Not Bitcoin XT

[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?