Which of course explains why we can choose between a new iPhone or a new Galaxy at a cost of zero.

Really?

No. The point of the paper is to quantify the incentive for miners to mine. It shows that rational block size choice by miners is limited by the fact that larger blocks are orphaned more often than smaller blocks. Accordingly, blocks will be no larger than the point where marginal transaction fee equals marginal orphan probability cost.

I can't really discern any addressable question in your missive.

The article is a typical sarcastic crypto skepticism hit-piece, form the person rumored by some to be NLC. Are you expecting actionable content?

Your reply to expected statement is weaksauce. Obviously, what prevents TX fees from going to zero is that miners will not mine if there is no incentive. This is the same situation whether blocks are unlimited by the protocol, or limited to 1MB.

Sure - _everyone_ switching over to BU reduces diversity - of implementation. However, in the current environment, almost half switching over would increase diversity of implementation.

Fundamental misunderstanding. The orphan cost is indeed proportional to the block reward. But the block reward includes both the block subsidy, and the collective transaction fees.

Just another symptom of the thought-control that has led to you not learning of BU until now.

Welcome, Hyena - I've been running BU for months. Not too hard to find info: https://www.bitcoinunlimited.info/

BU is architected in the principle that most 'consensus' parameters should be set as an emergent property of the system, by each user making their own choices. Rather than by edict of a centralized dev team.

Practically, it is largely a fork of Core from some months ago, to which has been added:
- Articles of Federation naming the governance policy
- user-settable MAXBLOCKSIZE for acceptance
- user-selectable 'depth' before an even larger block becomes accepted (# of blocks mined atop the large block)
- Xtreme thin blocks, which reduces the network propagation delay of new blocks
- couple other enhancements

It runs happily on the main Bitcoin chain, alongside Core and others. Of course, once larger blocks become part of its blockchain, that chain will diverge from Core. There is a 75% threshold before it will start creating blocks larger than Core.

To reply to an earlier post...

You might wanna ask JFK how that worked out for him.

The ignorance - it burns. Read more. Bloviate less.

Different things that solve different problems.

Your complete and utter refusal to answer a single question I posed to you is duly noted.


Yes. Were you active in the community under another name at the time?


Now you are just fabricating things of whole cloth. Complete and utter bullshit. First, I don't believe -- and never have believed -- that negotiating with government is important to Bitcoin's success. Use your brain - nobody in a decentralized system is in any position whatsoever to negotiate on behalf of the system. Any such negotiations are null and void by definition. Second, please cite any evidence that you have supporting your assertion that "Gavin... think(s) that Bitcoin's future can be assured by negotiating with government." I'm going to guess you are going to once more completely evade this challenge. Surprise me?
 

Now you've gone full-on stupid. Just what secret knowledge, with which the CIA could crush this nascent uprising, was available from Gavin alone in a freeking open source project?


Another wild ass assertion, completely devoid of any supporting evidence. In what way did Gavin's accepting these speaking invitations 'thwart the motive for Bitcoin's creation'?


He described the discussions in general terms. What do you expect? A line-by-line transcript rendered accurately word-for-word from memory?

"...should be a simple as possible, and no simpler than that" - A. Einstein


Agreed, but...


Of course all can participate - and the leechers far outnumber the seeders. This, in a use case that by necessity makes fewer demands on the operator than does Bitcoin.


Sure - wake me when it occurs. (protip: if you're seeking a solution that incentivizes a higher percentatge of users to become nodes, it ain't never gonna happen [<-double negative employed in ironic fashion])


My view is all is fine as long as there are no prohibitions upon anyone firing up a node.  As long as participation is not barred, I am unconcerned about how many participate. As I can always fire one up (actually, I already do, but that's another matter).

Seeing as you were not around at the time, you may not realize that at the time Gavin visited the CIA, the future of Bitcoin was nowhere near an assured thing. Many in the community felt that any attention from any quarter would be a good thing. Are you insinuating that Gavin had ulterior motives in accepting the invitation? Do you think he engineered the invitation? What motives do you posit? What negatives came out of this visit?

