DASH instant pay is simply a confirmation by master nodes that the transaction is on the mem pool.  In as much as you trust master nodes, they will most probably not give a second instant confirmation to a double spend (even with higher fee).  This is what sets it apart from bitcoin, where a double spend with higher fee will be able to make it in the block chain.  I'm not completely clear myself how master nodes can avoid miners to take the non-confirmed double spend in the block, and not the master-node stamped double spend.

I agree with you, but bitcoin has a problem to fork: there can only be one "first mover".  Bitcoin is afraid to be an alt coin like the rest of crypto, because technologically, bitcoin is the oldest and the most primitive crypto currency.  Most alt coins are technologically much better developed.  So, what bitcoin has going for it, is its first mover status, its "innocence from the start" status, and hence, the biggest network, the most secured chain and other "branding" aspects, which don't really matter in the *use* of the coin, but are hugely important in the *image* of the coin.

With a fork with two prongs, that is over.  The only fork that could honestly claim to be "the real bitcoin", would be the coin that is NOT modifying the protocol.  But this means that those, most keen on forking, will have to settle losing the "first mover" brand name, which will send a shiver along their spines: no advantage, brought by a fork, is so important, that losing the brand name can be compensated, as long as this brand name is important.

Which is why I think that bitcoin really forking is not going to happen as long as bitcoins brand name isn't eroded away.

One should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler (A. Einstein).

If the reader's attention span is limited, then probably the arguments are too complicated for the reader too.

I don't know the details of BU.  I don't think BU is meant to be used, just to block off segwit.  I think nothing will happen, if my understanding of things is correct: the 1MB blocks are frozen in, until bitcoin is centralized enough for a central authority to decide otherwise (say, a cartel of miners).

I fully agree with you.  Monero is still too far ahead of its time.  The old, clunky bitcoin is only now hitting some silly problems it had backed in since long ago: total lack of privacy, total lack of fungibility, slow blocks, and, of course, the biggest blunder ever: 1MB blocks.  That said, given its first mover advantage, it can become a reserve currency, where the technology doesn't matter much, and transactions do not need to be swift.

When you look at the clunkiness of bitcoin, DASH is a big improvement (technically).  DASH is about the best you can do with bitcoin's technology.   At least there are some relatively weak measures of privacy (still the best you can do with bitcoin-style crypto).  There is this fast mem pool thing.  And I think the thing that is the best side of DASH, is its centralized nature, so that problems, if they occur, can be solved by a decision of the Boss, while keeping people thinking it is "consensus".

However, sooner or later, DASH, being "bitcoin on nitro", will run into a wall too.  Only at that point, monero tech will start to be fully appreciated. 

When I talk about institutional players using bitcoin as a reserve currency, I don't mean traditional banks necessarily.  I mean, things like exchanges, online casinos, and many new non-regulated financial speculation agents.  There is no reason why the regulated financial world would use bitcoin.  It is mostly in those cases where non-regulated, badly regulated situations occur where a reserve currency can be used as a collateral (and not legal procedures, central banks and so on) that bitcoin has an advantage.


I agree with you.  But it will be a reserve currency for those (big) things where regulation is too difficult, impossible etc... I'm not saying that regular banks might not get involved.  But it will not be their main business.  But you could think of "banking in lawless environments, in war environments etc...".  Banking in, say, Zimbabwe is maybe easier done with bitcoin as a reserve currency, than with whatever doubtful legal system over there.  So maybe a big bank will not trust to open offices using Zimbabwe's legal system, and prefers using bitcoin as a reserve currency.  But between a bank in London and one in New York, they most probably won't use bitcoin (unless they want to do something undercover).

Look, I present arguments.  You present insinuations, intention trials and so on, but apart from adhering to the group think dictated by some high priests, visibly there's not much of an argument.

My claims are these:
- consensus is best defined as the (a priori remarkable) phenomenon that many independent, non-hierarchically related entities use the same protocol, and use the same data set ; and the related property that this rule set and data set doesn't change over time: immutability.

