Hearn's Worst Case Scenario: Checkpoints in XT to "ignore the longest chain"

[iCEBREAKER]

Hearn has a solution for all the Chinese miners stuck on the old chain, they can develop their own Chinese-specific altcoin.  

If that's really the case, it seems to me that Chinese Bitcoin is unsustainable and what you really need is a China-specific alt coin that can run entirely within the Chinese internet.

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34162353/

When XT is finished getting #rekt, I'm going to miss Heam.  He's one of the most productive lolcows of all time!

I trust Gavin has collected enough genetic samples to keep the line going if we want more.   

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[iCEBREAKER]

Wow. Bitcoin XT is now an altcoin? 

Thats what i wonder too. Why is this thread in Altcoin Discussion. I think it should be moved to Bitcoin Discussion. It doesnt have to do anything with altcoins.

Im not a fan of Bitcoin XT, its not why i write this, the simply risks of "our" coin becoming the coin of a company is not for me. Though i think this discussion should be discussed in the correct place.

Altcoin Discussion is the proper place to discuss XT.  Theymos is very generous to make such an allowance on his private server.

If I were him, XT and Gavinistas would be given the Bitcoin-scrypt treatment (IE disappeared like pinkos in Pinochet's Chile).

The logic is simple enough:

Activating a hardfork based on what miners do is really bad. You could easily have a situation where 75% of miners support XT but none of the big Bitcoin exchanges or businesses do. Then miners would start mining coins that they couldn't spend anywhere useful, and SPV users would find that they can't transact with the businesses they want to deal with. The currency would be split, and in this case XT would be in a far weaker position than Bitcoin.

The possibility of this sort of network/currency split is what makes XT not a "legitimate hardfork", but rather the programmed creation of an altcoin. A consensus hardfork can only go forward once it has been determined that it's nearly impossible for the Bitcoin economy to split in any significant way. Not every Bitcoin user on Earth has to agree, but enough that there won't be a noticeable split.

[Snorek]

So we will have bitcoin 1.0 (Core) and Bitcoin 2.0 (XT) soon. I hope Hearn will realize that this bullshit will hurt bitcoin more than anything before.
It pains me to see that it will be not attack from the outside but instead internal bitcoin war that eventually destroy the dream.
But until then XT is a soft fork of Bitcoin so I think Bitcoin Discussion is a proper place for this kind of thread.

[Phoenix1969]

Runnin' my node, doin' my part.

[kelsey]

Altcoin Discussion is the proper place to discuss XT.  Theymos is very generous to make such an allowance on his private server.

If I were him, XT and Gavinistas would be given the Bitcoin-scrypt treatment (IE disappeared like pinkos in Pinochet's Chile).

agreed that would be being constant, and this XT alt is way worse as bitcoin scrypt wasn't trying to be bitcoin nor was it an attack on btc.

[iCEBREAKER]

Coblee, the creator of Litecoin (and Coinbase hotshot), gives Heam's checkpoints a big fat NACK.

If you thought Litecoin and altcoins dilute the value of Bitcoin, wait til you see what BTCXT does to the price! Actually, the market is already giving us a hint as to why BitcoinXT is such a bad idea.

A more responsible option would have been to set the trigger threshold at a real super majority of 90% miner vote. If it was set at 90%, the chance of a bad fork would be far less likely. But Mike & Gavin knows that there's no way they can get 90% support, so they would rather risk hurting Bitcoin in order to get their way. Mike has even mention using checkpoints to force the issue if XT doesn't get the hashrate majority (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1089283.0). That is scary.

You know who else used checkpoints?

Stalin.

[coinableS]

but he is not the only person who will read and test the code. lets see what other devs say about that.

I think Hearn is the only person who decides what code is included in XT. I don't even think Gavin Andresen has commit access to XT.

As much as I am against the XT fork, the above is not true. There are several with commit access to XT including:

- Hearn (obviously)
- Gavin Andresen
- Jeff Garzik
- Jonas Schnelli
- Wladimir J Van Der Laan
- Jorge Timon
- Cory Fields
- Suhas Daftuar
- Pieter Wuille

I can go further back, but this should give you an idea. The above people have made a commit to bitcoinXT since May 12th 2015. Since July 2015 the only person making commits has been Hearn.

