No.  The ETF would have allowed bitcoin to remain as it is, because then big money could gamble on PAPER bitcoin without ever touching the block chain.   That would have pumped bitcoin to the skies, even if no single block chain transaction would be able to pass, because bitcoin would be paper, and nobody would give a shit about the real block chain.  But now that the ETF is gone, bitcoins still have to be transacted on the chain, and because that's limited, the debate exploded.

But the debate is nothing else but bitcoin's own mechanism to remain immutable.

There won't be a "next bitcoin".  Once the king is gone, nobody is king any more.  The king is the king because he was first.  Once the king is gone, there is no "first" any more.  All crypto finally on equal footings.

This time, the question of the end of the undisputed supremacy of bitcoin may be real.  Not that bitcoin will lose its crown immediately, but I think the market is testing this possibility, and the distinction altcoin bitcoin may take, for the very first time, a hit. 

Funny is that the two contenders for usurping the crown are the two most centralized currencies around, mimicking as crypto: ETH and DASH.  Maybe the market asks for more centralization in crypto.

Last time, with the ETC/ETH fork, coinbase ripped off their ETH users of the ETC part of their holdings, so maybe they want to do this again ?

Essentially, yes.
Well, they do need customers (people paying good money for the coins on their chain).  These customers need wallets.  So pools do need customers with wallets.  These wallets can connect directly to the pools' nodes ; or they can connect to those nodes that serve as proxy servers too.  Things like exchanges will probably run a full node, so pools would like these exchanges to take a copy of the block chain they make.


You're confusing users and nodes again.  Of course pools need users that pay good money for the coins the pools dump on the users.  But for that, the users need to have a choice.

With alt coins, that's not difficult.  There are other alt coins.  If the alt coin chain doesn't please alt coin users, they simply sell their coins, and buy others.

But with bitcoin it is different because the only thing bitcoin has going for it, is its brand name, its "first mover" image.  So if bitcoin miners only make one bitcoin chain, well, that is bitcoin.  And users have no choice, because there's no OTHER chain to prefer that has this brand image.

But in any case, it is a matter of miners and users, not of nodes. 

Your example of bank notes is also between those printing the notes, and those using it.  Whether the notes come by you through several different postal services (nodes) or they come to you as a user because you go and get them directly where they are printed, is the right analogy.  If the postal service refuses to carry the notes to your place, but you, as a user, want them, then you will go and get them directly where they are printed.

On the other hand, if the only notes that are printed, are green ones and nobody is making purple notes, well, you will still have to use the green ones if you want to use bank notes.   There aren't purple ones, EVEN if the postal service only wants to transport purple notes (that do not exist), and refuses to transport green ones.  You will have to go and get the green ones at the printer's site, if you want bank notes.  Even if you, and the postal service ,prefer purple ones.

Because you think these guys KEEP it to "invest" ??  

DASH didn't "peek".  It will go to the moon.  Being centralized, it is the perfect crypto for "investors".


What bullshit ?  That monero is about the only seriously anon coin with some volume (so that you can hide inside) ?  ZEC has also quite good anon crypto, but the fact that it is not compulsory is maybe a problem.  But I have to admit that now that the anon part went up from 6% to 29% makes it look more attractive as a respectable crypto coin.  It should have been 100%, but that's a fundamental error that the ZEC people made, but if the anon fraction remains high enough, it may be one of the other coins I technologically like.  It being a corporate coin makes me dislike it on that side, but I do appreciate the crypto part of it.


I didn't.  It is quite obvious that monero was picked by these people for the anon side.  Because it is a true crypto currency application, to ask for ransoms.  (whether ransomware or other ransoms).   Might be a niche for kidnapping too.  THAT is the true nature of crypto, and if you still don't get it, you'll never get it.



Because anti-law is the only serious niche for crypto.  All other applications are not going to work out, because centralized systems are better at it.  What's the basis of crypto ?  Trustless ; decentralized.  Why do you need that ?   To not have single points of failure by mighty enemies.  What enemies ?  Violence monopolists.  Because if not, you can make a deal with the violence monopolist to protect your single point of failure by law and by police.  So the only way to NEED a trustless decentralized system is if you have to fight the violence monopolist.  Otherwise, it is wasted effort.


