I suppose that all depends on the definition of "success".
My definition of success is perhaps modest to some, but it is still far away: Bitcoin being the protocol and the coin of the internet realm.If it achieves this, it could well become much more, but this is the success for which it is designed. Knowing your way of thinking, yes; it is a modest target for something that incorporates so many different things in just one package. Maybe the "beginning of success" would've been more appropriate.  It merely scratches the surface of the capabilities, but achieving only this satisfies the Whitepaper and thus remains my criteria for success. As a guiding principle for the project, doing anything that reduces this potential in order to achieve something other than this, would be against the spirit of Bitcoin. Thus, those efforts could/should be a different project, or would otherwise naturally follow from the success of this one goal, which remains a long way off. |
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I suppose that all depends on the definition of "success".
My definition of success is perhaps modest to some, but it is still far away: Bitcoin being the protocol and the coin of the internet realm.If it achieves this, it could well become much more, but this is the success for which it is designed. |
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Other less measurable, but nonetheless actual result, is the increasing pace
at which "layer 2" solutions are developed (Lightning Network, Sidechain, Payment
channels implementations etc etc).
An accelerated delivery is not always a good thing for development quality. I'm more of the opinion that Bitcoin will succeed, provided that it does not fail, and that a misstep can easily be worse than doing nothing. Intelligent people may disagree with this. |
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I'm siding with Gavins proposal all day long. We certainly need the changes he is proposing. They were running a stress test today on the blockchain and it proved that the core needs helps in a number of ways.
Is there some way you think Gavin's proposal is superior to BIP 100? |
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But polls show that Gavin has a clear majority... its just certain core devs who object and not on technical grounds. And most of them are working for a single organization. How is that "hectoring a community"?
It isn't. Who said that? There is a difference between "we need a hard fork to increase the block size" and "Gavin's plan is the way to do it, (which ever plan he settles upon)" Most all the devs want a hard fork to increase block size. Very few are on board with Gavin's plan. Anyhow, it looks like the Bitcoin Core hard fork will be more likely to progress from gmaxwell's BIP, and the XT fork from Gavins perhaps. They may remain compatible until there is a block that one would process and the other wouldn't. You can include me in that contingent: we do need a hard fork to increase the block size (and only for what that will achieve, buying time). Very few people are debating that now, and I myself have been aware of the scalability issue for almost as long as I've been interested in bitcoin. Re: which designs will be implemented on which fork; I thought Gavin had decided against the hostile fork? I would rather see voting by miners done in the future for changes to be made in the future, than see guesses made today applied far into the future. |
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Queueing, but no catastrophe so far...
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But polls show that Gavin has a clear majority... its just certain core devs who object and not on technical grounds. And most of them are working for a single organization. How is that "hectoring a community"?
It isn't. Who said that? There is a difference between "we need a hard fork to increase the block size" and "Gavin's plan is the way to do it, (which ever plan he settles upon)" Most all the devs want a hard fork to increase block size. Very few are on board with Gavin's plan. Anyhow, it looks like the Bitcoin Core hard fork will be more likely to progress from gmaxwell's BIP, and the XT fork from Gavins perhaps. They may remain compatible until there is a block that one would process and the other wouldn't. |
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The reality is that the former XT supporters are the people who are in desperate need of a monetary despot; you can't paint unilateral forks any other way than exactly that.
