Not Bitcoin XT

[chek2fire]

This is a special fork for those who do not agree with the blocksize scheduled increase as proposed by Gavin and Mike in their divisive altcoin fork, "Bitcoin XT".

This version can be used to protect the status quo until real technical consensus is formed about the blocksize.

This version is indistinguishable from Bitcoin XT 0.11A except that it will not actually hard fork to BIP101, yet appears on the p2p network as Bitcoin XT 0.11A replete with features, yet at a consensus level behaves just like Bitcoin Core 0.11. If it is used to mine, it will produce XT block versions without actually supporting >1MB blocks.

Running this version and/or mining with XT block versions will make it impossible for the Bitcoin XT network to detect the correct switchover and cause a premature fork of anyone foolish enough to support BIP101 without wide consensus from the technical community.

It prevents correct detection of Bitcoin XT adoption in the wild since usage will be known to have been tampered with and thus all statistical data gathered by getnodes can only be considered unreliable.

https://github.com/xtbit/notbitcoinxt#not-bitcoin-xt

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[JorgeStolfi]

YESSS!!! Bitcoiners trying to hurt bitcoiners over some stupid political squabble!

The world has not seen such entertainment since Christians killed Christians over the right way to be a Christian in the Thirty Years' War

[jl2012]

getnodes is never reliable as people can always use a botnet to run whatever clients they want. All you are doing is to make XT looks stronger, thank you.

For mining, >90% miners are not anonymous, and >68% has already announced their supports to a block size increase. They may not adopt XT, but don't you believe they will sabotage XT with their real names?

Nice try and try harder.

[iCEBREAKER]

This is a special fork for those who do not agree with the blocksize scheduled increase as proposed by Gavin and Mike in their divisive altcoin fork, "Bitcoin XT".

This version can be used to protect the status quo until real technical consensus is formed about the blocksize.

This version is indistinguishable from Bitcoin XT 0.11A except that it will not actually hard fork to BIP101, yet appears on the p2p network as Bitcoin XT 0.11A replete with features, yet at a consensus level behaves just like Bitcoin Core 0.11. If it is used to mine, it will produce XT block versions without actually supporting >1MB blocks.

Running this version and/or mining with XT block versions will make it impossible for the Bitcoin XT network to detect the correct switchover and cause a premature fork of anyone foolish enough to support BIP101 without wide consensus from the technical community.

It prevents correct detection of Bitcoin XT adoption in the wild since usage will be known to have been tampered with and thus all statistical data gathered by getnodes can only be considered unreliable.

https://github.com/xtbit/notbitcoinxt#not-bitcoin-xt

OMG a spoof node?  Gimme!  Nobody could have possibly predicted this would happen!

BRB lighting up some data centers...

Heh, XT now has us right where we want it... 

[iCEBREAKER]

All you are doing is to make XT looks stronger, thank you.

"All warfare is based on deception.  If your opponent is vain, flatter him."  - Sun Tzu

[achow101]

This is such a terrible idea. Why would you want to spoof Bitcoin XT, it will just cause the fork to happen before consensus occurs and if enough people were using that fork, you suddenly just screwed over Bitcoin. Please don't do this, it is such a bad idea. Have you actually considered the consequences of a premature fork? If you haven't, please do think about what could happen to the Bitcoin network if a premature hard fork occurs.

Are you the reason that it looks like Bitcoin XT is gaining traction on bitnodes?

[jl2012]

This is such a terrible idea. Why would you want to spoof Bitcoin XT, it will just cause the fork to happen before consensus occurs and if enough people were using that fork, you suddenly just screwed over Bitcoin. Please don't do this, it is such a bad idea. Have you actually considered the consequences of a premature fork? If you haven't, please do think about what could happen to the Bitcoin network if a premature hard fork occurs.

Are you the reason that it looks like Bitcoin XT is gaining traction on bitnodes?

No worry, asking mining pools to run this crap is even harder than asking them to run the real XT.

[jl2012]

Think twice before you run this:

1. Have you reviewed the code?

2. This thing does no real harm unless you are really mining. With >90% of mining pools are not anonymous, do you think they will use their real name to run a spoof client?

3. Running XT means you support BIP101. Period.

[achow101]

Think twice before you run this:

1. Have you reviewed the code?

I just looked at the code and it looks like the only things changed are two lines which change the date from 1452470400 (11 Jan 2016 00:00:00 UTC) to UINT_MAX which IIRC is 4294967295 (02/07/2106 @ 6:28am (UTC)). So he didn't actually stop the hard fork in those clients, but rather postponed it for another 91 years. OP, you should fix that.

2. This thing does no real harm unless you are really mining. With >90% of mining pools are not anonymous, do you think they will use their real name to run a spoof client?

3. Running XT means you support BIP101. Period.

Exactly. It has the same features (double spend relaying, etc.) and it uses the same block versions. The only difference is that it will not accept the forked block as valid for another 91 years.

[iCEBREAKER]

This is such a terrible idea. Why would you want to spoof Bitcoin XT, it will just cause the fork to happen before consensus occurs and if enough people were using that fork, you suddenly just screwed over Bitcoin. Please don't do this, it is such a bad idea. Have you actually considered the consequences of a premature fork? If you haven't, please do think about what could happen to the Bitcoin network if a premature hard fork occurs.

This is such a wonderful idea.  It protects Bitcoin, at the necessary expense of XT viability.

"Why would you want to spoof Bitcoin XT?"  To cultivate a falsely exaggerated sense of security and encourage premature aggression.  It's a trap!

Are you the reason that it looks like Bitcoin XT is gaining traction on bitnodes?

There's no way for anyone to know.  That's the point!

[lottery248]

avoid from using the XT, unless you are sure that the XT would not break the bitcoin protocol.
XT would ever encourage the centralisation, they knew that they could attempt 51% attacks as we could not afford for the storage anymore,
XT node (BIP101 wallet) are not suitable to the newbies at all.

[achow101]

This is such a terrible idea. Why would you want to spoof Bitcoin XT, it will just cause the fork to happen before consensus occurs and if enough people were using that fork, you suddenly just screwed over Bitcoin. Please don't do this, it is such a bad idea. Have you actually considered the consequences of a premature fork? If you haven't, please do think about what could happen to the Bitcoin network if a premature hard fork occurs.

This is such a wonderful idea.  It protects Bitcoin, at the necessary expense of XT viability.

"Why would you want to spoof Bitcoin XT?"  To cultivate a falsely exaggerated sense of security and encourage premature aggression.  It's a trap!

So what happens when a premature fork happens? What happens when some exchanges are using XT, some aren't. Some people are using XT and others aren't. Now you have exactly the situation which having the threshold in XT prevents, two separate blockchains operating with (possibly) equal power. Now there are two Bitcoins. What do we do then? This is what could happen if people start using this node fake XT node. Again, as I have said before, such a fork is a terrible idea, and this modified XT node will only make the likelihood of such a fork worse.

[DannyHamilton]

I'll stand on record as saying that I am currently running either an actual XT node, or a non-XT node that is self-reporting as XT.

I'll leave it up to the reader to decide for themselves which of the two they believe I am actually running.

[Holliday]

Now there are two Bitcoins. What do we do then?

Taint and sell one of them in order to purchase more of the other with the proceeds.

[iCEBREAKER]

Can I use PseudoNode as a proxy for my Not Bitcoin XT nodes, to multiply their effect?

PseudoNode can now pretend to be Bitcoin XT.

[basil00]

Can I use PseudoNode as a proxy for my Not Bitcoin XT nodes, to multiply their effect?

PseudoNode can now pretend to be Bitcoin XT.

FYI:

PseudoNode is already a type of p2p proxy.  You can download it from here and spoof an XT node directly from a console:

Code:

pseudonode --stealth --coin=bitcoin-xt

or for Windows users:

Code:

PseudoNode.exe --stealth --coin=bitcoin-xt

from a CMD console.

Next go to getaddr.bitnodes.io and if everything is working your IP will show up an an XT node and be counted towards the total  (if not, then probably port 8333 is blocked).  Alternatively, you can pretend to be Bitcoin-core (Satoshi:0.11.0):

Code:

pseudonode --stealth

For those wondering: a PseudoNode is a type of cryptocurrency network node that uses network heuristics (rather than the normal validation method) to validate data.  To the network, a pseudo node appears to be the same as a normal full node, (a pseudonode will relay blocks and transactions just like a regular full node).  However, unlike a normal node, a pseudo node is very fast, and will "sync" with the network within seconds (no lengthy blockchain download is required).  For more information about what PseudoNode is, see here and here.  For those wondering: the network heuristics used by PseudoNode are quite strong in practice -- it is non-trivial to "trick" PseudoNode into relaying invalid data -- although it is theoretically possible.

The point of all this is that node votes-by-user-agent are, in principle, pretty much useless.  It is trivial for anyone to turn their IP address into a "node" at near-zero storage/memory/CPU cost.  This is also one of the reasons why incentivized full nodes don't work.

That all said, for obvious reasons it is better to run proper validating nodes (e.g. even Not Bitcoin XT) rather than pseudo nodes.  My post is provided for information reasons only...

[iCEBREAKER]

This is gentlemen:



 

[forlackofabettername]

I think it's a great thing to have this BUT now you caused a spike in xt nodes that some might misinterpret. Probably xt is about to die off because nobody wants it but now you start hosting nodes for it and probably already own 50% or more of all xt nodes.

Now keep in mind there is the risk here to fork the network. I would prefer letting xt die off instead of forcing the fork with fake nodes. I think this program went public a little bit too soon.

Well, one thing's certain: after anti-xt people now own probably north of 50% of all xt nodes that Gavincoin-junk lies dead in the water.

Well done guys. Just don't fork her up now!

[tmltd]

I think the best way to protect the status quo until real technical consensus is formed about the blocksize is to run more Bitcoin Core "/Satoshi:0.11.0/ (70002)" Full Nodes. So if you can afford the cost install and run Bitcoin Core 0.11.0. ASAP.

[forlackofabettername]

Well, people adopt this way quicker than they do xt... 

[Legov]

I think the best way to protect the status quo until real technical consensus is formed about the blocksize is to run more Bitcoin Core "/Satoshi:0.11.0/ (70002)" Full Nodes. So if you can afford the cost install and run Bitcoin Core 0.11.0. ASAP.

The 75% vote does not depend on the number of full nodes with the right version but on the number of new blocks with the right version.
Running more Bitcoin Core "/Satoshi:0.11.0/ (70002)" is not relevant.
Hashing on this nodes is important!

[unamis76]

This kind of spoofing will just drive away further Bitcoiners. If a fork is prematurely deployed, it will be even bigger chaos than it already is. More harm done with these fake nodes.

Core and XT exist. Why run something else anyways? More code to audit unnecessarily. Time wasted.

[Carlton Banks]

This kind of spoofing will just drive away further Bitcoiners. If a fork is prematurely deployed, it will be even bigger chaos than it already is. More harm done with these fake nodes.

I think that's the point though. Why risk switching to XT and the potential chaos, even if you support it or it's features?

This is kind of a crucial point that's not been made enough: if Mike and Gavin tried to start a real alt coin, not one that relies on Bitcoin's infrastructure, they would fall flat on their faces (and they've not done much better than that otherwise). There is little to no demand for alts, people want bitcoin.

[tmltd]

I think the best way to protect the status quo until real technical consensus is formed about the blocksize is to run more Bitcoin Core "/Satoshi:0.11.0/ (70002)" Full Nodes. So if you can afford the cost install and run Bitcoin Core 0.11.0. ASAP.

The 75% vote does not depend on the number of full nodes with the right version but on the number of new blocks with the right version.
Running more Bitcoin Core "/Satoshi:0.11.0/ (70002)" is not relevant.
Hashing on this nodes is important!

You are right. I misunderstood the 75% vote.
From BitcoinXT

By mining with Bitcoin XT you will produce blocks with a new version number. This indicates to the rest of the network that you support larger blocks. When 75% of the blocks are new-version blocks, a decision has been reached to start building larger blocks that will be rejected by Bitcoin Core nodes.

So only the miners and their hash power will decide and NOT the mass bitcoin users that support the ecosystem.

[Carlton Banks]

So only the miners and their hash power will decide and NOT the mass bitcoin users that support the ecosystem.

Sort of. If all miners switch to XT, but all users stay with Core, then there are no Core miners to process transactions, and no XT transactions for miners to process. Sure they can carry on mining for the block reward, but something tells me the price will tank.

So, the miners determine the triggering of the fork, but they're relying on some critical number of users to follow them, otherwise any further mining is unprofitable to them.

[unamis76]

This kind of spoofing will just drive away further Bitcoiners. If a fork is prematurely deployed, it will be even bigger chaos than it already is. More harm done with these fake nodes.

I think that's the point though. Why risk switching to XT and the potential chaos, even if you support it or it's features?

This is kind of a crucial point that's not been made enough: if Mike and Gavin tried to start a real alt coin, not one that relies on Bitcoin's infrastructure, they would fall flat on their faces (and they've not done much better than that otherwise). There is little to no demand for alts, people want bitcoin.

If chaos is the point, then another thing to consider when using this.

If one believes in XT, he should switch to XT, if one believes in Core he should stay with core.

[knight22]

I don't care about the outcome of BitcoinXT BUT

Those who fear BitcoinXT and try to stop organic consensus does not understand decentralization nor consensus based on economic incentive so one could argue they don't understand bitcoin at all.

Period.

[iCEBREAKER]

This kind of spoofing will just drive away further Bitcoiners. If a fork is prematurely deployed, it will be even bigger chaos than it already is. More harm done with these fake nodes.

I think that's the point though. Why risk switching to XT and the potential chaos, even if you support it or it's features?

This is kind of a crucial point that's not been made enough: if Mike and Gavin tried to start a real alt coin, not one that relies on Bitcoin's infrastructure, they would fall flat on their faces (and they've not done much better than that otherwise). There is little to no demand for alts, people want bitcoin.

If any brave soul was previously considering being the first to defect from Bitcoin's economic majority to begin the process of forming an alternative XT economic majority, they now have to account for the even greater risks due to the uncertainty introduced by spoofed version stamps and NotXT sybil nodes.

No business could possibly justify such a risky move, for no potential gain other than the good feeling of winning an obscure internet nerd fight.

Now its up to some very courageous individuals to jump-start XT's economy, by doing such things as selling me their bullion and coins in exchange for XTcoins.

I was sure smoothie would be XT's one crazy dancer guy who starts a party but he chickened out.  Apparently his support, being limited to running an XT node as a 'fuck you' to Team Core, is a mile wide and an inch deep.   

[knight22]

This kind of spoofing will just drive away further Bitcoiners. If a fork is prematurely deployed, it will be even bigger chaos than it already is. More harm done with these fake nodes.

I think that's the point though. Why risk switching to XT and the potential chaos, even if you support it or it's features?

This is kind of a crucial point that's not been made enough: if Mike and Gavin tried to start a real alt coin, not one that relies on Bitcoin's infrastructure, they would fall flat on their faces (and they've not done much better than that otherwise). There is little to no demand for alts, people want bitcoin.

If any brave soul was previously considering being the first to defect from Bitcoin's economic majority to begin the process of forming an alternative XT economic majority, they now have to account for the even greater risks due to the uncertainty introduced by spoofed version stamps and NotXT sybil nodes.

No business could possibly justify such a risky move, for no potential gain other than the good feeling of winning an obscure internet nerd fight.

Now its up to some very courageous individuals to jump-start XT's economy, by doing such things as selling me their bullion and coins in exchange for XTcoins.

I was sure smoothie would be XT's one crazy dancer guy who starts a party but he chickened out.  Apparently his support, being limited to running an XT node as a 'fuck you' to Team Core, is a mile wide and an inch deep.  

You are totally missing the point of bitcoinXT. The only thing that will lead to a majority of honest node is a bloat in the blockchain itself where businesses won't be able to process the transactions they need due to a fail of bitcoin core to deliver proper scaling on time. BitcoinXT is just a fall back plan in case of a bitcoin core failure and will happen naturally if there is a need in the market. If bitcoin core delivers then nothing will happen. I don't see the point of so much fear mongering over hard forking. THERE IS AN ECONOMIC INCENTIVE TO REACH CONSENSUS NO MATTER THE OUTCOME. Releasing the code in the wild might not be pleasing you but it relieved the stress of many people about their concerns over a bitcoin core failure. If that concern reaches consensus then be it!

[iCEBREAKER]

THERE IS AN ECONOMIC INCENTIVE TO REACH CONSENSUS NO MATTER THE OUTCOME.

BITCOIN ALREADY HAS A MULTI-YEAR, MULTI-BILLION $$$$$ CONSENSUS, AND ANYONE "BRAVE" AND "COURAGEOUS" ENOUGH TO BE THE FIRST TO DEFECT FROM IT IS GOING TO HAVE A BAD TIME.  ESPECIALLY NOW, WITH NOTXT AND PSEUDONODE ADDING TO THE FUN!

UNTIL SOMEONE IS WILLING TO SELL THEIR BULLION FOR MY XTCOINS, AN ALTERNATIVE XT ECONOMIC MAJORITY IS PURELY HYPOTHETICAL AND REMAINS BOUND TO THE REALM OF PURE SPECULATION.

/ZOMG ALLCAPS!!1!   

[knight22]

THERE IS AN ECONOMIC INCENTIVE TO REACH CONSENSUS NO MATTER THE OUTCOME.

BITCOIN ALREADY HAS A MULTI-YEAR, MULTI-BILLION $$$$$ CONSENSUS, AND ANYONE "BRAVE" AND "COURAGEOUS" ENOUGH TO BE THE FIRST TO DEFECT FROM IT IS GOING TO HAVE A BAD TIME.  ESPECIALLY NOW, WITH NOTXT AND PSEUDONODE ADDING TO THE FUN!

UNTIL SOMEONE IS WILLING TO SELL THEIR BULLION FOR MY XTCOINS, AN ALTERNATIVE XT ECONOMIC MAJORITY IS PURELY HYPOTHETICAL AND REMAINS BOUND TO THE REALM OF PURE SPECULATION.

/ZOMG ALLCAPS!!1!  

It is hypothetical until it is not. Your fear of bitcoinXT is irrational and even toxic. The day bitcoin transactions becomes so bloated that big companies like Coinbase, Circle, Xapo and all and even decentralized services like OpenBazaar have no choices to use bitcoinXT to process their transactions, big mining pools will follow and a consensus will emerge  simply because there is an incentive. This is hypothetical in a sense that it will only happen if bitcoin core doesn't offer scaling on time. NotbitcoinXT is not only useless but even more dangerous than XT itself as it gives false market indicators that could lead to an unnecessary forking or bad forking timing. This war mongering attitude is the only dangerous and childish behavior in this debate.

[mmortal03]

This is gentlemen:



 

It's not using log scale, therefore it is invalid.

[iCEBREAKER]

NotbitcoinXT is not only useless but even more dangerous than XT itself as it gives false market indicators that could lead to an unnecessary forking or bad forking timing. This war mongering attitude is the only dangerous and childish behavior in this debate.

Nobody cares about your lulzy, incomplete attempt to rehash of the block size debate, so I deleted it.

The entire point of NotXT is to give "false market indicators that could lead to an unnecessary forking or bad forking timing."

That's why it exists.  That's why we love it.  How could you not understand that by now?

We are leading XT into an ambush, wherein it will be contained and exterminated.

Isn't that wonderful, and hilarious?   

[achow101]

NotbitcoinXT is not only useless but even more dangerous than XT itself as it gives false market indicators that could lead to an unnecessary forking or bad forking timing. This war mongering attitude is the only dangerous and childish behavior in this debate.

Nobody cares about your lulzy, incomplete attempt to rehash of the block size debate, so I deleted it.

The entire point of NotXT is to give "false market indicators that could lead to an unnecessary forking or bad forking timing."

That's why it exists.  That's why we love it.  How could you not understand that by now?

We are leading XT into an ambush, wherein it will be contained and exterminated.

Isn't that wonderful, and hilarious?   

I'm sorry, perhaps I'm a litttle slow, but I still don't understand how causing a premature fork is good for Bitcoin and maintains the status quo?

Wouldn't a fork create two blockchains with some people on one and others on the other. If exchanges and miners don't specify which blockchain they are on, then users get confused, new users are even more confused, and people stop using Bitcoin. People then stop using Bitcoin both because of the confusion, and the fact that two of them now exist completely discredits Bitcoin. So not only is XT discredited and abandoned, but so is Bitcoin. So please explain to me how a premature fork is actually good since it has long been established that FORKING WITHOUT CONSENSUS IS NOT A GOOD THING which is what this client is doing.

[Carlton Banks]

I'm sorry, perhaps I'm a litttle slow, but I still don't understand how causing a premature fork is good for Bitcoin and maintains the status quo?

Don't use the XT client then. That's the idea (hope that's got you up to speed)

[DooMAD]

NotBitcoinXT can be used to protect the status quo

Of everything you've ever said on this forum, your current signature is quite possibly the most honest you've even been about your views towards Bitcoin.  You genuinely believe Bitcoin is a means to provide enormous value to a small minority.  For you it's all about preserving the status quo.  It's not just that you don't care if Bitcoin becomes a niche plaything for a wealthy elite, in fact that's your actual goal here.  You're doing everything you can to try to undermine larger blocks, because you know that your endgame doesn't involve making Bitcoin scalable, it involves forcing everyone else off of "your" chain.