- that this consensus and immutability phenomenon comes about by the fact that there are so many antagonists that it is not possible to find any agreement over any change that would bring advantage to some, and disadvantage to others.  So essentially, it is the fact that many antagonists disagree over change, that change doesn't happen, and that immutability occurs.  This does not apply to economically neutral aspects of the protocol where nobody has any advantage or disadvantage, but only applies to "economic" aspects.

- that in a proof of work consensus system, those delivering proof of work (the miners) are the "servers of block chain and of protocol", and the users are the "clients of block chain and protocol", who provide transaction data to the servers (miners) and decide to "vote in the market" over the token (crypto currency) at hand.  Important clients in this respect are exchanges.

- that the exact way in which the servers (miners) communicate their block chain to the users, and the exact way in which the users communicate their transactions to the miners, doesn't really matter as long as there is good network connectivity, and that hence the distributed network of nodes that makes these miners communicate their block chain to the users, and the users their transactions to the miners, is of very secondary importance.

My illustrations are:

- the ETC/ETH split

- the fact that if nodes had power, then a sybil attack on the number of nodes would be extremely easy to exercise.

They will hold it of course, like with gold !

You are perfectly right that block chain tech doesn't scale well.  However, there is a difference between putting in an artificial scarcity parameter, and having a real market determine when the resource cost of the scaling needs to be compensated by fees.

You do not agree, but it is a very simple fact that non-mining nodes have nothing to do with the decentralisation of bitcoin.  The only thing that counts is that respect is the decentralisation of proof of work deciders (mining pools), which is at this moment an oligarchy.  So bitcoin is on the brink of being centralized in any case, and the "node network" has absolutely no power to counter that, no matter how many blindspots you have there.  

If bitcoin had a free block size, or an automatically adapting block size, it would be able to cope with adoption up to the point of technical limits, essentially given by network capacity between mining pools (we really, really don't care about nodes) and their server capacity towards user wallets.  The loon guy wanting to check the block chain for himself can buy enough storage to verify the Peta-byte size block chain if he wants to.  But that doesn't matter.  To give you an idea, I buy now 1TB disks for less money than I bought 1 GB disks in the 1990-ies.  So PB size storage is probably not going to be a problem 20 years from now.  My internet link went up also by more than a factor 1000.  So downloading a PB block size during a week is going to be just as fine as downloading a TB size block chain right now.  So the scalability is limited by technology, but technology is improving. 

But now that bitcoin has a protocol built-in block size of 1MB, it is for ever limited to 2-3 transactions a second, which means that bitcoin can only be a reserve currency.

Maybe a lightning network by banks will be built on top of it. But it will be like normal banking, where normal people will have a bank account, and the bank will use bitcoin to settle with other banks.  Those banks are nothing else but lightning hubs, using bitcoin as a reserve currency (and going for fractional reserve banking, IOU, and all that, like normal banking).

But what is sure, is that bitcoin will not be used any more directly by normal users for normal transactions, as a currency.  That epoch is closing with the 1 MB limit.

Yes.  Now suppose that it gets 80% of the market cap.  Because that is what was the case with ethereum: the FORKED protocol (ETH) got 90% of the market cap while the original chain remained with 10% (ETC).

What's the problem ?

Branding ?  The name "bitcoin" ?  What coin are they going to call "bitcoin": the one with 90% market cap, or the one with 10% market cap ?

If there is ever a "morality", they would change BOTH names: bitcoin-core and bitcoin-U or something.

But I don't think it will happen, until the "branding" of bitcoin is eroded, that is, when bitcoin will have lost its first mover advantage.

I'm sorry, but my ubuntu node updated automatically the bitcoin wallet.


Ah, now it isn't proof by node, but proof by node-age.


If nodes "vote", my vote, that doesn't mean anything, counts.


So what stops a small minority of nodes to adhere to another protocol, and have their version of the coin live ?  In what way does any majority of non-agreeing nodes stop them from doing their thing ?

Or vice versa, what stops a small minority from sticking to the old protocol, and keep their original chain live ?  In what way does any majority of non-agreeing nodes stop them from doing their thing ?

