There are two points here.  MasterCard doesn't have to scale up by yet another factor of 1000, because they already have a big part of the world as their customers.   There is no "infinite amount of customers" and hence no unbound scaling problem.  The only reason why we talk about scaling problems with crypto, is that they already saturate at microscopically tiny levels of transactions, but we don't have to scale up to the size of the universe.  There's a finite and quite limited amount of customers and daily transactions to have had.  When that is reached for a system, the system is good enough.  It seems to me that companies like MasterCard are already covering a significant part of the market, so their biggest "scaling problem" is maybe a factor of 10, in their wet dreams.

The second point is what I already said: if a decentralized system can do it, a centralized, distributed system can do it too.  Take your "one out of 10 users" and replace that by a node belonging to the distributed system.  Hell, maybe the bank can find an agreement with one out of 10 of their customers to have a terminal in their house !  In the beginning, this is how commercial internet got started: certain ISP just gave free internet access to customers, if they could install a rack of electronics in their basement, so that they had calling points all over the place.  I have an ISP that uses my home router also as a WAN emitter for customers passing in the street.  But this is a centralized, but distributed system.

The only difference between a distributed, and a decentralized, system, is political, or in other words, who knows the "admin password".



I don't see where you get that from.  I'm saying that centralized systems have much less difficulties in handling large volumes than decentralized ones.  You tell me that centralized systems will never be able to handle eh, the traffic they are handling daily.

I'm not saying that bitcoin is impossible.  I'm telling you that it proposes a difficult solution for which people have already a well working solution since years, and that that difficult solution has more problems scaling than the system that doesn't need to scale any more, because it has already reached mainstream adoption and usage.

Maybe stirring the shitstorm is a way to obtain knowledge.  


I don't see what this has to do with what I'm claiming: I claim that the claim that asicboost is a cheat and an exploit, is a false claim, and I think I've shown logically why.  That's all.  Maybe I'm wrong, and then people will explain this to me, which may convince me.  if I gently ask why asicboost is a cheat, I wouldn't get a serious answer.  It is only when making bold claims, right or wrong, doesn't matter, that one pushes those that do not agree, into giving arguments.
In real life, one cannot do that, because often one's personal reputation gets compromised by the claims so made, but on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. 

What you are telling me, which is interesting in its own right, is that even though on paper, asicboost allows to do about 15-25% less calculations, that doesn't work out when trying to convert that theory into a working chip, because the extra complexity of re-routing the calculation results to different entities on the chip kill the gain one could, on paper, obtain.  Your argument, although not proven, is surely technically sound.  I wouldn't have learned that, without "provoking" you into pointing that out here, would I ?

So now in the end, I don't know whether there actually exist working asicboost chips out there with an advantage.  That's always better than thinking it is established that they exist if it is not the case.  So that too, is good for me, no ?

But all this doesn't change a iota to what I claim: any improvement in efficiency should be applied by miners, or it diminishes the (already very fragile) cryptographic security of PoW.  So miners never "cheat" when they improve the difficulty they can solve with a given economic cost.  I assumed, given the claims, that asicboost was of that kind, but in the end, it doesn't matter.

Well, central control is usually an advantage when it comes to scaling.  Central control, and distributed treatment, is usually the most scalable solution.


Huh ?  It is up and running for years.  How many people have credit cards, bank cards, things like that ?  Any decentralized solution can always also be implemented easier and cheaper by a distributed, centralized system, because there are central points of trust, which resolve a lot of issues that are difficult to solve in a decentralized system.  So it is almost a theorem that if a decentralized system can attain a given performance, a similar, centralized distributed system can reach the same performance.


I have the surreal experience here that you are explaining that what is happening every day, cannot happen and will be too expensive ?  Most buying online *is already* done with normal banking.  All of Amazon's business is pure credit card stuff.  Hello ?  It *will be too expensive* ?