Bitcoin is not and will never be about preserving the status quo.  Keep dreaming if that's how you think this plays out in the long term. 

[Carlton Banks]

NotBitcoinXT can be used to protect the status quo

Of everything you've ever said on this forum, your current signature is quite possibly the most honest you've even been about your views towards Bitcoin.  You genuinely believe Bitcoin is a means to provide enormous value to a small minority.  For you it's all about preserving the status quo.  It's not just that you don't care if Bitcoin becomes a niche plaything for a wealthy elite, in fact that's your actual goal here.  You're doing everything you can to try to undermine larger blocks, because you know that your endgame doesn't involve making Bitcoin scalable, it involves forcing everyone else off of "your" chain.

Bitcoin is not and will never be about preserving the status quo.  Keep dreaming if that's how you think this plays out in the long term. 

I think most on this sub-forum are aware that scaling up the current design isn't the only way to allow for mainstream sized transaction rates.

[knight22]

NotBitcoinXT can be used to protect the status quo

Of everything you've ever said on this forum, your current signature is quite possibly the most honest you've even been about your views towards Bitcoin.  You genuinely believe Bitcoin is a means to provide enormous value to a small minority.  For you it's all about preserving the status quo.  It's not just that you don't care if Bitcoin becomes a niche plaything for a wealthy elite, in fact that's your actual goal here.  You're doing everything you can to try to undermine larger blocks, because you know that your endgame doesn't involve making Bitcoin scalable, it involves forcing everyone else off of "your" chain.

Bitcoin is not and will never be about preserving the status quo.  Keep dreaming if that's how you think this plays out in the long term. 

I think most on this sub-forum are aware that scaling up the current design isn't the only way to allow for mainstream sized transaction rates.

Not the only way indeed but currently the only way. It's kind of the point.

[arnuschky]

Completely independent from whether or not we need to increase block sizes,
this fork is about the most destructive thing in the community that I've seen to date.

At the moment, only the developers get to decide on what's merged into Bitcoin Core, and what isn't.
Additionally to that, theymos took away the possibility of open discussion on this forum and reddit.
In the end, bitcoin consensus is the only method of voting left to the community.

Whichever fork wins the vote, so be it, it got consensus. Removing this possibility
from the community seems really counter-productive.

By using this fork, you're not voting for one of option or the other. Instead, you're
the guy gunning down people standing in line in front of the ballot.

[Seccour]

NotBitcoinXT can be used to protect the status quo

Of everything you've ever said on this forum, your current signature is quite possibly the most honest you've even been about your views towards Bitcoin.  You genuinely believe Bitcoin is a means to provide enormous value to a small minority.  For you it's all about preserving the status quo.  It's not just that you don't care if Bitcoin becomes a niche plaything for a wealthy elite, in fact that's your actual goal here.  You're doing everything you can to try to undermine larger blocks, because you know that your endgame doesn't involve making Bitcoin scalable, it involves forcing everyone else off of "your" chain.

Bitcoin is not and will never be about preserving the status quo.  Keep dreaming if that's how you think this plays out in the long term. 

I think most on this sub-forum are aware that scaling up the current design isn't the only way to allow for mainstream sized transaction rates.

Not the only way indeed but currently the only way. It's kind of the point.

Yes it's currently the only way. And protect the status quo is just useless. We need to push the block size higher, but BIP 101 isn't the only way to do it... BIP 102 & BIP 103 are some other way to do it but people here prefer to fight against XT than finding solution until we got some working other solution like lightning network [...]

[tsoPANos]

That spoof client could affect peoples psychology and actually create a new wave of bitcoin XT adoption.
Or it could make bitcoin XT allow >1 mb blocks too early and bring chaos to the bitcoin ecosystem.
I don't believe at this though. Even if it makes XT allow bigger blocks too early, we will not see any big blocks unless we get a big transaction volume.
Nice idea though.

[iCEBREAKER]

NotBitcoinXT can be used to protect the status quo

Of everything you've ever said on this forum, your current signature is quite possibly the most honest you've even been about your views towards Bitcoin.  You genuinely believe Bitcoin is a means to provide enormous value to a small minority.  For you it's all about preserving the status quo.  It's not just that you don't care if Bitcoin becomes a niche plaything for a wealthy elite, in fact that's your actual goal here.  You're doing everything you can to try to undermine larger blocks, because you know that your endgame doesn't involve making Bitcoin scalable, it involves forcing everyone else off of "your" chain.

Bitcoin is not and will never be about preserving the status quo.  Keep dreaming if that's how you think this plays out in the long term. 

I think most on this sub-forum are aware that scaling up the current design isn't the only way to allow for mainstream sized transaction rates.

Not the only way indeed but currently the only way. It's kind of the point.

There is no way to scale Bitcoin "currently."  Blockstream is working on it, and have at least two promising prototypes in SC/LN.

Bloating Layer 1 with more of the same is not "scaling up the current design."

You can't get to Visa from here, no matter how large you make the blocks.  Because trade-offs.  Make the blocks too large, and miners simply create more empty ones.  It's already a huge problem at 1MB 750k.

[knight22]

Blockstream and bitcoin are 2 separate things and in no way scales bitcoin itself.

[iCEBREAKER]

At the moment, only the developers get to decide on what's merged into Bitcoin Core, and what isn't.
Additionally to that, theymos took away the possibility of open discussion on this forum and reddit.
In the end, bitcoin consensus is the only method of voting left to the community.

Whichever fork wins the vote, so be it, it got consensus. Removing this possibility
from the community seems really counter-productive.

By using this fork, you're not voting for one of option or the other. Instead, you're
the guy gunning down people standing in line in front of the ballot.

Since when did theymos control reddit?  Is he Pao's replacement?  Has he banned /r/BitcoinXT, /r/BTC, /r/bitcoin_uncensored, etc?

And how is this thread possible if "theymos took away the possibility of open discussion on this forum?"

I guess he just did a really bad job of it.   

Your hysteria over NotXT users "gunning down people standing in line in front of the ballot" is quite remarkable.

Your already unseemly self-pity is becoming nauseating.  The sooner you Gavinistas are herded into /v/bitcoinxt to circlejerk yourselves the better.

[knight22]

At the moment, only the developers get to decide on what's merged into Bitcoin Core, and what isn't.
Additionally to that, theymos took away the possibility of open discussion on this forum and reddit.
In the end, bitcoin consensus is the only method of voting left to the community.

Whichever fork wins the vote, so be it, it got consensus. Removing this possibility
from the community seems really counter-productive.

By using this fork, you're not voting for one of option or the other. Instead, you're
the guy gunning down people standing in line in front of the ballot.

Since when did theymos control reddit?  Is he Pao's replacement?  Has he banned /r/BitcoinXT, /r/BTC, /r/bitcoin_uncensored, etc?

And how is this thread possible if "theymos took away the possibility of open discussion on this forum?"

I guess he just did a really bad job of it.  

Your hysteria over NotXT users "gunning down people standing in line in front of the ballot" is quite remarkable.

Your already unseemly self-pity is becoming nauseating.  The sooner you Gavinistas are herded into /v/bitcoinxt to circlejerk yourselves the better.

The only hysteric person here is you and I am indeed banned from /r/bitcoin for talking about shuuuuuut XT

[iCEBREAKER]

Blockstream and bitcoin are 2 separate things and in no way scales bitcoin itself.

Yes, Blockstream is a company, not a technology or software protocol.

Its two prototypes for scaling Bitcon, LN and SC, are open source.

If successful, they will scale "bitcoin itself" in some very important ways.

The only hysteric person here is you.

I'm not the one comparing NotXT users with

the guy gunning down people standing in line in front of the ballot.

Don't you find that comparison just a little dramatic?  

Wait, don't answer that.  Fuck off to https://voat.co/v/bitcoinxt and stop supporting theymos' dictatorship!

[aliveonearth]

Seriously..   And you people wonder why we haven't seen mass adoption. 

[achow101]

I have thought about this for a little bit, and I have thought of two scenarios that could happen because of NotBitcoinXT

Scenario #1: Some people (a small percentage, less than 10%), including miners and exchanges, use BitcoinXT. NotBitcoinXT gains enough usage to cause a fork. Those 10% using XT are forked, while everyone else continues on normally. Some business is disrupted, but not too majorly and those XT users abandon XT and return to Bitcoin Core and your plan worked to maintain the status quo.

Scenario #2: A large portion( around 50%) of the users are using XT, and some more people use NotBitcoinXT which causes a fork. Now half of the Network is one the XT chain, and the other half on the Core chain. There are essentially two Bitcoins because the XT chain will continue to call itself Bitcoin since it was supposed to be a fork with consensus. Users will be frustrated because there are two coins called Bitcoin but you can't know which one to use. Business are confused and get angry customers because of the two chains, and new users don't know which one to use. lot of users and businesses stop using Bitcoin due to the hassle involved with trying to sell things with Bitcoin and two chains. Then they leave and don't come back because of this massive fuck-up and Bitcoin is Dead. Also, malicious users will have both clients, and get double their coins and attempt to sell to get the most profit.

Scenario #3: Ntohing happens and neither XT nor NotBitcoinXT gains enough traction to cause a fork.

Also, if people start to see XT to appear like it is gaining traction(when a lot of it is NotBitcoinXT nodes) and nearing the fork point, it might actually cause more people to jump to XT in order to stay in business. After the fork scenario two happens and shit hits the fan.

So again, please tell me how causing Scenario #2 is good? Or are you trying to go for Scenario #1?

[Rampion]

And this (Not Bitcoin XT) is exactly why contentious hard forks are doomed. Andresen and Hearn should grow a pair and bootstrap their own altcoin from scratch instead of trying to piggyback Bitcoin Core's network effect.

[JorgeStolfi]

Since when did theymos control reddit?  Is he Pao's replacement?  Has he banned /r/BitcoinXT, /r/BTC, /r/bitcoin_uncensored, etc?

Theymos is the creator/mod of /r/bitcoin, a section of reddit ("subreddit").  As such he has substantial freedom to decide what gets posted and who gets banned.  

However there are some general reddit rules for mods (e.g. he should not moderate topics in which he has a financial interest, or ban people who did not violate any rules), and there are clais that he violated those limits.    

But those who are unhappy with it have moved to /r/bitcoin_uncensored or /r/bitcoinxt.  He has no authority over these.

And how is this thread possible if "theymos took away the possibility of open discussion on this forum?"

Theymos claims that he is not directly involved with moderation here, and leaves that task to other moderators.

[ Blockstream's ] two prototypes for scaling Bitcon, LN and SC, are open source.
If successful, they will scale "bitcoin itself" in some very important ways.

The Blockstream devs have admitted already that Sidechains are not a solution to the scaling problem.

LN is a large-scale payment system to be built using Payment Channels.  Think of a Payment Channel as a length of pipe, and LN as an oil refinery.  What has been implemented so far is a two tanks with a pipe between them.  The other details of the refinery are still only at the vague ideas stage; and no one knows whether the refinery will be economically viable.  Indeed, there are several back of the envelope calculations indicating that the LN will be as viable as a balloon made of reinforced concrete.

Even if the LN can be designed and implemented, even if it were to be viable, it will not be "bitcoin itself", not even remotely.  

Bitcoin was designed to be a peer-to-peer payment system that did not require a trusted third party.   The only reason why Satoshi designed and implemented it was because no such thing existed, and he thought that he had figured out how to build one.  

The LN will depend totally on trusted intermediaries -- the hubs.  Even though in theory anyone could set up a hub, or any two parties could set up a payment channel between them, in practice that will not be possible, for many reasons.  The hubs will necessarily be large companies that will have to be registered, licensed, comply with AML/KYC, etc.  They will charge significant fees on top of the fees of the bitcoin network, and will have lots of control over the clients' payments.  For one thing, they will be able to block payments and freeze funds for months, block payments between specific clients (whose identities they will know), and may even be able to divert payments or steal coins.  Almost like the current banking system -- only much more inconvenient and expensive.

I am sure that Satoshi would not have spent a couple of years creating bitcoin, if it had to end up that way.  One thing that the world does not need is another lousy banking system.

[Holliday]

I am sure that Satoshi would not have spent a couple of years creating bitcoin, if it had to end up that way.  One thing that the world does not need is another lousy banking system.

The thing is, we don't need Bitcoin's freedom from lousy bankers for every transaction under the sun. All we need is for the system to exist and function so that when we do need it's properties, it is available to us.

I think using Bitcoin to buy a Happy Meal is like using a chain saw to cut down a dandelion.

[JorgeStolfi]

And this (Not Bitcoin XT) is exactly why contentious hard forks are doomed. Andresen and Hearn should grow a pair and bootstrap their own altcoin from scratch instead of trying to piggyback Bitcoin Core's network effect.

Gavin and Mike have the right to do what they did, and each client has the right to choose which version of the software to run.

Just as some jerk created NotBitcoinXT, another jerk could create NotBitcoinCore -- a version of BitcoinXT that accepts puts out blocks with the Core stamp, but actually accepts block with more than 1 MB, and may generate them if there is enough stuff in the pool.  What woudl be the point of doing either, I don know.

However, I must concede that this initiative already made two valuable contributions to the project.

One, it underscored the silliness of the idea of blockchain voting.  That is the typical hacker mentality at work: use a complicated programming solution to avoid a simpler one that requires human interaction.  The right way to do a protocol change is to describe the intended change to the major players and users, listen to their opinions, try to convince them, find a solution that they could all agree to (that is what 'consensus' means to normal people), then formalize the proposal, and confirm that it will be accepted by the majority of affected people.  Only  then post the code that will implement the change, programmed to be activated at a fixed block number, a couple months in the future.

That is what Gavin and Mike did. That is what the Blockstream hackers are quite incapable of doing.  And that is what the Blockstream devs mean when they accuse Gavin and Mike of "populist tactics".  And, finally, that is why the Blockstream devs like soft forks: because they allow changes to be implemented without having to explain and justify them to the community.  (That is also why they did not program a grace period in the BIP66 fork: because the purpose of the grace period is to send alerts to all clients still running the old version -- and they did not want to do that.)

Two, the NotBitcoinXT initiative prompted this message from Alan Back, Ph. D., to the bitcoin developers' mailing list:

The recent proposal here to run noXT (patch to falsely claim to mine on XT while actually rejecting it's blocks) could add enough
uncertainty about the activation that Bitcoin-XT would probably have to be aborted.

So Adam Back, Ph. D., thinks it is okay (if not wonderful) that nodes lie to the bitcoin community in order to preserve Blockstream's exclusive control of the protocol.  

Think of that before trusting your savings to a system whose security strongly depends on the integrity of the BitcoinCore implementation.

[dooglus]

the NotBitcoinXT initiative prompted this message from Alan Back, Ph. D., to the bitcoin developers' mailing list:

The recent proposal here to run noXT (patch to falsely claim to mine on XT while actually rejecting it's blocks) could add enough
uncertainty about the activation that Bitcoin-XT would probably have to be aborted.

So Adam Back, Ph. D., thinks it is okay (if not wonderful) that nodes lie to the bitcoin community in order to preserve Blockstream's exclusive control of the protocol.  

Think of that before trusting your savings to a system whose security strongly depends on the integrity of the BitcoinCore implementation.

The sentence you quoted appears to be a statement of fact. It doesn't sound to me like he's judging whether the fact is "okay" or "wonderful".

[iCEBREAKER]

[ Blockstream's ] two prototypes for scaling Bitcon, LN and SC, are open source.
If successful, they will scale "bitcoin itself" in some very important ways.

The Blockstream devs have admitted already that Sidechains are not a solution to the scaling problem.

SC/LN alone are not a complete solution to scaling, but if successful, they will scale "bitcoin itself" in some very important ways.

[Quickseller]

This is defiantly not a good idea.

The controversy behind BitcoinXT is doing nothing more then causing uncertainty regarding the future of Bitcoin, and NotBitcoinXT is only adding to that certainty. Assuming that the network actually forks, it will take up to two months before it is clear if BitcoinXT is going to be successful or if it will die off (this is based on the time it will take for the Bitcoin difficult to retarget after 75% of miners stop mining on the Bitcoin network).

Making the potential fork even more controversial and adversarial is going to threaten the fungibility of Bitcoin (immediately after the fork and until it is clear if XT is successful or not), and will cause people to be afraid to use and accept Bitcoin.

My prediction is that major economic players will choose to accept neither Bitcoin or XT until it is clear which will be successful and this will only cause damage to the overall adoption of Bitcoin

[meono]

And this (Not Bitcoin XT) is exactly why contentious hard forks are doomed. Andresen and Hearn should grow a pair and bootstrap their own altcoin from scratch instead of trying to piggyback Bitcoin Core's network effect.

Cry me a river. Maybe you should grow a pair !

Bitcoin is a decentralized system.

If you don't like the work Mike does, don't use it! If you don't like the direction he's going with that work, write some code yourself that goes in a different direction. If you don't like where "core" Bitcoin client development is "going", go to http://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin and hit the "Fork" button and convince other people to join your development effort.

You people seriously misunderstand how Bitcoin works...

[JorgeStolfi]

and accept Bitcoin.
My prediction is that major economic players will choose to accept neither Bitcoin or XT until it is clear which will be successful and this will only cause damage to the overall adoption of Bitcoin

Many of those "major economic players" as well as 4 of the 5 largest miners have expressed support for increasing the block size limit to 8 MB, in some form.  That is not yet support for BitcoinXT, of course.  If the Core devs had some respect for the community, they would cede and raise the limit in the Core too; and then the crisis would be resolved.  

Need I remind everybody that it is LIMIT that is being increased, not the block SIZE? The limit has been 1 MB since 2010, but the average block size is still 450 kB, and has never hit the limit until the recent "stress tests".  

So, if the limit is increased to 8 MB, either by Core and/or by XT, it would make no difference until mid-2016, when the average block size is expected to be ~800 kB.  Thereafter, the difference will be that, with 8 MB, the average block size will continue growing slowly,  in the measure that adoption continues to increase (perhaps to 1.5 MB in mid-2017, 3 MB in mid-2018, etc.); whereas, with 1 MB, there would be recurrent traffic jams starting in mid-2016, and adoption would stop growing.

[Quickseller]

and accept Bitcoin.
My prediction is that major economic players will choose to accept neither Bitcoin or XT until it is clear which will be successful and this will only cause damage to the overall adoption of Bitcoin

Many of those "major economic players" as well as 4 of the 5 largest miners have expressed support for increasing the block size limit to 8 MB, in some form.  That is not yet support for BitcoinXT, of course.  If the Core devs had some respect for the community, they would cede and raise the limit in the Core too; and then the crisis would be resolved. 

Need I remind everybody that it is LIMIT that is being increased, not the block SIZE? The limit has been 1 MB since 2010, but the average block size is still 450 kB, and has never hit the limit until the recent "stress tests". 

So, if the limit is increased to 8 MB, either by Core and/or by XT, it would make no difference until mid-2016, when the average block size is expected to be ~800 kB.  Thereafter, the difference will be that, with 8 MB, the average block size will continue growing slowly,  in the measure that adoption continues to increase (perhaps to 1.5 MB in mid-2017, 3 MB in mid-2018, etc.); whereas, with 1 MB, there would be recurrent traffic jams starting in mid-2016, and adoption would stop growing.

You are correct, and I have echoed your logic after seeing it during discussions of the last stress tests, that if the max block size limit is raised, then the actual block sizes will not necessarily be raised.

I do certainly agree that the block size needs to be increased for largely the same reasons as you list above. Plus the amount of resources required to run a full node would hardly be additionally burdensome, especially considering the advancements in technology since 2010.

Based on what I have read, there are some conflicts of interest with the core developers in that they have an employment relationship with a company who stands to profit if Bitcoin were to become more centralized with a 1 MB max block size. As a result, some of the core dev's income stands to be diminished/reduced/terminated if they were to support a larger block size, and the max block size appears to be unlikely to be increased in Bitcoin core.

My primary concern with BitcoinXT is that it will change the protocol without first achieving a consensus. They could possibly change the protocol without first having the support of the various exchanges, and payment processors. If Bitpay (for example) does not accept BitcoinXT for payment, then any customer of a website/merchant who is using Bitpay is unlikely to be able to pay with BitcoinXT coins.

A concern of mine is that since it is not clear that exchanges/payment processors will immediately accept BitcoinXT coins, then holders of BitcoinXT coins will have difficulty finding value in their BitcoinXT coins. The same is true for Bitcoin coins, if the exchanges/payment processors will no longer accept Bitcoin coins after XT forks the network. However, if none of the major exchanges/payment processors publicly states support for either XT or Bitcoin, then it will be very unclear as to which will end up succeeding. As long as this is unclear, there is the possibility that major exchanges/payment processors will not accept any crypto deposits until it is clear which will be successful. Or they could say that they will only accept deposits if a transaction is confirmed on both the Bitcoin and XT networks, which would mean that inputs that never deviate between the two chains would have greater value then inputs that have been spend on one chain but not the other.

[MantaMine]

YESSS!!! Bitcoiners trying to hurt bitcoiners over some stupid political squabble!

The world has not seen such entertainment since Christians killed Christians over the right way to be a Christian in the Thirty Years' War

You get to watch Muslims do it right now.

