The point was probably that RBF is not going to break 0-conf payments... because, well, they were already broken. And instead of making the point in forums, again and again vs those who were anti-RBF, he just demonstrated it with a bang.

Bitcoin-qt is intended to be used as a desktop wallet otherwise there would be no gui or wallet functionality.

You can't mix while sending, so yes, you have to premix. The first time you have money on your wallet, you premix them and you can transact with mixed money later.

If someone is so busy that they can't do it, ok.


It could take minutes or hours, depending the availability of others to (pre)mix, how many laundering cycles are used, etc. It's not a given timeframe. More use will get the times much quicker due to more people mixing. The anonymous coin market share and use is still pretty low at this time.

Dash separated transaction mixing back in the summer of '14.

Initially it required mixing while sending, where you'd wait for others to mix and send.

Post-summer '14, it works with premixing the coins (when you don't want to transact) so that when you want to transact later => it's instant / you are sending pre-mixed funds. It's a nice workaround.

Yes, that's why I'm phrasing it more like a hypothetical 2x - because it's not 2x in practice. In essence, a 2MB with segwit is actually >3MB without - from the numbers they are giving.


At most a few dust and spam txs will be prevented. The money transacted will continue to increase, even with a set limit in tx/s. Instead of getting, say, 300k txs per day with 1$ each, you'll get 300k txs with 10$ each. The USD-volume will multiply, because that type of scaling in value is not dependent on the number of transactions. It is inevitable that costly transactions will consolidate the market to higher value transfers.

End of year metrics can be like "Bitcoin payments accounted for 10bn in 201x and 100bn USD the next year, rivaling other payment solutions such as ......".

But of course the tx/s will go up too. I'm just giving an example here.

I've actually dreamed of btc and darkcoin (back in the DRK days, not as DASH).

BTC I've had only one dream:


Darkcoin was trading related, I actually saw exact prices of pumps and dumps. I had success more often than not.

The recipe for dreaming such stuff comprises of 3 ingredients

1) Obsession or too-many-hours dealing with something in daytime
2) Thinking about the same thing before going to sleep
3) Being able to suspend one's ego-facade. It seems to interfere with intuition.

And vaporware development "works" in the aforementioned market?

Look, I don't know how to code shit (in terms of BTC code), but I do know how to change a few variables / constants. That doesn't make me a developer or someone who can maintain my fork even if the market agrees that I found the right value for maxblocksize.

The scaling issue hides many motives and I'm not sure how deep the rabbit hole goes. I always found it suspect that some people are so hell bent on increasing block size that even if you tell them "ok, let's say we have a tech that effectively doubles the txs that can fit in a 1MB block, like segwit or something... why would you want it to go to 2MB?" and they are like "but it has to go to 2mb". Well, I call bullshit with them. That's hypocrisy. If the 1mb is an effective 2mb, then why would you need the 2 to become 4?

Why would someone, who would say yes if you asked them about a 2mb upgrade, be dissatisfied by a technological equivalent of a 2mb upgrade in terms of tx/s? What's going on here?

Anyway, we need more people who actually code stuff that reduce the kbytes used per block, improve network transmission speeds, reduce cpu cycles needed for processing etc, and do that while maintaining the integrity of the system. Not people tinkering with an existing variable that has known tradeoffs if you set it lower or higher.

Well, development is about developing new solutions to problems. Not about arguing whether a particular variable should be set at X or Y value.

If that's "development" then 1000 versions could spring up each one having their own proposal for that particular variable (max block size). How would that improve anything? That's not development.

In the end of the day the only people making work that will actually help bitcoin scale more => are core devs.

Complex problems require breaking them down and tackling the issues one by one. Surely we can't expect one solution for one problem to fit all problems.

If, say, scaling can be solved by compression, and other aspects of crypto still remain problematic, then you just try to find the corresponding solutions to the remaining problems.

From what I've read over the years, it seems like compression, and especially very large compression ratios, like 99.9%+, are of extremely high government interest, similar to encryption. Apparently taking 1GB and making it 10KB is something of extremely strategic value.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Sloot
http://www.endlesscompression.com/ (around the middle of the page, there are various patents or stories of various inventors / programmers etc)

The fact that some of it concerns video is not very important because, from what I understand, these are not techniques concerned with removing redundant repetitions of same color that isn't changing in the next frame. It's more like a totally different approach. If you can fit GB movies in 10kb, for example, then you can do the same with text, because text, too, can be displayed as a movie stream. A movie at 30fps is still 108.000 pictures per hour, and you can fit a lot of text (like blockchain data) in those pictures, especially in HD or 4k.

And there are some other compression schemes I've read about, where data is compressed again and again, not based on repeating patterns (like a book that says 1000 times the word "and" - which can be replaced by a single symbol - a method which has a limit on savings) but rather pre-arranged tables of data sequences that act like keys. So you shave a few % each round and then repackage, repackage, repackage etc, until you get to a very small size.

A good intellect that would like to tackle the issue of near-100% compression and make it available to the masses could make a global breakthrough far greater than cryptocurrency or even the web, but, incidentally, would also help cryptocurrency to scale.

