Gregory Maxwell threatens to sell his bitcoins and find other things to work on

[Lauda]

I beg to differ. Gregory just "threatens" to find something other to work on. This is fine, it's his decision after all. He doesn't like the way the whole Bitcoin project is headed, so he'll just do something else.
He doesn't state that he will sell out, though. Rather, he believes that the proposed changes to Bitcoin might be perceived as suicidal for Bitcoin, which is why he would consider it a wise move to sell his Bitcoins before they depreciate.
At least that's the way I understand his words. Maybe I'm just nitpicking, but I find that difference important enough to be noted.

Well he did stay the he would sell most of his Bitcoin. The title might be a bit misleading though but this often happens. However people should be careful when making threads because they could be partially spreading FUD without realizing it.

-snip-
So the question really is, which network will be larger?
As the old saying goes, just follow the money.
The larger network will be the one that's embraced by businesses like BitPay, large mining pools etc.
And I doubt that that's going to be the one without Gavin.

The "old" network might survive as something like a sect of the true faith of Satoshi, though. Which would make it a rather interesting social experiment

I agree. It would be worse to see that the network has split up into two 50/50. Gavin has a lot of influence even though he sometimes is doing things the wrong way.

That's something most people can agree on, but they just can't agree upon the "how". Unfortunately, that's precisely the reason why Gavin has to take the steps he's taking right now.

I'm more interested in the patches that XT has that allegedly decrease the security. I've already stated in a thread that the developers that are refusing the increase in the block size should propose solutions that are better and explain why. Even though Gavin is somewhat right he's doing things the wrong way. This feels like a hostile takeover attempt. Because they're rejecting his proposals he plans to go ahead with his own fork.
He will be successful if he gets Bitpay, large pools and such aboard as you've stated. However this is not how decentralization should work in regards to Bitcoin.

I'd like to hear what Andreas Antonopoulos has to say about the current situation.

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[Cruxer]

Nobody who publically threatens to sell all their bitcoins will ever sell of their bitcoins, something just doesn't add up in that equation.

100% true, he just want to put his words above others with this threats

[knowhow]

No one would sell huge ammount of bitcoins since they change a lot daily around 20 up to 50 dollars above and down ...soo the interest to get them and sell some ,if i had 1000btc i would sell them i would sell a part and rebuy with the earnings lets say i sold 10btc for 250,i would use those 2500 to get more btc lets say around 12btc .. thats the moove ,money generate money and i dont believe btc will drop now the 200 dollars mark,looks this is the price worthing currently and btc mining is getting harder to get them,soo i may say bitcoin will explode like gold ,for me btc will get some result in 10 years a small jump then in lets say more 5 or 10 years.... it will be 500 dollars if not those 1000 dollars..... or over.

[pereira4]

I beg to differ. Gregory just "threatens" to find something other to work on. This is fine, it's his decision after all. He doesn't like the way the whole Bitcoin project is headed, so he'll just do something else.
He doesn't state that he will sell out, though. Rather, he believes that the proposed changes to Bitcoin might be perceived as suicidal for Bitcoin, which is why he would consider it a wise move to sell his Bitcoins before they depreciate.
At least that's the way I understand his words. Maybe I'm just nitpicking, but I find that difference important enough to be noted.

Well he did stay the he would sell most of his Bitcoin. The title might be a bit misleading though but this often happens. However people should be careful when making threads because they could be partially spreading FUD without realizing it.

-snip-
So the question really is, which network will be larger?
As the old saying goes, just follow the money.
The larger network will be the one that's embraced by businesses like BitPay, large mining pools etc.
And I doubt that that's going to be the one without Gavin.

The "old" network might survive as something like a sect of the true faith of Satoshi, though. Which would make it a rather interesting social experiment

I agree. It would be worse to see that the network has split up into two 50/50. Gavin has a lot of influence even though he sometimes is doing things the wrong way.

That's something most people can agree on, but they just can't agree upon the "how". Unfortunately, that's precisely the reason why Gavin has to take the steps he's taking right now.

I'm more interested in the patches that XT has that allegedly decrease the security. I've already stated in a thread that the developers that are refusing the increase in the block size should propose solutions that are better and explain why. Even though Gavin is somewhat right he's doing things the wrong way. This feels like a hostile takeover attempt. Because they're rejecting his proposals he plans to go ahead with his own fork.
He will be successful if he gets Bitpay, large pools and such aboard as you've stated. However this is not how decentralization should work in regards to Bitcoin.

