"Bitcoin" XT Status Update

[dooglus]

The XT Manifesto states the following:

The principles XT uses to guide decisions on patches are as follows:

* We try to follow the founding vision of the Bitcoin project, as defined by Satoshi's writings. That means:
* We support a Bitcoin network in which ordinary people settle with each directly on the block chain.
* We aim for mainstream adoption, by people who may not be ideologically motivated.
* We focus on the user experience, as ultimately, how users experience Bitcoin is fundamental to the project's success.
* Better is better. Changes can be useful even if more work remains to be done, or there are theoretically better proposals not backed by working code. Put another way, perfect is the enemy of the good.
* Truly mainstream adoption is not inevitable; it requires hard work by everyone. We must never make decisions based on the assumption of inevitable success.
* There is a clear decision making process, and product decisions are made in a timely manner.
* We maintain a professional working environment at all times. The developer discussion forum is moderated and troublemaking, nastyness, Machiavellianism etc will result in bans.

Note that neither security nor decentralization feature *at all* in their list of principles.

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[canth]

The XT Manifesto states the following:

The principles XT uses to guide decisions on patches are as follows:

* We try to follow the founding vision of the Bitcoin project, as defined by Satoshi's writings. That means:
* We support a Bitcoin network in which ordinary people settle with each directly on the block chain.
* We aim for mainstream adoption, by people who may not be ideologically motivated.
* We focus on the user experience, as ultimately, how users experience Bitcoin is fundamental to the project's success.
* Better is better. Changes can be useful even if more work remains to be done, or there are theoretically better proposals not backed by working code. Put another way, perfect is the enemy of the good.
* Truly mainstream adoption is not inevitable; it requires hard work by everyone. We must never make decisions based on the assumption of inevitable success.
* There is a clear decision making process, and product decisions are made in a timely manner.
* We maintain a professional working environment at all times. The developer discussion forum is moderated and troublemaking, nastyness, Machiavellianism etc will result in bans.

Note that neither security nor decentralization feature *at all* in their list of principles.

That's one way to read into it. Another is that with more users able to experience on-chain transactions, their security and decentralization is greater than it would be if they were forced to choose off-chain transactions as a result of higher fees/less throughput.

[Glucose]

I don't understand anything about this XT, bitcoin fork thing... Even if it looks like a big event..

Can anyone explain what is happening with simple words for non-english speakers ?

I would be really happy to be able to understand what's going on

[canth]

I don't understand anything about this XT, bitcoin fork thing... Even if it looks like a big event..

Can anyone explain what is happening with simple words for non-english speakers ?

I would be really happy to be able to understand what's going on

https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinxt/comments/3gm3a6/can_someone_eli5/ctzcn11

There's a proposed protocol change (block size increase, I'm not going to go into the pros and cons here). The change is controversial. The change would cause a hard fork, so people who adopt the change and people who don't adopt the change will end up on different networks.
Bitcoin XT is a version of bitcoin that adopts the protocol change. It only does so if and when 75% of miners agree.
As a normal user, it means you have to decide which version you want to run (read up on the pros and cons and make an informed decision, it's your choice to make), normal bitcoin or bitcoin XT. Your choice won't make the fork more or less likely to happen (except that large numbers of XT users could influence miners' choices), but it will determine which side of the fork you are on if and when it happens.
Also, if you aren't running a full node then for now all you can do is sit back and watch the fireworks happen. There will be more information on how to keep your coins safe if and when it gets closer to time for the fork to happen (it's out there now, but it's not widely publicized).

[iCEBREAKER]

I'm unsubscribed, so I guess no - I don't GAF about r/bitcoin. The real question is why Theymos gives such a damn about people wanting to discuss things that impact, oh, Bitcoin.

Thank you for avoiding the obnoxious performative contradiction of continued participation in a subreddit to which you ostensibly object.

I appreciate the logical consistency, even if it is lost on most of your fellow Gavincoiners and/or anti-thermosists.   