Are there that many people that need a monetary despot, or could it be that some people simply agree on these particulars? I don't like some features of Gavin's plan because it has too much guesswork where decisions are made today that affect far future. So I won't run a lot of XT nodes, but maybe just one. The gmax BIP 100 mechanism is superior in that it allows these decisions to be made closer to the time when they matter. It also decentralizes the decisions. Gavin's proposals hadn't progressed yet to the BIP stage, they are still in the spaghetti on the wall phase, so discussing block size increases in Bitcoin Core should be discussing BIP 100. |
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Thanks for this. We can be conquered by our divisions, yet enhanced by friendly competition. So long as both developments remain open source it is a win, but Bitcoin is still a tiny thing, for all its resilience, for all its promise. There is overmuch vitriol. For the record, I'm not entirely pleased with any of the proposals but most favor the BIP100 currently, if only for the notion that it divests the developers of the central decision making over the issue. It would be a positive way to end the argument and get back to building. |
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Just had some limit buy orders for GBTC hit in my IRA. God help me I now own* my first Bitcoin through a 3rd party intermediary I have to trust (* own as in have a legal claim to, but lack possession and thus lack true ownership).
The premium has come down a lot, my purchase was only ~$35 over coinbase's spot price. What's strange is my buy is below the day's low being reported...
Please don't f me Barry.
I'm right there with you. 401K funds without much other options that have a US CUSIP. If/when the Winklevoss COIN materializes, the premium should normalize toward (or below) the actual bitcoin prices with the onset of competition, and shorting. The question though... what will the bitcoin price be by then? Who knows how long that will take. |
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This is why I know only my design can scale the network effects.
I do not view Bitcoin as much of a threat. The only thing that compete with me is a pegged BTC side chain.
Each day before your genesis block, the Bitcoin network effect grows. Maybe Bitcoin isn't a threat to your proposal today, but what day can we mine yours? |
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The assumption of either position for or against as absolute, is anti-science.
Science is the process of questioning the 'experts' and testing.
It is when we stop questioning, that science ends.
In this case you are both more right than wrong.
An absolute position against unknown anthropogenic experiments with the ocean and the atmosphere is not anti-science. The position, that changing the composition of the ocean and the atmosphere doesn't change the climate in the ocean and the atmosphere is not only anti-science; it is a super-hyper-idiotic position. When you stop questioning, you stop learning. The people that think they know everything can learn nothing. They assume they know the answers before the experiment. You seek to stop waste, good for you. You also like to argue. Maybe that is also a waste, of your time, especially when you argue with people that aren't even arguing with you. |
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If you brake your leg or your neck, you should consult a quack instead of a university trained doctor of the establishment.
When the funding for tenured professors comes from the establishment which does not want truth to be explored on a particular issue (e.g. anthropogenic global warming aka man-made climate change lie that was foisted on the establishment and which 9,000 PhDs were signatories against but even that never made the news), then science within the establishment does not exist on that issue. When some of those established engineers and professors decide instead to fund their collaboration, this is then debunked as non-science because it didn't take place within the monolith of the establishment's controlled funding model. Logical indeed. I know the anthropocentric logic of the quacks and truthers: taking CO2 out of the ground and put it into the athmosphere and the ocean doesn't change the climate of the athmosphere and the ocean. Logical indeed. Wow you just proved you are an idiot (or presumptuous which is the same thing). Do some research on the science. I did. And so did 9,000 PhDs. Lazy people love to boast and we who are not lazy realize you are idiots. That is why you get the NWO enslavement that you deserve. It's you who is the idiot. Not an idiot for example is Nassim Taleb: Climate Change.
I am hyper-conservative ecologically (meaning super-Green). My position on the climate is to avoid releasing pollutants in the atmosphere, on the basis of ignorance, regardless of current expert opinion
.............
