Just because you collectivists don't like something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. This is a wonderful example of how degenerate your philosophical flights of fancy have become and how much they have degraded your understandings of reality. This is exactly what religious people say when you debunk their claims by pointing out contradictions or lack of evidence for their claims. The "store of value" concept was basically invented by Aristotle two and a half millennia ago, before basically anything was understood about trade, markets, labor specialization, or any of the other factors that we now know make economies work. I could point out some of the additional work that's been done since the bronze age, like the understanding that money is a ledger that measures delayed reciprocal altruism, but I don't even need to. All I have to do is point out that if your claim that a store of value exists is true, then you should be able to produce a non-tautological definition for it. Can you? PS: I LOL'd when the socialist who's advocating centrally-planned block sizes referred to me as a collectivist. Do you not realize just how transparent that is? sometimes little dogs just like to bark:  |
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I notice the OP there isn't adressing the issue that when Blockstream received their funding, LN wasn't yet around, so it's a bit hard to see how their business plan that got them 21 million USD could have relied on pushing people towards LN... This was indeed pointed out to him by me and several others. What blockstream are trying to do is the contentious issue, when they get the tools is not relevant, eg when the nuclear bomb was discovered is not important nor is when you get the nuke, what is relevant is if you intend to use it' and that's relevant. What you fantasize about what blockstream "are trying to do" and are actually doing is two different things you know? Unless you have facts to verify your conjectures the courteous thing to do would be to give the runner a chance. i did. but look what happened:
[–]cypherdoc2[🍰] 9 points 1 year ago
I'll take the cautious side here being a stake holder in Bitcoin. Not being a dev my concerns are purely theoretical and mostly economic.
In general, a for profit company with a low to no stake in Bitcoin should not be trusted to make changes to the protocol that facilitate its profit making. Especially if it's gone out and hired core devs and comes at the expense of the competition.
I would like to know who these core devs are supposedly supporting the whole concept besides gmax who has gone on record saying Bitcoin needs to be "fixed". I don't understand the secrecy as I've asked for those names several times. I for one don't think Bitcoin needs fixing.
I've always conceptualized Bitcoin as being a self contained financial system so I am concerned that it's fundamental value units will be allowed to leave its system destined for what will inevitably be a weaker sidechain from a security standpoint. In that sense I don't see them as "the first app" overlaying the protocol like Andreas likes to say. I see them as fundamentally integrated into the network. Invariably, whatever token your bitcoin is transformed into will be worth less as a result. We've spent 5 long years distributing those bitcoins throughout the blockchain in a fair and truthful manner based on free market trading. $600 million has been irreversibly spent to secure that process and the blockchain is delicately balanced as a result. Bitcoins are a fundamental value unit that was made for its network and only for that network in my opinion and now we want to let them move off that network potentially never to return. Satoshi never provisioned for this. That doesn't feel right to me.
What knock on effects would occur to the Bitcoin network if 20-30% of these tokens get lost from a sidechain failure thus wiping out all the associated bitcoins as a result? The answer could be way more complex than just "oh, my bitcoins will be worth more".
With merged mining it would be easier to attack and steal the tokens and thus bitcoins associated with them. What can be done to prevent this?
What if there was an economic way to solve the problem of scamcoins without touching the protocol? I reference Peter R's proposal of Spin Offs. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563925.0
Is there really a "problem"with Bitcoin that we need to risk the entire system like this? Why can't Bitcoin act like a reserve currency around which altcoins can orbit without touching/risking the protocol? I reference the fork we got from a simple non protocol change last year from just 0.7-0.8. The devs including gmax failed to anticipate this despite the best of intentions.
It's important to realize that we have intentionally lived with bugs in the system all these years because we're dealing with a form of money that you can't make mistakes with. Billions are at risk and damned straight I'm protective of this. Bitcoin has worked well so far imo. It seems we always get these proposals at the bottom of a price lull so be wary of people proposing changes who have no stake in the system.
I'm willing to wait until the whitepaper comes out for final judgment as maybe I'm getting too conservative in my old age but those are my concerns.
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$DJI approaching Mission Critical Stage:  |
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You are also aware that lightning is an open source project right? Nobody is forcing you to use it.