Let us for the moment ignore the unpleasant implications of your continued participation in this (formerly?) esteemed venue, because I would would miss your company more than I would enjoy pressing that uncomfortable point.

Nevertheless, you have intentionally mischaracterized what Theymos does and does not give "such a damn about."

The issue is *HOW* some things impact Bitcoin, not merely the neutral fact of an impact and unavoidably ensuing discussion.

Theymos has already, on multiple occasions, explained with clarity the distinction he finds, in his prerogative as moderator, important:

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.

Please consider taking this locally definitive advisory into account in your future posts.

If you cannot, or do not, I may have to escalate the matter of your (perhaps intentional) oversight, and refer you to his subsequent admonishment.   

[smoothie]

The XT Manifesto states the following:

The principles XT uses to guide decisions on patches are as follows:

* We try to follow the founding vision of the Bitcoin project, as defined by Satoshi's writings. That means:
* We support a Bitcoin network in which ordinary people settle with each directly on the block chain.
* We aim for mainstream adoption, by people who may not be ideologically motivated.
* We focus on the user experience, as ultimately, how users experience Bitcoin is fundamental to the project's success.
* Better is better. Changes can be useful even if more work remains to be done, or there are theoretically better proposals not backed by working code. Put another way, perfect is the enemy of the good.
* Truly mainstream adoption is not inevitable; it requires hard work by everyone. We must never make decisions based on the assumption of inevitable success.
* There is a clear decision making process, and product decisions are made in a timely manner.
* We maintain a professional working environment at all times. The developer discussion forum is moderated and troublemaking, nastyness, Machiavellianism etc will result in bans.

Note that neither security nor decentralization feature *at all* in their list of principles.

Read in bold. That encompasses security and decentralization.

Please keep up. Thanks 

[smoothie]

The XT Manifesto states the following:

The principles XT uses to guide decisions on patches are as follows:

* We try to follow the founding vision of the Bitcoin project, as defined by Satoshi's writings. That means:
* We support a Bitcoin network in which ordinary people settle with each directly on the block chain.
* We aim for mainstream adoption, by people who may not be ideologically motivated.
* We focus on the user experience, as ultimately, how users experience Bitcoin is fundamental to the project's success.
* Better is better. Changes can be useful even if more work remains to be done, or there are theoretically better proposals not backed by working code. Put another way, perfect is the enemy of the good.
* Truly mainstream adoption is not inevitable; it requires hard work by everyone. We must never make decisions based on the assumption of inevitable success.
* There is a clear decision making process, and product decisions are made in a timely manner.
* We maintain a professional working environment at all times. The developer discussion forum is moderated and troublemaking, nastyness, Machiavellianism etc will result in bans.

Note that neither security nor decentralization feature *at all* in their list of principles.

That's one way to read into it. Another is that with more users able to experience on-chain transactions, their security and decentralization is greater than it would be if they were forced to choose off-chain transactions as a result of higher fees/less throughput.

Well said. Being forced off chain eventually to payment channels like block stream and lightning network is a form of centralization.

They claim "trustless" payment channels. But I have yet to see a system they develop that is truly TRUSTLESS.

[iCEBREAKER]

So much for respecting the precautionary principle ("the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action"). 

Isn't that the one which - if it had been around as of the mid-1960s - would have nixed the Apollo moon-landing program?

No, it's the one of the good engineering practices that made Apollo a success.

I had a hunch that you'd move the goal posts...

...Anyhoo, this is the cryptocurrency frontier: I won't get captious over whatever principle you use to keep your own boat afloat. It's just that in the wide wide world of Big-Government Realville, the "precautionary principle" devolves quite easily into the "Nervous Nellie Principle" and/or the "EPA Shenanigan Principle." But as I stipulated, this observation ain't pertinent to the cryptocurrency frontier.

I would never resort to moving goal posts.  What an offensive suggestion!  If anything, I am the Goal Post Police, and enforce the rules of rational debate upon this den of cybernetic inequity.