And before you spout that this act drove Satoshi out (a view I have had articulated by several), then why would Satoshi left such a nemesis in charge of the project?


Insert list here, please:
1)
2)
3)
.
.
.



Gavin's proposal to start the Bitcoin Foundation was expressly in order to:
1) create a mechanism for the funding of Bitcoin development
2) provide a point of contact so that journalists and governmental bodies could get true info on Bitcoin

On #1, yes he directly benefited. But so did Bitcoin as a whole.
On #2, at the time, there were many instances of outright falsehoods in the press, and driving policy. Early actions by BF countered this trend.

In the long run, the BF did indeed devolve into an insiders' boondoggle. However, some of the early work accomplished by BF may have been instrumental in keeping the gov at bay. Perhaps most notably the early senatorial hearings during which Jennifer Shasky Calvery(?) - chief of FinCEN, was led to proclaim that the legitimate uses of cryptocurrency far outweighed the nefarious uses. Regardless, perhaps you can list Gavin's actions on behalf of the BF that set back the cause:

1)
2)
3)
.
.
.

 Oh - you got nothing? Unsurprised.

Haha. Freudian slip?

"Syscoin is a revolutionary cryptocurrency that offers near-zero financial transactions..."



I assume you meant that the cost of financial transactions is cheap - not that there are very few transactions. Or...?

Especially seeing as you are only off by a pessimistic decade:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145972

4TB. Under $200. Today.

10TB is shipping in volume, and next generation will be 14TB. Welcome to essentially free blockchain storage.

You're welcome.

Nonsense. We keep telling you that the problem that needs fixing is the limited transaction volume.

Well, no. Any transaction that has made it into the blockchain is -- by definition -- a valid transaction. You don't get to call valid transactions 'bloat'.

Not to mention the fact that this has nothing to do with the scenario you posited to which I was replying.


There is nothing wrong with your scenario 2. Other than the fact that you are completely changing the terms of the scenario re: the single attacker incentivized by an external payment that you opened with. If miners make bigger blocks, and other miners accept them as valid, then great. The system is able to accommodate more transaction volume. Wishful transactors don't need to shuffle off to alt coins in order to transactionate. The only possible problem here is if a critical number of validators can't keep up. Note that validators are free to employ the same techniques to improve their performance. Regardless, I say good riddance to a network hobbled by RasPis.


Technological advancement rather akin to the CPU > GPU transition, the GPU > FPGA transition, the FPGA > ASIC transition, etc. That's worked out reasonably well in practice. Except this advantage is really not about size, but rather efficiency.

But really - you want to put some efficiency improvement numbers out for discussion? If it is more than a scant percent or two, would such not already be coded up and in the wild? Lacking evidence, reasoning suggests your 'crushing' speedup is not a potential significant possibility.

Just because the miners (in this hypothetical) are allowed to create blocks as large as they desire, does not mean that other miners are foced to accept those blocks as valid. If such a large block (presumably the result of your bribe above) is deemed detrimental to the system by the other miners (i.e., detrimental to these other miners' interests), these other miners are incentivized to orphan that block. Resulting in no problem to the network. The 'problem' solves itself.

Really? The vast majority of the world's money is merely zapped into being by the act of loaning it to some consumer, nobody knows a true figure for M0, M1, M2, or Mwhatever, and there are quadrillions in derivatives floating about. And you're worried that john q public can't use two separate methods to arrive at the same answer on a provably-correct system?

Get a freekin' grip. John q public doesn't give a shit.

Well, no. Your posts do not speak for themselves. They cast aspersions, and then you scurry to avoid -- when challenged -- any detail regarding the insinuations you make.

You can think of it as whiteknighting if you want. But you would be wrong. Your apparent target is not the subject here. Your playing fast & loose with reality is the subject.

Maybe if I don't use a name?

1) What exactly do you propose [whom you accuse of shillery] is shilling for?
- and -
2) who exactly do you propose is paying [whom you accuse of shillery] for this shilling?