[alani123]

I appreciate the fact that they introduced a voting model for the fork. This way it's not going to happen if it's largely opposed. The sad part is that only miners can effectively vote. So what happens if many users support XT without having the necessary hashrate they'd have to own in order to trigger the fork they support? Will the rules to trigger a fork become more flexible? Will they start ignorin the longest blockchain and push for a fork anyway?

None of those two seem realistic to me, the second could be catastrophic for the new and smaller chain.

[SebastianJu]

Wow. Bitcoin XT is now an altcoin? 

Thats what i wonder too. Why is this thread in Altcoin Discussion. I think it should be moved to Bitcoin Discussion. It doesnt have to do anything with altcoins.

Im not a fan of Bitcoin XT, its not why i write this, the simply risks of "our" coin becoming the coin of a company is not for me. Though i think this discussion should be discussed in the correct place.

Altcoin Discussion is the proper place to discuss XT.  Theymos is very generous to make such an allowance on his private server.

If I were him, XT and Gavinistas would be given the Bitcoin-scrypt treatment (IE disappeared like pinkos in Pinochet's Chile).

The logic is simple enough:

Activating a hardfork based on what miners do is really bad. You could easily have a situation where 75% of miners support XT but none of the big Bitcoin exchanges or businesses do. Then miners would start mining coins that they couldn't spend anywhere useful, and SPV users would find that they can't transact with the businesses they want to deal with. The currency would be split, and in this case XT would be in a far weaker position than Bitcoin.

The possibility of this sort of network/currency split is what makes XT not a "legitimate hardfork", but rather the programmed creation of an altcoin. A consensus hardfork can only go forward once it has been determined that it's nearly impossible for the Bitcoin economy to split in any significant way. Not every Bitcoin user on Earth has to agree, but enough that there won't be a noticeable split.

I know what you mean and i agree to a certain degree. For now i see the chance that bitcoin xt MIGHT become the real bitcoin. I doubt it but the chance is there. Then it would not be correct to discuss bitcoin xt in altcoin. Bitcoin xt should be discussed as bitcoin until it shows that it is an altcoin only. I mean when bitcoin core is forking then it is not the original bitcoin anymore too. And we don't switch to altcoin section then too.

In fact theymos really wanted to do it that way. See my question and his answers:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1090801.0

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

I was aware on this, the fact they wanted centralized checkpoints and tor ip lists that get block is further proof we are talking about none other than NSA coin in the makings. Avoid like the plague my friends.

[PolarPoint]

I appreciate the fact that they introduced a voting model for the fork. This way it's not going to happen if it's largely opposed. The sad part is that only miners can effectively vote. So what happens if many users support XT without having the necessary hashrate they'd have to own in order to trigger the fork they support? Will the rules to trigger a fork become more flexible? Will they start ignorin the longest blockchain and push for a fork anyway?

None of those two seem realistic to me, the second could be catastrophic for the new and smaller chain.

I like the voting too. We can have some quantitive results from the miners. The community is still split, but I am beginning to see a move towards resolution. The big players are miner, exchanges and dev. Get consensus from all miners first, then gather support from exchanges (where the real value is).

We will have to how the voting goes. If BIP100 have good support, then we will never have to decide between Core and XT.

[alani123]

Mike Hearn has received a lot of backlash for saying this already. But I find the document where bitcoin company CEOs signed to show support towards BIP101 worrying. It's almost like Mike pushed it's publishing to try and make his view seems more rational. It was just days after this document's release that BIP100 support became so rampant by big pools.

Mike's argument that the economic majority of bitcoin isn't opposing his approach for bigger blocks is in fact baseless. You can't simply exclude miners from something referred to as bitcoin's economic majority. Miners are a huge part of bitcoin's ecosystem, they allow manufacturers of mining equipment to be viable by creating demand, they trade bitcoin on a daily basis. Miners are in fact a huge portion of bitcoin's economic majority and play a role in most sectors of the industry.