[Holliday]

YESSS!!! Bitcoiners trying to hurt bitcoiners over some stupid political squabble!

http://meaningness.com/metablog/geeks-mops-sociopaths

[NextTroll]

This is a special fork for those who do not agree with the blocksize scheduled increase as proposed by Gavin and Mike in their divisive altcoin fork, "Bitcoin XT".

This version can be used to protect the status quo until real technical consensus is formed about the blocksize.

This version is indistinguishable from Bitcoin XT 0.11A except that it will not actually hard fork to BIP101, yet appears on the p2p network as Bitcoin XT 0.11A replete with features, yet at a consensus level behaves just like Bitcoin Core 0.11. If it is used to mine, it will produce XT block versions without actually supporting >1MB blocks.

Running this version and/or mining with XT block versions will make it impossible for the Bitcoin XT network to detect the correct switchover and cause a premature fork of anyone foolish enough to support BIP101 without wide consensus from the technical community.

It prevents correct detection of Bitcoin XT adoption in the wild since usage will be known to have been tampered with and thus all statistical data gathered by getnodes can only be considered unreliable.

https://github.com/xtbit/notbitcoinxt#not-bitcoin-xt

These developers have decided to ditch Bitcoin

[mezzomix]

The right way to do a protocol change is to describe the intended change to the major players and users, listen to their opinions, try to convince them, find a solution that they could all agree to (that is what 'consensus' means to normal people), then formalize the proposal, and confirm that it will be accepted by the majority of affected people.  Only  then post the code that will implement the change, programmed to be activated at a fixed block number, a couple months in the future.

That is what Gavin and Mike did.

The current controversy proves you wrong.

BTW it is not only the miners (75% of them) that decide! A valid solution might be that > 75% of the miners will mine BXT but > 75% of the users keep using BTC. This is the outcome if you have no consensus!

[desired_username]

BS. Calling XT an altcoin is just retarded.

Do you think Bitcoind is an altcoin too?

Bitcoin is the set of rules that the network follow, it can be XT, core, whatever.

Opensource code and transparency matters.

Currently the core dev team cannot be trusted due to conflict of interest (Blockstream).

No forums can be trusted which is controlled by thermos.

[iCEBREAKER]

No forums can be trusted which is controlled by thermos.

I trust thermos more than Heam.  At least Trolltalk doesn't spy on and (arbitrarily) blacklist its users.  XT does:

Bitcoin XTs Tor IP blacklist downloading system has significant privacy leaks.

[JorgeStolfi]

Based on what I have read, there are some conflicts of interest with the core developers in that they have an employment relationship with a company who stands to profit if Bitcoin were to become more centralized with a 1 MB max block size. As a result, some of the core dev's income stands to be diminished/reduced/terminated if they were to support a larger block size, and the max block size appears to be unlikely to be increased in Bitcoin core.

AFAIK most or all of the BitcoinCore developers work for Blockstream.  Their "team" page lists Adam Back (President), Greg Maxwell, Pieter Wuille, Matt Corallo, Mark Friedenbach, Rusty Russell, Patrick "Intersango" Strateman, Jorge Timón, and Glen Willen. There may be others.  Luke Dash Jr works for Blockstream as contractor.  Peter Todd works half-time for Viacoin, an altcoin that claims to be bitcoin done right (e.g. 25 times faster confirms).

Blockstream got 21 million USD of venture capital from a mix of investors.  Obviously Adam and Greg must have described to the investors some business plan, that must have involved some mix of sidechains, perhaps the Lightning Network, the fee market and fee increases, turning bitcoin into a settlement layer for high-value transactions, etc..  Presumably they relied heavily on the prediction that the network would become congested in early 2016 and the fee market would then arise.

It is therefore quite likely that, if the block size limit were to be lifted, even if only to 2 MB, their "business plan" would collapse.  For 2 or 3 years at least, there would not be any fee market, and there would not be any need for an overlay network of any type. 

My primary concern with BitcoinXT is that it will change the protocol without first achieving a consensus. They could possibly change the protocol without first having the support of the various exchanges, and payment processors. If Bitpay (for example) does not accept BitcoinXT for payment, then any customer of a website/merchant who is using Bitpay is unlikely to be able to pay with BitcoinXT coins.

Luke tried to convince me a few weeks ago that the protocol is so complicated that the only safe way to use it is by using the BitcoinCore implementation; and that disaster would occur if one used an implementation that did not have exactly the same quirks and bugs.  However, that is bullshit.  You can write your own code from scratch, or take either the Core or the XT implementation and patch them as you like.  If you make any mistakes, only you will be affected.  If you don't like Mike and Gavin, you can take the Core code and add the patches of XT that implement the 8 MB limit.  I saw on reddit a claim by someone that he had already built one.

The point is that bitcoin and bitcoin forking do not require consensus and a single implementation.  What Mike and Gavin are doing is normal and bitcoin should not care.  Bitcoin's robustness does not come from preventing forks, but from each player choosing whether to play the game
[/quote]

[mezzomix]

BS. Calling XT an altcoin is just retarded.

As long as there is no consensus, BXT is in fact an altcoin.

What Mike and Gavin are doing is normal and bitcoin should not care.

Correct! Everybody can create his own coin to play with. The rest of the community should not care about those coins.

[desired_username]

BS. Calling XT an altcoin is just retarded.

As long as there is no consensus, BXT is in fact an altcoin.

What Mike and Gavin are doing is normal and bitcoin should not care.

Correct! Everybody can create his own coin to play with. The rest of the community should not care about those coins.

No, It's a fork of the "bitcoin core" implementation and implemented BIP101.

If the ecosystem chooses it and it reaches super majority, then it raises the blocksize limit, otherwise no blocksize increase will take place.

Calling it an altcoin is dishonest and a blatant lie. It's the same network, hashpower and users!

[desired_username]

At the moment, only the developers get to decide on what's merged into Bitcoin Core, and what isn't.
Additionally to that, theymos took away the possibility of open discussion on this forum and reddit.
In the end, bitcoin consensus is the only method of voting left to the community.

Whichever fork wins the vote, so be it, it got consensus. Removing this possibility
from the community seems really counter-productive.

By using this fork, you're not voting for one of option or the other. Instead, you're
the guy gunning down people standing in line in front of the ballot.

Since when did theymos control reddit?  Is he Pao's replacement?  Has he banned /r/BitcoinXT, /r/BTC, /r/bitcoin_uncensored, etc?

And how is this thread possible if "theymos took away the possibility of open discussion on this forum?"

I guess he just did a really bad job of it.  

Your hysteria over NotXT users "gunning down people standing in line in front of the ballot" is quite remarkable.

Your already unseemly self-pity is becoming nauseating.  The sooner you Gavinistas are herded into /v/bitcoinxt to circlejerk yourselves the better.

He is the owner of the /r/bitcoin subreddit. They still heavily filter and censor the debates there.

He and 3 other top mods deliberately censored all post regarding XT, critiscsism of core devs and blockstream and unleashed propaganda against it. It's a known fact, search the relevant threads on reddit.

[Rampion]

No forums can be trusted which is controlled by thermos.

I trust thermos more than Heam.  At least Trolltalk doesn't spy on and (arbitrarily) blacklist its users.  XT does:

Bitcoin XTs Tor IP blacklist downloading system has significant privacy leaks.

This is crazy...

[KurtB]

Not Bitcoin XT
just awesome.

[mezzomix]

No, It's a fork of the "bitcoin core" implementation and implemented BIP101.

Right, it's a fork!

It's the same network, hashpower and users!

As long as the current BTC network is alive it will be an additional coin - an altcoin or if you want to differentiate a forkcoin which is even worse. It captures the current BTC network, > 75% of the hashpower and all users that are willing to use BXT or both BXT and BTC.

In case there will be a 100% consensus it replaces the current BTC network and we can name the forkcoin BTC.

[JorgeStolfi]

It's a fork of the "bitcoin core" implementation and implemented BIP101.

If the ecosystem chooses it and it reaches super majority, then it raises the blocksize limit, otherwise no blocksize increase will take place.

Calling it an altcoin is dishonest and a blatant lie. It's the same network, hashpower and users!

Until BitcoinXT activates the 8 MB limit -- indeed, until someone mines a block larger than 1 MB -- both are the same bitcoin, with the same miners and users.

If and when an oversize block gets created and solved (in 2016) the chain will split, and each branch will have a set of miners; but it will not be two coins still, because each transaction issued will be executed in principle in both chains.  Only expert clients will be able to craft transactions that execute in only one chain; for normal clients, that may happen, but largely outside their control (and Core clients may get quite confused).

However, if and when BitcoinXT gets 75% of the hashpower, the rest of the miners and most of the services and clients should quickly switch to it too (even Mircea Popescu).  So, when the limit is finally raised and an oversize block gets mined, the Core branch will have  less than 1 block per day; while it will be business as usual for the XT clients.  

[mmortal03]

BS. Calling XT an altcoin is just retarded.

As long as there is no consensus, BXT is in fact an altcoin.

This is absurd. Whenever a new Bitcoin Core release occurs, it doesn't have consensus, either. Are you cool with also calling new releases of Bitcoin Core an altcoin? You are making up your own semantic definition of what an altcoin is, just to be able to add guilt by association to XT -- when, in fact, your argument also bad mouths any new release of Core.

[Delek]

This is absurd. Whenever a new Bitcoin Core release occurs, it doesn't have consensus, either. Are you cool with also calling new releases of Bitcoin Core an altcoin? You are making up your own semantic definition of what an altcoin is, just to be able to add guilt by association to XT -- when, in fact, your argument also bad mouths any new release of Core.

A new Bitcoin Core version will not fork the chain.
New Blockchain = Altcoin
Bitcoin XT = Altcoin since 2016

[knight22]

This is absurd. Whenever a new Bitcoin Core release occurs, it doesn't have consensus, either. Are you cool with also calling new releases of Bitcoin Core an altcoin? You are making up your own semantic definition of what an altcoin is, just to be able to add guilt by association to XT -- when, in fact, your argument also bad mouths any new release of Core.

A new Bitcoin Core version will not fork the chain.
New Blockchain = Altcoin
Bitcoin XT = Altcoin since 2016

Again, BitcoinXT currently runs on the same blockchain and won't create a fork until it reaches a super majority. If it doesn't reach that point then it won't fork and go bust. Being an altcoin is not an option and was never intended to.

[iCEBREAKER]

Calling XT an altcoin is just retarded.   

the core dev team cannot be trusted due to conflict of interest (Blockstream).   

No forums can be trusted which is controlled by thermos.   

Your already unseemly self-pity is becoming nauseating.  The sooner you Gavinistas are herded into /v/bitcoinxt to circlejerk yourselves the better.

[nexern]

amazing to see how fast some guys mutating badly as soon as reaching the feeding trough.
well, on the other hand all this saves time because there is no more need to speculate
about the - under the hood motives - supporting this articial mess. knight22 is right here.

preventing fair consensus by doing things like this is an absolute nogo. i haven't care
much about this mostly personal driven XT freak show so far but i am switching my node over
to XT now (even if the final decision is made by a combo of too few miners and exchanges).

[mmortal03]

This is absurd. Whenever a new Bitcoin Core release occurs, it doesn't have consensus, either. Are you cool with also calling new releases of Bitcoin Core an altcoin? You are making up your own semantic definition of what an altcoin is, just to be able to add guilt by association to XT -- when, in fact, your argument also bad mouths any new release of Core.

A new Bitcoin Core version will not fork the chain.
New Blockchain = Altcoin
Bitcoin XT = Altcoin since 2016

False. Any Bitcoin Core release requiring a soft fork or a hard fork forks the chain.

[Cryddit]

As far as I can see the argument is already over if the anti-XT crowd feels it is so certain to lose any fair contest that it will resort to tactics like this.

Seriously.  They screamed all rational discussion about ending the block size limit to a standstill even though ~75% of the users and an even greater fraction of the miners are solidly in favor of >1MB blocks, and now that they are facing an actual implementation of a client that will hardfork to >1MB blocks they're trying to sabotage the consensus process rather than allow consensus to be decided by adoption? 

At what point do they admit they've already lost?

[achow101]

As far as I can see the argument is already over if the anti-XT crowd feels it is so certain to lose any fair contest that it will resort to tactics like this.

Seriously.  They screamed all rational discussion about ending the block size limit to a standstill even though ~75% of the users and an even greater fraction of the miners are solidly in favor of >1MB blocks, and now that they are facing an actual implementation of a client that will hardfork to >1MB blocks they're trying to sabotage the consensus process rather than allow consensus to be decided by adoption? 

At what point do they admit they've already lost?

If ~75% of the users and even greater fraction of the miners are solidly in favor of >1MB blocks, how come XT doesn't have 75% of the nodes and a large portion of the blocks aren't blocks with the XT version number?

[mmortal03]

As far as I can see the argument is already over if the anti-XT crowd feels it is so certain to lose any fair contest that it will resort to tactics like this.

Seriously.  They screamed all rational discussion about ending the block size limit to a standstill even though ~75% of the users and an even greater fraction of the miners are solidly in favor of >1MB blocks, and now that they are facing an actual implementation of a client that will hardfork to >1MB blocks they're trying to sabotage the consensus process rather than allow consensus to be decided by adoption? 

At what point do they admit they've already lost?

If ~75% of the users and even greater fraction of the miners are solidly in favor of >1MB blocks, how come XT doesn't have 75% of the nodes and a large portion of the blocks aren't blocks with the XT version number?

Part of it is all the fear mongering out there from the small blocks camp, as well as just the human psychology/sociology involved. A lot of people simply won't make a decision until they see others have already decided, and the existence of Not Bitcoin XT doesn't help that one bit. It proves that we don't even *have* an accurate way for people to find out how many other people have already gotten on board.

[lemipawa]

As far as I can see the argument is already over if the anti-XT crowd feels it is so certain to lose any fair contest that it will resort to tactics like this.

Seriously.  They screamed all rational discussion about ending the block size limit to a standstill even though ~75% of the users and an even greater fraction of the miners are solidly in favor of >1MB blocks, and now that they are facing an actual implementation of a client that will hardfork to >1MB blocks they're trying to sabotage the consensus process rather than allow consensus to be decided by adoption? 

At what point do they admit they've already lost?

If ~75% of the users and even greater fraction of the miners are solidly in favor of >1MB blocks, how come XT doesn't have 75% of the nodes and a large portion of the blocks aren't blocks with the XT version number?

Part of it is all the fear mongering out there from the small blocks camp, as well as just the human psychology/sociology involved. A lot of people simply won't make a decision until they see others have already decided, and the existence of Not Bitcoin XT doesn't help that one bit. It proves that we don't even *have* an accurate way for people to find out how many other people have already gotten on board.

There are also other BIPs that propose and implement bigger blocks such as BIP 100 and 102. Some people may support bigger blocks, but not XT specifically.

[Cryddit]

Part of it is all the fear mongering out there from the small blocks camp, as well as just the human psychology/sociology involved. A lot of people simply won't make a decision until they see others have already decided, and the existence of Not Bitcoin XT doesn't help that one bit. It proves that we don't even *have* an accurate way for people to find out how many other people have already gotten on board.

More to the point it proves that the people opposed to XT don't want anyone to know how many other people are on board because they are fully aware that if people had accurate information about it, they'd be the losers.  

If the anti-XT people are that sure they're losing, why should any of the rest of us doubt?

[mezzomix]

The point is we need to the name the things correctly. In case of a fork we have two coins and every users and every service has to be able to distinguish between them. This has to be done until one of the two chains is not used anymore.

It makes no sense to rename the longest Bitcoin chain as this the original chain with the original consensus rules. As BitcoinXT is the new coin we have to find a new name for this coin which could be BXT. If someone pays with BTC/BXT or accepts BTC/BXT it should be clear for everyone which coin is meant to be used. If we immediately reach 100% consensus we can name the BXT fork BTC as we did in the previous forks, but as long as there are BTC users we need to distinguish between the forkcoin (for those who don't like the name alternative coin or altcoin) and between the original BTC.

The problem did not occur in the past as we almost immediately reached 100% consensus when the hard fork takes place. This time it looks like we will end with BTC users and we will have BXT users when the chain is forked. The miners have to decide which coin to mine and we continue with to competing chains. This is fine for me. Depending on the value I will try to change my BXT into BTC as I will not be able to deal with a coin that allows blocks with 8GB (Gigabytes) every 10 minutes (in 2036).

[Cryddit]

No.  We really don't. 

If there is a fork, then one or the other of the two chains dies within a day.  Whatever is left is BTC. 

[domob]

No.  We really don't. 

If there is a fork, then one or the other of the two chains dies within a day.  Whatever is left is BTC. 

If it works out like this, then I think everyone agrees that the remaining chain can be named "Bitcoin".  However, I don't see how anyone could know for sure that it will, indeed, play out this way.  As far as I can tell, we never had a fork that was even comparatively as disputed as this one.

[mezzomix]

No.  We really don't.  

If there is a fork, then one or the other of the two chains dies within a day.  Whatever is left is BTC.  

That was the case in with the previous forks where we had almost 100% consensus before the chain was forked. We now have two people and some followers that try to force the majority to accept their change package. Several people and some pools will not switch to the BXT forkcoin or use both coins BTC and BXT. There are good chances that we will continue with two chains. If this is established as a good way to push changes into the market, we might see several additional chains in the future.

This is fine with me. Everybody and every group of people is free to use their own set of consensus rules and fork the coin. But as long as the original coin is alive the forkcoin should not use the name of the original coin.

[JorgeStolfi]

The point is we need to the name the things correctly. In case of a fork we have two coins and every users and every service has to be able to distinguish between them. This has to be done until one of the two chains is not used anymore.

It makes no sense to rename the longest Bitcoin chain as this the original chain with the original consensus rules. As BitcoinXT is the new coin we have to find a new name for this coin which could be BXT.

Indeed that is the point.  The way the fork is programmed, every transactions will be in principle valid under both sets of 'consensus rules' and executed in both branches of the blockchain.  Sometimes, by accident or crafty art, a transaction may be executed in only one branch; or the same input may be sent to two different adrresses, one in each branch.  However, ordinary clients will have no control over such events (and may be confused by them).

So, it does not make sense to call either branch an altcoin, or to invent a symbol for it.  Splits of the chain (ophaning) happens all the time even when everyone is running the same version of the software.  

It is also not logical to say that one branch is an altcoin because it uses different 'consensus rules' than those that were in force before.  Once a block smaller than 1 MB has been solved, it is impossible to tell which software was used to solve it.  (There is a version field in the header, but the software can set ti to anything it wants; it is ignored by the protocol.) Thus one can claim that the limit has always been 8 MB since genesis, or 17.3 GB; and both branches would then be valid according to these 'consensus rules' too.

Or also: suppose that someone posts a version of the software -- let's call it BitcoinZZ -- that does NOT cut the block reward in half when it should.  If that version attracts enough miners, but not 100%, the chain will split into two branches, one with 25 coins of block rewards, as in the common trunk, and the other with 12.5 coins.  Which one will be the true Bitcoin: the one with a change in the reward, or the one whithout the change?

This question is connected tp a famous logical/philosophical paradox of Bleen and Grue.  Everybody knows that emeralds are grue, and sapphires are bleen.  But a curious thing will happen on March 17, 2017, when emeralds will suddenly become bleen and sapphires will turn grue.  Some weirdos say that things are 'green' if they are grue until that date and bleen afterwards; but why would one give a name for a color that becomes a different color at some date? That is stupid...

[achow101]

No.  We really don't.  

If there is a fork, then one or the other of the two chains dies within a day.  Whatever is left is BTC.  

That was the case in with the previous forks where we had almost 100% consensus before the chain was forked. We now have two people and some followers that try to force the majority to accept their change package. Several people and some pools will not switch to the BXT forkcoin or use both coins BTC and BXT. There are good chances that we will continue with two chains. If this is established as a good way to push changes into the market, we might see several additional chains in the future.

This is fine with me. Everybody and every group of people is free to use their own set of consensus rules and fork the coin. But as long as the original coin is alive the forkcoin should not use the name of the original coin.

The only way that I can see that we end up with two chains is if the fork occurs without consensus. With BitcoinXT, the fork is programmed to occur with consensus, therefore that fork becomes BTC. If it occurs without consensus (which is what NotBitcoinXT is doing) then we will end up with two chains and both BTC and BXT will be discredited and then both will crash and die.

[valkir]

We manage to get here by working together. Bitcoin is a community system base on multiple person.
If 2 persons want to take control, this could only be bad.

This will also not help us for the mass adoption. We need to fix that. Do not download XT or NOTXT its making think more complicated and investors will just leave. my 2 cent

[JorgeStolfi]

We manage to get here by working together. Bitcoin is a community system base on multiple person.
If 2 persons want to take control, this could only be bad.

Right now 1 company has control over bitcoin's future, and has been spreading baseless FUD and ad-hominem because it does not intend to relinquish it.  If that is not bad enough already...

[domob]

The only way that I can see that we end up with two chains is if the fork occurs without consensus. With BitcoinXT, the fork is programmed to occur with consensus, therefore that fork becomes BTC. If it occurs without consensus (which is what NotBitcoinXT is doing) then we will end up with two chains and both BTC and BXT will be discredited and then both will crash and die.

