We Don't Want Democracy, We Want Consensus!

[OgNasty]

Neither MH nor any other developer are in any position to hijack anything.

I agree.  Hence why I've said since the beginning that XT was DOA.  Get emotional about it if you want to.

[BitProdigy]

Relevant consensus tool:

http://coin-vote.com/poll/55e8a33299baadff0a34acb7

Via this tool Satoshi Nakamoto's vote would have a lot of weight and other very rich Bitcoin Whales would have incentive not to vote because anytime you access your private keys there are risks involved.

[adamstgBit]

Relevant consensus tool:

http://coin-vote.com/poll/55e8a33299baadff0a34acb7

Via this tool Satoshi Nakamoto's vote would have a lot of weight and other very rich Bitcoin Whales would have incentive not to vote because anytime you access your private keys there are risks involved.

not if you know how to do it properly, it really isn't that difficult. but you're right not everyone would vote, i'd be surprised to see more than 1% of bitcoins vote, but 100,000BTC+ voting is a lot better then a poll on bitcointalk.org.

all you have to do to sign a msg with 0 risk is to sign the message on a permanently-air-gapped PC.
poeple have all kinds of different solutions to securing their bitcoin, most popular is paper wallet.
a simple HTML page with some JS could be made, so that all they need to do is,
1) save and run this html doc on a permanently-air-gapped PC
2) plug in there private key
3) select their vote and push "sign message" button
4) save the resulting message.
5) send that message to this coin-vote.com app.

5-10mins of work.

i wonder if trezor HD wallet can sign messages, that would be another very secure way of doing it.

[funkenstein]

Relevant consensus tool:

http://coin-vote.com/poll/55e8a33299baadff0a34acb7

Via this tool Satoshi Nakamoto's vote would have a lot of weight and other very rich Bitcoin Whales would have incentive not to vote because anytime you access your private keys there are risks involved.

Thanks for your comments BitProdigy! I have no argument with your points here.  Indeed, a coin-vote is weighted by coin ownership, not because it's my opinion that this is what the people want, it's just how it works.  Also it requires caring enough to go and make an ECDSA signature, that is also just how it works.      

It is of course possible to be as paranoid and secure with your private keys as you like, as adamstgBit points out, just as when spending bitcoin.  

For another example, if you wish to declare your support for BIP -001, you need to sign the string "How-should-bitcoin-be-sca-BIP--001---b327d7b79e70eeb".  

You could print that out, take the paper into your hardened Faraday Cage bunker through the airlock (which is built to ensure no robotic insects enter with you), start up your raspberry PI in there and use your choice of signed / vetted software to generate the signature with your 10000 BTC address.  Then, print out the signature and carry it back out through the airlock.  Once back outside of the Faraday cage you can post your signature here to the forum using a stranger's mobile phone and we'll enter the vote into the coin-vote database for you.    

    

[johnyj]

I'm not talking about the right or wrong of each proposal, by bad I mean someone intentionally disrupt the consensus building process, e.g. insists on his own idea without making effort to modify it or make some compromise to reach consensus

Out of interest, how do you objectively define which party has "intentionally disrupted" the consensus, or even what the consensus was ?

If two developers launch a code revision and three refuse to endorse it, how do you determine which is the "disrupting" group ? By pure majority ? Does that mean that if one person changes their mind, the other group is now the disruptive element by definition ?

This is just crazy logic because the reality is that in open source there is no such thing as "consensus" in the general case because in theory the code is open to everybody for forking. You might only have one fork available or you might have multiple. If it's the latter then the network reaches a consensus about which fork to adopt but it's amongst the NETWORK PARTICIPANTS that the consensus resides because the concept has a formal and objective definition in that context. It is a non-existent concept in the context of the developer community other than as a loose agreement to refrain from creating multiple forks which, as we've seen, isn't worth the paper it's not written on.