Being an open source project says next to nothing about lock-ins that are achieved by network effects on related services. You mean like how Red Hat has a lock-in on Linux related services, or Oracle with Java? Oh wait...maybe you meant like MyMonero.com?  All three of those are valid examples. All three likely have weaker network effects than lightning nodes. MyMonero has weakest network effects though. It doesn't have a thicket of related and dependent products to resist substitution. That's all arguable certainly. Seems the centralization/network effect of lightning nodes might not hold if Rusty gets his way...  https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3gmkak/the_blockstream_business_plan/ctzz2jzThat's funny. I have a Cripplecoiner arguing with me right now about how my funding of multiple nodes does not increase decentralization as I am a single point of failure. Yet here we have the architects of LN wanting a single client to open 5 separate payment channels to do just that. Oh the hypocrisy! |
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Hide? The altcoin sub forum has more traffic. Well I'LL be a rats ass! TIL! |
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I'm really disappointed. Theymos is going full retard and muddying the waters by linking the 21M with the 1MB. Just because there were two very obscure early bugs in the maintenance of the 21M supply limit does not mean that the limit is or ever was uncertain. It was always set in stone. And lets take the beast head on. The 21 million limit. Firstly Satoshi never actually encoded that limit in hard stone, it was added by devs just last year I think. Secondly, we have not even heard of any arguments in favour of it's increase. If say in 20 years it does appear that the fees are insufficient, and for the example let us suppose we are using lightning, considering that so many coins have already been lost irrevocably and may continue to be lost, what makes you think that you can today pass judgment on what may be a different situation? I expect pro-Increase-the-Block-Limit people like me and maybe this whole thread to be banhammered any day. So if that happens I will be over on: https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin_uncensored/There's not too many things you can do in this country to piss people off more than violating their First Amendment rights. Go theymos! |
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Chinese bourses now higher. Could it be that they expect lower renminbi in the future? I look forward to the day when the mainstreem looks to bitcoin pricing of the different currencies to decide their real value.
Nop, it's the new block size consensus making ripples! I agree on that, but why has the spread changed from negative to positive? brg444: "aw, c'mon Erdy. i just wanted to be a King". |
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Right, that would make sense until you realise in both cases (lightning and sidechains) these technologies need bigger blocks to scale. But before they need to scale, they just might need some help convincing potential users they are even necessary at all. I think it is obvious that: a) without new technologies we will need 24 GB blocks. ( 10 billion transactions per/day ) b) current technology cannot handle 24 GB blocks (and will not handle any time soon) c) with SC and LN bitcoin can stay decentralized and handle billions of TPS using small blocks (maybe bigger than 1MB but we are far from reaching limits of 1 MB blocks) so why not let the blockchain scale and have the free market adopt your proposed SC and LN solutions as needed? i can do even one better with a proposal i've made a number of times already. lift the block cap altogether and we'll give them the spvp AND LN soft forks we know they desire and we'll see which one wins the market over. |
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You're referring to a totally different post that was deleted by the author (the one about the Blockstream Business Plan).
I referred to a post which was actually on-topic (ie, about Bitcoin and not some troll fork alt) being immediately and incorrectly regarded as "censored" when in fact the author deleted it. Of course posts about alts are moderated in r/Bitcoin. Duh! You do know the difference between moderation and censorship, right? Or are you one of the 'thermos is the epitome of authoritarianism and ready to start book burnings' drama queens busily sewing gold coins into the linings of their coats? iCEBLOW translation: "i am one greedy bastard!" |
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this sounds exactly like something i'd say:
The Blockstream Business Plan (self.Bitcoin)-
what is really going on here is that Blockstream wants to shift the long term miner tx fees away from the mainchain into SC & LN tx fees paid to their federated nodes, LN gateways, & consulting fees for SC's. |
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it was never about practicality or common sense. let alone fairness.
it was about greed.
Attacking what you imagine to be people's motivations is easy. Refuting the actual computer science and game theory is hard: note the non-technical assumption that idiot makes in his post upon which he bases all his technical mis-steps. he's wrong. where Bitcoin XT is headed, there's a big enough pie to bring every miner currently involved in the space along for the ride. and the miners know this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or65M4Ht4Kk |
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Big middle finger to iCEBLOW, brg444, tvbcof, and MOA:  |
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this sounds exactly like something i'd say:
The Blockstream Business Plan (self.Bitcoin)
submitted an hour ago * by Celean
And if this is true Blockstream is making a HUGE mistake. I don't think many people are doing multiple txns per day, every day right now. I don't even think many people do 1 txn per week. I doubt that people will be willing to sequester coins into the LN for significant periods (no I have no facts to back up this intuition). So I don't think that the lightning network solves the problem we have today which is getting people to do their FIRST txn (expand the network) and then getting them to use it periodically (use encourages merchants to accept it). Once people are using BTC a couple times per day, LN is becomes very valuable. Its actually WORSE if you do just one txn in a payment channel (it takes 2 blockchain txns instead of 1). So LN won't actually solve the typical use pattern today. And if that pattern is forced to pay high fees people will choose other payment options stagnating Bitcoin growth (or best case transforms into low velocity digital gold) to the point where we'll never need the volumes LN can offer. it was never about practicality or common sense. let alone fairness. it was about greed. |
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market responding well to the arrival of XT! iCEBLOW & co is going to get blown away:  |
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going UP:  |
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this sounds exactly like something i'd say:
The Blockstream Business Plan (self.Bitcoin)
submitted an hour ago * by Celean
Note: This was previous posted and (self-)deleted, but has been revised to address some factual inaccuracies.
A lot people seem to be confused about exactly why the developers that are getting a paycheck from Blockstream - most of which you can find on this page - are all so vehemently opposed to any and all discussions about increasing the block size, even by a moderate amount, much less in a way that scales naturally over time in a way miners can influence.
As most regular readers will know, Blockstream received 21 million US of venture capital funding less than a year ago in order to develop sidechain/payment channel concepts for Bitcoin. Among other things, they have joined development on the Lightning Network - for example, Rusty Russel is a Blockstream employee who is a confirmed prototype LN developer.
