As a first step, let's see if lowering the threshold to 80% is enough for them to consider BIP91. Without clear explanation of all their motivation it's hard to know exactly what they'll agree to. Offering 80% is to see if it's the prohibitively high 95% that is one of the major stumbling blocks to segwit. The fact they've included segwit at 80% in their own proposal makes it a clear match for that part of their conditions. However I'm inclined to believe they only care about their 2MB base size hard fork and are agreeing to segwit only to barter that in and won't agree to just changing the activation percentage. Additionally different pools have different motivations and flexibility - btcc and f2pool have already said yes to 80% but then they were already signalling segwit...
Alas my own pools amount to less than 0.1% of the network hashrate so what I have to say makes no difference to anyone or anything, though there are hundreds of PH now running my pool software...
I would not sell yourself short. 0.1% is still 1/1000 of the network. Also you have both the history and technical background that makes you very relevant to this discussion. From what I have read about thus dispute I agree with your bolded analysis above. That offer will almost certainly be rejected but it is still progress. Honestly I am somewhat optimistic that some general consensus will come from this. It really is in everyone's best interest to reach a compromise. If you love big blocks then 2Mb is insufficient but still a step in the right direction. If you hate big blocks then SegWit a a step in the right direction and 2Mb represent a finite threat with limited fallout. We don't need to make a final determination between on-chain and off-chain scaling at this time. Kicking the can down the road by allowing both to be tried in parallel under the vetting and safety provided by the Bitcoin Core team sounds pretty good to me. Plus though it is not the primary concern here it is worth mentioning that a successful consensus solution to this problem would likely be very good to everyone's pocketbook. |
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That's what squishalised Unlimited in the end.
I like the word 'squishalised'. But I do not think that word means what you think it means.jpg. Just now:  BU still #1 in miners signaling support. If this chart holds, we still have stalemate. Just flipped on who blocks whatever is Proposed.   Hope I won't still be pointing this out 4 years from now. Yes there is fundamental disagreement in the community regarding on-chain versus off-chain scaling. Best hope of a breakthrough is a half-measure that allows both sides time to show what their solution offers. Personally I hope to see some variation of Barry Silbert segwit agreement coded up vetted and released by the Bitcoin Core team as this is the only option on the table that appears to have any chance of achieving consensus. |
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Feels like I'm talking to a bunch of millenial transgender children. First of all, only cuckolds go to Starbucks. Secondly, bitcoin is:
1) a currency, not money
2) does not remove counter party risk
3) is not a store of value
...
So please, stop being complete idiots and pretending bitcoin is in some way superior to gold and silver. The noble metals are the only viable candidate for sound money on this entire planet at the moment if you do not want to live under central bankers - which are the one of the main tenets of (((communism))).
Calling Nobel metals the only viable candidate for sound money represents a bias on your part. It remains to be seen if bitcoin will survive to become sound money but if it does it is tremendously undervalued at current prices.
Cryptocurrency is not a real store of value, though. It is basically at the same level as fiat on Exter's pyramid. Wealth is derived from resources and labor. Cryptocurrency will always be the bad money driving out good money compared to an actual resource/commodity based currency whether it's gold, silver, oil, or some other substance. The problem that it's very difficult to remove counterparty risk on things like uranium and oil always switch roles back to metals such as gold and silver instead.
...
The difference is that crypto currency has the potential to someday climb beyond fiat beyond gold even on Exter's pyramid. Gold can essentially be thought of as an eternal partially anonymous POW blockchain. It is mined and mining requires work limiting its supply and allowing it to be used as a store of value. Gold does have counterparty risk. The counterparty is society. The purchaser of gold takes the risk that the gold network (the network of individuals in society willing to buy and own gold) will continue to exist. Governments play a role here in that they have the power through their actions to strengthen or weaken this network but they lack the ability to destroy it entirely. The gold network has existed for thousands of years it has also survived multiple government attempts to eliminate it so the counterparty risk is lower than with anything else that exists. To displace gold cryptocurrency would need to have a counterparty risk that was lower than gold. This would require A) Demonstration of enternal nature currency would need to hold its value over several generations B) Demonstration of resilience cryptocurrency network it would need to show its ability to survive outlast and not be broken or destroyed by hostile government action. The jury is still out on whether bitcoin can meet these very high hurdles. However, even if bitcoin fails it seems almost inevitable that something will come along someday that can meet them. |
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Just this week, I underwent "my" first contactless debit card payment. I use "my" because
I wasn't directly participation in the transaction. Someone else took money out of my account.