There never was such propaganda.  The claim has always been that bitcoin was going to evolve technologically, was going to implement a lot of new features, was going to change a lot of things, like the block rewards, the block period, the signature scheme, the total amount of bitcoins, ....
I'm joking, but from the moment that you can "evolve" all these things are of course possible, so I always found the claim contradictory that bitcoin's protocol could evolve, but that somehow there was a religious belief in certain aspects not to be changeable.  One can change it, and then everything can change, or one cannot change it, and then it is of course fixed in stone.

Actually, it is my understanding that if the crabs bucket contains enough non-colluding antagonists, you automatically get the "set in stone" property, but that property can only follow from a certain dynamics, and a certain initial state.   The fascinating aspect of bitcoin is whether this dynamics is actually emerging.  I think actually it is.  I think it is a kind of experiment in decentralization.  Hey, maybe Satoshi conducted an experiment, by setting up a dream for a "world currency", and then, innocently looking, put in that silly 1MB limit, to see whether the system became immutable enough for it not to be able, against all odds, to change that.  Given that the discussions to change this started in 2013, and got serious in 2015, and it still hasn't changed, I think that the crab bucket immutability may very well be at work.  But it is true that the experiment is not over, because it is only recently that people actually FEEL the difficulties of 1MB blocks.  So the pressure to "unite" and screw decentralization, augment.  This is a real test.
If in, say, 2020, there are still 1 MB blocks, and nothing has changed, I think we can call the experiment in immutability succeeded.

If the block size changes, or segwit gets implemented, we know that it is a centrally dictated system.

I'm dense here, but what propaganda are you talking about ?  The propaganda is by the core people in order to vilify the miners so that they can keep the power and appear as a victim, right ?  Or are you talking about something else ?

That said, I'm pretty clear about me having been a useful idiot as a crypto anarchist, having fallen for the joke that bitcoin turned out to be, and I set out to understand why bitcoin was different from what I initially thought is was, yes.

Nevertheless, the phenomenon in itself is a fascinating thing, which is why I'm somehow addicted to trying to understand it for the intellectual fun of it amongst other reasons.


Why would I ?  It catches on, no ?  The main goal of this catchy title was to indicate that it doesn't pay to censor me, but it can maybe serve other purposes. As long as I don't get *what* propaganda I'm spreading, I cannot find out whether I'd like to continue doing so or not, no ? 

Well, that's already what happens essentially with credit card payments, so what would move people to leave those for crypto ?  One always talks about the internet revolution, but there WASN'T such a network in place, and internet offered a lot of totally new possibilities to people. 

I see it like PC systems.  Windows rules, and there was also Apple.  When linux started to become usable for non-geeks (early 2000 or so at best), the place was taken.  Linux didn't overtake the PC.  I use linux at home and everywhere, but I'm pretty much alone.  Linux broke through because there was an entirely new application world, mobile devices, and it got there through a centralized industrial force: Google with android.   People are much much more wary with financial stuff than with their PC.  The law is much more wary with everything financial than with your PC (for the moment).  In other words, I think the place has been taken, and it is a firmly held place by the most powerful forces in the world.  Crypto doesn't offer much to the mainstream that isn't already provided for.

You can say, my credit card costs some money. True, but you do get a service in return, from legal protection, to insurance, to a legal framework that you can turn to when you think you are being scammed.  As I said elsewhere, what banks take, is small beer to what the state takes as taxes.

So I don't see crypto go mainstream as a means of payment.  Most people around me know of bitcoin.  I'm not aware of anyone wanting to use it. It is not that they never heard of it.  They simply are at best, neutral with respect to it, but most are outright hostile about it.  Most say it is to do things that are illegal, and I'm one of the few people who is actually a proponent of illegal things.  Most people in my environment are openly hostile to anything that is illegal or could give the means to do illegal things even if not intended that way.

The difficulty I have with that view, is that if the "current margin is 1%", then that's the real margin.  If you think that bitcoin's going to rise in price, there's no reason to MINE it if you can BUY it, so all future expectation of benefit from holding the mined bitcoin over selling it right away is fiat/bitcoin arbitrage but is not part of the margin from specifically mining it.