The consensus comes from majority of the community members, not only programmers. Miners, exchanges, payment processors, merchants, investors, speculators, they are all the community member, and they all have different influences on the ecosystem

Programmers are the one that write the consensus into the code. At the beginning of the bitcoin, it worth nothing,  programmers have large influence on its development. But at later stage, many people joined the ecosystem and built it up from all the other area, then these stake holders' involvement and contribution give them more incentive to care about the development of bitcoin

Indeed in open source you can always fork the code and implement your idea, but if you don't have the support from all the other participants in the ecosystem, you are going back to where bitcoin stands 5 years ago

People who strongly support bitcoins are mostly libertarian style entrepreneurs that can make individual judgement, they typically have certain degree of IT and finance competence, would objectively evaluate core dev's proposal. In this case the debate of the block size is more about the social and financial impact instead of a technical issue. I think many of them are more experienced in those area than programmers

Have you noticed that most of the miners switched to support BIP 100? I guess this is because BIP 100 give them more right of decision in the future, so from their point of view this is definitely better than give the decision making power to Gavin. You can see that everyone here is a wolf on the blockchain  

By the way, I'm seeing rising interest of a flex cap which only raises the block size when fee collected in each block is higher than block reward

[adamstgBit]

By the way, I'm seeing rising interest of a flex cap which only raises the block size when fee collected in each block is higher than block reward

interesting idea. but to up the 1MB limit, we need fees at ~0.0125BTC ( ~2.5$ ) if you assume 2000tx (~1MB worth) per block.

that a pretty high fee! so much for "virtual free transactions."

and at that point a shit load of TX wouldnt happen on the network, this method would very quickly make bitcoin no able to handle micropayments.

maybe if fee where >1BTC the limit would be pushed up would be more reasonable.

[johnyj]

By the way, I'm seeing rising interest of a flex cap which only raises the block size when fee collected in each block is higher than block reward

interesting idea. but to up the 1MB limit, we need fees at ~0.0125BTC ( ~2.5$ ) if you assume 2000tx (~1MB worth) per block.

that a pretty high fee! so much for "virtual free transactions."

and at that point a shit load of TX wouldnt happen on the network, this method would very quickly make bitcoin no able to handle micropayments.

maybe if fee where >1BTC the limit would be pushed up would be more reasonable.

Ok then maybe 0.1 block reward is better. Block reward will cut by half next year, so eventually fee will rise pass block reward, it is just a matter of time.

Another concern: Block reward halving every 4 years is very drastic. When the block reward get enough small, more and more miners will be shut down, since it does not give miners enough incentive to mine when majority of coins were mined

Since early days of mining, many miners were incentivized to acquire a big enough pie of the total coin supply: "If I get hold of xxx% of the total money supply, then one day if bitcoin economy grow to xxxxx trillion dollar, I will have xxx% of this whole economy". But after mining reward cut by half several times, this incentive will not hold, so it is important to have decent fee income to keep the miners on board. I guess at 6.25 btc block reward the fee could be getting close to block reward

[brg444]

By the way, I'm seeing rising interest of a flex cap which only raises the block size when fee collected in each block is higher than block reward

interesting idea. but to up the 1MB limit, we need fees at ~0.0125BTC ( ~2.5$ ) if you assume 2000tx (~1MB worth) per block.

that a pretty high fee! so much for "virtual free transactions."

and at that point a shit load of TX wouldnt happen on the network, this method would very quickly make bitcoin no able to handle micropayments.

maybe if fee where >1BTC the limit would be pushed up would be more reasonable.

You are aware that a majority of transactions involving Bitcoin already occur off-chain?

[adamstgBit]

By the way, I'm seeing rising interest of a flex cap which only raises the block size when fee collected in each block is higher than block reward

interesting idea. but to up the 1MB limit, we need fees at ~0.0125BTC ( ~2.5$ ) if you assume 2000tx (~1MB worth) per block.

that a pretty high fee! so much for "virtual free transactions."

and at that point a shit load of TX wouldnt happen on the network, this method would very quickly make bitcoin no able to handle micropayments.

maybe if fee where >1BTC the limit would be pushed up would be more reasonable.

Ok then maybe 0.1 block reward is better. Block reward will cut by half next year, so eventually fee will rise pass block reward, it is just a matter of time.

