The tide is turning: Which one is the alt coin now?

[-Lux-]

shadowcash will be the new bitcoin

[madjules007]

shadowcash will be the new bitcoin

Oh? I thought it was going to be one of the other dozens of cryptos that are supposedly slated to overtake BTC.

Anyway, to the XT/alt question..... I fully support BIP 100 and would love to see a real alternative to XT that addresses the block size issue at the forefront. I prefer a conservative approach that takes into account real transaction volume.....not the transaction volume that XT proponents want to see in the future (whether or not reality measures up).

[kano]

Nothing is turning. Please stop spreading false information. Do you know what a BIP is? Bitcoin improvement proposal? If person X supports a BIP, that does not mean that they support fork Y just because it has implemented it.
Supporting BIP 101 =/= supporting XT.

Bitpay:

In our opinion, BIP 101 should be pulled into Bitcoin Core.

BIP101 (and BIP100 as well) is gaining strength, caused by XT. That's the only thing that's important. The core devs (small blockers; blockstreamers) are forced to act now (vulgo: to raise the limit), if they want to stay in the game.

No, BIP100 is directly against both BIP101 and XT.

XT is quite specifically counter to BIP100 since the block rules of XT's BIP101 will not allow BIP100.

BIP100 handles block size by sig voting.

BIP101 tells you what the block size must be, based on a random decision using insufficient data.

[ArticMine]

shadowcash will be the new bitcoin

Oh? I thought it was going to be one of the other dozens of cryptos that are supposedly slated to overtake BTC.

Anyway, to the XT/alt question..... I fully support BIP 100 and would love to see a real alternative to XT that addresses the block size issue at the forefront. I prefer a conservative approach that takes into account real transaction volume.....not the transaction volume that XT proponents want to see in the future (whether or not reality measures up).

BIP 100, http://gtf.org/garzik/bitcoin/BIP100-blocksizechangeproposal.pdf, has merit in that it does not propose a 8GB hard limit as XT, but still why two hard forks one at 1 MB and one at 32 MB? The key here is to take care of the long term, and the short term will take care of it self.

[jeffthebaker]

Nothing is turning. Please stop spreading false information. Do you know what a BIP is? Bitcoin improvement proposal? If person X supports a BIP, that does not mean that they support fork Y just because it has implemented it.
Supporting BIP 101 =/= supporting XT.

Bitpay:

In our opinion, BIP 101 should be pulled into Bitcoin Core.

BIP101 (and BIP100 as well) is gaining strength, caused by XT. That's the only thing that's important. The core devs (small blockers; blockstreamers) are forced to act now (vulgo: to raise the limit), if they want to stay in the game.

No, BIP100 is directly against both BIP101 and XT.

XT is quite specifically counter to BIP100 since the block rules of XT's BIP101 will not allow BIP100.

BIP100 handles block size by sig voting.

BIP101 tells you what the block size must be, based on a random decision using insufficient data.

BIP100 allows for blocksize scaling. It is not as extreme than XT, and also still limited, but an increase nonetheless. Those who support XT want larger blocksizes, and that is also what BIP100 changes. For many, I assume it is a compromise, and if people think XT won't gain the support it needs then BIP100 is a good vote to choose.

[kano]

Nothing is turning. Please stop spreading false information. Do you know what a BIP is? Bitcoin improvement proposal? If person X supports a BIP, that does not mean that they support fork Y just because it has implemented it.
Supporting BIP 101 =/= supporting XT.

Bitpay:

In our opinion, BIP 101 should be pulled into Bitcoin Core.

BIP101 (and BIP100 as well) is gaining strength, caused by XT. That's the only thing that's important. The core devs (small blockers; blockstreamers) are forced to act now (vulgo: to raise the limit), if they want to stay in the game.

No, BIP100 is directly against both BIP101 and XT.

XT is quite specifically counter to BIP100 since the block rules of XT's BIP101 will not allow BIP100.

BIP100 handles block size by sig voting.