What I mean is this:
Suppose that I have a total cost of mining (everything included) of $100,- and I have now worth an amount X in BTC, what I can sell for $101,-.  That's what a 1% margin means, right ?  Whether that amount X will now be worth $120 next month, doesn't make my margin of mining increase to 20%.  Because I could also have bought bitcoin directly for $100 instead of spend it on mining.  I would then hold now $119 worth.  So the difference between "mining" with $100,- or directly speculating on the rise of BTC, only makes for a difference of 1%.

Bitcoin as an anarchist means of economic freedom, that is, being able to exchange what you want, without state and law imposing conditions, forbidding it, and taking away taxes from it.   Being able to provide services without being 50% or more taxed on it, or having to have 20 different types of authorisations, licenses, permits etc... and being able to get paid for it, and to pay for it without anyone else, or the state, putting his nose into it, in a kind of parallel, underground economy of dark markets of goods and services, that is too hard and mostly also too small for authorities to penetrate or to bring down.  Being able to finance (subversive) political action through it, being able to entirely corrupt state agents with it, hardly traceable.  The last thing I expected it to become, was a speculative tool for finance !
So I wanted to find out how that happened.  I think I'm slowly getting the picture.  I was visibly blinded too much by my own world picture, delusions and desires to see this, because when I discovered bitcoin for good (somewhere in 2014 - I had heard of it before, but never looked into it) and I talked to a few people around me, they said "ah, yes, that funny speculator's stuff on internet, with which you can make or lose much more money than by gambling on the stock market !".

What's the difference between a UASF and a core directly activated soft fork then ? I mean, if you download the node code version with the activated fork in it, of course you will only see the blocks that correspond to the new rules, and if all exchanges do that too, then of course miners have to follow if they hope to sell their coinbase coins on that exchange.  

Most probably, the ETH/ETC split, and the exchanges realizing the lucrative thing of listing both of them, must have scared the hell out of this form of centralized soft forking



   After crypto coins on exchanges without a block chain, now full node wallets without code  Things get more and more virtual in crypto land !

I really don't think that most people HODL bitcoin for "saving", that is, keeping the same value over a long time (maybe with a very modest increase).  "putting aside for later".  I think most people hodling bitcoin do so because they expect/hope for/ a spectacular rise in price "when bitcoin will replace he world's gold" or "when bitcoin will replace the world's fiat", because "only 21 million coins for all that wealth, makes for a huge price, hell, with my 20 bitcoins aside, I'll be almost a billionaire !".

In fact, this is the wet dream of re-living what early adopters of bitcoin could see: from 10 000 BTC for a bloody pizza to $1000 for a BTC !  "imagine I was the guy selling the pizza !".  The belief that "it is still just the beginning" and that still a big factor is in view (when all the gold will be replaced by bitcoin, or when all fiat will be replaced by bitcoin, when bitcoin will be the world's mainstream currency).

That's not how I saw my "savings account" when I was young.  I wasn't expecting when I put the equivalent of $20,- in it, to be one day a millionaire.   I really don't think that most people buying bitcoin, want to get out "about the same buying power they put in - saving" 20 years from now.

I would think that the money on my bank account doesn't exist in any other physical form than as a number in a bank computer (and hopefully, its backup).  I think that most people, since they use bank cards and credit cards, are used to "plastic money".
I simply think that for most people, bitcoin doesn't solve any problem that they can't already solve, in any more practical way, on the contrary.

I essentially only use bitcoin to buy services on the internet (like VPN and VPS) when I don't want it to be too easily traced to me (I have no illusions about the safety of that towards 3-letter offices, but I don't think I'm a problem for them).  But buying stuff on Amazon is easier with a credit card, and less stressful about making a mistake.

I must not understand the mechanism of a UASF then.  Any pointers ?




Yes, that's what I mean, you cheat on the name, but the name has to exist !  So some unimportant buggy version needs to exist so that you can pretend to be running it !

I was going to post more "yes, indeed, I think that too !", but I essentially agree fully with all that has been said in this thread.

Indeed.  It can find its niche.  And it has the first mover advantage, but after many years, that will erode away.  Between the "first coin" and 8 years around, or a "newcomer, only 3 years old", there's a mountain of a difference.   Between "the first coin, now 40 years old", and "50 other coins from about the same decade, 35 years old, and more features", there won't be much of a difference.