We have polluted for years, causing much damage to the environment, while the scientists currently making these complicated forecasting models were not sticking their necks out and trying to stop us from building these risks (they resemble those "risk experts" in the economic domain who fight the previous war) --these are the ones now trying to impose the solutions on us. But the skepticism about models that I propose does not lead to the same conclusions as the ones endorsed by anti-environmentalists, pro-market fundamentalists, quite the contrary: we need to be hyper-conservationists ecologically, super-Green, since we do not know what we are harming with now. That's the sound policy under ignorance and epistemic opacity. To those who say "we have no proof that we are harming nature", a sound response is "we have no proof that we are not harming nature either" --the burden of the proof is not on the ecological conservationist, but on someone disrupting an old system.http://www.blackswanreport.com/blog/2010/01/opacity-3/The assumption of either position for or against as absolute, is anti-science. Science is the process of questioning the 'experts' and testing. It is when we stop questioning, that science ends. In this case you are both more right than wrong. Climate change science is useful for statists to increase authority and that questioning this scientifically is discouraged (TPTB's point). Avoiding pollution and waste is the key to sustainability, and so it is prudent to avoid it (Zarathustra's point). Where you are both wrong is in recognising that these points are not necessarily in conflict. |
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If another state wanted to encourage high tech business (or an entire country for that matter), they could declare themselves "bitcoin friendly" with minimal licensing/id requirements for btc based exchanges/businesses. You could offshore it like corporations do with Cayman Islands.
If you create your btc business in a bitcoin friendly state/country, a bitlicense becomes irrelevant.
There is no jurisdiction over the bitcoin blockchain, only at the point of exchange.
While I agree with you, Hollingsworth, I know that there must be some folks who back down from their rights just because they can't afford to pay the money required to defend them against governments (etc) who are legitimately infringing. Patent-trolls are a prime example of this kind of thing, I think. This is a classic "Exit, Voice, Loyalty, Neglect" organisational problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit-Voice-Loyalty-Neglect_ModelSome will like the regulation for the protection from competition it provides. Others will try to change or reform it from within, and some will exit (like BTC Guild has done). It is fundamentally guided by self interest from each group and skewed by the coercive force of law and jurisdictional competition. |
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Government agencies are increasingly worried about the implications of bitcoin, as it has the ability to be used anonymously, and is therefore a potential instrument for money laundering. In particular, law enforcers seem to be concerned about the decentralized nature of the currency.
The ability for bitcoin to be used anonymously, is quite a bit lower than the ability for cash to be used anonymously. There is a permanent public record of every transaction. last time i've checked the transaction, does not say at who those money belong, and this without even using mixer/proxy node and all those stuff, to strengthen your anonimity And yet, the last time the equation group checked, it does say to whom quite a bit of those money belong. You are not they. All your privacy is belong to...they. |
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The difference being that this crypto is fundamentally useful so: Buy and use, as well as Buy and Hold.
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Government agencies are increasingly worried about the implications of bitcoin, as it has the ability to be used anonymously, and is therefore a potential instrument for money laundering. In particular, law enforcers seem to be concerned about the decentralized nature of the currency.
The ability for bitcoin to be used anonymously, is quite a bit lower than the ability for cash to be used anonymously. There is a permanent public record of every transaction. |
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i smell DOOM for Blockstream, gmax, and Adam:
“We have really good communication with Gavin Andresen on this issue."
Doom is not the ideal outcome. It would likely mean any positive contributions they could make would be squandered. well, they could go BK; in a year or so. mining really is the last piece to Gavin's puzzle and that quote is telling. everyone else in the space clearly has an interest in seeing tx growth; users, merchants, exchanges. and they have expressed themselves as such. the only one's that were questionable were the miners; esp the big Chinese one's that had spoken up a couple of weeks ago. now that they seem to be clearly onboard with the Big Picture, which Blockstream clearly isn't, the only thing remaining is just exactly how much we are going to increase the block size. since 8MB is completely fine with them, that should be the starting point. we definitely should build in an automatic increase. the only part that makes me pause is this voting mechanism for block size expansion which was part of Jeff's proposal. but overall, quite positive. JGarzik's proposal: http://gtf.org/garzik/bitcoin/BIP100-blocksizechangeproposal.pdfWherein the central authority of developers to set block size is passed to the miners who vote (with the highs and lows dropped). This seems to solve the issue of figuring out the right size a bit better than one person picking an arbitrary number. It also moves the ball forward in automating the governance of the protocol. |
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Anyway, this requires more research.
Start a block chain and try it out. |
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