I can say that of you too.  I'm stating that crypto is a useless exercise if it is to be legal/law abiding/regulated.  Any centralized system with legal protection will be better.


Because it is the only thing that makes sense in crypto.  And who started a topic about an anon coin and something illegal ? Isn't this what this thread is about ?  I just say that this is a perfectly right application of crypto.  Not more, not less.  That's what crypto is made for.  Even though most idiots in crypto don't understand it and think that it is a replacement for VISA.

If crypto can't work for this kind of niche, then crypto is entirely useless.

Honest, in a trustless environment, that would be contradictory, no ?  By definition, in a trustless environment, no entity is to be considered honest.


Nope.  As I said, breaking a cryptographic system is a totally different thing than "hacking into a site".  But most probably you don't even get the notions right.

No, you don't.   Nobody ever cracked DES.  Yes, the key length was too short and it ended up being bruteforced.  But nobody ever CRACKED it.  Same for many other cryptographic protocols. 

If I give you the monero block chain, and nothing else, then chances are VERY VERY low that you will find a way to descrable it, if the crypto was correctly implemented. 

That's something entirely different from breaking into a computer system.  We're talking about mathematics here.  If the mathematics are sound, and if they were correctly implemented, which is not too hard to verify, then this is something entirely different than finding a buffer overflow.  You're not looking at a running system, you're looking at an encrypted piece of data.  Most of the time, this cannot be undone.  Of course, it is not unthinkable that the cryptography used has a hole in it, or is erroneously implemented.   The implementation is usually rather easy to check, because, contrary to a computing system with a very complicated state space, the real cryptographic state space is relatively simple to verify.

You'll find rarely an erroneous implementation of AES or of a public key cryptosystem.  These are usually correctly implemented, especially if it is done by someone aware of cryptography.  Once this code has FINISHED its calculation, and you are only left with the output data, "cracking" is of a more difficult nature than penetrating a running system.

Yes, you can maybe enter a running computer that is encrypting a file with AES.  However, once you have the output, and you only have the output, good luck in "cracking" it.  Totally different story.

Yes, but that is an "inter-pool" affair only.


Majority of proof of work.


But then you bloody don't need proof of work !  Why not simply have the nodes keep a big mempool and call that the block chain ??  And each time there's a difference, we let the nodes vote, and the majority is right ?

Why do you think Satoshi introduced proof of work do you think ?  To come to a consensus !  Because if you rely just on nodes, which you could, then this is not secure against a Sybil attack: everyone can fire up 100 000 nodes.  Now, if there is a mechanism to DETECT a Sybil attack and not take it into account, you've just found a new consensus mechanism.  But it is not bitcoins.  Bitcoins consensus mechanism is proof of work.  Not "number of nodes voting".

As usual, not capable of giving any reasoned argument against what I'm telling you.
Why would a POOL be "reliant" on nodes to get them their competitors' blocks on which they decide to build or not ?
What use does another node have for that pool ?  The pool can find out for itself whether that block satisfies its own criteria, doesn't need other blocks to verify that for him.  On the other hand, that pool wants to know that block as fast as it can, in order not to waste hash rate on an orphaned block.  So there is not one single reason why a pool would not connect DIRECTLY to its competitor's nodes.

No.  Nothing will happen in any case, and if it happens, that's the safest thing you can do: keep it there until the storm is over.  Maybe they won't be worth much any more, but you'll still have them 

No, of course not.  If you change the PoW algorithm, for instance, you implement Scrypt, you simply make an altcoin with a bidirectional hard fork.  

You make a NEW POPULATION OF MINERS.

Both coins will be on the market now, one with a SHA256 hash and one with a Scrypt hash.  The market will now decide how the market cap will be divided over both coins.

If it is true that the users prefer the new coin, then indeed, the former miners will be on a worthless chain.  But we now have simply a NEW miner population.

Note that the nodes didn't count for zilch in this transition.  It was a new miner population on a hard fork that was taking over, not nodes.   But the USERS decided in the market.

However, think of this.  The new miner population will be running at low difficulty, because there's not much hash power available for Scrypt.  The security of the new chain will be miles below the security of the old chain, and the new scrypt miners will make a fortune, with small gear, reaping in high rewards.