This is simply wrong.  XT is programmed to fork with 75% support of the hash rate, but that is not consensus, not even among miners.  Even more importantly, the miners are not what actually counts here.  It is the users and the "economic majority" that is often quoted recently.

[desired_username]

The only way that I can see that we end up with two chains is if the fork occurs without consensus. With BitcoinXT, the fork is programmed to occur with consensus, therefore that fork becomes BTC. If it occurs without consensus (which is what NotBitcoinXT is doing) then we will end up with two chains and both BTC and BXT will be discredited and then both will crash and die.

This is simply wrong.  XT is programmed to fork with 75% support of the hash rate, but that is not consensus, not even among miners.  Even more importantly, the miners are not what actually counts here.  It is the users and the "economic majority" that is often quoted recently.

Miners directly depend on the users. 75+% of the hashrate constitutes super majority. (if we would go after a higher % of the miners, then a single big miner could veto the change)

It was chosen because all other metrics can be spoofed, hashrate cannot.

[desired_username]

We manage to get here by working together. Bitcoin is a community system base on multiple person.
If 2 persons want to take control, this could only be bad.

Right now 1 company has control over bitcoin's future, and has been spreading baseless FUD and ad-hominem because it does not intend to relinquish it.  If that is not bad enough already...

Very well said.

[Rampion]

We manage to get here by working together. Bitcoin is a community system base on multiple person.
If 2 persons want to take control, this could only be bad.

Right now 1 company has control over bitcoin's future, and has been spreading baseless FUD and ad-hominem because it does not intend to relinquish it.  If that is not bad enough already...

This is baseless FUD. There are many Bitcoin developers who are not related to Blockstream against XT because they favor a more cautious approach to the block-size increase.

Anyhow, anybody following your posts since the beginning knows you are anti-Bitcoin. You have said Bitcoin believers are delusional fools, you have also said Bitcoin is a ponzi-scheme that will go to 0 rather sooner than later, you've never supported Bitcoin and you never will.

It is not a surprise that you are pushing the most dangerous solution (8MB straight away and then x2 every year until 8GB are reached) that will probably lead to complete centralization and thus the death of Bitcoin. It is not a surprise that you go to great length to expose the "conflict of interest" of devs associated to Blockstream, while you don't comment on the very real issues that such an abrupt change in block size could bring to Bitcoin.... Nor you criticize Hearn's and Andresen's shady agendas.

Hopefully you've at least bought some.

[goatpig]

Right now 1 company has control over bitcoin's future, and has been spreading baseless FUD and ad-hominem because it does not intend to relinquish it.  If that is not bad enough already...

And how exactly is this not FUD against Core devs? Even if you concede to the accusations, how is this not a ad hominem argument? There is a very clear reason this debate should remain purely technical. This is an engineering problem, it should only be treated on this basis.

[JorgeStolfi]

This is baseless FUD. There are many Bitcoin developers who are not related to Blockstream against XT because they favor a more cautious approach to the block-size increase.

Who are the developers with commit rights to BitcoinCore, and what are their affiliations?

To help you, these developers are listed on Blockstream's "Team" page: Adam Back (President), Greg Maxwell, Pieter Wuille, Matt Corallo, Mark Friedenbach, Rusty Russell, Patrick "Intersango" Strateman, Jorge Timón, and Glen Willen. There may be others. Luke "Tonal" Jr works for Blockstream as contractor. Peter Todd works half-time for Viacoin, an altcoin that claims to be bitcoin done right -- e.g. with 25 times faster confirms.

Anyhow, anybody following your posts since the beginning knows you are anti-Bitcoin. You have said Bitcoin believers are delusional fools, you have also said Bitcoin is a ponzi-scheme that will go to 0 rather sooner than later, you've never supported Bitcoin and you never will.

Note quite.  I don't recall writing "delusional fools", bluntly like that, although I do believe that many of them are.  I understand that, strictly technically, bitcoin is not a ponzi; but it is a pyramid scheme, also called "ponzi" in comon parlance -- and that is the only aspect that many bitcoiners seem to care about.  I believe that the price will go to (practically) zero eventually, and the sooner that happens,  the better; but I have no idea how long it will take, actually. 

And I am not "anti-Bitcoin".  I think its is a significant invention and a great technical experiment, and I would admire it if it had not been hijacked by speculators and turned into a giant pyramid scheme -- that has already transferred a billion dollars or two from some naive investors and unlucky speculators to the pockets of smarter and luckier guys, and burned at least half a billion dollars of electricity so that its users could save maybe a million dollars in bank fees.

It is not a surprise that you are pushing the most dangerous solution (8MB straight away and then x2 every year until 8GB are reached) that will probably lead to complete centralization and thus the death of Bitcoin. It is not a surprise that you go to great length to expose the "conflict of interest" of devs associated to Blockstream, while you don't comment on the very real issues that such an abrupt change in block size could bring to Bitcoin.... Nor you criticize Hearn's and Andresen's shady agendas.

As a computer scientist, it really bothers me that Adam Back and the Blockstream devs keep spreading all that nonsensical and groundless FUD about the dangers of 8MB, claiming that the "fee market" will work and that the LN will save bitcoin -- while ignoring all data, all that is known about saturated network behavior and service pricing, and all inconvenient questions about the viability of the LN.   

I have no particular admiration for Gavin and Mike; in particular, I cannot respect Gavin given his continuing support for the Shrem Karpelès & Friends Foundation.  But their "agendas" for pushing the block size limit increase are quite obvious: they want to keep bitcoin working as it has been working so far, and usable for the purpose it was created for -- and also reduce the risk of crippling spam attacks.  Whereas Blockstream's agenda, that makes them desperately wish for bitcoin to become unusable and vulnerable to spam attacks, can only be speculated upon.  (Maybe, as Napoleon would suggest, there is no malice, but only gross incompetence and irresponsibility.)

Hopefully you've at least bought some.

As you know, since I discovered Bitcoin I have been doubling my holdings every day.  (I was tempted to triple them during the recent dip, but I did not want to break a tradition.)

[nexern]

"All devs are equal, but some devs are more equal than others."

[tommorisonwebdesign]

If there is a fork in the blockchain, as pointed put above, it creates many security threats to the entire network. In addition, from what I have read so far, two different chains may lead to the creation of a new coin.If this were to happen, the value of Bitcoin will drop. That is why I am personally against this non-consensus fork. Is there anything I'm not understanding? Please let me know.

[Delek]

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0101.mediawiki
"Activation is achieved when 750 of 1,000 consecutive blocks in the best chain have a version number with bits 1,2,3 and 14 set (0x20000007 in hex)."

So, what will happen if NO XT miners start setting those bits only to activate prematurely XT? Without the needed hashpower, XT will become surely an altcoin with near-zero value?

[achow101]

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0101.mediawiki
"Activation is achieved when 750 of 1,000 consecutive blocks in the best chain have a version number with bits 1,2,3 and 14 set (0x20000007 in hex)."

So, what will happen if NO XT miners start setting those bits only to activate prematurely XT? Without the needed hashpower, XT will become surely an altcoin with near-zero value?

Which is the goal of this or to cause confusion that forces an abort.

But then what happens if a lot of xt miners are also producing blocks to the point that the forked chain had enough halshpower to survive?

[Delek]

But then what happens if a lot of xt miners are also producing blocks to the point that the forked chain had enough halshpower to survive?

That's the point.

You can't REALLY know how much power is in each side BEFORE the fork, only AFTER the fork.

What will happen if we get that 75% of blocks were mined with those bits setted but, in reality, the hashpower is 49.3% and 50.7%. Goodbye Bitcoin.

This fork COULD BE a mess, maybe not, but could be in the scenario that I'm describing. This is REALLY necessary?, it is too much risk mate. We should stay with Bitcoin Core and make a new version of it, not building ANOTHER client to fork the blockchain.

[iCEBREAKER]

the people opposed to XT don't want anyone to know how many other people are on board because they are fully aware that if people had accurate information about it, they'd be the losers.  

If the anti-XT people are that sure they're losing, why should any of the rest of us doubt?

Unless NotXT can now make pod-person versions of Gavinistas, you've confused nodes/blocks with "people."   

We are aware of the (apparent) popularity, especially on vapid cute-animal-focused social media, of XT.

How many times must we explain Bitcoin is not a one-opinion-one-vote democracy?  FFS, the populism and self-pity are nauseating.

Theymos already (famously) declared Gavinistas, whether 90% or 51%, are welcome to fuck off to their own forums and subs.

Why don't you demonstrate GavinCoin's supposedly dominant socioeconomic consensus, by being among the first to defect from Trolltalk?

If we miss you, we'll come say hello over at /v/bitcoinxt.

[JorgeStolfi]

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0101.mediawiki
"Activation is achieved when 750 of 1,000 consecutive blocks in the best chain have a version number with bits 1,2,3 and 14 set (0x20000007 in hex)."

So, what will happen if NO XT miners start setting those bits only to activate prematurely XT? Without the needed hashpower, XT will become surely an altcoin with near-zero value?

The same thing that would happen if a group of miners with majority power decided to play see-saw with the blockchain.  That is, they mine ten blocks B(N+1), B(N+2), ... B(N+10) normally on top of some block B(N), then go back and mine 20 blocks C(N+1), C(N+2), ... C(N+20) on top of the same B(N), then mine another 20 blocks B(N+11), B(N+12), ..., B(N+30) on top of B(N+10), then mine C(N+21), C(N+22), ... C(N+40) on top of C(N+20), then...

Every sane person would conclude that bitcoin is a joke, while true bitcoiners will find a way to view that as "good for bitcoin".  That is what would happen.

[iCEBREAKER]

No.  We really don't.  

If there is a fork, then one or the other of the two chains dies within a day.  Whatever is left is BTC.  

That was the case in with the previous forks where we had almost 100% consensus before the chain was forked. We now have two people and some followers that try to force the majority to accept their change package. Several people and some pools will not switch to the BXT forkcoin or use both coins BTC and BXT. There are good chances that we will continue with two chains. If this is established as a good way to push changes into the market, we might see several additional chains in the future.

This is fine with me. Everybody and every group of people is free to use their own set of consensus rules and fork the coin. But as long as the original coin is alive the forkcoin should not use the name of the original coin.

It's hard to believe someone with Cryddit's could-be-a-Satoshi level abilities would really not understand the diff between ~100% consensual forks and one predicated on a partially-faked "75%" (with 25% + NotXT spoofs strongly objecting).

As if the socioeconomic war of Gavincoin shorts vs longs will be over "within a day."  As if MPEX will simply get bored after a few hours and abandon whatever battle plans for a protracted/expensive strategy of attrition he is doubtlessly currently devising.   

If XT's fork is triggered it is not the end of the Great Schism, only the beginning of the hot phase.

[JorgeStolfi]

It's hard to believe someone with Cryddit's could-be-a-Satoshi level abilities would really not understand the diff between ~100% consensual forks and one predicated on a partially-faked "75%" (with 25% + NotXT spoofs strongly objecting).

I can't imagine the chaotic outcome that you predict.  Either BitcoinXT (and/or other 8 MB versions of the software) will secure approval of 75% of the miners, in 6-8 months at most, and then 100% of the miners will switch to it; or it will fail to do so, and any miners that switched to it will promptly switch back.  The "fake XT" software is a childish idea; miners are in the game for real money, not for lulz.

But (sorry if I repeat myself) the "fake XT" proposal underscores the silliness of blockchain voting.  It is typical of the hacker mindset: a complicated programming hack that is invented in an attempt to avoid the need for personal contacts and political negotiation. 

Well, sorry, but that does not work.  The size limit issue will be decided by *people*, not computers or algorithms.  The only effective way to obtain a consensus on some issue is to discuss it with the relevant *people*; listening to them, trying to understand their worries and goals, finding a proposal that most of them could approve, or at least accept, triyng to convince them to do so, and getting their pledge that they will do so.   

Gavin, even without being obviously a political genius, knows how to do that (because of his experience at Google, and with the 2010 and 2013 incidents).  That is what he did this time, e.g. getting the Chinese miners to agree to 8 MB.  That is apparently an approach that Greg and Adam, prototypical hackers that they are, do not seem capable of doing -- and, for that reason, hate it, and call it "populist tactics".

I bet that the Core × XT "war" will be resolved that way: the miners (the Chinese, and probably others too) will talk to each other, and eventually agree that they all should raise the limit (by downloading BitcoinXT or some other 8 MB version, or rolling their own); or that they all should stick to 1 MB.

By the way, in the BitcoinXT Github repository there is already a branch that has only the 8 MB limit increase, without the other controversial changes:

https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/tree/only-bigblocks

(This is not a recommendation, of course; only an information.)

[Peter R]

It's hard to believe someone with Cryddit's could-be-a-Satoshi level abilities would really not understand the diff between ~100% consensual forks and one predicated on a partially-faked "75%" (with 25% + NotXT spoofs strongly objecting).

I can't imagine the chaotic outcome that you predict.  Either BitcoinXT (and/or other 8 MB versions of the software) will secure approval of 75% of the miners, in 6-8 months at most, and then 100% of the miners will switch to it; or it will fail to do so, and any miners that switched to it will promptly switch back.  The "fake XT" software is a childish idea; miners are in the game for real money, not for lulz.

But (sorry if I repeat myself) the "fake XT" proposal underscores the silliness of blockchain voting.  It is typical of the hacker mindset: a complicated programming hack that is invented in an attempt to avoid the need for personal contacts and political negotiation. 

Well, sorry, but that does not work.  The size limit issue will be decided by *people*, not computers or algorithms.  The only effective way to obtain a consensus on some issue is to discuss it with the relevant *people*; listening to them, trying to understand their worries and goals, finding a proposal that most of them could approve, or at least accept, triyng to convince them to do so, and getting their pledge that they will do so.   

Gavin, even without being obviously a political genius, knows how to do that (because of his experience at Google, and with the 2010 and 2013 incidents).  That is what he did this time, e.g. getting the Chinese miners to agree to 8 MB.  That is apparently an approach that Greg and Adam, prototypical hackers that they are, do not seem capable of doing -- and, for that reason, hate it, and call it "populist tactics".

I bet that the Core × XT "war" will be resolved that way: the miners (the Chinese, and probably others too) will talk to each other, and eventually agree that they all should raise the limit (by downloading BitcoinXT or some other 8 MB version, or rolling their own); or that they all should stick to 1 MB.

By the way, in the BitcoinXT Github repository there is already a branch that has only the 8 MB limit increase, without the other controversial changes:

https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/tree/only-bigblocks

(This is not a recommendation, of course; only an information.)

I never thought I'd see the day that I completely agree with JorgeStolfi

[iCEBREAKER]

It's hard to believe someone with Cryddit's could-be-a-Satoshi level abilities would really not understand the diff between ~100% consensual forks and one predicated on a partially-faked "75%" (with 25% + NotXT spoofs strongly objecting).

I can't imagine the chaotic outcome that you predict.

The "fake XT" software is a childish idea; miners are in the game for real money, not for lulz.

Yes, the thing about unpredictable outcomes is that their outcomes are difficult or even impossible to predict.  I blame the unimaginable chaos for that.  

Besides the lulz, shorting GavinCoin (especially with element-of-surprise proportional leverage provided by NotXT) can make a lot of money.

As the big fat buttcoiner brain bug, are you siding with XT b/c enemy of enemy equals friend or what?

I did see your 'I actually like BTC but am very skeptical' and admire your financial conservatism BTW...  

[jl777]

It's hard to believe someone with Cryddit's could-be-a-Satoshi level abilities would really not understand the diff between ~100% consensual forks and one predicated on a partially-faked "75%" (with 25% + NotXT spoofs strongly objecting).

I can't imagine the chaotic outcome that you predict.

The "fake XT" software is a childish idea; miners are in the game for real money, not for lulz.

Yes, the thing about unpredictable outcomes is that their outcome is difficult or even impossible to predict.  I blame the unimaginable chaos for that.  

Besides the lulz, shorting GavinCoin (especially with element-of-surprise proportional leverage provided by NotXT) can make a lot of money.

As the big fat buttcoiner brain bug, are you siding with XT b/c enemy of enemy equals friend or what?

I did see your 'I actually like BTC but am very skeptical' and admire your financial conservatism BTW...  

I never thought there will be the day I agree with icebreaker

[dooglus]

The only way that I can see that we end up with two chains is if the fork occurs without consensus. With BitcoinXT, the fork is programmed to occur with consensus, therefore that fork becomes BTC.

I don't think so. It only requires 75% of miners to agree. None of the other 25% of miners or any of the exchanges or merchants matter at all.

That's not consensus.

Even the recent soft fork required 95% before it was enforced:

when 950 out of the 1000 blocks preceding a block do have nVersion = 3, nVersion = 2 blocks become invalid, and all further blocks enforce the new rules

So why only 75% for this much riskier hard fork? Because they know it has no chance of reaching consensus.

[Bagatell]

Because they know it has no chance of reaching consensus.

Concensus or unanimity? Two different things in my dictionary.

[JorgeStolfi]

Besides the lulz, shorting GavinCoin (especially with element-of-surprise proportional leverage provided by NotXT) can make a lot of money.

The problem is that, as I tried to explain, there will not be a "Gavincoin" and an "Adamcoin".  Even if the chain splits, and the 1 MB branch survives for a while, there will be just a two-headed bitcoin. Even if you could trade and speculate on each coin separately, you cannot attack one in the market without harming the other. 

are you siding with XT b/c enemy of enemy equals friend or what?

I cannot avoid being the comp sci prof here.  Technically, what Gavin and Mike say is right, and increasing the limit is necessary for two reasons that can't be ignored:

* With 1 MB limit, it is already too cheap and easy to carry out a spam attack.  A attacker with 10'000 USD budget could probably delay half of the legit traffic for days; an such an attack will get easier and cheaper as time goes on. With 8 MB limit, such attack would be at least 10 times more expensive for the attacker.

* Congestion would make bitcoin unusable for ordinary e-paymets.  The user base will stop growing; users wil be turned away not just because of fee increase, but mostly because of the long and unpredictable delays. 

In contrast, for these past 2 months Adam has been only spreading baseless FUD and ad-hominems.  For one thing, he always says "size" instead of "size limit", then claims that 8 MB blocks will have very serious effects (first it was on full node count, then on orphan rate, then mining centralization...) but does not offer evidence or numbers.  At the same time he ignores completely the two points above.  He promises that the LN will provide the growth that the 1 MB limit denies; but the LN will not work, and will not be bitcoin...

[KurtB]

https://i.imgur.com/HI4kOGA.jpg

I will bring one online on the weekend, but I think there is still some work to do. Current measures against the XT Attack propagate a certain helplessness that makes the blockchain vulnerable to further bullying attempts.

I fear that if the Hearn Gang and their instigators get away with minor bruises and the pockets full of scammed Bitcoin they will certainly try again.

[_mr_e]

It's hard to believe someone with Cryddit's could-be-a-Satoshi level abilities would really not understand the diff between ~100% consensual forks and one predicated on a partially-faked "75%" (with 25% + NotXT spoofs strongly objecting).

I can't imagine the chaotic outcome that you predict.

The "fake XT" software is a childish idea; miners are in the game for real money, not for lulz.

Yes, the thing about unpredictable outcomes is that their outcome is difficult or even impossible to predict.  I blame the unimaginable chaos for that.  

Besides the lulz, shorting GavinCoin (especially with element-of-surprise proportional leverage provided by NotXT) can make a lot of money.

As the big fat buttcoiner brain bug, are you siding with XT b/c enemy of enemy equals friend or what?

I did see your 'I actually like BTC but am very skeptical' and admire your financial conservatism BTW...  

I never thought there will be the day I agree with icebreaker

Maybe you should take that as a hint that you might be wrong:p

[Carlton Banks]

It's hard to believe someone with Cryddit's could-be-a-Satoshi level abilities would really not understand the diff between ~100% consensual forks and one predicated on a partially-faked "75%" (with 25% + NotXT spoofs strongly objecting).

You mean Cryddit Little? Come on, he's been turning up waving his hands about questionable technical issues for at least several months now, are you trying to tell me he had credibility before this debate began?

[Carlton Banks]

but the LN will not work, and will not be bitcoin...

Yes Jorge, that's why they're using different names for the two different technologies. Using different names for essentially different concepts is a useful method of being able to refer to said concepts in a way that makes them easy to differentiate from one another.

[iCEBREAKER]

It's hard to believe someone with Cryddit's could-be-a-Satoshi level abilities would really not understand the diff between ~100% consensual forks and one predicated on a partially-faked "75%" (with 25% + NotXT spoofs strongly objecting).

I can't imagine the chaotic outcome that you predict.

The "fake XT" software is a childish idea; miners are in the game for real money, not for lulz.

Yes, the thing about unpredictable outcomes is that their outcome is difficult or even impossible to predict.  I blame the unimaginable chaos for that.  

Besides the lulz, shorting GavinCoin (especially with element-of-surprise proportional leverage provided by NotXT) can make a lot of money.

As the big fat buttcoiner brain bug, are you siding with XT b/c enemy of enemy equals friend or what?

I did see your 'I actually like BTC but am very skeptical' and admire your financial conservatism BTW...  

I never thought there will be the day I agree with icebreaker

IKR?  Politics makes strange bedfellows.  Obviously we should team up and blame Heam for this chaos, so we can go quickly get back to our cherished traditional disagreements.   

