blockstream - wants to tax you and become the new Bitcoin oligarchy

[onemorexmr]

lol. true.

onemorexmr:  let me break this down for you.  miners will build on any valid block that follows the protocol rules.  Right now we are trying to determine what those rules should be.  the current rule is that no block can be bigger than 1mb but as blocks are getting more and more full, people want to raise it.  Gavin, Jeff,  and Mike all want to raise it.  Unfortunately many of the other core devs dont, because they would rather peruse a sidechain solution with their new company called Blockstream.  

i can imagine many reasons why a miner would not build on a block which is valid by protocol rules (eg because his country has blacklists for certain transactions or they are trying to push out competition; as long as 51% of them think the same it'll work for them)

but anyhow: this discussion is about XT which i fully support. 1mb is simply not enough.

[Carlton Banks]

the current rule is that no block can be bigger than 1mb but as blocks are getting more and more full, people want to raise it.  Gavin, Jeff,  and Mike all want to raise it.  Unfortunately many of the other core devs dont, because they would rather peruse a sidechain solution with their new company called Blockstream.  

jonald, you cannot make a false statement true simply by repeating it again and again.

You know the position of the Core devs is not as simple as "1MB", yet you keep choosing to misrepresent their position by presenting it this way. Stop doing it, it is harming your cause.

[jonald_fyookball]

the current rule is that no block can be bigger than 1mb but as blocks are getting more and more full, people want to raise it.  Gavin, Jeff,  and Mike all want to raise it.  Unfortunately many of the other core devs dont, because they would rather peruse a sidechain solution with their new company called Blockstream.  

jonald, you cannot make a false statement true simply by repeating it again and again.

You know the position of the Core devs is not as simple as "1MB", yet you keep choosing to misrepresent their position by presenting it this way. Stop doing it, it is harming your cause.

I was explaining it for someone who apparently didn't quite understand, but you're right.  The repetition is not necessary
and the OP is clear.  As far as it being false, well that is your opinion and you make some fair arguments but
so far I think my hypothesis is still valid. 

Banter away...

[toknormal]

I think it may be important for a short sidechains refresher also.

Blockstream are designing a protocol extension to enable all other types of side chains, not just Lightning. Potentially including: vote chains, identity/web of trust, "smart" contracts, decentralised DNS/PKI, land registry etc etc.

Sidechains is a flawed concept invented by programmers with a Bitcoin techno-centric view of the world economy who do not believe in monetary diversity. (Go to time:42:45)

However the world is a subjective place and when the global economy looks back at bitcoin with all those ridiculous extensions, all it will see is an unattractive, unfungible, immobile, ambiguous mess that's simply a drag on monetary velocity, however much it does justice to a "one-off event".

If you want to improve a monetary medium - be it physical or digital - you need to enhance its monetary properties, not deplete them.

Sidechains may be a nice technical extension to bitcoin but they conflict substantially with the priorities of money. In particular, the properties of mobility and fungibility are adversely impacted. The former due to the hard exchange with the sidechain (as opposed to a soft exchange facilitated by markets which allows the bitcoin to stay in circulation) and the latter due to recasting of parts of the coin supply so that they are no longer capable of "mutual substitution".

When we invest in a different currency (e.g. forex or even altcoin), the money we invest stays in circulation because a genuine exchange takes place and the other party is free to re-spend our committed funds in their commercial sector as we are free to re-spend theirs in ours. This is not the case with sidechains. Instead of an exchange, a portion of the coin supply is "recast" thereby turning bitcoin from a solid, unambigious currency into a kind of "chameleon" that changes its spots according to demand with ever diminishing fungibility.

This is not a currency in any economic sense but rather a digital interface. Something invented by programmers, not economies.

To be avoided.

[Liquid71]

Blockstream wants to keep Bitcoin from scaling past 1mb so they can force you to use their proprietary side chain solutions while profiting.  If this is not true, then how will they generate revenue?

discuss.

One baseless claim meant to create FUD with nothing to back it up, and then tell others to discuss. Lame attempt at propaganda, at least put a little effort into it.

[Liquid71]

the current rule is that no block can be bigger than 1mb but as blocks are getting more and more full, people want to raise it.  Gavin, Jeff,  and Mike all want to raise it.  Unfortunately many of the other core devs dont, because they would rather peruse a sidechain solution with their new company called Blockstream.  

jonald, you cannot make a false statement true simply by repeating it again and again.

You know the position of the Core devs is not as simple as "1MB", yet you keep choosing to misrepresent their position by presenting it this way. Stop doing it, it is harming your cause.

His cause is propaganda, so he will continue to repeat it even though he knows full well it's not true. He isn't trying to debate or educate, his cause is only to make peoples minds up for them with misinformation.

[jonald_fyookball]

Blockstream wants to keep Bitcoin from scaling past 1mb so they can force you to use their proprietary side chain solutions while profiting.  If this is not true, then how will they generate revenue?

discuss.

