Matonis: If Bitcoin XT Succeeds You Can Kiss 21 Million Cap Goodbye

[MicroGuy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=748&v=OwO5u6OVaaA

Jon Matonis sat down for an interview on Wednesday to clarify his recent statements regarding possible increases to Bitcoin’s 21 million supply cap. He is the Founding Director of the Bitcoin Foundation, former CEO of Hushmail, and a contributor to Forbes and Coindesk.

Matonis believes it might be possible to preserve the 21 million bitcoin cap, but only if Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen withdrawal their attempts to hard fork bitcoin by propagating Bitcoin XT to existing nodes.

"Bitcoin XT is attempting to fork the core code by propagating it through the existing nodes. I would urge Gavin and Mike Hearn to withdrawal the Bitcoin XT propagation starting today. (If Gavin and Hearn succeed) it will eventually lead to a 21 million cap change."

If two rogue developers can manage to increase the Bitcoin block size without the consensus of Bitcoin's core development team, Matonis believes it might then be time to kiss the 21 million Bitcoin limit goodbye.

"When we get to July 2016 someone else could propagate software so that the block reward wouldn’t go down to twelve and a half. That’s entirely possible. That is no different than what we're seeing now with the block size."

But Jon never mentioned that Gavin controls Bitcoin’s Alert Key. Making him the only known Bitcoin developer with the power to send out security alerts and upgrade notices to every single Bitcoin core client. That power should never be underestimated or forgotten.

Full Story: http://altcoinpress.com/2015/06/matonis-if-bitcoin-xt-succeeds-you-can-kiss-21-million-cap-goodbye/

[Alley]

People would just switch back to core.  This is a non issue.

[MicroGuy]

People would just switch back to core.  This is a non issue.

Jon explains in the video that he believes user consensus will eventually support a 21 million cap change. He uses various welfare programs as examples.

[jonald_fyookball]

pure fud

[MicroGuy]

pure fud

If you will watch the first 20 minutes of video, I think you'll agree that Jon makes some excellent points. Not sure where the FUD is you mention.

[Meuh6879]

Bitcoin is build on trust.
Trust of the supply.
Trust of the limit.
Trust of the value.

XT solve differents problems ... but trust ?
Trust is solve by the majority.

[jonald_fyookball]

pure fud

If you will watch the first 20 minutes of video, I think you'll agree that Jon makes some excellent points. Not sure where the FUD is you mention.

THIS:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Prohibited_changes

[pedrog]

Well, that escalated quickly...

Even if the 21 million cap is altered, who cares? We will all be dead by then!

[MicroGuy]

pure fud

If you will watch the first 20 minutes of video, I think you'll agree that Jon makes some excellent points. Not sure where the FUD is you mention.

THIS:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Prohibited_changes

To my understanding, those rules are unenforceable if XT succeeds and core developer consensus is by-passed.

https://bitcoin.org/en/development

Well, that escalated quickly...

Even if the 21 million cap is altered, who cares? We will all be dead by then!

Watch the video. Jon is talking about July 2016 and the possibility of the block reward not being decremented to 12 1/2.

[jonald_fyookball]

pure fud

If you will watch the first 20 minutes of video, I think you'll agree that Jon makes some excellent points. Not sure where the FUD is you mention.

THIS:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Prohibited_changes

To my understanding, those rules are currently unenforceable if XT succeeds and core developer consensus is ignored.
 

If miners and/or nodes support a version of Bitcoin that increases the supply, it will necessarily be a hard fork
from the version of Bitcoin that keeps the supply as it is.  I know which version I'd go with and I'd venture
to say that 99% of Bitcoiners would agree.  (That's why this is pure FUD.)

EDIT:  Heck, even if 90% DISAGREE, let them have their
non-21M Bitcoin.  I'm sticking with the original.

In addition, I think you may have a misunderstanding about how consensus
works in Bitcoin.  EVERY user must consent to the rules, not just the core
developers. 

If any rules are changed that are incompatible with the existing protocol,
a fork arises.   Assuming you are running your own node, you can choose
EXACTLY what rules (what version of Bitcion) you want to use.  And
if you're not running your own node, then you can run an SPV client
that follows the set of rules you want.  It's that simple.