The source of your confusion and consequent aggression is your mistaken conflation of the "do no harm" deontological philosophic principle with a practical engineering heuristic (the precautionary principle).

Granted, the involved abstruse distinctions are nuanced and probably quite beyond your ken (IE education and aptitude) so you have every right to expect and demand an accounting on your own clumsy, ham-fisted terms.

Sorry about that!   

[iCEBREAKER]

The XT Manifesto states

I'd dearly love to participate in the ensuing discussion, but honestly cannot read past the words "XT Manifesto" without snickering, giggling, and ultimately succumbing to hearty guffaws, belly laughs, and the like.

Bitcoin Manifesto is hilarious for the same reasons as the idea of an Internet Police.

I hope no mobility scooters were overloaded with neckbearded dwellers during the production of the "XT Manifesto."  ROFLMAOPIMPIRL!

[Nxtblg]

So much for respecting the precautionary principle ("the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action"). 

Isn't that the one which - if it had been around as of the mid-1960s - would have nixed the Apollo moon-landing program?

No, it's the one of the good engineering practices that made Apollo a success.

I had a hunch that you'd move the goal posts...

...Anyhoo, this is the cryptocurrency frontier: I won't get captious over whatever principle you use to keep your own boat afloat. It's just that in the wide wide world of Big-Government Realville, the "precautionary principle" devolves quite easily into the "Nervous Nellie Principle" and/or the "EPA Shenanigan Principle." But as I stipulated, this observation ain't pertinent to the cryptocurrency frontier.

I would never resort to moving goal posts.  What an offensive suggestion!  If anything, I am the Goal Post Police, and enforce the rules of rational debate upon this den of cybernetic inequity.

The source of your confusion and consequent aggression is your mistaken conflation of the "do no harm" deontological philosophic principle with a practical engineering heuristic (the precautionary principle).

Granted, the involved abstruse distinctions are nuanced and probably quite beyond your ken (IE education and aptitude) so you have every right to expect and demand an accounting on your own clumsy, ham-fisted terms.

Sorry about that!   

Well, I have to hand this to you: you're very good at word-spinning. It is noteworthy that you responded to my objection - written carefully so as not to imply a putdown of you - with a putdown of me. A putdown that's almost a cliché, it's so stereotypical these days.

FYI: your definition of the "precautionary principle", which you yourself voluntarily and affirmatively supplied before I jumped in, contained the four significant words "the burden of proof". If you choose to word-spin again by claiming that "the burden of proof" carries some recondite engineering-specific meaning unknown to all but a few specialists, for which it would be collegial to supply a link that backs up your fine words, those four words mean exactly what they say.

Fact: one of the worries about a moon shot that the worriers glommed onto was a real unknown: the level of cosmic background radiation (including those cosmic rays) beyond the protective sheath of the Van Allen belt. Had the "precautionary principle" been around, that objections - plus the complete lack of hard data on the real level of background radiation beyond the Van Allen Belt - would have nixed the Apollo moon shot, or at the minimum shelved it until enough unmanned spacecrafts had been sent up beyond the Van Allen Belt to provide enough measurements of the outside-the-Belt radiation level for a statistically valid gauge of the real radiation level. Including error bars, naturally.

But...thankfully for the human race, any such "precautionary principle" would have been laughed to the ground in the mid-late 1960s. NASA did take it slowly and methodically after Apollo 1 blew up, but that methodicalness was just ordinary prudence: nothing more.

As you can see, I am not good at your kind of word-spinning.

[ElitistCA]

sorry for noob question but what would be effect of Bitcoin XT on original one. Are there gonna be two diff BTCs? Will BTCXT be copy of BTC network, so everyone that owns BTC also automaticaly owns BTCXT? or is it like altcoin? yeah Im definition of ignorant, I know.

[Furio]

sorry for noob question but what would be effect of Bitcoin XT on original one. Are there gonna be two diff BTCs? Will BTCXT be copy of BTC network, so everyone that owns BTC also automaticaly owns BTCXT? or is it like altcoin? yeah Im definition of ignorant, I know.