One baseless claim meant to create FUD with nothing to back it up, and then tell others to discuss. Lame attempt at propaganda, at least put a little effort into it.

Actually it's more of a hypothesis than a claim.  And I am using a reasonable line of argument.  
Blockstream devs do not want bigger blocks.  This is fact.  It is not baseless.  And the other devs
who are not on blockstreams payroll do want bigger blocks.  I guess you have a reasonable explanation
for that, though, right?  Go ahead, I'm all ears.

[Muhammed Zakir]

-snip- and I recalled your recent comment in favour of the action the Forum Administration took by locking Cypherdoc's thread.

It's alright to support XT but you should not support everything XT related unless it is the truth. cypherdoc's 'Gold Collapsing. Bitcoin Up' thread was about Gold vs Bitcoin, but later onwards it became a discussion about XT solely. So it was moved to Altcoin board which is the correct action. If you don't agree, then another way is to delete all the posts about XT from that thread. IMHO, former is better than later. LaudaM clearly stated:

It was not removed, it was locked. Why is anyone even surprised? The thread became a XT trollfest and everyone went completely off-topic (discussing XT =/= price speculation).

-snip-
In the mean time, you've still avoided my original question.  Let me ask it a different way:

Q: When we look back on this a year from now, will people agree that the discussion of BitcoinXT was off-topic?

A year ago, XT didn't hardfork. As it didn't, the protocol is same as the widely-agreed Bitcoin Core's. Therefore, how can it be an alt? Isn't that obvious?

Will they agree that the locking of Cypherdoc's thread by the Administration "because threads with a broad scope are no longer permitted" was an objective decision?

Yes. The thread was locked because people started discussing about a client called XT, which is definitely not a Gold vs Bitcoin 'speculation'. If its not a speculation, how can it be in 'Speculation' child-board?

* Edited.

[Lauda]

My apologies LaudaM.  I have always appreciated your commentary.  Carlton asked for examples of people who appeared to be in favour of the censoring removing off-topic content and threads that are broad in scope and I recalled your recent comment in favour of the action the Forum Administration took by locking Cypherdoc's thread.
-snip-

You know, this debate has become very tiring. As Antonopoulos said, the debate is full of ad hominem, it has involved attacking people rather than discussing ideas and the use of ideological aphorisms without sufficient evidence. I am guilty of that as anyone else (his words; apply to me as well). You can't expect me to support discussing XT and trolling in a SPECULATION thread about Bitcoin and Gold.
People are twisting everyone's words for their own sake. Antonopoulos said that consensus is very important and that we should be implementing everything (i.e. bigger blocks, sidechains, lightning network, payment channels). He did not say that he supports XT (there is a thread stating that he does).

[Carlton Banks]

I think it may be important for a short sidechains refresher also.

Blockstream are designing a protocol extension to enable all other types of side chains, not just Lightning. Potentially including: vote chains, identity/web of trust, "smart" contracts, decentralised DNS/PKI, land registry etc etc.

Sidechains is a flawed concept invented by programmers with a Bitcoin techno-centric view of the world economy who do not believe in monetary diversity. (Go to time:42:45)

However the world is a subjective place and when the global economy looks back at bitcoin with all those ridiculous extensions, all it will see is an unattractive, unfungible, immobile, ambiguous mess that's simply a drag on monetary velocity, however much it does justice to a "one-off event".

If you want to improve a monetary medium - be it physical or digital - you need to enhance its monetary properties, not deplete them.

Sidechains may be a nice technical extension to bitcoin but they conflict substantially with the priorities of money. In particular, the properties of mobility and fungibility are adversely impacted. The former due to the hard exchange with the sidechain (as opposed to a soft exchange facilitated by markets which allows the bitcoin to stay in circulation) and the latter due to recasting of parts of the coin supply so that they are no longer capable of "mutual substitution".

When we invest in a different currency (e.g. forex or even altcoin), the money we invest stays in circulation because a genuine exchange takes place and the other party is free to re-spend our committed funds in their commercial sector as we are free to re-spend theirs in ours. This is not the case with sidechains. Instead of an exchange, a portion of the coin supply is "recast" thereby turning bitcoin from a solid, unambigious currency into a kind of "chameleon" that changes its spots according to demand with ever diminishing fungibility.

This is not a currency in any economic sense but rather a digital interface. Something invented by programmers, not economies.

To be avoided.

It depends on how it's implemented. There is not only one way to design the sidechain extension, you're only criticising what is currently on the table.

If the Blockstream design was as you say, a direct modification of the properties of Bitcoin and it's monetary units, then I would understand and agree with your criticisms. I am not 100% convinced however, I don't expect accomplished computer scientists to come up with such glaring design faults. I don't know though, as I am not familiar enough with their design right now (and reserve the right to reject it)

Do you know the design well? I thought it wasn't finished/published yet?

[toknormal]

It depends on how it's implemented.

On the contrary. It depends on the principle - the implementation is irrelevant. If you read the sidechains whitepaper, the principle of 2-way pegging underlies the whole thing. This is not going to change with 'implementation'.