[iCEBREAKER]

there will not be a "Gavincoin" and an "Adamcoin".  Even if the chain splits, and the 1 MB branch survives for a while, there will be just a two-headed bitcoin. Even if you could trade and speculate on each coin separately, you cannot attack one in the market without harming the other.

You are assuming at least two facts not yet in evidence.  Your asserted answers to empirical questions carry very little weight.

Your narrow comp sci prof paradigm is insufficient to make predictions which involve dominant socioeconomic factors.

EG, although 1mb spam attacks are cheap, they do nothing to tx paying competitive fees.  Making blocks 8 times larger only makes spam attacks [8 times cheap] more expensive, while other trade-offs incur increasingly (superlinear) negative margin returns.

[KurtB]

Besides the lulz, shorting GavinCoin (especially with element-of-surprise proportional leverage provided by NotXT) can make a lot of money.

The problem is that, as I tried to explain, there will not be a "Gavincoin" and an "Adamcoin".  Even if the chain splits, and the 1 MB branch survives for a while, there will be just a two-headed bitcoin. Even if you could trade and speculate on each coin separately, you cannot attack one in the market without harming the other.  

If the fork is not successful, all transactions on that fork will be void; simple orphans from a (1 MB) Bitcoin point of view. That happens every day, it's why we wait for more than one confirmation.
If a person decides to take the risk and accept the fork, don't you think that person would also want a premium for assuming that risk?
If I have a claim in Bitcoin and the other side is trying to settle with XTCoin, how do they pay the premium even if I were to accept?

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

This is defiantly not a good idea.

As a defiant idea, it's definitely good.

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

As far as I can see the argument is already over if the anti-XT crowd feels it is so certain to lose any fair contest that it will resort to tactics like this.

If these tactics affect the contest, the contest didn't have fairness built in.  Back to the drawing board for the mercantile mercenaries.

[RealBitcoin]

Please tell me guys this XT crap will go away and die.

I dont want to see my money evaporating because some morons that want to divide & conquer , sabotage, bitcoin.

I hope the rest of the devs and supporters figure it out that this XT will just destroy bitcoin.

[MbccompanyX]

Please tell me guys this XT crap will go away and die.

I dont want to see my money evaporating because some morons that want to divide & conquer , sabotage, bitcoin.

I hope the rest of the devs and supporters figure it out that this XT will just destroy bitcoin.

Maybe XT wasn't created to help bitcoin but to destroy it? If Coinmarketcap data is correct, on 7 days bitcoin lost 15% of the value... Somebody needs to stop this fight before all the altcoins and bitcoin itself will be considered dead or with zero value!

[RealBitcoin]

Please tell me guys this XT crap will go away and die.

I dont want to see my money evaporating because some morons that want to divide & conquer , sabotage, bitcoin.

I hope the rest of the devs and supporters figure it out that this XT will just destroy bitcoin.

Maybe XT wasn't created to help bitcoin but to destroy it? If Coinmarketcap data is correct, on 7 days bitcoin lost 15% of the value... Somebody needs to stop this fight before all the altcoins and bitcoin itself will be considered dead or with zero value!

Indeed, bitcoin might have been infiltrated by dark forces, who use the good old D & C tactics to sabotage it.

And since the community is not very united in it's goal, it is likely to succeed. People are always following their own incentives and cannot unite, not even in front of danger.

[MbccompanyX]

Please tell me guys this XT crap will go away and die.

I dont want to see my money evaporating because some morons that want to divide & conquer , sabotage, bitcoin.

I hope the rest of the devs and supporters figure it out that this XT will just destroy bitcoin.

Maybe XT wasn't created to help bitcoin but to destroy it? If Coinmarketcap data is correct, on 7 days bitcoin lost 15% of the value... Somebody needs to stop this fight before all the altcoins and bitcoin itself will be considered dead or with zero value!

Indeed, bitcoin might have been infiltrated by dark forces, who use the good old D & C tactics to sabotage it.

And since the community is not very united in it's goal, it is likely to succeed. People are always following their own incentives and cannot unite, not even in front of danger.

But anyway, i think that who is running all this is for sure somebody that hates bitcoin because if wanted to made something good it could made another bubble and not this non stop drop that i still have problems to see how actually happens, anyway i noticed that not only bitcoin got the XT version but even litecoin, if you go to altcoincalendar is visible that a coin called Litecoin XT was launched (Maybe same dev, group or some random guy who wants to join the demolition of bitcoin)

[Bagatell]

What interesting times we live in.

https://www.altcoincalendar.info/coins/1816-LXT

[MbccompanyX]

What interesting times we live in.

https://www.altcoincalendar.info/coins/1816-LXT

Yeah, if the crisis made from Bitcoin XT continues, even more people will start making XT version of every altcoin that exist only to made more price drops. Is possible that both dev teams doesn't try to find something in common? if it continues who knows what will happen... For now i don't know what to do about my original bitcoins, maybe i will invest them on some coin that are still green (for Coinmarketcap there are almost 50 that are on positive). Anyway the fact of Litecoin XT is that only 200 coins are public, for sure is just a random guy that wanted his\her piece of cake on this disaster.

[RealBitcoin]

Please tell me guys this XT crap will go away and die.

I dont want to see my money evaporating because some morons that want to divide & conquer , sabotage, bitcoin.

I hope the rest of the devs and supporters figure it out that this XT will just destroy bitcoin.

Maybe XT wasn't created to help bitcoin but to destroy it? If Coinmarketcap data is correct, on 7 days bitcoin lost 15% of the value... Somebody needs to stop this fight before all the altcoins and bitcoin itself will be considered dead or with zero value!

Indeed, bitcoin might have been infiltrated by dark forces, who use the good old D & C tactics to sabotage it.

And since the community is not very united in it's goal, it is likely to succeed. People are always following their own incentives and cannot unite, not even in front of danger.

But anyway, i think that who is running all this is for sure somebody that hates bitcoin because if wanted to made something good it could made another bubble and not this non stop drop that i still have problems to see how actually happens, anyway i noticed that not only bitcoin got the XT version but even litecoin, if you go to altcoincalendar is visible that a coin called Litecoin XT was launched (Maybe same dev, group or some random guy who wants to join the demolition of bitcoin)

Well I`m not a tech person, but even I can tell that if a new altchain is created that needs mining, will split the mining eventually.

A more friendly solution with internal paying like XAPO, Coinbase, Bitpay, etc could be achieved for small TX. Yet they insist with forking the protocol which is bullshit.

I also think that increasing the block size is also much better.

[RealBitcoin]

What interesting times we live in.

https://www.altcoincalendar.info/coins/1816-LXT

Yeah, if the crisis made from Bitcoin XT continues, even more people will start making XT version of every altcoin that exist only to made more price drops. Is possible that both dev teams doesn't try to find something in common? if it continues who knows what will happen... For now i don't know what to do about my original bitcoins, maybe i will invest them on some coin that are still green (for Coinmarketcap there are almost 50 that are on positive). Anyway the fact of Litecoin XT is that only 200 coins are public, for sure is just a random guy that wanted his\her piece of cake on this disaster.

I dont know there is about at 80% correlation between all altcoins vs bitcoin.

So if bitcoin goes to 0 then all altcoins will more or less follow. Although I already know a few safe and innovative altcoins that dont need XT, i dont really want to lose Bitcoin, as i consider it the only real currency so far.

[basil00]

Currently at least ~20% of XT nodes are PseudoNodes.

[iCEBREAKER]

  As far as I can see the argument is already over if the anti-XT crowd feels it is so certain to lose any fair contest that it will resort to tactics like this.   

If these tactics affect the contest, the contest didn't have fairness built in.  Back to the drawing board for the mercantile mercenaries.

CRYddit knows that, he's just ATM too butthurt to concede such a fair (and obvious) point of fact.   

[iCEBREAKER]

Please tell me guys this XT crap will go away and die.

I dont want to see my money evaporating because some morons that want to divide & conquer , sabotage, bitcoin.

I hope the rest of the devs and supporters figure it out that this XT will just destroy bitcoin.

This XT crap will go away and die.  It's already dead (or, thanks to NotXT, in a Schroedinger superposition of dead-alive) but hasn't stopped moving yet.  Enjoy the lulz this zombie fork provides while it lasts.  We'll look back and laugh at the XT Menace, someday.   

[mmortal03]

Please tell me guys this XT crap will go away and die.

I dont want to see my money evaporating because some morons that want to divide & conquer , sabotage, bitcoin.

I hope the rest of the devs and supporters figure it out that this XT will just destroy bitcoin.

Maybe XT wasn't created to help bitcoin but to destroy it? If Coinmarketcap data is correct, on 7 days bitcoin lost 15% of the value... Somebody needs to stop this fight before all the altcoins and bitcoin itself will be considered dead or with zero value!

If we reach the point with Bitcoin Core where we have small blocks that are all full, the price of bitcoin is also going to drop. At least XT has an actual, working solution for moving forward.

[MbccompanyX]

Currently at least ~20% of XT nodes are PseudoNodes.

Wait, i can't follow you now, 20% of the XT nodes aren't real or are from the same pc? in this case XT is full of people on despair....

[RealBitcoin]

Please tell me guys this XT crap will go away and die.

I dont want to see my money evaporating because some morons that want to divide & conquer , sabotage, bitcoin.

I hope the rest of the devs and supporters figure it out that this XT will just destroy bitcoin.

Maybe XT wasn't created to help bitcoin but to destroy it? If Coinmarketcap data is correct, on 7 days bitcoin lost 15% of the value... Somebody needs to stop this fight before all the altcoins and bitcoin itself will be considered dead or with zero value!

If we reach the point with Bitcoin Core where we have small blocks that are all full, the price of bitcoin is also going to drop. At least XT has an actual, working solution for moving forward.

Why would the price drop if the blockssize increases (or even if it becomes full).

A high velocity of money (tons of transactions) is indicative of high demand for money, thus the price increase is correlated with the transaction volume.

Bitcoin`s price has no way but to rise longterm.

[basil00]

Currently at least ~20% of XT nodes are PseudoNodes.

Wait, i can't follow you now, 20% of the XT nodes aren't real or are from the same pc?

Yep, for a short time 20% (peaked at ~30%) of all XT nodes were really PseudoNodes.  These nodes were controlled by one person, who has since switched them off.  See the link for more details.

[iCEBREAKER]

Currently at least ~20% of XT nodes are PseudoNodes.

Wait, i can't follow you now, 20% of the XT nodes aren't real or are from the same pc?

Yep, for a short time 20% (peaked at ~30%) of all XT nodes were really PseudoNodes.  These nodes were controlled by one person, who has since switched them off.  See the link for more details.

Thanks for this, you found a combination of words I've been looking for.

P2P means that the network should only get stronger as long as people are using contributing nodes.

Some people believe the last stage of Access-Verify-Amplify is "better left to the so called power user."   

[Zarathustra]

The whining conspiracy fudsters and sidecoiners need new arguments, because there is choice now:

"This XT patch is literally and only BIP101 integrated in Core. It already exist and you are free to run it as we speak."
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1159727.msg12216801#msg12216801

[painlord2k]

But then what happens if a lot of xt miners are also producing blocks to the point that the forked chain had enough halshpower to survive?

That's the point.

You can't REALLY know how much power is in each side BEFORE the fork, only AFTER the fork.

What will happen if we get that 75% of blocks were mined with those bits setted but, in reality, the hashpower is 49.3% and 50.7%. Goodbye Bitcoin.

This fork COULD BE a mess, maybe not, but could be in the scenario that I'm describing. This is REALLY necessary?, it is too much risk mate. We should stay with Bitcoin Core and make a new version of it, not building ANOTHER client to fork the blockchain.

In fact not.

If the network split in half the hashpower over the two branches,  the confirmation times double for both.
The transactions would be the same (apart for the new coins mined) on both chains.
The problem would be for the 1MB, because if the mean blocksize was 500KB before the fork, it now would be > 1 MB after. For both.
Larger the mean block size before the fork, worse the effect on the 1MB branch.

Now, one chain would be able to confirm all transactions anyway. The other would not.
Immediately there would be a backlog of transactions in the 1MB branch but not in the 8 MB branch.
This would last about 4 weeks before resetting the difficulty.

I assume, due to uncertainty, exchanges and payment processors would not process any coin not present in both branches.
So you would have miners starving for 2 or more weeks at least or until one brach die out and all are mining on the surviving branch.

The asymmetry would force payment processors and exchanges to rely more and more to the 8 MB branch, because it confirm valid transactions faster.
Not only, they would need to pay less fees for transactions on the fastest and more on the slower (I assume they would be forced, for compatibility, to try to spend the same amount on both).

If a SPAM attack (or "stress test") happened at the time, the 1 MB chain will choke under an enormous backlog and increasing fee to have a transaction confirmed in a short time.
Effectively, an attacker could have a large transaction (to itself) confirmed in the 8MB branch but not in the 1MB branch (use a really small or no fee at all). Then send out a large quantity of transactions on the 1MB branch (they would be invalid in the 8MB branch and dropped immediately) clogging the 1MB nodes and forcing 1MB users to pay more to have their transactions confirmed faster.

This scenario explain the reasons waiting to implement the BIP 101 or any other increase of the blocksize or any WORKING method to increase the transactions volume will end making a stronger case for implementing the BIP 101 or some other increase.
As the mean block size increase approaching 800 KB,  payment processors and exchanges will increasingly pressure miners to support a block increase and will reduce their requirements to support the winning branch. They could start pricing the coins from blocks supporting BIP 101 (or whatever) differently than the default blocks.

[Carlton Banks]

But then what happens if a lot of xt miners are also producing blocks to the point that the forked chain had enough halshpower to survive?

That's the point.

You can't REALLY know how much power is in each side BEFORE the fork, only AFTER the fork.

What will happen if we get that 75% of blocks were mined with those bits setted but, in reality, the hashpower is 49.3% and 50.7%. Goodbye Bitcoin.

This fork COULD BE a mess, maybe not, but could be in the scenario that I'm describing. This is REALLY necessary?, it is too much risk mate. We should stay with Bitcoin Core and make a new version of it, not building ANOTHER client to fork the blockchain.

In fact not.

If the network split in half the hashpower over the two branches,  the confirmation times double for both.
The transactions would be the same (apart for the new coins mined) on both chains.
The problem would be for the 1MB, because if the mean blocksize was 500KB before the fork, it now would be > 1 MB after. For both.
Larger the mean block size before the fork, worse the effect on the 1MB branch.

Now, one chain would be able to confirm all transactions anyway. The other would not.
Immediately there would be a backlog of transactions in the 1MB branch but not in the 8 MB branch.
This would last about 4 weeks before resetting the difficulty.

This is where a good dynamic scheme, implemented in Core to the XT fork schedule, could provide a solution.

Your scenario would play out oppositely, the 8 MB chain could end up overwhelmed with all sorts of attacks, while the dynamically sized chain would scale above 8 MB to handle it.

[nexern]

Please tell me guys this XT crap will go away and die.

I dont want to see my money evaporating because some morons that want to divide & conquer , sabotage, bitcoin.

I hope the rest of the devs and supporters figure it out that this XT will just destroy bitcoin.

Maybe XT wasn't created to help bitcoin but to destroy it? If Coinmarketcap data is correct, on 7 days bitcoin lost 15% of the value... Somebody needs to stop this fight before all the altcoins and bitcoin itself will be considered dead or with zero value!

If we reach the point with Bitcoin Core where we have small blocks that are all full, the price of bitcoin is also going to drop. At least XT has an actual, working solution for moving forward.

yes, and since it is based on a free choice, it is hard to understand the reasons to destroy an available backup.

even harder to see so much morons, trying to censor informations just to prevent consensus, probably driven
by the conviction they have to think for others.

[mmortal03]

Please tell me guys this XT crap will go away and die.

I dont want to see my money evaporating because some morons that want to divide & conquer , sabotage, bitcoin.

I hope the rest of the devs and supporters figure it out that this XT will just destroy bitcoin.

Maybe XT wasn't created to help bitcoin but to destroy it? If Coinmarketcap data is correct, on 7 days bitcoin lost 15% of the value... Somebody needs to stop this fight before all the altcoins and bitcoin itself will be considered dead or with zero value!

If we reach the point with Bitcoin Core where we have small blocks that are all full, the price of bitcoin is also going to drop. At least XT has an actual, working solution for moving forward.

Why would the price drop if the blockssize increases (or even if it becomes full).

A high velocity of money (tons of transactions) is indicative of high demand for money, thus the price increase is correlated with the transaction volume.

Bitcoin`s price has no way but to rise longterm.

Transactions wouldn't be going through, and the queue would get longer and longer. People would start going elsewhere to make payments, because the Bitcoin network would be taking too long for their transactions to confirm.

[RealBitcoin]

Please tell me guys this XT crap will go away and die.

I dont want to see my money evaporating because some morons that want to divide & conquer , sabotage, bitcoin.

I hope the rest of the devs and supporters figure it out that this XT will just destroy bitcoin.

Maybe XT wasn't created to help bitcoin but to destroy it? If Coinmarketcap data is correct, on 7 days bitcoin lost 15% of the value... Somebody needs to stop this fight before all the altcoins and bitcoin itself will be considered dead or with zero value!

If we reach the point with Bitcoin Core where we have small blocks that are all full, the price of bitcoin is also going to drop. At least XT has an actual, working solution for moving forward.

Why would the price drop if the blockssize increases (or even if it becomes full).

A high velocity of money (tons of transactions) is indicative of high demand for money, thus the price increase is correlated with the transaction volume.

Bitcoin`s price has no way but to rise longterm.

Transactions wouldn't be going through, and the queue would get longer and longer. People would start going elsewhere to make payments, because the Bitcoin network would be taking too long for their transactions to confirm.

Ok but if they raise the size then it wont, i was talking about that possibility, how it would affect the price.

This is where a good dynamic scheme, implemented in Core to the XT fork schedule, could provide a solution.

Your scenario would play out oppositely, the 8 MB chain could end up overwhelmed with all sorts of attacks, while the dynamically sized chain would scale above 8 MB to handle it.

I dont understand why is the 8 MB block size such a big issue?

Why would big attacks happen at 8MB but not at 1MB , they are just 2 arbitrary numbers with no significance ?    I don't get it, please explain.

[Carlton Banks]

This is where a good dynamic scheme, implemented in Core to the XT fork schedule, could provide a solution.

Your scenario would play out oppositely, the 8 MB chain could end up overwhelmed with all sorts of attacks, while the dynamically sized chain would scale above 8 MB to handle it.

I dont understand why is the 8 MB block size such a big issue?

Why would big attacks happen at 8MB but not at 1MB , they are just 2 arbitrary numbers with no significance ?    I don't get it, please explain.

Unfortunately, you're asking me to resolve an incongruity that I did not state.

I said:

8 MB vs dynamic block resizing

I did not say:

8 MB vs 1MB


If you would like to understand, please re-read the post I was replying to more carefully. I would only end up regurgitating it more or less verbatim anyway, so everything you need is there. Ask if you have specific questions regarding the details, once you have a handle on what I am actually arguing. Please don't ask me questions again before that point.

[painlord2k]

This is where a good dynamic scheme, implemented in Core to the XT fork schedule, could provide a solution.

Your scenario would play out oppositely, the 8 MB chain could end up overwhelmed with all sorts of attacks, while the dynamically sized chain would scale above 8 MB to handle it.

I dont understand why is the 8 MB block size such a big issue?

Why would big attacks happen at 8MB but not at 1MB , they are just 2 arbitrary numbers with no significance ?    I don't get it, please explain.

Unfortunately, you're asking me to resolve an incongruity that I did not state.

I said:

8 MB vs dynamic block resizing

I did not say:

8 MB vs 1MB


If you would like to understand, please re-read the post I was replying to more carefully. I would only end up regurgitating it more or less verbatim anyway, so everything you need is there. Ask if you have specific questions regarding the details, once you have a handle on what I am actually arguing. Please don't ask me questions again before that point.

I do not know of any dynamic block resizing client with consensus from the miners.
When there is some code compiled and running feel free to tell us.

[painlord2k]

I dont understand why is the 8 MB block size such a big issue?

Why would big attacks happen at 8MB but not at 1MB , they are just 2 arbitrary numbers with no significance ?    I don't get it, please explain.

There are many attacks possible. Some work better against the majority node and others work better if a node is in the minority.
The advantage of 8MB blocks vs. 1 MB blocks is spamming them cost 8 times more.
When the costs move from $1,000s to $10,000 or $100,000 per day, the number of possible attackers is reduced many orders of magnitude and the time they could support the attack diminished.

Just moving fees from 1/1000th of $ to 1/100th of $ or 1/10th of $ change the completely the economy and feasibility of the attack.

But someone telling just "there are a variety of attack that could" is just telling nothing.

And, anyway, antifragile is just "what do not kill me make me stronger". Let spell out these attack vectors so they can be neutralized.

[RealBitcoin]

I dont understand why is the 8 MB block size such a big issue?

Why would big attacks happen at 8MB but not at 1MB , they are just 2 arbitrary numbers with no significance ?    I don't get it, please explain.

There are many attacks possible. Some work better against the majority node and others work better if a node is in the minority.
The advantage of 8MB blocks vs. 1 MB blocks is spamming them cost 8 times more.
When the costs move from $1,000s to $10,000 or $100,000 per day, the number of possible attackers is reduced many orders of magnitude and the time they could support the attack diminished.