BIP101 tells you what the block size must be, based on a random decision using insufficient data.

BIP100 allows for blocksize scaling. It is not as extreme than XT, and also still limited, but an increase nonetheless. Those who support XT want larger blocksizes, and that is also what BIP100 changes. For many, I assume it is a compromise, and if people think XT won't gain the support it needs then BIP100 is a good vote to choose.

I'd love to see where you got that "many" information from ...

I don't see it in any of my discussion logs starting the addition of /BIP100/ to the sig.

The BIP100 choice is a choice to go against XT+BIP101 but allow future block size increases.
BIP100 is not a vote for the XT alt-coin trying to hijack bitcoin through misinformation.

XT is not just a vote for bigger blocks, it is a vote for more that clearly a lot of people have no idea about.

[nutildah]

I guess you haven't been following the blocksize debate very closely.

Let me summarize for you:

Core developers refused to raise the blocksize because of their involvement with
a private company called Blockstream who took $21M in venture capital and
wants to build an alternate payment network on top of an artificially limted 1mb bitcoin.

Meanwhile the rest of the bitcoin world is calling for bigger blocks.  Gavin questionably
decided to team up with Mike Hearn, who while brilliant, has said some dumbass
authoritarian things in the past so no one trusts him.  Unfortunately, they are only ones who released
the a client supports big blocks (called XT) that everyone hates
(but mostly just because they don't trust Hearn).
However, pools are signing blocks with support for one of the BIPs
and probably we'll have bigger blocks soon, with or without XT.

True story.

I normally don't follow dev politics, thanks for the wrap up.

I for one am all for keeping blocks limited at 1 mb. If this is simply impractical, raise to 2 mb. If you raise much more, the blockchain will be more unwieldy than it already is, and you are limiting the usability of bitcoin to people with expensive PCs. You are cutting out a global audience by raising the technological requirements one must have to operate a client.

I've said it before, feel free to disagree: the whole point behind bitcoin was to disempower Wall Street, the government and other capitalistic Forces That be, and put power back in the hands of the average person. The average person, as it turns out, is quite poor, even moreso than just 7 years ago. I've watched first-hand the movement away from this idealism and the focus shift to greed. Now BTC is regarded as "a toy of the 1%."

While transaction fees may decrease with XT (I personally doubt it), having the bandwidth, time and hard drive space to download a 100+ GB blockchain is an unachievable luxury for many. I don't care what your storage is on your computer. What do you think the average hard drive size is globally? Please, be honest and realistic in your guess.

So, what's it all about? The opportunity for some spoiled nerds to make even more money or the opportunity to change global finance for the better on a worldwide level?

[madjules007]

While transaction fees may decrease with XT (I personally doubt it), having to have the bandwidth, time and hard drive space to download a 100+ GB blockchain is an unachievable luxury for many. I don't care what your storage is on your computer. What do you think the average hard drive size is globally? Please, be honest and realistic in your guess.

I sympathize with what you're saying. I think a lot of people are taking the approach that average, casual users like you and I won't be able to run full nodes. Just like casual users without immense capital can't profitably mine when our competition is highly capitalized. I'm a bit ambivalent; this seems unsatisfactory, but is it a truth? I don't know. Many take the position that if bitcoin is to achieve increasing (and exponential) adoption, then these are simply realities that are built in.

[Klestin]

Um, you just made things way more confusing, thanks! Why the new name, then? What's with OP's post and title then? He and everybody else (except you, obviously) who commented on it must be _completely_ confused.

The problem is not that some forum members are confused. The problem is that some of those members who are confused are making posts that propagate their misconceptions, masquerading as facts.  You have joined this group and are actively making the problem worse.

If you can point to a single thing in my post that is factually incorrect, please do so.

[ArticMine]

I guess you haven't been following the blocksize debate very closely.

Let me summarize for you:

Core developers refused to raise the blocksize because of their involvement with
a private company called Blockstream who took $21M in venture capital and
wants to build an alternate payment network on top of an artificially limted 1mb bitcoin.