If the Blockstream design was as you say, a direct modification of the properties of Bitcoin and it's monetary units, then I would understand and agree with your criticisms

direct modification is a relative term in this case. It is not a 'direct modification' in a technical sense but it is in a commercial sense since the bitcoin is removed from circulation and directly substituted for the sidechained-alt. So it amounts to a "direct modification" as far as the market is concerned (thats the whole point of sidechains).

I don't expect accomplished computer scientists to come up with such glaring design faults.

"accomplished computer scientists" are not necessarily "accomplished monetary analysts" or even "accomplished systems analysts". It's true that the people who design good software systems are usually programming professionals, but the people who specify the requirements for such are usually not.

In this case, an implicit assumption has been made which is economic - i.e. that the world economy cannot sustain more than one cryptocurrency and that "network effects" will tend towards the adoption and consolidation of this currency. But then the theory immediately contradicts itself by acknowledging the need for diversification and hence the emergence of sidechains.

You only need to take one look at the range of monetary like stocks traded on any global exchange to see that markets favour diversification of genuinely independent assets rather than diversification of 'presentation' within a particular asset, so the commercial assumption that underlies the concept of sidechains is flawed IMO, however well designed it is technically.

This analysis is further endorsed by examining the properties of "good money" which are well understood and considering the impact of a concept like sidechains on these. Think it through - you basically have a set of pegged altcoins that have varying levels of demand, all pulling in different directions on a common base currency. The effect of this is to cause price and liquidity volatility in commercial sectors where it didn't originate. What will the market do in that case ? - it will simply use an altcoin that's native to that sector in preference to the sidechained one.

That is one of the effects of adversely impacting on "fungibility" but there are others (think Greece & the Euro).

[Carlton Banks]

It depends on how it's implemented.

On the contrary. It depends on the principle - the implementation is irrelevant. If you read the sidechains whitepaper, the principle of 2-way pegging underlies the whole thing.

toknormal: "Implementation isn't relevant. Just look at what it says here in the implementation document..."

 

[LiteCoinGuy]

the current rule is that no block can be bigger than 1mb but as blocks are getting more and more full, people want to raise it.  Gavin, Jeff,  and Mike all want to raise it.  Unfortunately many of the other core devs dont, because they would rather peruse a sidechain solution with their new company called Blockstream.  

jonald, you cannot make a false statement true simply by repeating it again and again.

You know the position of the Core devs is not as simple as "1MB", yet you keep choosing to misrepresent their position by presenting it this way. Stop doing it, it is harming your cause.

you are right: their plan is 1.07 MB blocks in the year 2021 - big difference. meanwhile they can charge big fees for their blockstream service.  

[Carlton Banks]

the current rule is that no block can be bigger than 1mb but as blocks are getting more and more full, people want to raise it.  Gavin, Jeff,  and Mike all want to raise it.  Unfortunately many of the other core devs dont, because they would rather peruse a sidechain solution with their new company called Blockstream.  

jonald, you cannot make a false statement true simply by repeating it again and again.

You know the position of the Core devs is not as simple as "1MB", yet you keep choosing to misrepresent their position by presenting it this way. Stop doing it, it is harming your cause.

you are right: their plan is 1.07 MB blocks in the year 2021 - big difference. meanwhile they can charge big fees for their blockstream service.  

That's Peter Wuille's BIP, not what they all think. I don't support that.

Why doesn't a dynamic limit interest you, Litecoinguy?

[toknormal]

toknormal: "Implementation isn't relevant. Just look at what it says here in the implementation document..."

 

I don't know what the rolley eyes is for. The "implementation document" expresses a principle called "pegging".

Without that principle sidechains don't exist, no matter how you implement them.

[Carlton Banks]

toknormal: "Implementation isn't relevant. Just look at what it says here in the implementation document..."

 

I don't know what the rolley eyes is for. The "implementation document" expresses a principle called "pegging".

Without that principle sidechains don't exist, no matter how you implement them.

What's wrong with pegging? (you didn't explain that before)

[toknormal]

What's wrong with pegging? (you didn't explain that before)

I think I did - at least in this particular context.

[Carlton Banks]

What's wrong with pegging? (you didn't explain that before)

I think I did - at least in this particular context.

Not in that text

[meono]

toknormal: "Implementation isn't relevant. Just look at what it says here in the implementation document..."

 

I don't know what the rolley eyes is for. The "implementation document" expresses a principle called "pegging".

Without that principle sidechains don't exist, no matter how you implement them.

I would not waste my time arguing with him. He just cant never be wrong.

He did not understand at all. Why bother?

[Carlton Banks]

I frequently get things wrong, or say the wrong thing.

I am happy to acknowledge both circumstances, and evidence exists all over this forum. You should attack me on that basis instead, I think it would be much more effective than trying to assert what I believe, or things I say, when neither are demonstrably the case.

Work with facts, it works. Discrediting arguments on the basis of mistruths only discredits your argument.