The Anti-XTers Are Harming Bitcoin

[jonald_fyookball]

Yeah, supporting bigger blocks is not the same as XT.

Fellow above nailed it.

Bigger blocks = fine. Hostile takeover = wrong.

I consider the blockstream devs stonewalling of any reasonable increase proposal to be a hostile takeover.

[Carlton Banks]

Yeah, supporting bigger blocks is not the same as XT.

Fellow above nailed it.

Bigger blocks = fine. Hostile takeover = wrong.

I consider the blockstream devs stonewalling of any reasonable increase proposal to be a hostile takeover.

They're already in charge. 

[onemorexmr]

Yeah, supporting bigger blocks is not the same as XT.

Fellow above nailed it.

Bigger blocks = fine. Hostile takeover = wrong.

offering another software and hoping miners will use it is not a hostile takeover.
nobody is forced to do anything

in case of a fork i will own and keep btc and btcxt.

[maku]

Yeah, supporting bigger blocks is not the same as XT.

Fellow above nailed it.

Bigger blocks = fine. Hostile takeover = wrong.

I consider the blockstream devs stonewalling of any reasonable increase proposal to be a hostile takeover.

Hostile takeover in the bitcoin reality is probably really unlikely to happen. People need to agree and then accept changes and therefore change fork and upgrade core protocol.
This is impossible with small numbers. It is so hard to find unbiased and good arguments to support XT with every changes they propose that XT takeover is impossible.

[iCEBREAKER]

What anti-XTers fail to do is present a LOGICAL ARGUMENT against XT. They appeal to emotion. Gut feelings. Fear. They do not provide coherent argumentation based on facts and evidence.

Just like Gavin and Mike, you are misleading the public.

In reality, "coherent argumentation based on facts and evidence" has been provided in spades.

The vast majority of research demonstrates that blocksize does matter, blocksize caps are required to secure the network, and large blocks are a centralizing pressure.

Here’s a short list of what has been published so far:

1) No blocksize cap and no minimum fee leads to catastrophic breakage as miners chase marginal 0 fees:

    http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2400519

It’s important to note that mandatory minimum fees could simply be rebated out-of-band, which would lead to the same problems.

2) a) Large mining pools make strategies other than honest mining more profitable:

    http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~ie53/publications/btcProcArXiv.pdf

2) b) In the presence of latency, some alternative selfish strategy exists that is more profitable at any mining pool size. The larger the latency, the greater the selfish mining benefit:

    http://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.06183v1.pdf

3) Mining simulations run by Pieter Wuille shows that well-connected peers making a majority of the hashing power have an advantage over less-connected ones, earning more profits per hash. Larger blocks even further favor these well-connected peers. This gets even worse as we shift from block subsidy to fee based reward :

    http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg08161.html

4) Other point(s):

If there is no blocksize cap, a miner should simply snipe the fees from the latest block and try to stale that block by mining their own replacement. You get all the fees plus any more from new transactions. Full blocks gives less reward for doing so, since you have to choose which transactions to include. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3fpuld/a_transaction_fee_market_exists_without_a_block/ctqxkq6

I'm not sure if you are aware of the centralization pressure that occurs when miners are allowed to pick their own block sizes. Miners have incentives to encourage a very high orphan rate, if the orphan rate is properly targeted. Mining is a 0-sum game, which means that miners have incentive to hurt eachother. (less competition means lower difficulty and more blocks for you).

The ideal scenario for a miner is that the block they produce immediately hits a large portion of the hash power (at least 51%, but I'm not sure what the optimal percentage is), and then never hits the remaining hashpower at all. That remaining hashpower will have to find 2 blocks before the rest of the hashpower finds a single block - this will be detrimental to the profits of the minority hashpower, significantly so.

Large blocks provide a way to achieve this to some effect for bigger miners....

...This attack can be levied by a single large miner with no collusion. Simply by prioritizing the other large miners, and refusing to send the block to the low-bandwidth minority, a big miner can create blocks large enough to heavily impact the orphan rate of smaller miners without significantly affecting their own orphan rate.

This is very bad. The block size limit is important to stop this class of attack.

[Zz]

The Anti-XTers Are Harming Bitcoin. I fixed that for you.

Bigger block size =/= BitcoinXT

Stop cheap manipulation.

[jonald_fyookball]

icebreaker, just to be clear on your position, are you advocating leaving the 1mb in place ?