If we had a 99.9% compression algorithm*, that is able to fold data again and again, reducing a 2mb file to 4kb, but requires a CPU tradeoff for all this folding/unfolding, would that work for scaling?

* http://www.theserverside.com/feature/Has-a-New-York-startup-achieved-a-99-compression-rate

Can DASH masternode network be used for escrowing and settling bets?

I mean it like this.

Let's say some users, who are "oddmakers" start creating a list of bets and lock some money in the network to cover incoming bets at given odds.

"Will this happen by 1/1/2017?"
"Will team A win over team B on the game of Jan 10 2016?"

People who feel like betting, deposit money on addresses of the network at the given odds and if they win will take the winnings. If not, the oddmaker takes their money. The mechanism of locking and unlocking the money will be coded into dash when the winning condition is met.

This is all data of if-then-else type. The only human component required is, I think, in those who determine the outcome of the game. So humans need to actually know what happened and inform the network of whether, for example, team A beat team B. In order for the system to not be "gamed", a large participation of "witnesses" would increase the reliability of the results. Masternode operators could perhaps be used as those who insert the result and verify its authenticity, in order to settle the bets.

Back in june I had the option on betting on one eventuality that would take place 6-7 months ahead. Since I can't even trust that an online crypto-betting company will be around for that long, I opted not to bet and not to lock my money. But if this was done over the dash network, I'd do it.

There are other bets (even leveraged bets) like "will BTC go up or down?", "will the dow go up or down" which can take data directly from the markets for auto-settlements that would theoretically not require human intervention.

Could a blockchain* be invented that deals with balances and not coins? If you don't have to track coins you can only update the newest balances. That would probably scale because all you have to do is update new balances in every network "refresh" when money movement took place - and if you have, say, 1bn accounts, you'll still have 1bn accounts after 10 days of transactions - only the balances will be different in them. So, practically, it doesn't get more bloated. I can consider several problems but are they insurmountable?

* It doesn't need to be a blockchain per se. It could well be something like a paypal-type database but decentralized/distributed that has network consensus on what the balances are.

Glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read the last sentence "must be a whale buying in" and burst into laughter

Yes, because it depends on the intention of the user. The intention can be discerned in some scenarios.

Script kiddie vs normal user => script kiddie won't like to pay fees for attacking the network while normal user will pay a small fee for his 1-2-5 txs. Thus script kiddie issuing thousands of transactions and wanting to attack for peanuts stands out because he is not willing to commit with a fee for his txs to go through.


There are two issues.

- the bloat vector
- the "congestion" vector

The congestion vector doesn't bother me. We've seen it work and it's lame. Anyone who wants to transact normally simply pays a normal fee and bypasses the queue of bogus transactions. This vector is always open whether in a 1MB, 2MB, 8MB scenario but it's not a game breaker.

The bloat imprint left by stress/spam attacks is another issue altogether because it affects the network for eternity. Letting an attacker get away with it for cheap/free shouldn't be an option.


You keep it there, until you raise it. It's not intended to be 1MB forevah. That doesn't scale, that wasn't what satoshi wanted, that's not what miners or devs want. As actual use increases, we'll see block size increases and other developments as well. And as hardware and network capabilities increase => blocksize increases can become more generous to take advantage of these capabilities.


If those "many cryptos" you mention can have 10.000 people running full nodes in their bedrooms / home connections and BTC has 100 full nodes running in data centers requiring multiple raid arrays to even store the blockchain with users only being able to use light clients, there'll be a serious difference in the quality of centralization offered.

Bloating it to infinity for peanuts (that harms scaling) = problem
Centralizing it = problem
Leaving it open for abuse and other attack vectors = problem
Going against the economic model where subsidy reduction is compensated by increased tx fees = problem

Besides, all the other cryptos have the same underlying use & abuse problem, to one degree or the other, unless they raise fees.


Neither I'm advocating not increasing the maxblocksize. I'm in favor of a blocksize increase as long as people pay fees. I don't like the blockchain being used as a dumpster. That's all.

If you increase the blocksize and provide ample space before there is actual demand, at that point you are essentially allowing people to transact (or spam) for near zero cost - if the miners don't move and cut those txs off by not processing them.


The condition you describe is impossible.


If you read more carefully the altcoin would serve only to reinforce the same lesson: That, over time, as use increases => fees increase or problems start to appear due to abuse, bloating, centralization etc. There is no free launch here because the model of decentralized / p2p money is way more resource hungry compared to a hierarchical and centralized database system. Initially it can be cheap but as it goes forward it can't remain cheap.


...with higher fees  

I'm suggesting the same.

There are two kinds of spammers:

a) A spammer with not so many resources can bloat it and clog it (whether 1mb, 2mb, 4mb etc) for peanuts if the room is plenty (thus not requiring much fees to get paid), if the fee structure is not properly designed and if the miners are processing zero to near-zero fee txs (many miners do - so eventually your spam gets included).

b) A spammer with sufficient resources, can bloat it and clog it -despite an anti-spam fee structure- as long as he is willing to pay the price. The problem with this attacker is that he would be very visible. People would know it's big governments or banks doing it. So banks or governments paying to create bogus txs would be an admission of fear and a vote of confidence for BTC (despite the disruptive effect of spamming it).