Just moving fees from 1/1000th of $ to 1/100th of $ or 1/10th of $ change the completely the economy and feasibility of the attack.

But someone telling just "there are a variety of attack that could" is just telling nothing.

And, anyway, antifragile is just "what do not kill me make me stronger". Let spell out these attack vectors so they can be neutralized.

So you are in favor of raising the block size to 8MB, me too. It seems the most logical way to me.

If you want compressed blocks then for offchain transaction, maybe XAPO, Coinbase or Bitpay, will figure out a secure offchain BTC transfer.

The problem with XT is , that its a standalone chain, with mining and so forth, so it can fork bitcoin.

An offchain like  XAPO, Coinbase or Bitpay, is centralized, but requires no mining, so small transactions can be performed that way.


ex.  One friend sends 1 BTC to another friend, while both having Coinbase accounts, so it just transfers from 1 account to another. If the 2nd friend wants to withdraw the bitcoin, then he can, but for pointless back and forth TX, the offchain is enough.

[Carlton Banks]

I do not know of any dynamic block resizing client with consensus from the miners.
When there is some code compiled and running feel free to tell us.

I know. Do you support the concept in principle? As I said, it addresses your scenario under which the 8 MB fork is 8 times more resilient to attack.

[JorgeStolfi]

but the LN will not work, and will not be bitcoin...

Yes Jorge, that's why they're using different names for the two different technologies. Using different names for essentially different concepts is a useful method of being able to refer to said concepts in a way that makes them easy to differentiate from one another.

You got 10 Cute Points there, but surely you know what I meant? 

Blockstream's invariant message for the last two months has been "it is not necessary to increase bitcoin's block size limit because the LN will accomodate any future traffic increase."  Except that the LN will be centralized and dependent on trusted third parties; users will have to submit to AML/KYC, their coins will be locked in the system for months, ad their payments can be easily traced and blocked. Oh, and, while bitcoin exists and sort of works, the LN is very unlikely to do either thing...

[danielW]

Transactions wouldn't be going through, and the queue would get longer and longer. People would start going elsewhere to make payments, because the Bitcoin network would be taking too long for their transactions to confirm.

That wont happen because you simply have to pay a small fee for your transaction to be accepted. There will not be any queue.

Actually we are far below the limit now if you count fee paying transactions.

[JorgeStolfi]

Transactions wouldn't be going through, and the queue would get longer and longer. People would start going elsewhere to make payments, because the Bitcoin network would be taking too long for their transactions to confirm.

That wont happen because you simply have to pay a small fee for your transaction to be accepted. There will not be any queue.

Whenever the demand is greater than the capacity, some transactions will inevitably be delayed.  If there is a 60-seat bus every 10 minuets, and 100 passengers arrive at the bus stop every 10 minutes, some passengers will have to wait until the demand goes down to less than 60 per hour.   If that excess demand lasts for a few hours, many passengers will have to wait for hours.

It is grammar-school-level math.  It does not matter how much the passengers are willing to pay or how cleverly the bus company sets the fees.  

The average waiting time will depend only on the network's capacity and how the incoming traffic will vary over time.  Fiddling with the transaction priorities will not change the average delay by one second.

Actually we are far below the limit now if you count fee paying transactions.

The average daily traffic now, when there are no "stress tests", is ~120'000 transactions per day, and has grown by 5000 tx/day per month for the last 12 months.  The network's capacity, revealed by the stress tests, is ~200'000 tx/day.  Since the traffic varies during the day and with the day of the week, congestion will begin to occur well before the average demand reaches the capacity; perhaps already when the traffic will be 160'000 or 180'000 tx/day.  Even if the growth is linear rather than exponential, at the curren pace that will happen by mid-2016.  (If the growth is exponential, that may happen in early 2016.)

Most of the transactions pay the minimal fee.  True, if the minimum fees were raised to a significant level (say 0.20 USD/tx, still much less than the cost of the network), a large fraction of the traffic would disappear, and then the block size limit issue would not be urgent for another couple of years.  But neither camp seems willing to do that, for various reasons...

[canth]

On this topic, this post by DeathAndTaxes has made it to a reading on LTB.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=946236.0 - https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-241-the-big-blockist-perspective

[Blawpaw]

I simply wish that the devs can come to an understanding and that the community opts by the Block size increase options.

[andysbizz]

No, not Bitcoin XT

[danielW]

Whenever the demand is greater than the capacity, some transactions will inevitably be delayed.

No, if the price can adjust then demand will always equal supply. What kind of professor are you?

The price for fees can change, more wallets need to implement this feature tho. That is all that is needed for there to be no queues.

[canth]

Whenever the demand is greater than the capacity, some transactions will inevitably be delayed.

No, if the price can adjust then demand will always equal supply. What kind of professor are you?

The price for fees can change, more wallets need to implement this feature tho. That is all that is needed for there to be no queues.

No, that doesn't make any sense. If 200 people want to take the bus but it only has 100 eats then it doesn't matter what the ticket price is - there will be 100 people that will be delayed getting to their destination. The only option you are talking about is that 100 people who really want to take the bus now are forced to take a taxi - aka, use something other than Bitcoin. While this is possible, it is also bad for growth when done by artificially taking seats out of the bus for the purpose of forcing ticket prices higher.

TLDR; Limiting the block size for any reason other than technical scalability reasons is a bad idea.

[danielW]

Whenever the demand is greater than the capacity, some transactions will inevitably be delayed.

No, if the price can adjust then demand will always equal supply. What kind of professor are you?

The price for fees can change, more wallets need to implement this feature tho. That is all that is needed for there to be no queues.

No, that doesn't make any sense. If 200 people want to take the bus but it only has 100 eats then it doesn't matter what the ticket price is - there will be 100 people that will be delayed getting to their destination. The only option you are talking about is that 100 people who really want to take the bus now are forced to take a taxi - aka, use something other than Bitcoin. While this is possible, it is also bad for growth when done by artificially taking seats out of the bus for the purpose of forcing ticket prices higher.

TLDR; Limiting the block size for any reason other than technical scalability reasons is a bad idea.

If the ticket price increases only 100 people will want to take the bus not 200 so there will be no queue.

Thats how economics works everywhere for everything. Using your reasoning everything on earth has a unlimited queue, from tomatoes to busses, to bitcoin now, cause if the cost to buy bitcoin (or any other product or service on earth) was lower more people would get it.

With all due respect thats absurd, thats not a queue by normal definition.

And there is nothing artificial about it, in the same way that busses can only hold so much people and there is nothing artificial about that.  

To go with the bus analogy, in my eyes you want to design a bus that holds 800 people (i.e. 8GB blocks) I find thats too much and think the design should only allow for 200 people. There is nothing artificial about a limit in the design of a bus.

Its a characteristic of Bitcoin, its no more artificial then the 21 million limit which is also just another characteristic. The second one is held more sacred tho.

[canth]

Whenever the demand is greater than the capacity, some transactions will inevitably be delayed.

No, if the price can adjust then demand will always equal supply. What kind of professor are you?

The price for fees can change, more wallets need to implement this feature tho. That is all that is needed for there to be no queues.

No, that doesn't make any sense. If 200 people want to take the bus but it only has 100 eats then it doesn't matter what the ticket price is - there will be 100 people that will be delayed getting to their destination. The only option you are talking about is that 100 people who really want to take the bus now are forced to take a taxi - aka, use something other than Bitcoin. While this is possible, it is also bad for growth when done by artificially taking seats out of the bus for the purpose of forcing ticket prices higher.

TLDR; Limiting the block size for any reason other than technical scalability reasons is a bad idea.

If the ticket price increases only 100 people will want to take the bus not 200 so there will be no queue.

Thats how economics works everywhere for everything. Using your reasoning everything on earth has a unlimited queue, from tomatoes to busses, to bitcoin now, cause if the cost to buy bitcoin (or any other product or service on earth) was lower more people would get it.

With all due respect thats absurd, thats not a queue by normal definition.

And there is nothing artificial about it, in the same way that busses can only hold so much people and there is nothing artificial about that. 

To go with the bus analogy, in my eyes you want to design a bus that holds 800 people (i.e. 8GB blocks) I find thats too much and think the design should only allow for 200 people. There is nothing artificial about a limit in the design of a bus.

Its a characteristic of Bitcoin, its no more artificial the 21 million limit which is also just another characteristic. The second one is held more sacred tho.

It's more like 200 people showed up to take the bus but when the time came to board the bus, they found out that the price was too high so they were forced to wait for the next bus. Eventually, as you say, less people are interested in taking the bus and go to another bus company. During volatile demand times, you will not know what the price is to get on the bus now - you will pay your fee and maybe if your wallet allows for you to increase the fee you'll be able to change your mind later.

Let's get one thing out of the way - the 21 million limit is completely arbitrary since any number would have worked. 1BTC would have been no different than 1 trillion BTC.

Block size is not as arbitrary since it limits the number of people that can use the system. And yes, in 20 years I think 800 person busses is something to expect. Either Bitcoin is a payment system many people use or else it's a settlement system accessible by only the super wealthy individuals or coinbase style banks. Block size needs to grow as much as it technically is possible to grow without much regard to fees, at least short term.

[danielW]

Whenever the demand is greater than the capacity, some transactions will inevitably be delayed.

No, if the price can adjust then demand will always equal supply. What kind of professor are you?

The price for fees can change, more wallets need to implement this feature tho. That is all that is needed for there to be no queues.

No, that doesn't make any sense. If 200 people want to take the bus but it only has 100 eats then it doesn't matter what the ticket price is - there will be 100 people that will be delayed getting to their destination. The only option you are talking about is that 100 people who really want to take the bus now are forced to take a taxi - aka, use something other than Bitcoin. While this is possible, it is also bad for growth when done by artificially taking seats out of the bus for the purpose of forcing ticket prices higher.

TLDR; Limiting the block size for any reason other than technical scalability reasons is a bad idea.

If the ticket price increases only 100 people will want to take the bus not 200 so there will be no queue.

Thats how economics works everywhere for everything. Using your reasoning everything on earth has a unlimited queue, from tomatoes to busses, to bitcoin now, cause if the cost to buy bitcoin (or any other product or service on earth) was lower more people would get it.

With all due respect thats absurd, thats not a queue by normal definition.

And there is nothing artificial about it, in the same way that busses can only hold so much people and there is nothing artificial about that.  

To go with the bus analogy, in my eyes you want to design a bus that holds 800 people (i.e. 8GB blocks) I find thats too much and think the design should only allow for 200 people. There is nothing artificial about a limit in the design of a bus.

Its a characteristic of Bitcoin, its no more artificial the 21 million limit which is also just another characteristic. The second one is held more sacred tho.

It's more like 200 people showed up to take the bus but when the time came to board the bus, they found out that the price was too high so they were forced to wait for the next bus. Eventually, as you

Thats why I said this

The price for fees can change, more wallets need to implement this feature tho. That is all that is needed for there to be no queues.

The more efficient the market and price finding mechanisms are the less queues there will be. Even with a small block size.

If wallets allow for the fee price to be changed, queues for average users will be rare and there will be a known amount above which users can be certain of getting into a block immediately.

If wallets additionally have smart price finding mechanism the market will be even more efficient and queues will be rarer.

If you have  replace-by-fee as Peter Todd is trying to advocate, and wallets and pools implement that functionality, the market can be even more efficient and users can have a flawless experience without having to worry about fees at all.


I believe that having some fee pressure will push wallet developers to implement these relatively simple abilities. Some small block size increase(s) will be needed tho at some point.

[RealBitcoin]

Well anyways guys, I`ll be hedging myself agains this calamity with some Litecoin and other big coins.

Whatever will happen after the september meeting of the devs, I am not taking chances, so pray that bitcoin will be ok after that.

I just dont see how the push for XT will resolve anything...

[canth]

Well anyways guys, I`ll be hedging myself agains this calamity with some Litecoin and other big coins.

Whatever will happen after the september meeting of the devs, I am not taking chances, so pray that bitcoin will be ok after that.

I just dont see how the push for XT will resolve anything...

This conversation has been going on for years now. Is XT the solution? Only miners/merchants/users support will decide. However, XT is certainly pushing the conversation along more rapidly than it has been in the past. IMO, the scaling conference would not have been arranged without it.

[RealBitcoin]

Well anyways guys, I`ll be hedging myself agains this calamity with some Litecoin and other big coins.

Whatever will happen after the september meeting of the devs, I am not taking chances, so pray that bitcoin will be ok after that.

I just dont see how the push for XT will resolve anything...

This conversation has been going on for years now. Is XT the solution? Only miners/merchants/users support will decide. However, XT is certainly pushing the conversation along more rapidly than it has been in the past. IMO, the scaling conference would not have been arranged without it.

The funny thing is that Litecoin has XT scheduled too, but I hope they will implement it after Bitcoin.

So if bitcoin gets fucked up, then everybody could rush to Litecoin as an alternative. If they implement it in the same time then we are fucked.

Even though any modification is scheduled for january, I feel like we will have a cold autumn and  winter ahead

[canth]

Thats why I said this

The price for fees can change, more wallets need to implement this feature tho. That is all that is needed for there to be no queues.

The more efficient the market and price finding mechanisms are the less queues there will be. Even with a small block size.

If wallets allow for the fee price to be changed, queues for average users will be rare and there will be a known amount above which users can be certain of getting into a block immediately.

If wallets additionally have smart price finding mechanism the market will be even more efficient and queues will be rarer.

If you have  replace-by-fee as Peter Todd is trying to advocate, and wallets and pools implement that functionality, the market can be even more efficient and users can have a flawless experience without having to worry about fees at all.


I believe that having some fee pressure will push wallet developers to implement these relatively simple abilities. Some small block size increase(s) will be needed tho at some point.

Sure, let's say I agree with all of the above. To me, it's all moot without significant growth of users - growth that by your economic analysis won't happen with fees that are too high since the customers will go elsewhere. Either we can scale this thing 100X+ from where it is today or it's not interesting.

[danielW]

Thats why I said this

The price for fees can change, more wallets need to implement this feature tho. That is all that is needed for there to be no queues.

The more efficient the market and price finding mechanisms are the less queues there will be. Even with a small block size.

If wallets allow for the fee price to be changed, queues for average users will be rare and there will be a known amount above which users can be certain of getting into a block immediately.

If wallets additionally have smart price finding mechanism the market will be even more efficient and queues will be rarer.

If you have  replace-by-fee as Peter Todd is trying to advocate, and wallets and pools implement that functionality, the market can be even more efficient and users can have a flawless experience without having to worry about fees at all.


I believe that having some fee pressure will push wallet developers to implement these relatively simple abilities. Some small block size increase(s) will be needed tho at some point.

Sure, let's say I agree with all of the above. To me, it's all moot without significant growth of users - growth that by your economic analysis won't happen with fees that are too high since the customers will go elsewhere. Either we can scale this thing 100X+ from where it is today or it's not interesting.

I dont think scaling to 100x is best done by simply raising the block size limit. Its even less likely to work for scaling to 1000x or 100000x which I hope will be needed.


Right now an increase is not even needed. Maybe in about a year or two at the earliest.

Moderate increases over the next few years is the way to go I believe.

Sure, we have a small chance of touching the limit for a few months at some point if we have a sudden spurt. I dont believe there will be any sort of crash-landing doomsday scenario, in that event. It will not have a large impact on Bitcoin.

Fees might double, and wallets will have to implement some needed features (most should see it coming, infact some wallets already have these capabilities), whoopie doo, no big deal.

A contentious fork on the other hand is a much riskier and more damaging event.

[achow101]

A contentious fork on the other hand is a much riskier and more damaging event.

And a contentious fork in an emergency/panic is an even much more riskier and much more damaging event.

The whole point of planning and carrying out the fork in the near term is to preempt significant growth to prevent an emergency situation where the hard fork is done in a panic. That could be even worse. It is better to do it now when people are calm (mostly) and are thinking rationally (mostly) and various proposals can be heard and discussed. You never want to fix a problem when it becomes a problem.

[danielW]

A contentious fork on the other hand is a much riskier and more damaging event.

And a contentious fork in an emergency/panic is an even much more riskier and much more damaging event.

The whole point of planning and carrying out the fork in the near term is to preempt significant growth to prevent an emergency situation where the hard fork is done in a panic. That could be even worse. It is better to do it now when people are calm (mostly) and are thinking rationally (mostly) and various proposals can be heard and discussed. You never want to fix a problem when it becomes a problem.

But there will be no emergency. If there is panic it will be unwarranted, as it is now.

Nothing serious or bad will happen if we touch the limit. Its not a big deal.

You never want to fix a problem when it becomes a problem.

Why? premature scaling is often the cause of the death of many businesses. The reality is fixing problems when they occur is often the pragmatic way to go.

Right now people are stressing about what I consider to be an imagined problem that will not occur. I can see no clear reasoning or evidence for the emergency scenario.

 You always have to weigh issues up individually to be honest. Sometimes dealing earlier is a good choice, sometimes not.

It might even be a good thing if we hit the limit if it creates a fee market and incentivises better scaling solutions.


We are panicking now about an event that could be mildly positive or mildly negative, that probably will not occur anyhow.

[canth]

Hard forks area *always* going to be contentious, except in dire emergency situations (aka, levelDB in 2013). I don't believe that you'll ever get 95% miner support for block increases so that alone is an issue. Also, people will have lots of reasons to push it off.

- Aug 2015 - we can't do a blocksize increase now - there's no emergency.
- December 2015 - we do a blocksize increase now - there's not enough time before the next fee halving and it will be unpredictable
- Nov 2016 - we can't do a blocksize increase now - the fee market is just starting to mature and it will cause some miners to become unprofitable
- Aug 2016 - we can't do a blocksize increase now - the LN is too immature and we don't know how payment channels will alleviate load, etc.

... sometime in 2017
- how come the price of BTC is so low? How come we don't have more users?

It's always going to be contentious to change consensus. Might as well fight the fight now.

[achow101]

A contentious fork on the other hand is a much riskier and more damaging event.

And a contentious fork in an emergency/panic is an even much more riskier and much more damaging event.

The whole point of planning and carrying out the fork in the near term is to preempt significant growth to prevent an emergency situation where the hard fork is done in a panic. That could be even worse. It is better to do it now when people are calm (mostly) and are thinking rationally (mostly) and various proposals can be heard and discussed. You never want to fix a problem when it becomes a problem.

But there will be no emergency. If there is panic it will be unwarranted, as it is now.

Are you suggesting there won't be a panic when blocks are full and transactions are backlogged? Because that is pretty much what happened when the spam attacks happened. People panicked.

Nothing serious or bad will happen if we touch the limit. Its not a big deal.

You never want to fix a problem when it becomes a problem.

Why? premature scaling is often the cause of the death of many businesses. The reality is fixing problems when they occur is often the pragmatic way to go.

Right now people are stressing about what I consider to be an imagined problem that will not occur. I can see no clear reasoning or evidence for the emergency scenario.

Why do you consider this to be an imagined problem?

Even if there is no emergency, if a problem exists, why should you wait before it becomes serious? That is not a good way to deal with things because then you have an emergency situation.

You always have to weigh issues up individually too be honest. Sometimes dealing earlier is a good choice, sometimes not.

It might even be a good thing if we hit the limit if it creates a fee market and incentivises better scaling solutions.

If it creates a fee market, then what happens to the claim that Bitcoin is a free or low cost way to transfer small amounts of money? That vision and the whole micropayemnts thing is going to go away. It could cause Bitcoin to lose users or simply prevent other users from joining.

Also, what if better scaling solutions can't come up before this becomes a problem? If you prefer kicking-the-can-down-the-road, then you should consider BIP 102.

[danielW]

Are you suggesting there won't be a panic when blocks are full and transactions are backlogged? Because that is pretty much what happened when the spam attacks happened. People panicked.

The stress test did not impact me at all, when I paid a transaction fee my transaction got accepted. If we improve wallets the impact will be even milder.

The only significant effect will be that eventually fees will raise. Incase of a huge unprecedented spike they might increase to about 10cents, big deal. This would require a hard fork increase to relive fee pressure.

Maybe we should increase the limit slightly. I am ok with pretty much all proposals except Gavins, which has what I consider very aggressive increases to 8mb then 8gb.

[danielW]

That vision and the whole micropayemnts thing is going to go away. It could cause Bitcoin to lose users or simply prevent other users from joining.

You will need fees at some point to pay miners. Thats the reality.

To change that you need to:
Somehow move/change proof of work for Bitcoins blockchain security
Have some sort of constant inflation (i.e. get rid of 21 million limit).

Otherwise we will need fees, that will add up to millions per day.
 

[mmortal03]

Transactions wouldn't be going through, and the queue would get longer and longer. People would start going elsewhere to make payments, because the Bitcoin network would be taking too long for their transactions to confirm.

That wont happen because you simply have to pay a small fee for your transaction to be accepted. There will not be any queue.

Actually we are far below the limit now if you count fee paying transactions.

Please read the following. It covers the problem with this: https://medium.com/@octskyward/crash-landing-f5cc19908e32

[achow101]

That vision and the whole micropayemnts thing is going to go away. It could cause Bitcoin to lose users or simply prevent other users from joining.

You will need fees at some point to pay miners. Thats the reality.