It's all about adoption, as soon as more then 75% of the network switches to bitcoin xt, you will have bitcoin XT's, yet this sin't going to happen untill 2016

[iCEBREAKER]

FYI: your definition of the "precautionary principle", which you yourself voluntarily and affirmatively supplied before I jumped in, contained the four significant words "the burden of proof". If you choose to word-spin again by claiming that "the burden of proof" carries some recondite engineering-specific meaning unknown to all but a few specialists, for which it would be collegial to supply a link that backs up your fine words, those four words mean exactly what they say.

Fact: one of the worries about a moon shot that the worriers glommed onto was a real unknown: the level of cosmic background radiation (including those cosmic rays) beyond the protective sheath of the Van Allen belt. Had the "precautionary principle" been around, that objections - plus the complete lack of hard data on the real level of background radiation beyond the Van Allen Belt - would have nixed the Apollo moon shot, or at the minimum shelved it until enough unmanned spacecrafts had been sent up beyond the Van Allen Belt to provide enough measurements of the outside-the-Belt radiation level for a statistically valid gauge of the real radiation level. Including error bars, naturally.

But...thankfully for the human race, any such "precautionary principle" would have been laughed to the ground in the mid-late 1960s. NASA did take it slowly and methodically after Apollo 1 blew up, but that methodicalness was just ordinary prudence: nothing more.

So we shouldn't worry about what raising the 1mb 750k limit might break, because of cosmic rays on the moon?   

Cool story bro.  Thanks for demonstrating I was correct to surmise the involved abstruse distinctions (software vs space medicine, Bitcoin vs Cold War rivalry, abstract global deontology vs concrete local heuristics) are nuanced beyond your education and aptitude.

I heard the crazy Soviets are experimenting with 50MB blocks at Baikonur.  Quick, we must close the blockchain gap and leapfrog them with a 100MB maximum!   

[canth]

FYI: your definition of the "precautionary principle", which you yourself voluntarily and affirmatively supplied before I jumped in, contained the four significant words "the burden of proof". If you choose to word-spin again by claiming that "the burden of proof" carries some recondite engineering-specific meaning unknown to all but a few specialists, for which it would be collegial to supply a link that backs up your fine words, those four words mean exactly what they say.

Fact: one of the worries about a moon shot that the worriers glommed onto was a real unknown: the level of cosmic background radiation (including those cosmic rays) beyond the protective sheath of the Van Allen belt. Had the "precautionary principle" been around, that objections - plus the complete lack of hard data on the real level of background radiation beyond the Van Allen Belt - would have nixed the Apollo moon shot, or at the minimum shelved it until enough unmanned spacecrafts had been sent up beyond the Van Allen Belt to provide enough measurements of the outside-the-Belt radiation level for a statistically valid gauge of the real radiation level. Including error bars, naturally.

But...thankfully for the human race, any such "precautionary principle" would have been laughed to the ground in the mid-late 1960s. NASA did take it slowly and methodically after Apollo 1 blew up, but that methodicalness was just ordinary prudence: nothing more.

So we shouldn't worry about what raising the 1mb 750k limit might break, because of cosmic rays on the moon?  

http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-August/010284.html

You're obviously intelligent, but your selective quotes seem to point to a level of intellectual dishonesty. What proof do you have that miners are struggling with blocks vs just being lazy and choosing to SPV mine because it's easier than writing software that switches from SPV mining to full block mining 20 seconds after receiving the headers?

Note the next comment on the thread you reference: http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-August/010284.html

"The traffic between the pool server and individual hashers is far busier
than 50kB/30s. If their bandwidth is so limited, hashers would have
switched to other pools already.

All these data may prove is they have very bad mining codes. For
example, their hashers may not be required to update the transaction
list regularly. I don't think they are struggling. They are just too
lazy or think that's too risky to improve their code. After all, they
are generating half million USD per day and a few seconds of downtime
would hurt.