Now, obviously it would be hard to attract $21M of funding unless you have a plan to make a profit on the development, and while they haven't published any business plan that I'm aware of, it is by now increasingly obvious how they are planning on obtaining this profit.
How the Lightning Network works
The paper presented for the Lightning Network is a whooping 59 pages, and as such, I expect that the actual number of people who have read it numbers in the dozens. There is a more succinct explanation here, written by Rusty Russel himself, but essentially (and highly simplified):
The system is trustless, and no node can run away with funds that haven't been agreed by both the sending and receiving parties, but in case one party misbehaves, funds will be locked down for a period of time until a set timeout occurs.
It is conceptually based on a hub-and-spokes model with large centralized "payment nodes" that numerous people and companies open payment channels with. Payment nodes can be interconnected, thus forming a chain of payment channels from the sender to the recipient.
To open a payment channel, a leaf node (end user) has to commit an "opening transaction" with a specific payment node (or any other leaf node) to the blockchain. The funds committed at this point is the largest amount that can be spend during the life of this payment channel, and every payment channel you open requires one such transaction.
When a payment channel has been opened, multiple transactions can be created and signed on the channel without being published to the blockchain, up to the amount of funds committed.
The funds in the opening transaction are locked to that specific payment channel. To make funds available again for either party, all the final transactions have to be committed to the blockchain, thus finalizing the BTC transfer (if any).
Centralization drivers
The Lightning Network, by design, consists of what is effectively one-way payment channels between two nodes. In order to avoid the need for end users having to open a large number of payment channels (and thus having to commit a large amount of funds for these), it is conceptually based around centralized "payment nodes". If a sender already has a payment channel open to such a payment node, and that payment node has direct payment channel open to the recipient, or can route a chain of payment channels through other payment nodes, the payment is essentially instant. If it's not, a new payment channel has to be created by committing (and waiting for) a blockchain transaction, which is not faster than making a direct transaction on the Bitcoin network.
As a number of blockchain transactions are required to create and subsequently close out a payment channel, and you have to lock down funds for each separate payment channel, most people would only want to have one or a handful of such channels open at any given time.
In other words, payment nodes will be subject to a massive network effect. The more people use it, the higher chance that an existing chain of payment channel can be found, which means that you get a low-fee, almost-instant transfer of coins, instead of an awkward wait for the blockchain to confirm the transaction.
Worse yet, as the signing keys need to be Internet-accessible for payment channels to work near-instantaneously, the payment hubs will require having the full balance that is committed to a payment channel in what is effectively a hot wallet. This will be a huge security risk for most people, further cementing the centralization of that network to those that can manage a highly secure infrastructure.
How Blockstream plans to profit
The essential question of "how can anyone profit from the Lightning Network" is easy: payment nodes will have the ability to charge fees for the payment channels that connect to them. Note that there will be very real costs in running a Lightning Node, both in terms of hardware and in the cost of having funds being locked down in payment channels (and subject to theft), so that by itself is fair enough.
Less connected nodes will have a significant handicap and have to charge higher fees for two reasons: first, for the blockchain transactions required to establish their own payment channels to the better connected nodes, and second, because the better connected nodes will presumably charge fees for the less connected nodes to use their payment channels. This assumes that well-connected nodes will allow less-connected nodes to open payment channels at all, which they may opt not to do.
This means that the first mover advantage is incredibly significant in the establishment of this network. And Blockstream, as a significant developer, will obviously be perfectly situated to be the primary provider of this service, and collect all the fees this entails. Depending on the openness of the codebase and timeliness of its distribution, other players may or may not be able to compete, but this isn't known at this point.
How this relates to the block size
The reasons laid out above perfectly explain why these developers completely reject any notion of increasing the capacity of the base bitcoin network. They want a fee market to be established so that when the Lightning Network is ready to operate, there is a significant cost in placing a transaction on the blockchain. This, in turn, will encourage people to shift their transactions over to Lightning, which will allow the payment node operators rather than the miners to collect the fees in question.
Furthermore, the more expensive it is to place a transaction on the blockchain, the more advantageous payment channels will be, and the higher fee can be charged by the payment node operators. It also makes it more expensive to sustain multiple payment channels, which will further boost growth for already well-connected payment nodes.
The Lightning Network is a genuinely revolutionary invention that will allow Bitcoin to scale to a much higher degree than before for micro-transactions and frequent small purchases. However, it is important to keep the bias in mind when you read debates about the block size. It is essentially pointless to discuss it with many of the involved developers, as they have too great a stake seeing the block size remain where it is. The only way the block size will ever be increased is to outvote them and ignore their frequent demands for "consensus" (which will never be reached).
Blockstream developers frequently use the argument that a larger block size will increase centralization of the bitcoin network. This is somewhat hypocritical and disingenuous, as the Lightning Network by its very nature will be far more centralized than the core network with a larger block size will ever be.
tl;dr: Blockstream wants to choke transactions on the blockchain in order to spur adoption of sidechannels and the Lightning Network, where they will be perfectly situated to collect fees for providing that service.
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