I was there, they had my permission, but that wasn't necessary for the exchange.
Thinking about it, I wondered whether to empty my account and buy gold, or to buy bitcoin.
I mentioned my fears to the younger generation. They assured me that "contactless" was
a most welcome addition to their world. No more hassle spending money. Coincidentally
they have large (negative) credit card balances.
These are mutually exclusive views. One of us is improperly dressed.
If you contact your bank and tell them you wish for all such "contactless" withdrawals to be declined they will tell you that they cannot help you. The only easy way to stop an upcomming but disputed automatic withdrawal is to close the account in question. |
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If you can call the tops - and the bottoms - then you are a better man than 99.9% on here.
For the rest of mankind cost averaging doesn't seem like a bad strategy to me.
The best strategy for most with BTC is to buy in with the maximum you feel comfortable investing and then hold until your personal predetermined sell thresholds arrive or something fundamentally changes altering the long term potential of the technology. For those with insufficient liquid capital like me the second best strategy is to set a goal number of BTC you want to own and purchase them gradually and regularly every month. I have been making small purchases every month since $256 and every BTC I have purchased is well in the green including the ones I bought yesterday. If the price drops dramatically like it did yesterday I shrug my shoulders and make my monthly buy a few weeks early. Trying to trade with leverage is foolishly risky when one considers exchange risk. Trying to move in and out in response to market fluctuations is a zero sum game and should be considered only by professional traders. |
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Good time to buy in my opinion.
Added another 0.25 BTC to my holdings.
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The lack of code is probably a good thing at this juncture. I have been following this dispute only recently but the strong impression I get is that the only possible path to consensus on something like the miner agreement is if the code is ultimately produced and vetted and shipped by the core developers.
The miner agreement at this stage is simply a proposal. That proposal must now be vetted by the rest of the community to determine if a grudging consensus can be built around it.
Hopefully such a consensus will be possible. It strikes me as a far healthier path forward then stagnation forever in the current state or a civil war leading to a split into two coins.
That sounds good in principle but alas the miner agreement does a lot wrong that core can't condone. If they were to run with core's segwit implementation and a 2MB hard fork it would be different (as already proposed on the mailing list), but the agreement goes to great pains to say that segwit will be on a different bit implementation and be activated concurrently with a hardfork. Core can't agree to something that undoes the existing implementation which won't expire till November to adopt their more radical approach. If core agrees to do segwit followed by 2MB HF, it has to be with their existing implementation or they lose the next 6 months' opportunity to activate the heavily tested prepared segwit component already. The mining consortium has to ease their stance to meet them or we do nothing for another 6 months again or fork galore or risk an outside provided code base to work off. BU proved that's not a safe option with their incredibly unstable implementation of just one feature. The miner agreement is one by people who appear to not even know what they're agreeing to and ignores - or doesn't understand - what is realistically doable in a safe manner. The halfway point is core agreeing to their current segwit implementation AND a 2MB base blocksize hard fork that they implement - it's my gut feeling that's what we'll end up with but there needs to be a lot of rhetoric, chest thumping and circle jerking in the interim. As a member of the community who is totally uninvolved in either mining or development but who nevertheless has a substantial interest in bitcoin I kindly request the all parties commence immediately with the necessary chest thumping so we can move on to the halfway point bolded above. |
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Just to interject
From what I have read on this dispute it appears very clear that regardless of their technical merits neither
1) Variable blocksize
or
2) SegWit alone without a block size increase
can achieve consensus at this moment in bitcoin history. Thus neither are viable pathways forward right now.
Some compromise position must be adopted. It does not matter if it is a perfect solution. All it needs to be is safe and good enough to achieve widespread if grudging consensus.
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The lack of code is probably a good thing at this juncture. I have been following this dispute only recently but the strong impression I get is that the only possible path to consensus on something like the miner agreement is if the code is ultimately produced and vetted and shipped by the core developers.
The miner agreement at this stage is simply a proposal. That proposal must now be vetted by the rest of the community to determine if a grudging consensus can be built around it.
Hopefully such a consensus will be possible. It strikes me as a far healthier path forward then stagnation forever in the current state or a civil war leading to a split into two coins.