Another concern: Block reward halving every 4 years is very drastic. When the block reward get enough small, more and more miners will be shut down, since it does not give miners enough incentive to mine when majority of coins were mined. Since early days of mining, many miners were incentivized to acquire a big enough pie of the total coin supply. But after mining reward cut by half several times, this incentive will not hold, so it is important to have decent fee income to keep the miners on board. I guess at 6.25 btc block reward the fee could be getting close to block reward

its not so much the amount of BTC the block reward has that is the incentive to mine as it is the $ value that BTC amount represents. so we'd need to see price double every 4 years to keep miners happy i guess. sounds resnable.

for miners to get the most out of the fee's, they should try and target a fee where 80% of current transactions would be willing to pay. you dont want fee's to high, and you don't want them too low, a fee where 80% of poeple agree with ensures the "price is right". so take the avg TX size ( i guess this would be like 0.1BTC??? )  assume 80% of people are willing to pay no more than 1%, and you get a fee of 0.001BTC ~23cents.

sounds about right.

full 1MB blocks would give them 2BTC
full 8MB blocks would give them 16BTC

conclusion,
the flex cap should only raise the block size when fee collected in each block is higher than :
 (avg_TX_size_BTC * 0.01 * num_max_tx_pre_block)BTC

[adamstgBit]

By the way, I'm seeing rising interest of a flex cap which only raises the block size when fee collected in each block is higher than block reward

interesting idea. but to up the 1MB limit, we need fees at ~0.0125BTC ( ~2.5$ ) if you assume 2000tx (~1MB worth) per block.

that a pretty high fee! so much for "virtual free transactions."

and at that point a shit load of TX wouldnt happen on the network, this method would very quickly make bitcoin no able to handle micropayments.

maybe if fee where >1BTC the limit would be pushed up would be more reasonable.

Ok then maybe 0.1 block reward is better. Block reward will cut by half next year, so eventually fee will rise pass block reward, it is just a matter of time.

Another concern: Block reward halving every 4 years is very drastic. When the block reward get enough small, more and more miners will be shut down, since it does not give miners enough incentive to mine when majority of coins were mined. Since early days of mining, many miners were incentivized to acquire a big enough pie of the total coin supply. But after mining reward cut by half several times, this incentive will not hold, so it is important to have decent fee income to keep the miners on board. I guess at 6.25 btc block reward the fee could be getting close to block reward

its not so much the amount of BTC the block reward has that is the incentive to mine as it is the $ value that BTC amount represents. so we'd need to see price double every 4 years to keep miners happy i guess. sounds resnable.

for miners to get the most out of the fee's, they should try and target a fee where 80% of current transactions would be willing to pay. you dont want fee's to high, and you don't want them too low, a fee where 80% of poeple agree with ensures the "price is right". so take the avg TX size ( i guess this would be like 0.1BTC??? )  assume 80% of people are willing to pay no more than 1%, and you get a fee of 0.001BTC ~23cents.

sounds about right.

full 1MB blocks would give them 2BTC
full 8MB blocks would give them 16BTC

conclusion,
the flex cap should only raise the block size when fee collected in each block is higher than :
 (avg_TX_size_BTC * 0.01 * num_max_tx_pre_block)BTC

this idea is pretty cool because its allows miners to collect more fee's based on supply and demand ( available space on each block ) and at the same time we can put a cap on how much they can use this excuse to up the fee.

some really indepth evaluation as to what the MAX fee should be before block limit is raised should be thought up tho.

this formula needs to consider what the network will need in $ terms to securely sustain itself solely on fees in the future.

maybe all this can help solve the question of how big a block should be to strike the right balance between keeping mining affordable and decentralized, and at the same time provide a low cost TXs

block limit debate now boils down to: how much mining centralization should we allow in the name of cheep transactions.

IMO it should cost ~5cents and mining should be allowed to be as centralized as needed to provide 5cent fees.

so i'm now thinking only up the limit when tx fee is (some crazy formula that allows for a MAX fee of 5-10cents)

this is annoyingly interesting wasting alot of time here lately  .

imagine this the limit is raised and suddenly TX fees come down do 1cent pre TX, maybe the block size should be set lower in that case so that fees are 5cents again.

difficulty is retargeted to keep blocks coming out at ~10min intervals
block size is retargeted to keep TX cost at ~5cents.