I'd like to hear what Andreas Antonopoulos has to say about the current situation.

My biggest concern with the fork is all the infrastructures and businesses will have to take the huge risk of either moving to XT, or staying Core... it's insane. Imagine you are running a successful company like Bitpay, you say, okay 20MB, awesome, let's adopt XT for our transactions. Then, XT ends up crashing and Core is the one that survives. It's a headache.

[PolarPoint]

What I see here is power play within the core dev group.

If this is current, https://bitcoin.org/en/development, there are 5 core devs and a lot of contributors. They are disagreeing and a couple of them threatens to leave the core team if the team do not follow their ways.

I mean no disrespect, but this is so childish. They should seriously sit down and talk this over. Compromise is the only way to keep bitcoin together, going forward. No one wants to see a split in the community, not the users and certainly not the exchanges and miners.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Why won't Core Dev buy the few years needed to bring LN and other off-chain solutions to the point where they are taking volume?

The Lightning Network is way too speculative, as you've pointed out. Gmax doesn't believe in the traffic jam scenario, or if he does he thinks we can just push through a small upgrade because the consensus will then be there. That's why buying time doesn't mean much to him. Perhaps you should figure out why he thinks that.

To me it depends on whether a fee market is working properly by then. If it is, there won't be a traffic jam, just some higher fees. If they get too high, I think even Gmax and the others would agree to a mild increase.

The more I follow this blocksize debate, the less I'm worried. There's a lot of exaggeration and rote extrapolation assumptions on all sides, but humans adapt. We worry about bad PR, but really, who cares? It's not like there is any other system that's going to supersede Bitcoin. If you want to do any of the really major things Bitcoin enables, you don't have a choice but to use Bitcoin (any altcoin is just going to be even easier to mess up).

Not that I want or expect bad PR, but we can't let that concern infect our planning and experimentation. As far as investment and adoption, the timing of the next cap increase is a short-term issue. I'd like to raise the limit and see it get limited economically so the devs could get on to something more important, but I also don't think anything would actually break if we stayed at 1MB even during the next bubble. Bitcoin is not a currency yet. It's an investment. It won't need tons of transaction throughput for a long time, and since there is no real fee market now there's no way it's using the blockspace efficiently yet. So I'm not worried, though if I had my way I'd prefer the "no cap" experiment, starting today

[unamis76]

This was a really strong comment. He has a very valid point, no need for him to nag everyone saying his solution is the best.

In due time, folks maybe will rethink in not supporting bigger blocks

[siameze]

Yes. Changing to something like "if Bitcoin-XT is adopted, Gregory Maxwell will find other things to work on" or something. The current title is misleading IMHO.

Have you not read his post? Are you having trouble understanding ti?

If the Bitcoin community wants to go commit suicide, I'm confident that I can sell my most of my bitcoins before most of the public has realized things have gone wrong. ...

Changing the title to anything else would be misleading. The title is correct, as Maxwell has exactly stated that he will sell out and find other things to work on if we follow the path of Bitcoin XT.
The situation is terrible right now.

I am not sure English is his (Muhammed's)  first language and perhaps he lacks understanding. Op also did quote a source which anyone can check for themselves.

The situation is indeed bleak. I am still unsure how this will all play out, but hopefully all involved can come to a resolution to this issue. Personal pride should be put aside or the greater good of the community.

[johnyj]

Increasing the block size is the most simple change, lightning network and side chain just sounds too complicated to be easily maintained, raised level of complexity is the worst enemy for long term sustainability

[IIOII]

Increasing the block size is the most simple change, lightning network and side chain just sounds too complicated to be easily maintained, raised level of complexity is the worst enemy for long term sustainability

You take it for granted that a change is needed now, but that's not true: https://medium.com/@allenpiscitello/there-is-no-crisis-20b58e14b09c

Decentralization is much more important than microtransactions, because the former is the foundation of value for Bitcoin.

[siameze]

Increasing the block size is the most simple change, lightning network and side chain just sounds too complicated to be easily maintained, raised level of complexity is the worst enemy for long term sustainability

You take it for granted that a change is needed now, but that's not true: https://medium.com/@allenpiscitello/there-is-no-crisis-20b58e14b09c

Decentralization is much more important than microtransactions, because the former is the foundation of value for Bitcoin.

Thanks for the link to that article, I shared it with a friend that need a dose of objectivity and not the normal reddit echo-chamber nonsense.