That sounds good in principle but alas the miner agreement does a lot wrong that core can't condone. If they were to run with core's segwit implementation and a 2MB hard fork it would be different (as already proposed on the mailing list), but the agreement goes to great pains to say that segwit will be on a different bit implementation and be activated concurrently with a hardfork. Core can't agree to something that undoes the existing implementation which won't expire till November to adopt their more radical approach. If core agrees to do segwit followed by 2MB HF, it has to be with their existing implementation or they lose the next 6 months' opportunity to activate the heavily tested prepared segwit component already. The mining consortium has to ease their stance to meet them or we do nothing for another 6 months again or fork galore or risk an outside provided code base to work off. BU proved that's not a safe option with their incredibly unstable implementation of just one feature. The miner agreement is one by people who appear to not even know what they're agreeing to and ignores - or doesn't understand - what is realistically doable in a safe manner. The halfway point is core agreeing to their current segwit implementation AND a 2MB base blocksize hard fork that they implement - it's my gut feeling that's what we'll end up with but there needs to be a lot of rhetoric, chest thumping and circle jerking in the interim. As a member of the community who is totally uninvolved in either mining or development but who nevertheless has a substantial interest in bitcoin I kindly request the all parties commence immediately with the necessary chest thumping so we can move on to the halfway point bolded above. |
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OK, someone set me straight...
"BU is dead", "BU is nothing", "BU is irrelevant"...
BU is still well above 1/3 of the hashrate signal (AntPool-16.77 %,BTC.TOP-10.06 %,ViaBTC-4.19 %, etc).
Bitmain, who supposedly signed this agreement, is still signaling the same as they have been.
It actually takes time and effort to make pools signal something different. Pools, being the conservative entities that they are, will only change when they have a clear thing to change to. Their miner agreement clusterfuck has yet to produce any code for them to use to signal with so they'll just leave everything as is for now.The lack of code is probably a good thing at this juncture. I have been following this dispute only recently but the strong impression I get is that the only possible path to consensus on something like the miner agreement is if the code is ultimately produced, vetted and shipped by the core developers. The miner agreement at this stage is simply a proposal. That proposal must now be vetted by the rest of the community to determine if a grudging consensus can be built around it. Hopefully such a consensus will be possible. It strikes me as a far healthier path forward then stagnation forever in the current state or a civil war leading to a split into two coins. |
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We clearly have had different experiences of marriage.
How old are you and how old is your wife? This is relevant, no need to look for excuses to get defensive. Not defensive. Just aware this is very off-topic and supposed to be getting something constructive done. Unwilling to open a can of worms that - like bitcoin - is likely to be pre-settled in a person's mind rather than liable to be changed by discussion (or, as it happens, evidence - there's plenty of academic studies on it). Since you asked, I'm in my late 30s and she's 3.5 years older than me. Ok so she's too old to realistically leave and find someone else, and you likely got married before divorce court became what it is now. That's why you are happy to defend marriage. Your wife is TOO OLD for you to worry about her splitting with your shit. For the rest of us, it doesn't take an academic study to figure out that getting married today is about the most self-destructive thing a man could do. Whether marriage is destructive or uplifting will be greatly influenced by the philosophy the husband and the wife use to ground their lives. If the foundation is unsound in either partner the structure is more likely to fail. I present the following thread as recommended reading. Health and Religion |
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Lack of respect.
Why are they poor? Ask them that next time, before handing out anything.
I find after extensive investigation it's usually down to a lack of money. Some people are just born to suckle on the shitty end of the stick. And there but for the grace of God go any of us. gentlemand sums up the situation well Homeless Man Plays Piano Beautifully https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTe7Tv6PtmU |
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The 1MB blocks size is not a mess. If it was not the 1MB block size it would be something else later on.
This dispute is the natural result and challenge inherent in government by consensus. There is a reason that no human society has used government by consensus in the past. Its far easier to simply use force to subdue your opponents or get 51% of the voters to vote you power over your opponents.
Personally I would supports SegWit + 2Mb block fork provided the code was vetted and tested by the Bitcoin Core team and was supported by 95% of the available hashing power and all the major exchanges.
I believe Bitcoin Core's vision of scaling is ultimately the correct one but no one has convinced me that we cannot afford to throw the big block folks a bone in order to keep things moving along smoothly.
But I am not a technical expert and if someone can present a compelling case why SegWit + 2Mb would significantly damage the network or it becomes clear that it is impossible for SegWit + 2Mb to ever achieve consensus I would change my mind.