[Delek]

Since when THE MAJORITY is harming Bitcoin? Stop saying this SHIT; at least until the XT miners/nodes count reach a no-miserable value. PS: that will never happen. 

[yayayo]

This thread (as well) should be moved into the correct subforum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.0

That said, I don't see any logical connection why being against a particular Altcoin could harm Bitcoin.

ya.ya.yo!

[Carlton Banks]

This thread (as well) should be moved into the correct subforum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.0

I fully agree, Theymos is taking an odd position. Being inconsistent like this harms his reputation, and doesn't help the issue he favours, as the XT threads he leaves in Discussion are attracting more attention this way.

Even though it's his forum and he can do as he likes, and that's my overriding attitude to the issue, I really wish it wasn't like this. Can't have it all I suppose.

[Peter R]

This thread (as well) should be moved into the correct subforum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.0

That said, I don't see any logical connection why being against a particular Altcoin could harm Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is the longest proof-of-work chain composed of valid transactions.  If BIP101 (whether through XT, Core or some other implementation) gains 75% of hash power support, it will become the longest chain and thus it will empirically be "Bitcoin."  The other chain--assuming it doesn't die very quickly--would IMO become largely irrelevant.    

[lottery248]

i should talk about...

unless you can sure that we could have enough spaces for blockchain, in which majority of the full node users could afford it.

[Delek]

Bitcoin is the longest proof-of-work chain composed of valid transactions.  If BIP101 (whether through XT, Core or some other implementation) gains 75% of hash power support, it will become the longest chain and thus it will empirically be "Bitcoin."  The other chain--assuming it doesn't die very quickly--would IMO become largely irrelevant.    

Amazing, so if I create DelekCoin using the same blockchain than Bitcoin but processing transactions like: Inputs are outputs, satoshis value are multiplied by 3.1415962 and every address starting with 1DELEK gets all fees from every transaction it will be part of Bitcoin?, AMAZING. I will do that. Ooooppss, but I will not have consensus   Bingo, that's what is happening with altcoin-Bitcoin XT!!!!!!!!!

[iCEBREAKER]

icebreaker, just to be clear on your position, are you advocating leaving the 1mb in place ?

Yes, until such time as the network experiences Actual Congestion^® (competitive fees failing to properly prioritize their transactions).

The 'stress tests' were supposed to cause that, but backfired spectacularly as consequent improvements (EG RBF) to nodes/pools/wallets/miners strengthened the network.

That's what happens when you attack an antifragile system.  When (and only when) faced with adversity, Bitcoin gains in resiliency.  

Please note XT displays no such antifragile attributes, and is stagnating/shrinking under the weight of revelations about its suspiciously hidden anti-Tor/privacy invading/blacklisting/centralized "final call" features.

[Peter R]

Bitcoin is the longest proof-of-work chain composed of valid transactions.  If BIP101 (whether through XT, Core or some other implementation) gains 75% of hash power support, it will become the longest chain and thus it will empirically be "Bitcoin."  The other chain--assuming it doesn't die very quickly--would IMO become largely irrelevant.    

Amazing, so if I create DelekCoin using the same blockchain than Bitcoin but processing transactions like: Inputs are outputs, satoshis value are multiplied by 3.1415962 and every address starting with 1DELEK gets all fees from every transaction it will be part of Bitcoin?, AMAZING. I will do that. Ooooppss, but I will not have consensus   Bingo, that's what is happening with altcoin-Bitcoin XT!!!!!!!!!

I see two problems with your proposal:

(1) your rules are nonsensical and thus you won't get enough hash power support to ever make your chain the longest;

(2) you are proposing transactions that are clearly invalid (cf. Satoshi white paper)

[Delek]

There are two problems with your proposal:

(1) your rules are nonsensical and thus you won't get enough hash power support to ever make your chain the longest;

(2) you are proposing transactions that are clearly invalid (cf. Satoshi white paper)

Exactly the same AS BITCOIN XT. Nice, you finally understood what's happening.

[Possum577]

it's so easy to be against something, especially something with a label like "XT," and especially when there seems to only be two people behind it and the rest of the core developers are against it.

It's got a label which suggests it's fundamentally different that Bitcoin! Only Gavin and Hearn are pushing it! The rest of the developers are against it! I'm against it too! It smells fishy! There must be some nefarious intention behind it!

