts to bring Bitcoin back on-line.  'consensus' will define which of these succeed.  In this phase it will be critical for users to have information on who to trust.  I suggest that people spend some time evaluating this problem before it is necessary.

I don't even think it is all that improbable that such an event will happen, though I suspect that there will be corners of the earth where Bitcoin continues on unmolested and that complicates analysis.  Some of these corners will likely be private networks of size, and some of these networks may not have Bitcoin's best interest in mind.  Relatedly, a global network attack could punch tactical holes in the shield to aggravate recovery efforts.

Even in the best of circumstances, difficulties may be problematic as it was for certain sha256-based alt coins when attacked by Bitcoin proponents.  I would lean toward efforts to make some fixes to Bitcoin corresponding to bringing it back on-line.  Several of the biggest of these would be to do away with sha256 proof-of-work (and consequently, the consolidation of mining power behind ASIC investors) and also the regrettable fact that simple verifying transfer nodes are not rewarded.

I don't.  If my ISP gives me the boot (or endless problems and the opportunity to have an Indian tell me to re-boot my modem and router again and again for hours at a time) I have one other option which is just as bad.  Then it's back to POTS modem-land and my land-line is so poor that v.34 is all I can achieve...on a good day.  No line-of-sight to anywhere interesting so I could not even do my own radio link.

As for getting government backing to force an ISP to let me run Bitcoin, I'm not holding my breath.  In short, my ISP has me by the balls and I'm not going to sacrifice my ability to connect to the internet at all over Bitcoin (which, even at the current blocksize, is already a significant burden in bulk data terms.)  If I had a million dollar mining operation and the corporate infrastructure providers I rely on tells me to jump, I'm going to ask 'how high.'  I'll have to assume that most others with a million dollars worth of gear on the line would do the same.

This Achilles' heal of Bitcoin is a big factor dictating how much value I feel comfortable placing on it relative to alternatives such as gold.  The more the block size grows and the more the solution relies for strength simply on the headcount of users and good graces of the authorities to allow it to operate, the less I can trust it as a robust financial alternative.  But that's just me.

Interesting.  Thx for the update.

A long long long time ago I predicted the global geopolitical strategy would play a role in the security of Bitcoin.  Now we see them dirty Chinese giving the XT guys (all two of them) a serious case of heartburn.  Nothing brings my heart more joy.

He seems to be referring to Blockstream.  To this I would say that the problem they seem to be focused on is keeping Bitcoin 'free' (using the term in a systems and political sense) and secure while at the same time making it's strengths filter down to everyone.  It's a tricky operation.  Much more involved than the brain-dead 'bigger blocks yesterday already' strategy, but they seem to be making progress at a comfortable clip and easily fast enough to beat the race against any significant block size constraints which currently exist.

Back in 2011 a lot of people were all indignant about the idea that Satoshi made a lot of money off his work on Bitcoin.  I never understood this.  Even if he did, fantastic.  He deserved to for Christ's sake!  If Blockstream makes a ton of money off their work on LN and sidechains and whatever, that would seem fair enough to me.  Some of the crypto they are working on is cutting edge and the problems they are attacking are difficult and new-ish to network and to monetary science.  I honestly don't see how they are going to become ultra-wealthy tycoons off it though, and nobody making this accusation seems to be able to put their finger on it either.

It is equally valid to argue that the $3B market cap is a good reason not to put all of one's eggs in one basket.  Even if things were a zero-sum game (which I seriously doubt) then there is plenty of value to get several different basic strategies off to a running start.

You seem to think that the $3B will collapse to nothing if there is a fork.  I think it more likely that it will expand to a greater number as people have greater confidence that the fork they choose is on the right path.  The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, and as I say, there is not plenty of slop by virtue of the $3B.  That was not the case back in 2011 when I got interested.

FWIW, I'm surprised and delighted to see you (specifically) putting some genuine thought into these things.  I'd not really expected it from some of your earlier writings.  Anyway...

I believe that my 'never' terminology still stands.  There is just to much diversity and the philosophical poles are to far apart.  One of the main tools an attacker can use is to divide their enemy.  With fundamentally different ideas about an end-state for Bitcoin it makes such an attack against distributed crypto-currencies in this manner very easy.  Indeed, one might not need to provoke it at all as the phenomenon is likely to occur spontaneously.

I would also note that a 'unified and harmonized' Bitcoin has the dis-advantage of being a single-point-of-failure.  Several somewhat autonomous forks each with a different focus lessens this weakness.  Even a Bitcoin which looked a lot like today's e-mail and had a lot of centralization and black/white-listing has some advantages over most other financial instruments.  Specifically, no 'counter-party risk' (by virtue of key control.)  I fight hard against Mike and Gavin because I don't want to see that as the future of Bitcoin, but it really is a viable strategy to enlist the google-class players to be on Bitcoin's side (with the hope of monopolizing it) because they have political sway.  This strategy is a distant second behind working on a defensible 'subordinate chains proxy' strategy (which is what I see Blockstream doing) but I see value in having both strategies in gestation.  Forking could achieve this.

How many times did I have to fuckin tell you guys!  Port blocking is nothing compared to what is technically possible and I'll bet is already in place.  The 'internet kill switch' is not what most people imagine at first blush.


What are you going to do when only back-door'd crypto is authorized big fella?  This isn't the kind and gentle 90's any more...now the mean and scary ISIS is threatening all us freedom-loving people you know.

It's incendiary one way or another.