To change that you need to:
Somehow move/change proof of work for Bitcoins blockchain security
Have some sort of constant inflation (i.e. get rid of 21 million limit).

Otherwise we will need fees, that will add up to millions per day.
 

What are you talking about?

Miners can get paid from fees if either fees go up or more people use Bitcoin. With increasing block size limits, fees can both go up (but to a lesser extent) and gain more users thus generating more fees. By keeping the limit, at a certain point, fees can only go up by usership won't have an affect except by perhaps increasing the fees some more. At some point, people will become frustrated with the fees that they just quit.

Are you suggesting there won't be a panic when blocks are full and transactions are backlogged? Because that is pretty much what happened when the spam attacks happened. People panicked.

The stress test did not impact me at all, when I paid a transaction fee my transaction got accepted. If we improve wallets the impact will be even milder.

The only significant effect will be that eventually fees will raise. Incase of a huge unprecedented spike they might increase to about 10cents, big deal. This would require a hard fork increase to relive fee pressure.

But a hard fork should never be done in an emergency as that can cause problems. It is best to do them when a problem that has potential to become an emergency has been identified.

Maybe we should increase the limit slightly. I am ok with pretty much all proposals except Gavins, which has what I consider very aggressive increases to 8mb then 8gb.

I agree. I prefer BIP 100. I am also in favor of action in the near future instead of waiting for this to become an actual problem.

BIP101 does not immediately jump from 8 mb to 8 gb. It increases exponentially over the course of several years.

edit: fixed linearly to exponentially. Thanks dooglus for pointing out my mistake.

[mmortal03]

But there will be no emergency. If there is panic it will be unwarranted, as it is now.

Nothing serious or bad will happen if we touch the limit. Its not a big deal.

Please see the article I just posted above.

[danielW]

That vision and the whole micropayemnts thing is going to go away. It could cause Bitcoin to lose users or simply prevent other users from joining.

You will need fees at some point to pay miners. Thats the reality.

To change that you need to:
Somehow move/change proof of work for Bitcoins blockchain security
Have some sort of constant inflation (i.e. get rid of 21 million limit).

Otherwise we will need fees, that will add up to millions per day.
 

I read it before and re-read it again now.

First thing, even Gavin said that he thinks this scenario is unlikely.

Anyhow.

The first half of the article is not really relevant because as he says memcache can be limited.

So that leaves the second part which has 3 main arguments:

The first two, are irrelevant because you simply have to pay a high enough fee. A fee market means there is always space if you pay a high enough fee. Thats how markets work. If the blocks start getting full the transactions get dropped of. There will always be space if you can pay a good fee. People of-course, will not attempt transactions with low fees just as nobody attempts to buy a mercades for $5.

Wallets can automatically estimate what fee is necessary.

The third argument; So let says it occurs in the scenario where a transaction was submitted but the fee estimated was too low (busy part of the day maybe). The transaction does not make it in.

Eventually it probably will make it because the market price can drop, and presumably the fee was not too far below the market price.

Replace-by-fee means that the transaction can be resubmitted with a higher fee. A wallet could do that automatically.

They resubmit, and nodes say … OK. I will kick out the lowest fee paying transaction and replace it with yours. However, the original sender of that transaction has gone offline and doesn’t know this has happened. Now their transaction is stuck — it will never confirm.

This part I can not understand. The wallet can create a new transaction automatically, to replace the old. Why does it have to be stuck?

If a wallet does not have that functionality, the user will have to resubmit it himself and not go to sleep.

If his wallet does not even allow to resubmit transactions, they should consider changing wallets. Some already allow that.

[JorgeStolfi]

What kind of professor are you?

Just an ordinary professor.  I cannot do miracles.  If students just repeat any bullshit that they read, without thinking critically, I cannot help them...

if the price can adjust then demand will always equal supply.  The price for fees can change, more wallets need to implement this feature tho. That is all that is needed for there to be no queues.

The "fee market" idea is nonsense in so many levels that I don't know where to begin. I give up.

Bitcoin's story is "nerds and libertarians learning the basics of how the world works, the hard way".  The "fee market" will be another lesson: "how to manage a lemonade stand."

[achow101]

They resubmit, and nodes say … OK. I will kick out the lowest fee paying transaction and replace it with yours. However, the original sender of that transaction has gone offline and doesn’t know this has happened. Now their transaction is stuck — it will never confirm.

This part I can not understand. The wallet can create a new transaction automatically, to replace the old. Why does it have to be stuck?

If a wallet does not have that functionality, the user will have to resubmit it himself and not go to sleep.

If his wallet does not even allow to resubmit transactions, they should consider changing wallets. Some already allow that.

The nodes will drop that low fee transaction from its mempool and since the sender has gone offline, then there is no one to continue to broadcast that transaction and it is forgotten by the network. When the node goes back online, the transaction may have disappeared. If it didn't, then it should be rebroadcasting the transaction every 30 minutes.

[dhenson]

What kind of professor are you?

Just an ordinary professor.  I cannot do miracles.  If students just repeat any bullshit that they read, without thinking critically, I cannot help them...

if the price can adjust then demand will always equal supply.  The price for fees can change, more wallets need to implement this feature tho. That is all that is needed for there to be no queues.

The "fee market" idea is nonsense in so many levels that I don't know where to begin. I give up.

Bitcoin's story is "nerds and libertarians learning the basics of how the world works, the hard way".  The "fee market" will be another lesson: "how to manage a lemonade stand."

This guy gets it. +1 for making me laugh.

[dooglus]

BIP101 does not immediately jump from 8 mb to 8 gb. It increases linearly over the course of several years.

That kind of misinformation isn't useful.

It increases exponentially, not linearly, doubling every 2 years for 20 years. 10 doublings, giving a 1024x increase. On top of the initial 8x increase, making an effective increase of 8192x.

[RealBitcoin]

Just an ordinary professor.  I cannot do miracles.  If students just repeat any bullshit that they read, without thinking critically, I cannot help them...

Whenever the demand is greater than the capacity, some transactions will inevitably be delayed.  

Whenever the demand is greater than the capacity (supply), then the transaction price increases and those who will pay more get their TX executed, those who dont will have to wait a bit more.

Thus you can still send your TX in normal amount of time, you just have to pay more to get it cleared.

And it's not random transactions we talk about, but depending on who pays more. It's an auction market, and who bids more will get priority.

[Cryddit]

The "fee market" idea is nonsense in so many levels that I don't know where to begin. I give up.

Bitcoin's story is "nerds and libertarians learning the basics of how the world works, the hard way".  The "fee market" will be another lesson: "how to manage a lemonade stand."

Yeeeah.  Right on the head.  I've given up talking to these clowns, but you're right.

Small blocks and high fees are NOT a viable way forward. 

[kano]

if the price can adjust then demand will always equal supply.  The price for fees can change, more wallets need to implement this feature tho. That is all that is needed for there to be no queues.

The "fee market" idea is nonsense in so many levels that I don't know where to begin. I give up.

Bitcoin's story is "nerds and libertarians learning the basics of how the world works, the hard way".  The "fee market" will be another lesson: "how to manage a lemonade stand."

God damn I gotta love a lemonade stand worth over 3 billion dollars that's been in the market for almost 6 years ...

[Holliday]

Bitcoin's story is "nerds and libertarians learning the basics of how the world works, the hard way".  The "fee market" will be another lesson: "how to manage a lemonade stand."

Stolfi's story is: A guy who spends an inordinate amount of his free time following those nerds and libertarians around, pointing at them, and shouting, "You're doing it wrong!", while they just look at him and chuckle.

I give up.

Oh, I doubt it very much.

[RealBitcoin]

The "fee market" idea is nonsense in so many levels that I don't know where to begin. I give up.

Bitcoin's story is "nerds and libertarians learning the basics of how the world works, the hard way".  The "fee market" will be another lesson: "how to manage a lemonade stand."

Yeeeah.  Right on the head.  I've given up talking to these clowns, but you're right.

Small blocks and high fees are NOT a viable way forward. 

Of course, let's just give up gravity because we feel uncomfortable by not being able to fly. I`m really pissed at gravity, every time i jump out of the window from the 10th floor I cannot fly. Damn you gravity.

Free market is so nasty, let's just have corrupt control maniac oligarchy control the market because that will make it so much better...


You guys don't even realize how ridiculous you sound.

[modrobert]

RealBitcoin,

Fee != Free

[RealBitcoin]

RealBitcoin,

Fee != Free

WTF ? Free market doesn't mean that the item listed in it is free.

Free market means it's free from control and corruption, and the price is determined by voluntary trading, and not manipulated by central banks or etc.

I hope you guys are not so naive to confuse "free" as in free from corruption, with the other meaning of "free" which is with 0 cost.

[modrobert]

RealBitcoin,

Fee != Free

WTF ? Free market doesn't mean that the item listed in it is free.

Free market means it's free from control and corruption, and the price is determined by voluntary trading, and not manipulated by central banks or etc.

I hope you guys are not so naive to confuse "free" as in free from corruption, with the other meaning of "free" which is with 0 cost.

I just pointed out that JorgeStolfi mentioned "fee market", not "free market", it seems like you misread that part (original quote below).

The "fee market" idea is nonsense in so many levels that I don't know where to begin. I give up.

Bitcoin's story is "nerds and libertarians learning the basics of how the world works, the hard way".  The "fee market" will be another lesson: "how to manage a lemonade stand."

[JorgeStolfi]

Whenever the demand is greater than the capacity, some transactions will inevitably be delayed.  

Whenever the demand is greater than the capacity (supply), then the transaction price increases and those who will pay more get their TX executed, those who dont will have to wait a bit more.

Thus you can still send your TX in normal amount of time, you just have to pay more to get it cleared.

Yes, those transactions that pay higher fees will go first.

However, the capacity of the network is ~0.8 MB (~1500 trasactions) every 10 minutes.  If there is 1.6 MB of transactions (~3000 tx) in the queue, half of them will miss the next block, even if each of them is paying 1 BTC of fee.  

Fees can only decide which transactions will get served first; no matter how high they are, they cannot reduce the average waiting time -- not even by 1 second.

Moreover, it will not be "a little longer".  If clients (all over the world, independently of each otehr) are issuing 3000 transactions every 10 minutes, at most 1500 of them will be processed in the next block.  The other 1500 will go into the queue, adding to the backlog; and will be confirmed only after the traffic again drops below 1500 tx/block.  Even then, if the demand drops to 1300 tx/block, the the backlog will be cleared only at the rate of 1500 - 1300 = 200 tx/block.  

So, a surge in demand that lasts a couple of hours can take many hours to clear.  A large percentage of the transactions will be delayed until the backlog is clearing. Even if most transactions are paying high fees. The average time to first confirmation, which was ~10 minutes before the jam started, will then jump to several hours.

Even if tools like replace-by-fee (RBF) and child-pays-for-parent (CPFP) are available, they will not reduce the average waiting time by a single second.  If you use RBF to push your transaction to the front of the queue, so that is gets mined in the next block, some other transaction that was expecting to be in that block will be pushed to the second-next one, and another that was to be in the latter will be pushed to the third next block, and so on.  

If your transaction got into the backlog (and there is a significant chance that it will, no matter what fee your smart wallet chose), there will be thousands of other clients, just as impatient and wealthy as you, that will try to get their transactions ahead of yours, using those same smart wallets and fee-adjusting tools too.  So, after you sent your payment for your shuttle flight, or to reserve the last room in that hotel in Paris, you will have to keep checking the queues, increasing the fee of your transaction, maybe for hours -- only to wait until the backlog is clearing, anyway.   With a high probability, you will pay a lot more, only to wait much, much longer.

If the average demand is greater than the capacity, the backlog of unconfirmed transactions will keep growing forever and will never clear.  A fraction of the transactions will fall off the end of the queue, after sitting there for hours or days, and will never be confirmed. The average waiting time will then be infinite.

To summarize:

If the average demand is much less than the capacity, there is no fee market: all transactions that pay minimum fee will be processed in then next 10 minutes.

If the average demand is close to capacity, it will be greater than capacity during peak hours or days; then a growing backlog will form until the demand subsides, and the average waiting time will shoot up from 10 minutes to hours.

If the average demand is greater than the capacity, the backlog of unconfirmed transactions will keep growing forever and will never clear.  The average waiting time will be infinite and some transactions will never confirm.

Any bitcoin developer who wants to see bitcoin develop a "fee market" is either incompetent, or does not care about its users.

[JorgeStolfi]

God damn I gotta love a lemonade stand worth over 3 billion dollars that's been in the market for almost 6 years ...

... all this time with demand well below capacity and without a "fee market".  But now the lemonade stand is under a new management, who are is determined to change that...

[JorgeStolfi]

I give up.

Oh, I doubt it very much.

Rats.  It is so embarassing to be predictable. 

[kano]

God damn I gotta love a lemonade stand worth over 3 billion dollars that's been in the market for almost 6 years ...

... all this time with demand well below capacity and without a "fee market".  But now the lemonade stand is under a new management, who are is determined to change that...

So you pretend to be a professor and a financial expert

There is no 'new management'

Miners have always controlled what goes into each block.
Obviously a lot more than you realise
How this has been done has regularly been brought up for 'discussion' over the last few years ...

[JorgeStolfi]

Free market means it's free from control and corruption, and the price is determined by voluntary trading, and not manipulated by central banks or etc.

I hope you guys are not so naive to confuse "free" as in free from corruption, with the other meaning of "free" which is with 0 cost.

That is the problem: libertarians are all for free markets, but have a totally wrong idea of what "free market" means.  

It is NOT a market free from control or regulations.  

There are several requirement for a market to be a "free market". Among them: there must be several suppliers, and consumers must be free to choose among them, or do without the service.  Consumers know the price charged by each supplier in advance, and, if they pay that price, they will get what they paid for.  Most importantly, suppliers can increase their production if they find it is in their interest, and there cannot be unfair barriers preventing new suppliers to come into the market, if they have the required capital and expertise.

A market can have a ton of regulations and paperwork and licenses and bizarre licensing and auditing requirements; but it can still be a free markets, as long as those conditions apply to all suppliers, and there are entrepreneurs who could meet them -- if they saw a profit in doing so.

The theory then says that free markets are good fro mankind, because, in a free market, the suppliers will enter or leave, and adjust their prices, until the price will be just high enough to cover the cost of efficient production plus a return on investment as good as any other activity -- that is, maybe 10 percent per year.  

The "fee market" would fail to meet all of these conditions.  To begin with, there is only one supplier -- the bitcoin network -- and all bitcoin holders are forced to use it.  The supplier would not be allowed to increase the supply, because the block size would be limited by the developers' decision.  The clients will not know the fee that is required to get confirmed in N minutes before they send their transaction. (They will only know it after N minutes have passed, by inspecting the blocks that have been mined.) No matter how much they pay, they cannot be certain to receive the timely service that they thought they were paying for.

Indeed, what the "fee market" advocates want is the exact opposite of a fRee market: they want to create a monopoly market, where the single supplier limits the supply to a level that will guarantee him maximum return on investment.  Which means much reduceed benefits to society and a much higher price than what a free market would provide.

The only free market that could exist in cryptocurrency would be the market for e-payments among competing cryptocoins.  But that does not seem to be free in the US either...
 

[modrobert]

Power lies with those who control the market, dictate the rules, charge the fees, and establish the infrastructure.

What I like about Bitcoin is that the distributed system of consensus pretty much eliminates the possibility to gain unfair advantages, unlike most other markets. Even core changes to the system abide by blockchain rules of consensus client wise.

As soon as we move this control away from the system itself, back in the hands of people, no matter how good the intentions are it will be corrupted like any other market. To me, the core idea is to rely on math rather than people, in a fair automated system.

[kano]

Power lies with those who control the market, dictate the rules, charge the fees, and establish the infrastructure.

What I like about Bitcoin is that the distributed system of consensus pretty much eliminates the possibility to gain unfair advantages, unlike most other markets. Even core changes to the system abide by blockchain rules of consensus client wise.

As soon as we move this control away from the system itself, back in the hands of people, no matter how good the intentions are it will be corrupted like any other market. To me, the core idea is to rely on math rather than people, in a fair automated system.

Yep that's what will happen.
BIP100 is now 60% ... and hopefully 80% soon.
(XT BIP101 is still the same less than 1% it got from slush and only slush)
https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools?resolution=24h

[canth]

Power lies with those who control the market, dictate the rules, charge the fees, and establish the infrastructure.

What I like about Bitcoin is that the distributed system of consensus pretty much eliminates the possibility to gain unfair advantages, unlike most other markets. Even core changes to the system abide by blockchain rules of consensus client wise.

As soon as we move this control away from the system itself, back in the hands of people, no matter how good the intentions are it will be corrupted like any other market. To me, the core idea is to rely on math rather than people, in a fair automated system.

Yep that's what will happen.
BIP100 is now 60% ... and hopefully 80% soon.
(XT BIP101 is still the same less than 1% it got from slush and only slush)

What does that matter? Bitcoin != only miners. The likelihood that either of these proposals get adopted is no higher than it was a month ago.

[mmortal03]

Stolfi's story is: A guy who spends an inordinate amount of his free time following those nerds and libertarians around, pointing at them, and shouting, "You're doing it wrong!", while they just look at him and chuckle.

He's not following them around; the "nerds and libertarians" are unavoidable in the Bitcoin space -- and many of them *are* doing it wrong.

[mmortal03]

Power lies with those who control the market, dictate the rules, charge the fees, and establish the infrastructure.

What I like about Bitcoin is that the distributed system of consensus pretty much eliminates the possibility to gain unfair advantages, unlike most other markets. Even core changes to the system abide by blockchain rules of consensus client wise.

As soon as we move this control away from the system itself, back in the hands of people, no matter how good the intentions are it will be corrupted like any other market. To me, the core idea is to rely on math rather than people, in a fair automated system.

Yep that's what will happen.
BIP100 is now 60% ... and hopefully 80% soon.
(XT BIP101 is still the same less than 1% it got from slush and only slush)
https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools?resolution=24h

That's great and all, but my understanding is that that proposal isn't even fully fleshed out, and definitely not coded yet:

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/21747/closer-look-bip100-block-size-proposal-bitcoin-miners-rallying-behind/

How long will it take to gain consensus on even just how it's supposed to work? And, it only is supposed to go up to 32MB, so, using the small block proponents' own argument against you, will we not require yet another hard fork in the future once we approach 32MB?

[HostFat]

The "market of fee" can only develop if the demand (number of TXs) is higher than the probability that the miner get his block orphaned because too much bigger to spread correctly to the network.

There is already a natural limit on how much the block size can be big.

There is no need for virtual limits.

[mmortal03]

While relatively simple, some say that the voting procedure as described above has some flaws. (But note that it is not yet completely certain that this is how BIP 100 will actually function.) One issue that was raised on Reddit is the so-called “21% attack.” This refers to the ability of 21 percent of miners (possibly a single pool) to vote the block-size limit down as much as they want.
There is some logic behind Garzik’s rule, however. It is generally believed that bigger blocks are disadvantageous for smaller pools. Most Bitcoin developers worry, therefore, that left to their own devices, big pools could keep voting the limit upward – indirectly putting smaller pools out of business and further centralizing mining. This is why Garzik proposed the threshold; he believes the block size should be raised only if a supermajority of miners (81 percent) agree. Or put differently: he believes that smaller mining pools representing 21 percent of hashing power should have “veto power” to keep the limit low.

Source: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/21747/closer-look-bip100-block-size-proposal-bitcoin-miners-rallying-behind/


This sounds like a sort of Connecticut Compromise for Bitcoin, and we haven't even gotten to the Three-Fifths Compromise yet.

[mmortal03]

BIP101 does not immediately jump from 8 mb to 8 gb. It increases linearly over the course of several years.

That kind of misinformation isn't useful.

It increases exponentially, not linearly, doubling every 2 years for 20 years. 10 doublings, giving a 1024x increase. On top of the initial 8x increase, making an effective increase of 8192x.

It is not a surprise that you are pushing the most dangerous solution (8MB straight away and then x2 every year until 8GB are reached) that will probably lead to complete centralization and thus the death of Bitcoin.

Maybe we should increase the limit slightly. I am ok with pretty much all proposals except Gavins, which has what I consider very aggressive increases to 8mb then 8gb.

8 GB would be in 2036. That's 21 *years* from now, people.

[canth]

BIP101 does not immediately jump from 8 mb to 8 gb. It increases linearly over the course of several years.

That kind of misinformation isn't useful.

It increases exponentially, not linearly, doubling every 2 years for 20 years. 10 doublings, giving a 1024x increase. On top of the initial 8x increase, making an effective increase of 8192x.

It is not a surprise that you are pushing the most dangerous solution (8MB straight away and then x2 every year until 8GB are reached) that will probably lead to complete centralization and thus the death of Bitcoin.

Maybe we should increase the limit slightly. I am ok with pretty much all proposals except Gavins, which has what I consider very aggressive increases to 8mb then 8gb.