The above logic is ignorant. What anti-XTers fail to do is present a LOGICAL ARGUMENT against XT. They appeal to emotion. Gut feelings. Fear. They do not provide coherent argumentation based on facts and evidence.

what is dangerous for bitcoin is this RIFT which threatens to split bitcoin into two chains. They argue that after 75% of the community sides with XT they will hold strong, as the lonely 25% that got it right, and they will maintain their Bitcoin Core with their 1 MB block size limit, and we will just have two bitcoin chains after that.

This is so dangerous to bitcoin that it requires VERY GOOD REASON AND JUSTIFICATION which I have seen not a single shred of. All I have seen is attacks on gavin's character, attacks on hearn's character, appeals to fear, ridiculous speculations that the CIA and the NSA are behind XT based on pure fabricated fear mongering, what I have not seen is a single LOGICAL ARGUMENT that is in the least convincing which suggests that Bitcoin XT should be opposed...

...What I am saying is that this split is very dangerous, and those who are perpetuating it by threatening to SPLIT BITCOIN IN HALF after 75% agrees that XT is the best solution have some explaining to do! We need LOGICAL ARGUMENTS, not appeals to fear, appeals to authority, appeals to emotion, ad hominem attacks, and other fallacies. Bring out the evidence, bring out the facts, and lay out an argument dammit! You are threatening to destroy bitcoin without good reason otherwise!

I think what you mean is "it's easy to favor the way it's always been!"

Don't turn this around on those that are holding onto "the original"...that's a shitty move, man.

This is not the first time technology has evolved. People in the world can still use a tape deck to listen to music, most of the world just doesn't cater to it anymore. So if people want to cling to the original, wait their turn for transactions to process (if that's what happens), what's the harm to those that have moved on?

Those that support Core don't need facts to prove it works, because it already works. XT supporters have the burden of convincing everyone else that change is needed and change will be good. And guess what, they're doing it...they ARE convincing people.

[Peter R]

There are two problems with your proposal:

(1) your rules are nonsensical and thus you won't get enough hash power support to ever make your chain the longest;

(2) you are proposing transactions that are clearly invalid (cf. Satoshi white paper)

Exactly the same AS BITCOIN XT. Nice, you finally understood what's happening.

It's not the same as XT (BIP101) at all.  

(1) the block size limit increase is only activated if 75% of the hash power shows their support (and thus it will become the longest chain);

(2) BIP101 makes no change to the definition of a valid transaction.

Just to be clear, the original design of Bitcoin as specified by the White Paper (see below) made no mention of a block size limit.  Nodes were to compile valid transactions into blocks and, when they found a valid proof-of-work, to publish their block solutions.  Other nodes showed their acceptance of the block by extending it (mining on top of it).



BIP101 (XT) is just a mechanism to allow miners to show their acceptance of larger blocks.  

[Delek]

It's not the same as XT (BIP101) at all.  

(1) the block size limit increase is only activated if 75% of the hash power shows their support (and thus it will become the longest chain);

(2) BIP101 makes no change to the definition of a valid transaction.

Just to be clear, the original design of Bitcoin as specified by the White Paper (see below) made no mention of a block size limit.  Nodes were to compile valid transactions into blocks and, when they found a valid proof-of-work, to publish their block solutions.  Other nodes showed their acceptance of the block by extending it (mining on top of it).



BIP101 (XT) is just a mechanism to allow miners to show their acceptance of larger blocks.  

XT is NOT THE SAME AS BIP101 or bigger blocks. Stop saying that, PRO-XT fans.
XT is a FUCKING FORK. Period.

BIP101 should be implemented on Satoshis client, there's no other way.

[Peter R]

BIP101 should be implemented on Satoshis client, there's no other way.

The popular support that XT is receiving might pressure Core to also integrate BIP101.  I think that would be a positive outcome.  

XT is NOT THE SAME AS BIP101 or bigger blocks. Stop saying that, PRO-XT fans.

XT is presently the only implementation of the Bitcoin protocol that implements BIP101.  

Readers should note that there is a "plain vanilla" XT/BIP101 that is exactly Core + BIP101.  The regular XT version de-prioritizes nodes that connect through TOR to supposedly improve robustness to denial-of-service attacks.

XT is a FUCKING FORK. Period.

XT is a fork of Core's code base--agreed.  If BIP101 is activated, the Blockchain will also fork--agreed.  The BIP101 fork will become the longest and thus become Bitcoin (the other fork will quickly die IMO).