I'm glad that the overwhelming majority shows no sign of wanting to embrace Mike and Gavin's BIP101. BIP100 support could probably be interpreted as a vote specifically against bitcoinXT and BIP101. And that's perfectly justified. Mike Hearn shows absolutely no remorse about his statements against China. He was making such statements at a time that Chinese pools and ventures operated more than 50% of the total hashrate. BIP100 seems like a very modest proposal when compared to the radicality of Mike Hearn's and gavin Andresen's work. Furthermore, Jeff Garzik seems like a very rational individual and has shown no signs of inability to reason so far.

[omahapoker]

Mike Hearn has received a lot of backlash for saying this already. But I find the document where bitcoin company CEOs signed to show support towards BIP101 worrying. It's almost like Mike pushed it's publishing to try and make his view seems more rational. It was just days after this document's release that BIP100 support became so rampant by big pools.

Mike's argument that the economic majority of bitcoin isn't opposing his approach for bigger blocks is in fact baseless. You can't simply exclude miners from something referred to as bitcoin's economic majority. Miners are a huge part of bitcoin's ecosystem, they allow manufacturers of mining equipment to be viable by creating demand, they trade bitcoin on a daily basis. Miners are in fact a huge portion of bitcoin's economic majority and play a role in most sectors of the industry.

I'm glad that the overwhelming majority shows no sign of wanting to embrace Mike and Gavin's BIP101. BIP100 support could probably be interpreted as a vote specifically against bitcoinXT and BIP101. And that's perfectly justified. Mike Hearn shows absolutely no remorse about his statements against China. He was making such statements at a time that Chinese pools and ventures operated more than 50% of the total hashrate. BIP100 seems like a very modest proposal when compared to the radicality of Mike Hearn's and gavin Andresen's work. Furthermore, Jeff Garzik seems like a very rational individual and has shown no signs of inability to reason so far.

This whole drama is saddening. I mean we have the choice between pest and cholera.

What we can say is that the hashpower is in favor of a blocksize raise. I believe we are at around 75% of the hashpower wanting an increase. So it will come.

But supporting hearn with his dangerous plans is as dangerous as supporting developers that want to make the bitcoin network less attractive, with high fees and unconfirmed transactions only to push their own altcoin.

I really can't see this anymore. It's like politicians.

[funkenstein]

Give me control over a coin's checkpoints and I care not who mines its blocks. 

[VeritasSapere]

All of this irrational fear mongering is completely out of hand. Please fellow Bitcoiners be rational.

"The worst case scenario is the majority ... the economic majority ... is in favor but the hash power, the mining majority is not. That would be a very messy situation for bitcoin."

He is describing a worst case scenario, what he is saying here is not unreasonable under these circumstances.

Everyone should remember that Bitcoin XT only implements BIP101 and nothing else, everything else within Bitcoin XT is optional. Since only the block size increase is fundamental to the protocol in terms of it causing a hard fork, this is what makes these other changes within XT optional. Since anyone can create their own client and make it behave in any way would want as long as it is consistent with the fundamental rules of the protocol, the only fundamental rule that is changed within XT is the increase of the block size. You can turn off, any of the extra patches contained within Bitcoin XT inside of the client itself. There is even an alternative version of XT that does not include any of these other changes and only increases the block size. You could even run a patched version of Core that implements BIP101, which would then be compatible with XT after the fork if the miners reach consensus.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1164464.msg12267335#msg12267335

[alani123]

"The worst case scenario is the majority ... the economic majority ... is in favor but the hash power, the mining majority is not. That would be a very messy situation for bitcoin."

You do realised that even by this utopic view, the logic behind this is very flawed. It's completely ignoring miners, refusing to acknowledge that they are a significant chunk of 'the economic majority'. And aside of that, Mike Hearn has numerous times proven that he simply doesn't care about the neutrality of bitcoin as a developer. He's implied that getting rid of the Chinese miners is a reasonable plan to enforce if they disagree with him.

[VeritasSapere]

"The worst case scenario is the majority ... the economic majority ... is in favor but the hash power, the mining majority is not. That would be a very messy situation for bitcoin."

You do realised that even by this utopic view, the logic behind this is very flawed. It's completely ignoring miners, refusing to acknowledge that they are a significant chunk of 'the economic majority'. And aside of that, Mike Hearn has numerous times proven that he simply doesn't care about the neutrality of bitcoin as a developer. He's implied that getting rid of the Chinese miners is a reasonable plan to enforce if they disagree with him.