To get a second opinion, find someone who has worked in dynamic display ads and ask them how much they love data.  High value data like precise transaction logs probably has a broad range of opportunities for monetization which go far beyond simply spamming people with ads, but I suspect that just that alone would be enough to support a very robust monetary framework infrastructure and reason to work hard on gaining the largest footprint possible.

Absolutely it is.

I suspect that when 'the authorities' looked at the whole Bitcoin picture they said to themselves, 'hey, this isn't half bad.'  The trouble they have is that things could go South in a hurry if a zillion whack-a-mole proxies for Bitcoin emerge (read, sidechains) because suddenly the thing becomes a whole different ball-of-wax from an analysis perspective.  My guess is that some people are shitting a brick about this as we speak, and I bet it is the driving force behind the seemingly 'hail Mary' XT/BIP101 effort.

Which ones, specifically?  When Greg talks, I listen...but I don't follow him closely enough to know everything he says or does.

Something went wrong with your edit and the gif got lost.  I fixed it for you.

I also should have said something about the exponential growth that Gavin seemingly almost alone among the more technically inclined tried to push forward.  That is probably why he got 'the finger' from pretty much everyone except Hearn who's corp/gov 'full spectrum domination' plans for Bitcoin are only tenable with such a construct.

This is very well written.  I won't speak for the view of others, but it captures my own mindset to a tee.  Thanks!

I will add that I would find it 'kinda cool' in a way if a $0.12 goat-cheese transaction in Mongolia lived along side a $12,408,671.04 nightly financial services entity settlement, but if it means compromising the decentralized nature of Bitcoin and the robustness that this decentralization imparts, it is simply not worth the trade-off.  If the Mongolian can achieve 99% of the benefit of Bitcoin through use of a proxy system (some sidechain) that is a really good compromise in my mind.  I look forward to being able to make the same compromise myself for 99.9% of my financial activity.

Posting mostly just to monitoring this thread since it seems active and with decent info.

For my part, I did not even consider using Bitfinex due in part to the involvement of a guy who went by the name ~unclescrooge here.  He seemed to me  like the kind of guy who would get involved in a scam.

I pulled what money I had in MtGox out in time.  (Sorta.  I've still got a $5000 claim for a fiat wire they never sent me.)

I figure that what Bitstamp did was a little internal scam to save on taxes.  They got on my shit-list when they snuck in a KYC without letting people remove their funds first.  Glad to see that they have not stolen peoples money in bulk.  Yet.

Since the 4-figure valuations I've not been an active participant.  I used Coinbase because I could, and because I figure I can sue them if the rob me.

Perhaps it's time to think up a name permutation for Bitfinex:

 - Tradehill --> Tradehole

 - Mt Gox -->  Mt Lox?  Mt. Sux?

 - Bitcoinica --> Bitgonica

 - Bitstamp --> Bitstump

 - Bitfinex --> Bitfin-ex

It's an upgrade from having decisions made in the cloistered and opaque bowels of The Bitcoin Foundation.  Thankfully someone leaked the discussion Hearn provoked about coin tainting and that little gem started being bandied about in public.  If not, the whole rotten organization may not have crumbled.

I cannot really imagine wanting to kill someone, but if emotions were strong enough to make me wish to do so, I expect that I'd want to use my bare hands.  Like that guy who caught some degenerate molesting his 5-year-old.

For intimidation value against garden variety threats, a gun has the nice property of being able to produce a report from a safe distance.  Accd to Dr. Strangelove:


For enemies of the most significant kind, weapons, or combat capabilities generally, are probably second string behind other sorts of deterrents.

Gavin and his BIP101 meets the  rest of the devs:

There is another thread about that on this board somewhere.  Again, the thing I find most interesting is the suggestion that alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase (aka, 'nagalase') might be a constituent of some vaccines for the purposes of causing various problems in a population.  Very lucrative problems for the medical/industrial complex I might add.

Obviously this is a pretty 'out there' conspiracy theory, but at this point I would not put it past these fuckers.  It would solve several 'problems' imagined by several disparate groups.

 - One the pharma side, it the problem would be that they need more customers to keep their stock values growing.

 - On the 'eco' side for lack of a better description, it would help solve the infestation of humans that the planet is suffering from.

 - On the fiscal side it would be mighty helpful of the non-productive oldsters would start to die off at an earlier age like back in the good old days.

I absolutely do not rule out some pretty sick shit on the part of our social engineers as a legitimate hypothesis to explore.  And since government is so secretive and coming down so hard on whistleblowers, this exploration is a bigger challenge than it would be in a more transparent society.

+1.  I mostly want to get on this thread so I can conveniently see updates.

This stuff is amazing and infuriating.  It is also a potential key to political progress because eventually to many people will know someone who has been shafted and the public will take an interest out of self-preservation if nothing else.

In my community guns are basically the equivalent of a crescent wrench.  Most people learn to handle them from family.  Often they are given as gifts, or loaned around if someone needs a particular variety that they don't own for some specific task.  This seems to work well here.  There are very few problems with guns themselves, and confrontational crime is very rare except in criminal enclaves.  Suicides do happen with guns sometimes of course, but there is little doubt in my mind that someone intent on suicide will fairly easily find alternates if a gun would have been their first choice.

In short, a lot of the restrictions which are being talked about would be somewhat onerous on us.  But it's also nothing we cannot deal with.  Probably by mostly ignoring the nonsense.  Fortunately our local law enforcement shares the sentiment of the community since they are a part of it.  So, all this bureaucratic red-tape and associated bullshit is a 'first world problems' so to speak.  Knock yourselves out.

That's actually an interesting and valuable observation.  IMHO.