Although I'm opposed to the current proposals for block size increase, I'm not opposed to the idea entirely, and I'm optimistic that a compromise can be reached.


Thanks Odalv, this is perhaps the simplest and most reasonable proposal I've heard on the subject, though I disagree with the following:


It may be only semantic, but I think the doubling of the block size should happen in tandem with the halving of the reward. It makes for a kind of trade off, trade half the disbursement awards for potentially double the transaction rewards.

The important thing here is that the much slower rate of increase should keep the security profile of the network intact, and increasing to 2mb in 2016 and 4mb in 2020 etc. should enforce an acceptable level of scarcity while allowing the network to grow.

If the price does not rise, there's no extra security needed to protect the system... Why pay more to defend a system that's not increasing in value? We see this market force in action right now as the low prices have caused the global hash rate to stagnate.

My long term plan is that users will be willing to pay increasing fees due to scarcity of embedding information in the most secure ledger on the planet. When you propose changes to a system that may have an effect on the security profile of such a system, you should expect serious opposition.

Are you doing ok cypher? You seem to be increasingly hyperbolic and desperate in your comments. This one in particular is exceedingly misleading and smells like a blatant attempt to use unfounded fear, uncertainty, and doubt to make your case and influence others.

You do of course realize that if the price were to rise to 500 by next July their income will remain precisely the same as it is today?

Luckily, I'm sure the miners understand the economics of mining well enough that they will not be taking your misguided advice.

Oh come on now, the professor is only human after all. To insinuate that he does not partake of the guilty pleasure of trolling is simply untrue.

Case in point. http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/temp/2014-08-03-bitcoin-alley-color-x640.png

I can't believe you guys didn't tell me of this sooner! -> http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/SEN/Committee/412/banc/rep/rep12jun15-e.pdf


Is this the beginning of the Canadian renaissance in crypto? Or is Canada now just one big honeypot waiting for some heavy handed legislation to be applied "retro-actively" ?

Maybe very slow, very shallow rally? I hope? One thing for sure, (in my mind at least)  the year-long downtrend is over.



Now expecting many months of the sideways...



I'm predicting we'll stay in this range for the rest of the summer at least...

Yawn... Wake me up when we break and hold above 300. Anything less is just sideways to me. (Which is OK, I would prefer nice and boring until some time in autumn 2016)



Bank holiday in Greece on Monday would be something tho...  

Kudos for the lulz, I guess some bitcoiners are stupid enough to use "banks" as well...

I'm looking at you coinbase and circle users

Cuz if they already had bitcoin, they wouldn't have to wait in line to grovel and beg for "the bank" to allow them the privilege of access to their own money?

Because.......of... stuff?



Ok, no seriously, as a wannabe market maker, you would normally want to lay a tranche like that on either side. You make money on the spread by providing liquidity on both sides.

But in reality, if you put up a graduated wall like that, on only one side, you are just trying to support the price. Either this guy is already deeply long with sufficient fiat reserves to absorb the ongoing supply of coins from new blocks, or he (or they) are desperately clinging to leveraged long positions (Tarmi's wet dream)

When I try to imagine myself in the position to lay down those bids without sufficient asks to profit from volatility, I can only think they are either certain of the outcome, or they are financially insane.

Meanwhile, I still think we're going sideways, and I think that's a good thing.

Edit: on closer inspection, there does look to be a similar pattern, though much smaller on the sell side.



Could be a maker betting on an overall upward momentum... wouldn't be that outrageous a bet, but I think the really big players are probably using hidden walls and group moves and other tactics.

In any case, I much prefer a market that is open to manipulation than one where the ones who regulate get to decide who can manipulate freely without repercussions and who gets prosecuted.

Anyone remember when the poll was posted? I picked 240 btw..

When is two weeks over (is it always two weeks in bitcoin time?)

Sideways all summer, take a break everyone, enjoy your vacations. 

Unless you had a situation where a very large miner (over 25% of the network) purposefully creates these large blocks because they can start building immediately while other miners have to wait to verify... One could imagine a scenario where a large miner could go on a run of consecutive blocks because of the slight advantage of starting on the next block first,
Example - F2Pool recently:


It's mostly due to dumb luck, but there is an advantage to building on your own block before anyone else, and increasing the block size will only increase this advantage.

(Note: this also makes certain types of double-spend attacks easier, but currently the block subsidy is large enough that it is still more profitable to "play fair"... what might happen in ten years under Gavin's plan when block subsidy is only 3.125 btc and blocks are 256MB however might get interesting, )

Not sure,  but I found this?

"Andresen never mentions the actual reason that Satoshi imposed a block limit. Oleg Andreev, however, does:
Huge blocks could lead to excessive use of bandwidth which could lead to higher percentage of orphaned blocks due to higher synchronization delays."
From: http://cascadianhacker.com/blog/2014/10/25_notes-on-increasing-the-maximum-bitcoin-block-size-or-why-it-aint-happenin.html

If bandwidth is really the only issue then you would think the 8mb compromise will likely gain enough traction to get implemented. After all, even with a 8mb limit, most miners will still be sticking to 750 k - until you provide sufficient incentive to change.

Do you know if there's a way to see what fee they paid? Was it like normal fee of 0.0001 btc? (About 2 or 3 cents)

 If so, wouldn't a move to a minimum fee of say ten cents largely fix the problem?

Also, do you know why Satoshi decided to limit the block size in the first place? I mean, I've heard it was to prevent some kind of spam attack, but now people are saying that increasing block size will prevent spam attack... I've never seen a good description of the attack they were trying to mitigate by limiting block size in the first place. Best guess is simply to prevent bloat?

Did you forget to tip the miners? err, pay transaction fee?

I sent payment during 20k utxo last time there was a "stress test" and it went through instantly. Verified first block.

I don't see any reason for the big panic and I think it's quite irresponsible of Hearn and Gavin to pretend like the sky is falling.

Definitely the Trough of Disillusionment!

I like it, kind of got a poetic ring to it.

Hey now, cyclobro was the one looking back in hindsight, bemoaning his misfortune. I just clarified the mistake he made so that he could hopefully recognize and avoid making the same mistake in the future.

By the way, "captain hindsight" over here was giving the same advice back in January, if you recall...

Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.

January was the time to buy, sorry you missed it. $1500 could have got you nearly ten bitcoin! Even in March you would have gotten 6 or 7...

 If you had "invested" and bought and held.at that time, you would still have those 6-7 bitcoins. If instead you've been gambling, and you now have only $1000 which can only buy 4 bitcoin today, well... take it as a lesson learned and try to make better decisions in the future.

Boredom.

Sideways all summer, see you in September.