So it isn't guaranteed that the users will make the switch.  Hell, if they wanted to, they could have exchanged their bitcoin for litecoin right away, because this other coin already exists !!

So this "take over" is far from guaranteed to succeed, and in any case, it is then a battle between two miner populations, and NODES HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.

There where it gets trickier, and might be an outcome for bitcoin, is if one launched a proof-of-stake version of bitcoin.  A hard fork that uses proof of stake instead of proof of work.  Like ethereum plans to do.  

At a certain point, you don't care any more about any miner, because there's no mining any more.  In fact, just any person could launch a proof-of-stake version of bitcoin.  If the code is available, people can install this.  But again, it is a hard fork and will be decided in the market.  

This might actually be a good idea: to make a proof-of-stake version of bitcoin.  But it will just be an alt coin.  Will people switch entirely to it in the market ?  Highly doubtfull too.  But at least, with proof of stake, there is no miner war any more: the consensus is this time determined by the stake holders, and not by a separate interest group.

In that case, nodes become slightly more important, because stake holders have also to keep their nodes running to mint blocks.  This might be an idea.  But it won't catch on, I'm sure.  Because it would be an alt coin, and would not carry the brand of bitcoin.

Forking off bitcoin is something that I'm surprised is not done more for altcoin makers.  I would never start a new genesis block if I wanted to make an alt coin, I would fork off bitcoin, eventually with a special forking bloc giving me some premine.

So, conclusion:
in any case, nobody "forced bitcoin" to do what ever because nodes decided so.  At best, an altcoin is forked off from bitcoin which has such a big success in the market that it completely overtakes bitcoin, but that is already possible right now: if people want 4 times more room and another algorithm: litecoin is already in the market (note that it has segwit ready to be activated too, but it is not catching on there either).

And if people really are fed up with miners, they can fork off a proof-of-stake coin, but, hey, if ethereum does the same, why not simply buy ethereum ?  Or peercoin, for that matter ?

So that's visibly not what people really really want and in any case, it is an alt coin that is made NEXT TO BITCOIN.

Sure.  Soldiers get killed.  That doesn't stop armies from fighting.


See above.  It is a matter of risk management.  IF IN ANY CASE you want to do something the state doesn't like, then you better use the tools that help you do so.  That doesn't mean that the risk of doing so is gone, but it is simply diminished.

If you trade on a dark market with monero, chances of being caught because of that are smaller than if you do it with bitcoin or fiat.


No, if in ANY CASE they would "commit these crimes"  (I don't consider selling something to someone else a crime, only the state does), then the chance of this happening is smaller if they use crypto protection than if they do it open in the blue.  That should be obvious, no ?  IF the crypto "gets cracked" (not sure), then they are on the same level as if they did it outright in the blue.  So doing it outright in the blue is ALWAYS riskier than trying to hide with crypto.  


Huh ?  My point is that if you can do it with fiat, you should do it with fiat.  And if it is fully legal, most probably you can do it with fiat.  So no crypto needed AT ALL.


But if it is not regulated, it will not be legal or it will end up being regulated.  No thing with value is unregulated in our world. Otherwise, states know that people flee into it, and states cannot steal it any more.  So ALL things of value are regulated or end up being so.  What unregulated, but perfectly legal things do you have in mind ?  I can't think of any.


No, I'm simply saying that crypto has no use outside of these things.  It has absolutely no sense.   Crypto is for unregulated (and hence lawless/illegal/....) stuff, or for greater fool games.  And that's it.  


In circles of course.   And distributed exchanges for other crypto.  Suppose only bitcoin is allowed on exchanges.  Then put in place distributed exchanges where you can trade bitcoin for anon coins and back.  What's the problem ?  


Of course you shouldn't.


Monero's code is too complicated for the JAXX programmers.


How so ?  What stops me from launching a monero2, monero3, monero22352 in small communities that want to have closed economies away from state and so on, and of which those states aren't even aware ?  Connected on distributed exchanges in a mesh-like way ?

But tell me, what use is crypto if it isn't that ?  Why go through all the hassle if you can do it legally with a credit card ?  What's the point of this stuff ?


Sure, but then, you're not interested in making Ransomware, or in running a dark market either. So you have no use for crypto.  That's my point.  Use your credit card.  Good enough for what you want to buy.