8 GB would be in 2036. That's 21 *years* from now, people.

To that point, in 1995 - this was cutting edge: http://winsupersite.com/article/commentary/blast-buying-computer-1995-141723

CPU - Pentium-90
Motherboard - PCI/ISA combo
Memory - 8 or 16 Mb
Hard Drive - 540 Mb or more
Monitor - 15” flat screen, .28 dot   pitch
Video Card - 1-2 Mb video RAM
double speed CD-ROM
16-bit Sound Blaster or 100% compatible
3-1/2” High Density Floppy Drive
MS-DOS 6.22 / Windows 3.11
expected cost: $3000-3800

Seriously - a 500mb HDD and 56K down / 33.6K up connection speeds - the above didn't even include a modem. In 2036, today's 4TB HDD, 8GB of memory and 25mb/s internet connection will seem equally pathetic as this PC does to us now.

[kano]

Power lies with those who control the market, dictate the rules, charge the fees, and establish the infrastructure.

What I like about Bitcoin is that the distributed system of consensus pretty much eliminates the possibility to gain unfair advantages, unlike most other markets. Even core changes to the system abide by blockchain rules of consensus client wise.

As soon as we move this control away from the system itself, back in the hands of people, no matter how good the intentions are it will be corrupted like any other market. To me, the core idea is to rely on math rather than people, in a fair automated system.

Yep that's what will happen.
BIP100 is now 60% ... and hopefully 80% soon.
(XT BIP101 is still the same less than 1% it got from slush and only slush)
https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools?resolution=24h

That's great and all, but my understanding is that that proposal isn't even fully fleshed out, and definitely not coded yet:

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/21747/closer-look-bip100-block-size-proposal-bitcoin-miners-rallying-behind/

How long will it take to gain consensus on even just how it's supposed to work? And, it only is supposed to go up to 32MB, so, using the small block proponents' own argument against you, will we not require yet another hard fork in the future once we approach 32MB?

Bitcoin doesn't support greater than 32MB.
Once any suggestion hits the 32MB limit in the future, a hard fork will be required to go beyond it.

BIP101 is a centrally controlled, knee-jerk reaction to spam attacks created to push an agenda, with a low consensus that wont even happen.
75% ... and it's still less than 1% and has been that since it's voting inception.

If Bitmain switches over to BIP100 it will have 80% ... so I guess some people will then come up with some other criteria, different to it's current consensus specification, for accepting BIP101 that has effectively already failed, since they want it no matter what consensus they get.

BIP100 gives decentralised control of the block size up to 32MB, and indeed some time before the 32MB point (which according to BIP101's invalid extrapolation is ... 4.4 years away) some more discussion will prevail in a sane manner to deal with that 2nd hard fork and how to go beyond it.

[mmortal03]

Bitcoin doesn't support greater than 32MB.
Once any suggestion hits the 32MB limit in the future, a hard fork will be required to go beyond it.

So, based on this, your perspective is that none of the proposals are any good, until they can handle going over 32MB?

BIP101 is

a centrally controlled

No, you've just been comfortable with the past circumstances where the Core developers happened to all agree with regards to the changes to the code, within the context of *their* own central control. We were *always* going to reach a point where *their* central control failed, due to some important enough disagreement.

knee-jerk reaction to spam attacks

Gavin and Mike were talking about this issue long before the spam attacks.

created to push an agenda

Dramatic language here. The small block supporters can just as well be said to have an "agenda" to push, by continuing to distract with various arguments such that the status quo is maintained, and *nothing* gets done.

with a low consensus that wont even happen

Even if it doesn't happen, it's moved the discussion forward, and motivated some individuals to actually produce various alternatives (though we *still* don't have actual code).

BIP100 gives decentralised control of the block size up to 32MB, and indeed some time before the 32MB point (which according to BIP101's invalid extrapolation is ... 4.4 years away) some more discussion will prevail in a sane manner to deal with that 2nd hard fork and how to go beyond it.

It also adds unnecessary complexity to the matter that inevitably will require further analysis to be done, instead of -- if 32MB is really the sticking point -- just doing a straight forward, algorithmic increase of some kind up to 32MB.

[canth]

BIP100 gives decentralised control of the block size up to 32MB, and indeed some time before the 32MB point (which according to BIP101's invalid extrapolation is ... 4.4 years away) some more discussion will prevail in a sane manner to deal with that 2nd hard fork and how to go beyond it.

1) The focus on 32MB seems arbitrary and silly. XT (for example) has the 32MB limit removed - there's no reason core couldn't remove it at the same time as a block size hard fork.
2) More importantly, would you say that Bitcoin mining is suitably decentralized today? Last I checked 4 pools control 62% of bitcoin hashrate. I would not think that turning over block size limits to perhaps 2 companies which may not have overall community best interest in mind is a decentralization play.

It's going to take miners, users and industry to move forward - anything else won't work no matter what any particular group pushes for.

[kano]

...
It also adds unnecessary complexity to the matter that inevitably will require further analysis to be done, instead of -- if 32MB is really the sticking point -- just doing a straight forward, algorithmic increase of some kind up to 32MB.

Decided by which central authority would you happen to like that to be?

The BIP101 has already failed to get it's votes ... it's still under 1%
But you want everyone to be happy with the BIP101's choice about how blocks size should be controlled ...

Do you not see the whole problem with that statement?!?

BIP100 is already above 60%
https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools?resolution=24h

[kano]

BIP100 gives decentralised control of the block size up to 32MB, and indeed some time before the 32MB point (which according to BIP101's invalid extrapolation is ... 4.4 years away) some more discussion will prevail in a sane manner to deal with that 2nd hard fork and how to go beyond it.

Blah blah blah

Translated:
Damn, we lost the vote by a land slide, OK now how else can we come up with some DIFFERENT criteria vs the one WE HAD, to make us win ...

[canth]

BIP100 gives decentralised control of the block size up to 32MB, and indeed some time before the 32MB point (which according to BIP101's invalid extrapolation is ... 4.4 years away) some more discussion will prevail in a sane manner to deal with that 2nd hard fork and how to go beyond it.

Blah blah blah

Translated:
Damn, we lost the vote by a land slide, OK now how else can we come up with some DIFFERENT criteria vs the one WE HAD, to make us win ...

When did Bitcoin cede consensus changes to miners? Remember those other nodes, exchanges, merchants? They aren't going to be overridden so easily.

Call this what you want - at best, we have impasse.

Miners voting BIP100 (which does not exist in code)
Merchants voting for BIP101
Devs divided
Users undetermined

How is it that any 'side' has lost?

[mmortal03]

...
It also adds unnecessary complexity to the matter that inevitably will require further analysis to be done, instead of -- if 32MB is really the sticking point -- just doing a straight forward, algorithmic increase of some kind up to 32MB.

Decided by which central authority would you happen to like that to be?

The BIP101 has already failed to get it's votes ... it's still under 1%
But you want everyone to be happy with the BIP101's choice about how blocks size should be controlled ...

Do you not see the whole problem with that statement?!?

BIP100 is already above 60%
https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools?resolution=24h

If the devs can't all agree to something, then I'd like it to be decided by some form of voting mechanism, and with actual code, not simply a proposal. I think it's silly to vote for BIP100 and consider those numbers meaningful when we don't even know exactly how it will work yet. BIP101 can also continue to get votes until the cutoff date, so you're making a premature claim. That being said, I'm not tied down to BIP101, you're just making the assumption that I am. BIP101 may also be the catalyst that gets a different proposal off the ground, so, even if it doesn't ultimately get the votes, it isn't a failure.

[achow101]

BIP100 gives decentralised control of the block size up to 32MB, and indeed some time before the 32MB point (which according to BIP101's invalid extrapolation is ... 4.4 years away) some more discussion will prevail in a sane manner to deal with that 2nd hard fork and how to go beyond it.

Blah blah blah

Translated:
Damn, we lost the vote by a land slide, OK now how else can we come up with some DIFFERENT criteria vs the one WE HAD, to make us win ...

When did Bitcoin cede consensus changes to miners? Remember those other nodes, exchanges, merchants? They aren't going to be overridden so easily.

Bitcoin has always had the consensus changes done by the miners. Technically, nodes, exchanges and merchants have no direct control over the consensus. It has always been and will always be the miners who make the consensus changes because the consensus changes are in the blocks, which are made by miners. Exchanges, merchants, and users have indirect control by giving miners incentives to mine for one consensus change versus another because if miners end up on a fork that no one else uses, they lose money.

[kano]

...
It also adds unnecessary complexity to the matter that inevitably will require further analysis to be done, instead of -- if 32MB is really the sticking point -- just doing a straight forward, algorithmic increase of some kind up to 32MB.

Decided by which central authority would you happen to like that to be?

The BIP101 has already failed to get it's votes ... it's still under 1%
But you want everyone to be happy with the BIP101's choice about how blocks size should be controlled ...

Do you not see the whole problem with that statement?!?

BIP100 is already above 60%
https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools?resolution=24h

If the devs can't all agree to something, then I'd like it to be decided by some form of voting mechanism, and with actual code, not simply a proposal. I think it's silly to vote for BIP100 and consider those numbers meaningful when we don't even know exactly how it will work yet. BIP101 can also continue to get votes until the cutoff date, so you're making a premature claim. That being said, I'm not tied down to BIP101, you're just making the assumption that I am. BIP101 may also be the catalyst that gets a different proposal off the ground, so, even if it doesn't ultimately get the votes, it isn't a failure.

So ... you studied the copious amount of code changes in XT for your BIP101 decision? i.e. didn't base your choice on the BIP itself?

[mmortal03]

So ... you studied the copious amount of code changes in XT for your BIP101 decision? i.e. didn't base your choice on the BIP itself?

I haven't personally looked at the code, but it's available to read and to run. I didn't base my choice on the BIP language by itself, I based it on the BIP, *and* all the various descriptions by others, *including* that the code does specifically what is described in the BIP. If you've got evidence that the various BIP101 implementations *don't* do what they are said to do, please provide it. In contrast, there is no code available from the other proposals that can be read or run by anyone at the moment, and time keeps moving right along.

[canth]

BIP100 gives decentralised control of the block size up to 32MB, and indeed some time before the 32MB point (which according to BIP101's invalid extrapolation is ... 4.4 years away) some more discussion will prevail in a sane manner to deal with that 2nd hard fork and how to go beyond it.

Blah blah blah

Translated:
Damn, we lost the vote by a land slide, OK now how else can we come up with some DIFFERENT criteria vs the one WE HAD, to make us win ...

When did Bitcoin cede consensus changes to miners? Remember those other nodes, exchanges, merchants? They aren't going to be overridden so easily.

Bitcoin has always had the consensus changes done by the miners. Technically, nodes, exchanges and merchants have no direct control over the consensus. It has always been and will always be the miners who make the consensus changes because the consensus changes are in the blocks, which are made by miners. Exchanges, merchants, and users have indirect control by giving miners incentives to mine for one consensus change versus another because if miners end up on a fork that no one else uses, they lose money.

This is different. Hard forks are difficult to pull off since they require a supermajority of the entire ecosystem to agree. This hard fork essentially takes a rule that used to be very hard to change and instead makes it relatively easy to change while taking away any input from merchants or users.

BIP 101: miners vote on it once, larger blocks are allowed but no miner would create >1MB blocks unless they believe that enough other miners AND merchants AND users have adopted the change.
BIP 100: The exact same process, except: once BIP 100 is in place miners can vote repeatedly without ANY concern that merchants and users have to adopt the subsequent changes. Only a new hard fork would veto miners from keeping blocks at 1MB or maxing out at 32MB.

Just to give you an example of why BIP 100 is so flawed, imagine for a minute that we aren't talking about block size and imagine that instead we're talking about the block reward schedule. Say that BIP 100 would give miners the ability to vote to accelerate or decelerate the halving process. If miners voted, they could keep the 25 BTC rewards going for 8 years or 12 or more. They could do this without merchants or users having any say, besides introducing a new hard fork taking the vote away from miners. Does that sound like a good idea?

[kano]

...
Just to give you an example of why BIP 100 is so flawed, imagine for a minute that we aren't talking about block size and imagine that instead we're talking about the block reward schedule. Say that BIP 100 would give miners the ability to vote to accelerate or decelerate the halving process. If miners voted, they could keep the 25 BTC rewards going for 8 years or 12 or more. They could do this without merchants or users having any say, besides introducing a new hard fork taking the vote away from miners. Does that sound like a good idea?

Or to give another example, lets say a BIP666 comes along to set the miner reward per block to 1,000,000 BTC
Of course all miners would vote for it since they are all stupid morons who only want 1,000,000 BTC per block.

Yes my example is as silly as yours.

You need to notice the blatantly obvious ...

Miner rewards depends on the health of bitcoin.
Most of them aren't stupid enough to come up with, or vote for, either your example or mine.

... and ... miners confirm blocks and transactions, no one else does. That's how bitcoin works. If you don't like that, then you are in the wrong place.

[canth]

...
Just to give you an example of why BIP 100 is so flawed, imagine for a minute that we aren't talking about block size and imagine that instead we're talking about the block reward schedule. Say that BIP 100 would give miners the ability to vote to accelerate or decelerate the halving process. If miners voted, they could keep the 25 BTC rewards going for 8 years or 12 or more. They could do this without merchants or users having any say, besides introducing a new hard fork taking the vote away from miners. Does that sound like a good idea?

Or to give another example, lets say a BIP666 comes along to set the miner reward per block to 1,000,000 BTC
Of course all miners would vote for it since they are all stupid morons who only want 1,000,000 BTC per block.

Yes my example is as silly as yours.

You need to notice the blatantly obvious ...

Miner rewards depends on the health of bitcoin.
Most of them aren't stupid enough to come up with, or vote for, either your example or mine.

... and ... miners confirm blocks and transactions, no one else does. That's how bitcoin works. If you don't like that, then you are in the wrong place.

Miners already control block size by the soft limits - I see no reason to give them exclusive control over the max hard limits too. No, miners as a whole aren't stupid but they often do run lazy code (SPV mining fork, Jul 4th) and they also may choose short term personal profit over the greater longterm good.

To me BIP101 seems a better decision where a supermajority needs to agree to set it in motion and a supermajority would need to change it after the fact.

[kano]

... a supermajority needs to agree to set it in motion and a supermajority would need to change it after the fact.

A smaller majority than used in core ... hmm the "excuse" Gavin used was to disallow a larger pool from stopping it.
Odd how that's not been an issue before ... when certain pools had a much higher % of the network ...

[canth]

... a supermajority needs to agree to set it in motion and a supermajority would need to change it after the fact.

A smaller majority than used in core ... hmm the "excuse" Gavin used was to disallow a larger pool from stopping it.
Odd how that's not been an issue before ... when certain pools had a much higher % of the network ...

Ha...c'mon Kano, you've been around long enough to answer that one yourself. Can you point to the last intentional hard fork? I think that by their very nature they will be contentious. Even if all the core devs got together, sang kumbaya and pushed BIPxxx for a 2MB block it'd be hard to get 95% adoption.

Hell, devs haven't even gotten a test hard fork with a 1.1MB block size increase just to prove that hard forks will be adopted.

[kano]

... a supermajority needs to agree to set it in motion and a supermajority would need to change it after the fact.

A smaller majority than used in core ... hmm the "excuse" Gavin used was to disallow a larger pool from stopping it.
Odd how that's not been an issue before ... when certain pools had a much higher % of the network ...

Ha...c'mon Kano, you've been around long enough to answer that one yourself. Can you point to the last intentional hard fork? I think that by their very nature they will be contentious. Even if all the core devs got together, sang kumbaya and pushed BIPxxx for a 2MB block it'd be hard to get 95% adoption...

*me looks at BIP100 ...

[canth]

... a supermajority needs to agree to set it in motion and a supermajority would need to change it after the fact.

A smaller majority than used in core ... hmm the "excuse" Gavin used was to disallow a larger pool from stopping it.
Odd how that's not been an issue before ... when certain pools had a much higher % of the network ...

Ha...c'mon Kano, you've been around long enough to answer that one yourself. Can you point to the last intentional hard fork? I think that by their very nature they will be contentious. Even if all the core devs got together, sang kumbaya and pushed BIPxxx for a 2MB block it'd be hard to get 95% adoption...

*me looks at BIP100 ...

C'mon...I think that you'll agree that BIP100 is lacking just a bit of indicated industry support at this point. No? Miners marking blocks is one thing. Need some others like, oh, users to go along with it too, right?

[kano]

... a supermajority needs to agree to set it in motion and a supermajority would need to change it after the fact.

A smaller majority than used in core ... hmm the "excuse" Gavin used was to disallow a larger pool from stopping it.
Odd how that's not been an issue before ... when certain pools had a much higher % of the network ...

Ha...c'mon Kano, you've been around long enough to answer that one yourself. Can you point to the last intentional hard fork? I think that by their very nature they will be contentious. Even if all the core devs got together, sang kumbaya and pushed BIPxxx for a 2MB block it'd be hard to get 95% adoption...

*me looks at BIP100 ...

C'mon...I think that you'll agree that BIP100 is lacking just a bit of indicated industry support at this point. No? Miners marking blocks is one thing. Need some others like, oh, users to go along with it too, right?

Some users have said they want bigger blocks ... even though they have no direct vote in the hard fork change.
BIP100 gives bigger blocks ...

[canth]

... a supermajority needs to agree to set it in motion and a supermajority would need to change it after the fact.

A smaller majority than used in core ... hmm the "excuse" Gavin used was to disallow a larger pool from stopping it.
Odd how that's not been an issue before ... when certain pools had a much higher % of the network ...

Ha...c'mon Kano, you've been around long enough to answer that one yourself. Can you point to the last intentional hard fork? I think that by their very nature they will be contentious. Even if all the core devs got together, sang kumbaya and pushed BIPxxx for a 2MB block it'd be hard to get 95% adoption...

*me looks at BIP100 ...

C'mon...I think that you'll agree that BIP100 is lacking just a bit of indicated industry support at this point. No? Miners marking blocks is one thing. Need some others like, oh, users to go along with it too, right?

Some users have said they want bigger blocks ... even though they have no direct vote in the hard fork change.
BIP100 gives bigger blocks ...

Sure and in the absence of any other options, I'd vote for BIP100 too. In the short term, there's enough disagreement amongst all the various parties that the 1MBers are going to get their wish...for the rest of 2015 at least.

[iCEBREAKER]

The focus on 32MB seems arbitrary and silly. XT (for example) has the 32MB limit removed - there's no reason core couldn't remove it at the same time as a block size hard fork.

One does not simply remove the 32MB limit.

What is it with Gavinistas and their adorably naive (yet misleading) pipe dreams of scaling Bitcoin by using find/replace in a code editor?   

[Jeremycoin]

What kind of thing is this, whether this is the third party of Core between XT.

[mmortal03]

So, what's stopping someone from creating Not Bitcoin Classic?

[af_newbie]

What is wrong with just adding user agent, protocol peer node filtering?

Satoshi:0.xx.x nodes would have configurable entry to specify which UAs and protocol versions to allow connections from?  This would screw up any statistics about nodes as everyone would have to run with 'satoshi' ua and only specific protocol levels would be allowed.

satoshi nodes would not accept or initiate connections to non satoshi nodes, not matching protocol versions defined in the config file.

Classic and XT can run as truly alt coins on their own network.

[iCEBREAKER]

Can we get an update to NotBitcoinUnlimited please?   

[DooMAD]

Can we get an update to NotBitcoinUnlimited please?   

Can you get an upgrade to maybe having a shred of moral fortitude?  Spoofing clients is an attack on Bitcoin's consensus mechanism and should be condemned by honest users.  Why would you endorse such behaviour unless you are deliberately trying to cause havoc?  Your behaviour is far more potentially damaging to the network that any non-core developer could ever be.  You are reprehensible.  Then again, you probably endorse DDOS attacks on alternative client nodes too, so it's pretty much par for the course, right?

[iCEBREAKER]

Can we get an update to NotBitcoinUnlimited please?   

Can you get an upgrade to maybe having a shred of moral fortitude?  
Spoofing clients is an attack on Bitcoin's consensus mechanism and should be condemned by honest users.  
Why would you endorse such behaviour unless you are deliberately trying to cause havoc?   
Your behaviour is far more potentially damaging to the network that any non-core developer could ever be.  
You are reprehensible.  
Then again, you probably endorse DDOS attacks on alternative client nodes too, so it's pretty much par for the course, right? 

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

Can we get an update to NotBitcoinUnlimited please?   

Can you get an upgrade to maybe having a shred of moral fortitude?  
Spoofing clients is an attack on Bitcoin's consensus mechanism and should be condemned by honest users.  
Why would you endorse such behaviour unless you are deliberately trying to cause havoc?   
Your behaviour is far more potentially damaging to the network that any non-core developer could ever be.  
You are reprehensible.  
Then again, you probably endorse DDOS attacks on alternative client nodes too, so it's pretty much par for the course, right? 

Is that Marine LePen? 

[iCEBREAKER]

Is that Marine LePen? 

Why would MLP be salty?  She's leading in the polls.

Only savage-coddling terrorsymp cucks are salty about that fact.

Are you ready for #FREXIT?   

[DooMAD]

Is this where I'm supposed to make a 'pouring salt on ice being effective' gag?  Seeing as it's all a joke to you.

Also, you lousy farceur, you haven't thought this through to conclusion.  Why would you even need to spoof a client that allows you to choose your own blocksize anyway?  Just run BU and set your preferred blocksize to 1mb.  Job done.  You don't need to ask someone to code up NotBU.  Or even stick it at 0.3mb if you want to take the lukejr approach (and don't mind getting forked).  The world is your salty oyster.