I consider the number of txs irrelevant compared to actual use.

Right now you could have, let's say hypothetically, a 0.5mn tx capacity maxed out and of them only 0.25mn could be legit and 0.25 are spam. It won't change anything if blocksizes goes to 1mn tx capacity maxed out and the ratio goes like 0.35mn legit / 0.65mn being spam. It's just cheaper spam.


If new interested parties arrive with thousands or millions of dollars and they are arguing whether they should pay a few cents in fees, I'd tell them to ...fork off and find an altcoin that promises free or very low fee txs, until that one is crowded or abused and then they discover the hard way that there is no free launch in crypto.

Any system, altcoin etc that allows cheap use (and by extension => cheap abuse) can and probably will be abused once it becomes larger. The temptation is too high for malicious attackers. In the mid-90's I knew a guy that used to mailbomb local ISPs so that their bandwidth was depleted. The local ISPs had like 64Kbps-128KBPS leased lines that they had to "spread" to 50-100 users online, connected with 14.4 to 28.8k modems. Users didn't have enough bandwidth to begin with and when the mailbombing packages started to arrive, everything went to a crawl. He was doing that for ...the lulz. The idea that he was somehow important to disrupt network service for many people just by doing something as simple as ...sending mails that were saturating the internet link of the provider was apparently exciting to him. It's my belief that if a currency is vulnerable to that kind of attacks by kids => it's not good.
 
To return to the issue at hand, being in BTC allows one to participate in a decentralized system where the government won't just come in and tell you you can't transact due to "capital controls", or that your balance is confiscated. Your balance won't become zero because the bank made some poor choices and you paid for it. You also get a type of money with very specific inflation parameters, unlike fiat. Now all these require of you a small technical knowhow and paying some small fee for your txs because the network -at this point in time- won't scale to VISA-like or paypal-like numbers. If one doesn't like the benefits of decentralized payment systems, decentralized "banking" and decentralized currencies due to the small fees, let them go back to fiat currencies, the big banks, western union, credit cards etc. They'll love the inflation, the fees there, the ability of the government to control your life etc etc.

If you don't get the advantages of crypto => you can bail.
If you do get them => you don't mind paying a small tx fee. It's the least you can do to support the system.
If you do get them but you also don't want to pay even the small tx fee => use an altcoin until that too is abused and requires higher fees.

How is it calculated right now?

(Btw, last block was also a 1-transaction block https://blockchain.info/block/0000000000000000011bcf42f3520787eb3172c9d3dc42b2379be12cf43f3567 )

It has everything to do with low or zero fees.

If, say, you go from 0.5mn txs per day to 1mn txs per day and a spammer can add 0.5mn txs per day for peanuts to fill the extra capacity where does that leave you?

You'll go back to square 1 and you'll still be crying "ahhh the blocks are full, we need a new increase, my negligible fee doesn't get me confirmed in 5-10-20 confirmations and I need to pay more and more", etc etc.

But not only will you be crying for the same things, you'll now have to deal with double the bloat, more hardware requirements, higher expenses for running nodes, a more centralized network, etc etc.

The result is that Bitcoin still does the same txs per kb as before. There is no actual improvement in scaling, more like a tradeoff where decentralization and network vulnerability to bloat attacks are tuned to "worse" so that more low-to-zero fee txs can go through.

Additionally, the underlying issues that prompted the 1MB limit have not been solved. You have a vulnerability => you issue a patch to defend against the attack vector => without resolving the issue you go ahead and bypass / remove the defense mechanism. And you do that, while blocks aren't even full and by claiming that the sky is falling and that Bitcoin must ...fork in a kind-of-power grab situation. This is lame (in terms of programming) and beyond absurd in terms of the ecosystem and broader dynamics.

I'd like to see some work on how to solve the attack vectors, how to make blockchain use more efficient, how to make the network propagate information faster - stuff like that which represent actual advances.

Changing a variable from 1MB to 2MB or 20MB is not "work" per se. It's a few bytes of code change.

Trying to fit more data into the same 1MB is work. Trying to offload txs until they self-cancel, so that the network can scale better is work. Just upping a number is lame.

If the xt team actually wanted to make bitcoin scale better they should more actively develop solutions that allow this to happen by increasing transactions fitted per mb and it would probably be hailed by everyone (if it's safe and doesn't break everything). Raising the variable, I mean that's stuff that an automated shitcoin generator could be programmed to do on its own. How can that even classify as some kind of serious work.

"Please tell us the name of the shitcoin you are going to make"
"Please choose a hashing algorithm"
"Please choose block times"
"Please choose max number of coins"
"Please choose initial coins per block"
"Please choose how often subsidy will be cut by 50%"
"Please choose block size limit"

Voila.

BTC is also at 0.11.2, I think it had some small improvements in 0.1 and 0.2.