In other words, what do OTHER nodes mean for a user (with his node) who agrees with a set of miners, mining a chain according to their protocol ?  What does it mean for him, that most other nodes do not agree, nor with him, nor with the miners ?  Nothing.

People just love scammy winners.    That is why DASH's future is going to be bright.

I told you, this one is going sky high.  It has every thing for it.  Low liquidity, fake market cap, good propaganda, centralization mimicking as distributed, smart pumpers, and an almost identical copy of bitcoin, but "smoother".   Bitcoin being in deep doodoo as a currency right now, the timing is perfect.  The Instant Pay function, showing you the mem pool with a banker's stamp, is going to be a big relief for all those waiting three days for a block confirmation of their bitcoin transaction, thinking (correctly for a while) that DASH solved what bitcoin couldn't, mimicking the speed of the lightning network without Segwit.  And once it IS sky high, people will get used to the price, Evan will be able to cash out, and hire Bill Gates to wash his car.

Then why is there "proof of work" ?
And why is nobody Sybil-attacking the node count ?

If "nodes are the boss" and it is damn easy to outnumber the existing nodes with a tiny fraction of the amount of money it takes to be a miner making a block, why are all these stupid Chinese mining, and are they not setting up whole datacenters of millions of nodes ?

Why do you even think that Satoshi used proof of work ?

Forget consensus as the flower-power-like concept of "what the loving, honest community really wants and desires" or some other thing.  Consensus is the phenomenon that people use the same protocol and the same chain amongst themselves, and over time (immutability).

Amen.  That said, it is a very non-significative voting, it is rather like a polling that can be highly biased.  At least, ethereum tried to set up a kind of proof-of-stake VOTE to find out what would happen.  When they were near 90%-10% they thought that they could go ahead.

The nodes "polling" can be influenced by 1) people just automatically updating  2) people setting up a lot of Sybil nodes to influence the outcome  3) people having nodes not necessarily those who will weight in on the market.  I have a node, soon 2, I don't trade, I only do "bitcoin as a currency" if I want to buy something (less and less the case).

They can't.  That's the whole idea of immutability consensus.


That's a banking layer on top of a crypto.  There will be big "lightening hubs" where normal citizens have their account.  Bitcoin or whatever lower layer will be the "central bank settlements" between banks in that case. 


The problem with pruning is that you have to know which transactions are spent.  And if you know that, then you cannot hide it, and hence, confidentiality is gone, and with it, fungibility.  At least, in a block chain setting. 

Indeed, gambling in a greater-fool game, or "hiding from the evil law and state" are the only two applications of crypto. 

If you want to legally, taxed, officially buy stuff, fiat is unbeatable.

Well, you just answered your own question.  I'm here, because crypto currencies are potentially a way to "hide from the man" (I'm not going to "battle" the man, that is a hopeless affair ; but the man being evil, I try to find ways for people who want to, to hide from it ; if enough people do so, the man becomes powerless ; but even if a lot of sheep let themselves screw by the man, those that want to hide from it should be able to).

I already told you that it is the *only* utility of crypto.  If you don't want to hide from the man, the man has much better currency: fiat.  Use it.  There's no need to get into the hassle of crypto, fiat is much better.  The principal problem with fiat is that it becomes very difficult to hide it from the man, and that's where there is a potential for crypto.  The only potential, apart from a greater-fool game.  I'm not sure that the potential will play out, but if it doesn't, crypto is a totally useless affair.

The other reason why crypto is interesting *as a study object*, is that it involves hierarchy-less dynamics, which is of course what you get in society if ever it can get rid of "the man".  A question is: will in that case, a "new man" rise up ?  (centralization). 

That's exactly what the ethereum foundation thought.

Why do you think an exchange would forego all the gains to be made in exchanging these coins ?  If I were the CEO of an exchange, I would HURRY LIKE CRAZY to be the first exchange to line up both coins.  Because there will be a massive trading back and fro between them, and each time, I take a trading fee.  They have seen the example with ETC/ETH.

Why are you denying what has already happened elsewhere ?