Booya, we've solved it call the devs!
lmao

[brg444]

By the way, I'm seeing rising interest of a flex cap which only raises the block size when fee collected in each block is higher than block reward

interesting idea. but to up the 1MB limit, we need fees at ~0.0125BTC ( ~2.5$ ) if you assume 2000tx (~1MB worth) per block.

that a pretty high fee! so much for "virtual free transactions."

and at that point a shit load of TX wouldnt happen on the network, this method would very quickly make bitcoin no able to handle micropayments.

maybe if fee where >1BTC the limit would be pushed up would be more reasonable.

Ok then maybe 0.1 block reward is better. Block reward will cut by half next year, so eventually fee will rise pass block reward, it is just a matter of time.

Another concern: Block reward halving every 4 years is very drastic. When the block reward get enough small, more and more miners will be shut down, since it does not give miners enough incentive to mine when majority of coins were mined. Since early days of mining, many miners were incentivized to acquire a big enough pie of the total coin supply. But after mining reward cut by half several times, this incentive will not hold, so it is important to have decent fee income to keep the miners on board. I guess at 6.25 btc block reward the fee could be getting close to block reward

its not so much the amount of BTC the block reward has that is the incentive to mine as it is the $ value that BTC amount represents. so we'd need to see price double every 4 years to keep miners happy i guess. sounds resnable.

for miners to get the most out of the fee's, they should try and target a fee where 80% of current transactions would be willing to pay. you dont want fee's to high, and you don't want them too low, a fee where 80% of poeple agree with ensures the "price is right". so take the avg TX size ( i guess this would be like 0.1BTC??? )  assume 80% of people are willing to pay no more than 1%, and you get a fee of 0.001BTC ~23cents.

sounds about right.

full 1MB blocks would give them 2BTC
full 8MB blocks would give them 16BTC

conclusion,
the flex cap should only raise the block size when fee collected in each block is higher than :
 (avg_TX_size_BTC * 0.01 * num_max_tx_pre_block)BTC

this idea is pretty cool because its allows miners to collect more fee's based on supply and demand ( available space on each block ) and at the same time we can put a cap on how much they can use this excuse to up the fee.

some really indepth evaluation as to what the MAX fee should be before block limit is raised should be thought up tho.

this formula needs to consider what the network will need in $ terms to securely sustain itself solely on fees in the future.

maybe all this can help solve the question of how big a block should be to strike the right balance between keeping mining affordable and decentralized, and at the same time provide a low cost TXs

block limit debate now boils down to: how much mining centralization should we allow in the name of cheep transactions.

IMO it should cost ~5cents and mining should be allowed to be as centralized as needed to provide 5cent fees.

so i'm now thinking only up the limit when tx fee is (some crazy formula that allows for a MAX fee of 5-10cents)

this is annoyingly interesting wasting alot of time here lately  .

imagine this the limit is raised and suddenly TX fees come down do 1cent pre TX, maybe the block size should be set lower in that case so that fees are 5cents again.

difficulty is retargeted to keep blocks coming out at ~10min intervals
block size is retargeted to keep TX cost at ~5cents.

Booya, we've solved it call the devs!
lmao

determining the block size by targeting a tx fee limit is the most fucktarded idea I've come accross with so far.

but yes by all means, call the devs!!

[johnyj]

When the block reward get enough small, more and more miners will be shut down, since it does not give miners enough incentive to mine when majority of coins were mined.

Since early days of mining, many miners were incentivized to acquire a big enough pie of the total coin supply. But after mining reward cut by half several times, this incentive will not hold, so it is important to have decent fee income to keep the miners on board. I guess at 6.25 btc block reward the fee could be getting close to block reward

its not so much the amount of BTC the block reward has that is the incentive to mine as it is the $ value that BTC amount represents. so we'd need to see price double every 4 years to keep miners happy i guess. sounds resnable.