He did not say that he would get rid of the Chinese miners if they disagreed with him. He was instead referring to a situation where the majority of users and financial powers mainly in the west came to a disagreement about a fundamental issue with the miners in the east. Remember this is a hypothetical worst case scenario. What if the majority of the miners decided to increase the block limit? However the majority of the users and financial powers are against the change, that might be a situation where us Bitcoiners would go against the majority of the mining power and cause a fork. Under this worst case scenario what Mike Hearn is suggesting is actually reasonable. I do not believe this could ever happen as described since miners would never be incentivized to do such a thing. Keep in mind that Hearn even said that this would wreck Bitcoin so it is not like he takes this lightly. He would also require the consent of the economic majority anyway in order to even do such a thing. It is however a very controversial thing to say, I will not deny that.

[tvbcof]

Give me control over a coin's checkpoints and I care not who mines its blocks. 

+1  Bingo!

... Keep in mind that Hearn even said that this would wreck Bitcoin so it is not likely he would do such a thing, he would also require the consent of the economic majority anyway in order to do such a thing. It is certainly a very controversial thing to say, he certainly is outspoken.

That is the ONLY reason I am not completely convinced that he is a Western Intel sponsored mole.

[iCEBREAKER]

Mike Hearn has received a lot of backlash for saying this already. But I find the document where bitcoin company CEOs signed to show support towards BIP101 worrying. It's almost like Mike pushed it's publishing to try and make his view seems more rational. It was just days after this document's release that BIP100 support became so rampant by big pools.

Mike's argument that the economic majority of bitcoin isn't opposing his approach for bigger blocks is in fact baseless. You can't simply exclude miners from something referred to as bitcoin's economic majority. Miners are a huge part of bitcoin's ecosystem, they allow manufacturers of mining equipment to be viable by creating demand, they trade bitcoin on a daily basis. Miners are in fact a huge portion of bitcoin's economic majority and play a role in most sectors of the industry.

I'm glad that the overwhelming majority shows no sign of wanting to embrace Mike and Gavin's BIP101. BIP100 support could probably be interpreted as a vote specifically against bitcoinXT and BIP101. And that's perfectly justified. Mike Hearn shows absolutely no remorse about his statements against China. He was making such statements at a time that Chinese pools and ventures operated more than 50% of the total hashrate. BIP100 seems like a very modest proposal when compared to the radicality of Mike Hearn's and gavin Andresen's work. Furthermore, Jeff Garzik seems like a very rational individual and has shown no signs of inability to reason so far.

Small wonder Mike's co-conspirators at Circle are among the XT assclowns.  When Hearn@sigint.google.mil says "jump" the MBA frat boys of SandHillRoad ask "how high?"

Bitcoin is not going to be designed, much less governed, by VC ratfuckers looking for a shiny new centralized payment rail to replace supplant PaypalVisaSquare.

It's so precious Heam thinks Bitcoin's compliance-mongering wanna-be gatekeepers (*cough* CoinBase/Circle/Etc *cough*) are in any way related to our socioeconomic majority.

The question was "XT?"

The answer from the miners is "NACK."  That's why BIP100 is already >50%.  Even vaporware is better than Heam's checkpoint dictatorship.

The answer from the market is "NACK."  That's why the price is down ~$100.

The only thing more hilarious than how Fukkin Rekt^® XT has gotten is the denial of its loyalist dead-ender Gavinista fanboys!  

Watching them bitterly cling to the remnants of their failed governance coup is the funniest thing I've seen since the days of the "XT Manifesto" (*snicker*).

[Kprawn]

The thing is no matter what we do, we will never satisfy everyone.... if that is the case, we would have had consensus already. Why any of the parties thought they could get

away with promoting the BIP, bearing in mind that their change would benefit their own projects... is really mind baffling. You will always have opposing sides with different

hidden interest... The 3rd party payment processors have their agenda and the miners have their own agenda. Which of these sides do we need the most? The miners fuel the

network... The payment processors and the exchanges fuel the market for Bitcoin. Should we not support the side with no personal interest? Where is the 3rd alternative?