[pedrog]

Well, that escalated quickly...

Even if the 21 million cap is altered, who cares? We will all be dead by then!

Watch the video. Jon is talking about July 2016 and the possibility of the block reward not being decremented to 12 1/2.

Then bitcoin stops being bitcoin, there are plenty of alts out there, people just move to litecoin.

[jbrnt]

If the 21M cap is changed, bitcoin will loose its core value and price will plummit. There is no point in changing the 21M cap. What will it achieve? Gavin and Mike understands that. He is just saying that to scare users off XT.

[BillyBobZorton]

If the 21M cap is changed, bitcoin will loose its core value and price will plummit. There is no point in changing the 21M cap. What will it achieve? Gavin and Mike understands that. He is just saying that to scare users off XT.

This. Let's see, we all know (users, miners, merchants, developers) that if the 21 million cap is changed in any way, the thing would fucking collapse. Who in hell wins? nobody that wants Bitcoin to be a success. So I don't think Gavin is a Kamikaze. He may have his controversial opinions on what needs to be done on BTC, but he asks for consensus. And I doubt he wants to kill the coin in purpose, so he will never change the 21 million cap, because that is an insta-kill.

[DooMAD]

Bull.

I doubt miners would see even a fleeting interest in raising the 21 million cap because they wouldn't voluntarily contribute to a reduction in the value of the coins they're earning.  Whatever the founding director of a less-than-transparent foundation thinks, it's not even a remotely likely outcome.  Attempting to tie any such willingness to promote such a change in XT is completely baseless.  Anyone could theoretically release a client at any point with an altered cap, but:

a) that doesn't mean anyone would support it
b) XT is no more likely to try to implement such a change than any other client
and
c) no one is likely to try it at all.

Slightly OT, but he also he seems to be yet another person who doesn't understand the simple fact that more users would equal more fees collected in the long term.  I cringe every time he calls it a "subsidy" just because he doesn't understand basic numerics.  It's not going to be about "free transactions" as time goes on.  If you artificially limit the number of transactions you can process, you are in turn also artificially limiting the revenue you could be collecting.  Why are people still in denial about this?  People also talk about forcing smaller transactions (that goddamned "cup of coffee" argument) off-chain, but again, this would just take away potential mining revenue and give it to whatever third party would process it instead.  

Run it through to its logical conclusion.  Most new users pick up an SPV/lightweight client and most of those clients are pre-configured to include a fee.  The vast majority of those users will have no need whatsoever to send fractions of a penny over the network.  It's only natural that over the course of time, free microtransactions will become a smaller percentage of the overall traffic being processed.  Most of them will be legitimate, fee-paying transactions.  If Bitcoin ever turns into a niche service that only a small number of people use once in a while to move a sizeable amount, that will generate less fees for miners than millions of people using it several times a day for small and medium sized purchases, plus the occasional large one.  There is no gain whatsoever in artificially limiting our target audience, so the blocksize has to accommodate them as the userbase grows.  

[jyakulis]

meh who gives a damn about the bitcoin foundation. increase how divisible it is, not how many if you are going to do anything.

[blablaace]

to be honest, I find it scary that we are even having this discussion at all ..

[tokeweed]

Then I guess there are more ulterior motives behind XT than a 20mb block. 

[photon_coin]

obviously

Then I guess there are more ulterior motives behind XT than a 20mb block. 

[tokeweed]

Then let's officially call XT as Gavincoin just to get it's official altcoin tag out there. GVC.

[jubalix]

People would just switch back to core.  This is a non issue.

Jon explains in the video that he believes user consensus will eventually support a 21 million cap change. He uses various welfare programs as examples.

Not that won't work as you will just fork to  new coin while everyone else runs the 21 M version.

Welfare programs are not comparable because you don't have a choice to opt out fiat money supply/fractional reserve banking/be the bank....until now.

Bitcoin enable the elision of sovereignty to the individual, empowered by choice force for the first time in history.

This not something any rational actor gives up.

Non rational actors exist but they die out pretty fast or are marginalized.