I still can't reconcile this ridiculous notion that everyone is arguing over 'SegWit with 1MB stab in the dark' or 'SegWit with 2MB stab in the dark' when both options are shortsighted, involve too much rigidity and are guaranteed to require further hardforks in future. Why not just do one hardfork allowing for a slow and gentle ease of pressure? Both camps have clearly already decided on central planning to dictate or coerce whether it's going to be on-chain or off-chain scaling and we seemingly have a binary choice between the two stupid extremes. Neither wants to let the market choose freely and decide for itself how best to grow. I'd argue that both sides are spineless cowards in this regard. Some parties that are have argued that ever increasing block sizes will lead to progressive centralization over time. Bigger block folks disagree. Regardless of the underlying truth no matter what is decided we will face hard forks in the future. For bitcoin to grow there are certain to be multiple necessary upgrades along the way some of which will require hard forks. There is no avoiding this challenge by forcing though single automatic scaling algorithm and hoping for the best. The fact that their is not widespread consensus currently for on-chain or off-chain scaling is yet another reason to support a compromise position along the lines of SegWit + 2Mb. It give both sides time to show what their solution offers without fundamentally committing us to either. |
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The 1MB blocks size is not a mess..
True, because having 110MB of unconfirmed transactions is just great.  Of course it's not great it's a problem that needs to be solved. |
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...Far better would be to achieve widespread consensus around some compromise that is not perfect but is "good enough for now"...
Isn't that the mentality that got us in this 1MB size mess in the 1st place (not perfect but "good enough for now")?  The 1MB blocks size is not a mess. If it was not the 1MB block size it would be something else later on. This dispute is the natural result and challenge inherent in government by consensus. There is a reason that no human society has used government by consensus in the past. Its far easier to simply use force to subdue your opponents or get 51% of the voters to vote you power over your opponents. Personally I would support SegWit + 2Mb block fork provided the code was vetted and tested by the Bitcoin Core team and was supported by 95% of the available hashing power and all the major exchanges. I believe Bitcoin Core's vision of scaling is ultimately the correct one but no one has convinced me that we cannot afford to throw the big block folks a bone in order to keep things moving along smoothly. But I am not a technical expert and if someone can present a compelling case why SegWit + 2Mb would significantly damage the network or it becomes clear that it is impossible for SegWit + 2Mb to ever achieve consensus I would change my mind. |
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So scratching each others' eyes out aside, can anyone here point to any further comments from Core or the signees about what happens next?
More drama, but nothing of significance, probably. Both sides are idiots at this stage. The stalemate continues until one side gets brave and pulls either the UASF or MAHF trigger. More drama ensues. Far better would be to achieve widespread consensus around some compromise that is not perfect but is good enough for now. Or we can just rip the community apart in a pointless civil war. I believe Bitcoin Core would eventually "win" that war but the resolution could take years. It would be very bullish for alt-coins. |
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Here is an interesting (and in my opinion accurate) prediction from the ZeroHedge comments on the future of cryptocurrency. The bird has flown the coop. Bitcoin is already out of control. It has spread so far and wide, it will be impossible to control it. It will be a very good alternative to the paper-masquerading-as-gold investments.
Next, the fiat governments will "swing into action". There will be "official" cryptocurrencies, or coopting the existing altcoins - Ethereum has been swallowed by Microsoft; banksters have swallowed Ripple, that would have set the whole Forex futures on fire.
But such tricks will not last long. The monopoly on money creation has been pried away from the cold fingers of the unmentionable central bankster mafia. MONEY IS WHAT PEOPLE SAY IT IS. Not what Govt says it is. If the govt insists on collecting its dues in fiat, and paying its employees in fiat, let it do so. But sooner, than later, people will use a competent and widely accepted money for their transactions, and will buy fiat only to pay the govt taxes! And the govt employees will change their fiats immediately to open market money! Since the demand for fiat will be limited to the tax demands, eployees will find that they have to take a heavy hit if the govt overprints its fiat! Hence, the govt cannot thrust more fiat on the society than its tax demands! Voila! Ultimately the governments world over may have to eat crow and accept privately mined cryptocurrencies!
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In an article called Bit Happens published by Grant Williams in April of 2013.
It was very good and sparked my interest in the technology. Sadly it seems to have vanished from the internet.
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