I'm thinking that too, honestly.

I agree with you, but then what are these UASF, these "all users want segwit" and all the rest ?


That was my point.  If you desperately don't want to signal for segwit on these web sites, you need to run "something else".
And yes, you can just cheat on the name

But you realize that in doing so, you create another problem.  There are a few whales out there that, if bitcoin were the world's money, would possess essentially several percent of the whole world economy, for the sole feat of being early adopters, the ultimate winners of the greater-fool game, when the whole world bought into it.  The Bill Gates of this world would be small players against some Roger Ver, MPex, and those twins, and, who knows, the owners of the original Satoshi keys if that was a group or if he was an employee.  You'd have the ultimate kings of finance there, like no banker's family ever dreamed of in its wildest wet dreams, and nothing to say about it.
On the other hand, whatever entity would be "mining" / "signing" or whatever making the block chain, would be the ultimate financial control institution.  Right now it is a few Chinese guys.  What will it be then ?  That's far worse than the current fiat system as matters of control, permission, seigniorage and wealth.

I think you've illustrated perfectly what "hinders bitcoin to become mainstream": there's no need for it.  Bitcoin doesn't offer to the mainstream, any marvellous possibility that they don't already have: be able to pay for things on the internet.  Most people buying stuff on the internet, have credit cards that allow them to.  Most people that could use bitcoin, have bank accounts (fiat bank accounts) that they use for receiving payments and sending payments.  Even though it costs some money to do so, this works very well for most people, and bitcoin doesn't solve a problem for them.
The fantastic possibility that bitcoin offers: "paying people on the internet", has already a widely used solution for most people, a solution they know, works well, and they are comfortable with: their bank and their credit card.  So why would they use bitcoin ?

The very fact that you say that this will make bitcoins very expensive, means that you are essentially (like most people) into it for "gains".  But what are gains in bitcoin ? They are: buying bitcoins cheap (and hence, early) to sell them expensively (and hence, late) to the last layer of adopters: a greater fool game.  Greater fool games come down when one runs out of greater fools.

Of course, there is the possibility of a global financial crisis that brings down the entire fiat system.  THEN, of course, people will not trust their banks and their credit cards any more.   Then bitcoin or other crypto will offer them something they can use, and that solves a problem for them.

But as it is now, there's not much in normal usage that can create a demand for bitcoin by most people.  If you tell them that they can stop using their bank, but now they have to go to an exchange on the internet, do a registration with AML/KYC rules, send their fiat money there, to get bitcoin, do finally their payment in bitcoin on the internet, what's the difference between a bank that is strictly under legal scrutiny, and an exchange that is somewhat more risky ? You have to use your bank, an exchange, and bitcoin, and pay fees on all of them, instead of just using your bank.  What good is that ?

There ARE applications of crypto: where fiat cannot go.  But most people don't go there either.

And yes, the greater fool game of "buying bitcoin now, when there is still low adoption, and sell it later, when there's full adoption" can still go on a long time.  But if you see that almost everybody already adopted bitcoin, why would you join ?  And who will pay for it then ?

I didn't mean "miner signalling".  I meant, in the "node count" that "support segwit" for unofficial "measurement of support by users".  I was of the opinion that if you had a sufficiently recent core version of the code (from 0.13.1 onward I think) you were automatically counted as a "segwit supporter user", or am I mistaken here ?  Is there an option somewhere to say, I run core software, but as a non-mining node, I don't support segwit ?

I have to say I don't know.  On one hand, I'm tempted to say that too big a market is not a good thing, because it corrupts the basic ideas initially set out - look at how bitcoin is now a crabs bucket.  If the thing is too big, grows too much, becomes a lucrative "investment" (greater-fool betting game), then essentially it becomes a toy for "idiots, business folks and lawyers".  But I don't believe in the "devs and the community" either: I could just as well believe in state, people and government then, and if I do, I don't need crypto.  So these are arguments to remain "small".
On the other hand, and especially in monetary affairs, small is often, dead, so that's an argument not to be left behind.
So, I don't know.  I'm not very optimistic.