[johnyj]

Increasing the block size is the most simple change, lightning network and side chain just sounds too complicated to be easily maintained, raised level of complexity is the worst enemy for long term sustainability

You take it for granted that a change is needed now, but that's not true: https://medium.com/@allenpiscitello/there-is-no-crisis-20b58e14b09c

Decentralization is much more important than microtransactions, because the former is the foundation of value for Bitcoin.

Even there were almost no micro transactions, the block size would still hit its limit during next bubble. And Satoshi said to phase in the change when the time comes, so it is not a complicated issue. Of course I think 4MB block size will be enough for quite some time

[anderson00673]

I still don't get it.
So none of the devs know how to reach a final solution that's perpetual and doesn't require future forks before we meet the 1MB limit in 2016?

Some of the devs just so happen to own a company that will profit from not increasing the 1mb limit.  Conflict of interest, kinda makes it easy which side to choose.

[cellard]

I still don't get it.
So none of the devs know how to reach a final solution that's perpetual and doesn't require future forks before we meet the 1MB limit in 2016?

Some of the devs just so happen to own a company that will profit from not increasing the 1mb limit.  Conflict of interest, kinda makes it easy which side to choose.

Regardless if they have monetary interests or not, there are sound arguments to be against the 20MB fork, lots of them actually, just like there are sound arguments to be supportive of the 20MB fork. We cant reduce it to "they just wanna make money".

[kazuki49]

I still don't get it.
So none of the devs know how to reach a final solution that's perpetual and doesn't require future forks before we meet the 1MB limit in 2016?

Some of the devs just so happen to own a company that will profit from not increasing the 1mb limit.  Conflict of interest, kinda makes it easy which side to choose.

Regardless if they have monetary interests or not, there are sound arguments to be against the 20MB fork, lots of them actually, just like there are sound arguments to be supportive of the 20MB fork. We cant reduce it to "they just wanna make money".

The blockstream and sidechains were once hauled as the next big thing in Bitcoin, promising to obsolesce every single altcoin and soar Bitcoin value to new heights! It seems it falls short of the megalomaniac view of Bitcoin relying everyone's cup of coffee, thus the "derp majority" of the Bitcoin community proceed to trow the majority of the core devs under the bus (supporting XT) before severing the network effect in two competing chains, soon(2016?) you'll learn the meaning of "the whole is more than the sum of its parts".

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

20MB will not centralise nodes and blocks.

[Kprawn]

I think his concerns is valid... with the fork Gavin is creating, he is creating a scenario where he has more say... The current situation gives him less say, because he has to share that position with a lot of other core developers.

We have spend years trying to sell a decentralized concept and now one or two core developers wants to sabotage this, with a fork to give themselves more control.

Is this really what we want? I think not.... there are a lot of people with the same concerns. 

[EternalWingsofGod]

Nobody who publically threatens to sell all their bitcoins will ever sell of their bitcoins, something just doesn't add up in that equation.

In this case Maxwell would go through with it since it would be a Centralized and not true Bitcoin according to his beliefs.
I think i'm leaning towards two systems in tandem both chains are absolutely not going to survive forever as one chain will outpace the other but at this point in the end adoption is the ultimate decider.

I'm unclear on how going the XT path would make it centralized.

Because it will be needed more bandwidth, and a lot of people don't have access to it (node,etc...).

Upload and download caps are the goal of decentralized currency and it means nodes need a large geographic distribution.
I recall reading several threads on how 20MB would cause node issues in some locations due to speed requirements and non-sufficient bandwidth but I'm not well versed in that area of discussion myself.

Additional Info: I found a discussion related to the bandwidth implications I mentioned for those interested
http://www.ofnumbers.com/2015/02/06/what-is-the-blockchain-hard-fork-missile-crisis/

[Cubic Earth]

20MB will not centralise nodes and blocks.

Agreed.  20MB blocks will add to centralization pressures, but I doubt to a meaningful extent.  And those pressures, however slight or strong they may be, will be slowly defused by exponential advances in CPU, storage, and bandwidth technologies.  After a few years, the network will have regained it's current equilibrium.

[SpanishSoldier]

20MB will not centralise nodes and blocks.

Agreed.  20MB blocks will add to centralization pressures, but I doubt to a meaningful extent.  And those pressures, however slight or strong they may be, will be slowly defused by exponential advances in CPU, storage, and bandwidth technologies.  After a few years, the network will have regained it's current equilibrium.

I dont understand how 20 MB leads to centralization pressure on the network ? If the fork happens and XT wins and remains under the control of Gavin & Hearn, i.e. centralization.