The dollar value is irrelevant. This is like buying Alaska several centuries ago, you get a big share of the total available land on the earth, but maybe that land is not used for a long time

Bitcoin is like land, you can not imagine what kind of value would grow out of it, the only thing for sure is that the supply is limited, so many miners are rushing to reserve their share before something big happens

[dachnik]

Reaching consensus requires finding a common ground.

In the case of a block size increase that common ground becomes the interests of Bitcoin (as a whole), but not the interests of its different parties, which often conflict with each other.

In order to agree on that one thing, we need to look at how Bitcoin started and how it gained value, what purposes different parameters of the system serve and how Bitcoin stands against the competition in the foreseeable future.

So, basically, consensus is not about differences of opinions and voting, but rather about finding a single underlying truth, sticking to it and understanding that benefiting Bitcoin (by agreeing) will actually benefit all of the parties involved.

Bitcoin shows us that being able to negotiate on complex issues and acting in goodwill is actually a mathematical necessity for progress and evolution.

[oblivi]

The coin vote thing is a double edged sword. It can seem a good idea but let's be serious, anyone with an agenda and a lot of money would be able to single handedly decide the fate of Bitcoin by buying a lot of coins and voting with them.

[funkenstein]

The coin vote thing is a double edged sword. It can seem a good idea but let's be serious, anyone with an agenda and a lot of money would be able to single handedly decide the fate of Bitcoin by buying a lot of coins and voting with them.

Thanks for your reply.  You have a point.  However consider that such a person with an agenda could also for a similar price "decide the fate of bitcoin" by using those coins to DDOS the network, or using them to buy asics to attack the network, or otherwise (buy off pool operators, form standing army, who knows).  

It is also worth pointing out that buying half the bitcoins will cost you A LOT more than a billion USD.  My guess is the figure would be more like a trillion, but even then you might not get to 7million BTC.  A lot of hodlers are of the "come get these private keys out of the clenched fist of my corpse or don't get them at all" variety.  Others are of the "I laugh at any number of USD" variety.    

It's also worth noting that even with a huge stake demonstrating their opinion, it doesn't mean bitcoin will comply with said opinion.  

[tonycamp]

we need also democracy for good sakes a idea into the best position to be able to be voted in order to the followers to be able not to be nervouse and kill of bad consequence world without the good ideas to capitalize

[Liquid71]

unrestrained democracy is the same as mob rule and it has failed throughout history and would leave Bitcoin vulnerable to the whims of public opinion.

The U.S. for example is a democratic Republic not a pure democracy. Be careful what you wish for, a true democracy would leave Bitcoin vulnerable to fear mongering politicians being able to influence the Bitcoin protocol. What if Trump claimed Bitcoin was being used by illegal immigrants   

[Liquid71]

we need also democracy for good sakes a idea into the best position to be able to be voted in order to the followers to be able not to be nervouse and kill of bad consequence world without the good ideas to capitalize

It would be a dangerous world for Bitcon if this guys   vote had the same weight and power as a vote from one of the core developers. Voting by coins owned is also dangerous as it leaves the few with the most coins in control of Bitcoin. The exchanges which have Bitcoin on deposit would have the ability to control Bitcoin, also Satoshi could come back and rule Bitcoin with an iron fist with his coins.

[funkenstein]

we need also democracy for good sakes a idea into the best position to be able to be voted in order to the followers to be able not to be nervouse and kill of bad consequence world without the good ideas to capitalize

It would be a dangerous world for Bitcon if this guys   vote had the same weight and power as a vote from one of the core developers. Voting by coins owned is also dangerous as it leaves the few with the most coins in control of Bitcoin. The exchanges which have Bitcoin on deposit would have the ability to control Bitcoin, also Satoshi could come back and rule Bitcoin with an iron fist with his coins.

A vote is in no way dangerous, it is simply an opinion poll.  A coin-vote is a verifiable opinion poll, nothing more.  To algorithmically decide life and death based on the results of one of these polls, sure that would be dangerous.  But nobody suggested that. 

Our Coin-vote project is just an easy way for people to register their opinion.  Somebody could do the same with dpaste really, just that tallying them would be more of a pain.  How is that dangerous?