By the way, vast majority of the full blocks (>0.99MB) on the blockchain
are generated by Chinese pools."

Reducing the block size isn't going to magically make mining decentralized. It's not going to make people run more nodes. Decentralation and block size have very little in common. Now, changing the proof of work, introducing items such as DECOR+++/ghost protocol should increase solo mining profitability since orphans no longer become as much of a concern. There are lots of things to work on to decentralize the network, the size of blocks just isn't one of them. Not when an ordinary person with an ordinary computer and ordinary broadband connection is capable of doing full node verification at reasonable performance.

[iCEBREAKER]

You're obviously intelligent

I'm obviously trolling Nxtblg, for taking the precautionary principle as applied to block size and extrapolating a general position of 'no one should ever do anything dangerous, and especially not visit the moon.'

It's a better (more entertaining) response than the silence he deserved.  Why you are white knighting for him?  Butthurt about theymos taking XT out back and shooting it, or what?   

[canth]

You're obviously intelligent

I'm obviously trolling Nxtblg, for taking the precautionary principle as applied to block size and extrapolating a general position of 'no one should ever do anything dangerous, and especially not visit the moon.'

It's a better (more entertaining) response than the silence he deserved.  Why you are white knighting for him?  Butthurt about theymos taking XT out back and shooting it, or what?   

My troll/troll detection mastery is clearly lacking. One day I'll graduate.

[iCEBREAKER]

My troll/troll detection mastery is clearly lacking. One day I'll graduate.

It's possible he was (successfully) trolling me!

But would he know decontextualizing the Space Race from the Cold War is one of my pet peeves?   

[iCEBREAKER]

Good news, a new feature has just been announced that makes XT even better!

they hid a sophisticated program which logs your ip even if you're on proxy or tor, and they add IPs to a blacklist and whitelist. It's not all objective, they can add people at will too. This is much worse than I ever thought, they can control every bitcoin user if they got their fork. It would end bitcoin as we know it. It's a horrible and disgusting abuse of Bitcoin

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1156489.0

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByLnBVYGlyDsT25MNExSUDB2NTA/view?usp=sharing

What a nice surprise.  I love Easter eggs!  They show how much the dev cares for his work and its users.

[Lauda]

-snip-
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1156489.0

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByLnBVYGlyDsT25MNExSUDB2NTA/view?usp=sharing

What a nice surprise.  I love Easter eggs!  They show how much the dev cares for his work and its users.

This isn't a surprise. Hearn is going to push controversial changes, and XT supporters are not listening.

more control is always gained under the disguise of protectionism

This isn't about DoS, it's the first step towards white-listing and blacklisting that would harm Bitcoin (if XT were to take over) to a great extend (possibly without repair). I'm still going to say that the users that are blindly following Hearn are worse than he is. Without the userbase he can't do anything. This is the 4th controversial change that I'm showing to some members, yet they chose to ignore evidence.

[iCEBREAKER]

-snip-
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1156489.0

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByLnBVYGlyDsT25MNExSUDB2NTA/view?usp=sharing

What a nice surprise.  I love Easter eggs!  They show how much the dev cares for his work and its users.

This isn't a surprise. Hearn is going to push controversial changes, and XT supporters are not listening.

more control is always gained under the disguise of protectionism

This isn't about DoS, it's the first step towards white-listing and blacklisting that would harm Bitcoin (if XT were to take over) to a great extend (possibly without repair). I'm still going to say that the users that are blindly following Hearn are worse than he is. Without the userbase he can't do anything. This is the 4th controversial change that I'm showing to some members, yet they chose to ignore evidence.

But...but...but...I was told XT was just Core, with 1MB changed to 8MB with find-and-replace.

This is all the core devs' fault.  They forced Heam to launch his Panopticoin by refusing to raise the limit when it became obvious /r/bitcoin thinks it's a good idea Because Free Transactions.