Because of all currently "big" altcoins, it is the only one with credible anonymity.

DASH is only as anonymous as the tumblers don't collude and don't keep logs and that's highly doubtful with Evan in control.  ZCASH is not anonymous by default and has a very small anonymity set.

The smaller coins are too hard to get by for the victims.  Monero can be bought on several exchanges, it is traded a lot, and as it is essentially not traceable, if you withdraw monero from an exchange amongst all the traders, nobody will be able to point at you specifically.

Cracking crypto is not that easy if it is well designed.  Crypto is not "software".  It is mathematics.
Cracking Pythagoras' theorem is still not happening.  (ok, I'm joking somewhat).

Buterin handled that very well tbh, the fact that the exchanges stopped trading just shows how much infrastructure and support ETH has....
[/quote]

It shows simply how centralized ETH is.   It is remarkable that the two coins just behind bitcoin now, are totally centralized private fiat coins: ETH and DASH.  They even kicked ripple aside.  Visibly, the market longs for crypto fiat.

Indeed.  In my mind, this is the only way to get a scalable system of block chain crypto: many different small chains, crossed over by decentralized exchanges linking several together, using "higher tier" reserve currencies to settle and to be used as collateral.

I also see this with currencies coming and going, thousantds of little altcoins in an eco system continuously getting born and dying.  In how much we get a few big "backbone" reserve currencies, or in how much this is a mesh, I don't know. 

For the moment, we have a chain.  That's ridiculously inefficient as you point out:


Amen.

Other topologies, like trees, unlinked graphs, or even meshes are way, way more interesting to explore.

I explained the mechanism in every detail.  Just saying "you are wrong" without any logically build argument, is no tt going to cut it.  I know many people are deluded on this, but the earth goes around the sun, and not the other way around, no matter what the Cardinals have been preaching.  Learn to think for yourself.

In a proof of work system, the consensus is made by those providing proof of work.  But ultimately they will take into account those that pay for the joke, that is, the users in the market.  And that's it.

Counter my argument that:
1)  if miners agree (PoW consensus), there is only one single source of block chain, namely the chain on which they work, and which can only  be obtained from one of their nodes
2) there ain't any other block chain around
3) all that non mining nodes can do, is download this block chain, directly from one of the miner's nodes, or from a copy of one of their peers, but if they want to have a block chain, they'll have to obtain it.
4) miners, in order to be efficient, have to have good direct connections amongst their own nodes, in order to be quickly aware of the new blocks so not to get orphaned
5) miners, having invested a lot in mining, can easily set up "data center type" nodes to which ALL other nodes that want a copy of the block chain, can connect, and non-mining node owners cannot have any other block chain than the one they can obtain from one of these "big" nodes.  As long as the distributed network of proxy nodes does the work for them, that's OK, but if they have to invest in such a big data center node, they will, because they want to serve their customers, the users, and get their transactions, and deliver the block chain to them, so that these users continue to pump money in the market where the miners sell their coins.
6) if a non-mining node doesn't agree with the block chain that is produced by miners, it simply stops because there is no other chain around.  A non-mining node cannot stop miners from making the chain THEY agreed upon.

As such, this proves clearly that in a proof of work system, the consensus is the one between those delivering proof of work and no-one else.

But, these proof of work deliverers will take into account all signals from the MARKET to optimize their earnings (that is, to optimize the amount of coins they can get from reward and fees, times what the market sets as a price for those coins).  In as much as nodes are an indication of the sentiment amongst market makers, they will take that into account in their consensus to optimise their earnings.

Exercise:
1) suppose ALL miners agree upon 4 MB blocks, even though all users want to have 1 MB blocks.  The miners only make one chain, with 4 MB blocks.  What are users and nodes, including exchanges, going to do ? 

2) suppose that ALL miners agree upon 1 MB blocks, even though all users want to have 4 MB blocks.  The miners only make one chain, with 1 MB blocks.  What are users and nodes, including exchanges, going to do ?

Tell me how nodes impose their will onto miners, if miners come to a consensus.

In a proof of work system, majority is majority of hash rate.  That is what consensus is about.   In a proof of stake system, majority is majority of stake.  And in a proof of node system, majority is majority of nodes.  Easily Sybil attacked, hence not meaningful.

A hard fork over economic parameters is a revolution.