Meanwhile the rest of the bitcoin world is calling for bigger blocks.  Gavin questionably
decided to team up with Mike Hearn, who while brilliant, has said some dumbass
authoritarian things in the past so no one trusts him.  Unfortunately, they are only ones who released
the a client supports big blocks (called XT) that everyone hates
(but mostly just because they don't trust Hearn).
However, pools are signing blocks with support for one of the BIPs
and probably we'll have bigger blocks soon, with or without XT.

True story.

I normally don't follow dev politics, thanks for the wrap up.

I for one am all for keeping blocks limited at 1 mb. If this is simply impractical, raise to 2 mb. If you raise much more, the blockchain will be more unwieldy than it already is, and you are limiting the usability of bitcoin to people with expensive PCs. You are cutting out a global audience by raising the technological requirements one must have to operate a client.

I've said it before, feel free to disagree: the whole point behind bitcoin was to disempower Wall Street, the government and other capitalistic Forces That be, and put power back in the hands of the average person. The average person, as it turns out, is quite poor, even moreso than just 7 years ago. I've watched first-hand the movement away from this idealism and the focus shift to greed. Now BTC is regarded as "a toy of the 1%."

While transaction fees may decrease with XT (I personally doubt it), having the bandwidth, time and hard drive space to download a 100+ GB blockchain is an unachievable luxury for many. I don't care what your storage is on your computer. What do you think the average hard drive size is globally? Please, be honest and realistic in your guess.

So, what's it all about? The opportunity for some spoiled nerds to make even more money or the opportunity to change global finance for the better on a worldwide level?

The problem with your argument is that there are way to many "average people" in the world for even an infinitesimal fraction of them to be able to use Bitcoin with the kind of blocksize limits you are supporting. What exactly is the point of being able to download the blockchain if one cannot use Bitcoin? As for "hard drives" here is an example from 1959. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card#/media/File:IBM_card_storage.NARA.jpg Capacity about 4 GB and only the most powerful and wealthy superpower of the day could afford it.

Edit: In any case if Bitcoin in what ever form does not do what is really needed to "disempower Wall Street, the government and other capitalistic forces" somebody else will.

[Klestin]

BIP100 allows for blocksize scaling. It is not as extreme than XT, and also still limited, but an increase nonetheless. Those who support XT want larger blocksizes, and that is also what BIP100 changes. For many, I assume it is a compromise, and if people think XT won't gain the support it needs then BIP100 is a good vote to choose.

The problem with BIP 100 is that it allows an attacker with 21% of the hash rate to arbitrarily dictate the block size cap and set it to the minimum. 

[ArticMine]

...
The problem with BIP 100 is that it allows an attacker with 21% of the hash rate to arbitrarily dictate the block size cap and set it to the minimum. 

Yes. This is a very valid point.

[kano]

...
The problem with BIP 100 is that it allows an attacker with 21% of the hash rate to arbitrarily dictate the block size cap and set it to the minimum. 

Yes. This is a very valid point.

Please read the BIP at least once.

[Muhammed Zakir]

I guess you haven't been following the blocksize debate very closely.

Let me summarize for you:

Core developers refused to raise the blocksize because of their involvement with
a private company called Blockstream who took $21M in venture capital and
wants to build an alternate payment network on top of an artificially limted 1mb bitcoin.

Meanwhile the rest of the bitcoin world is calling for bigger blocks.  Gavin questionably
decided to team up with Mike Hearn, who while brilliant, has said some dumbass
authoritarian things in the past so no one trusts him.  Unfortunately, they are only ones who released
the a client supports big blocks (called XT) that everyone hates
(but mostly just because they don't trust Hearn).
However, pools are signing blocks with support for one of the BIPs
and probably we'll have bigger blocks soon, with or without XT.

True story.

This is not "true story" or "summary", this is FUD.

 - If core developers are against an increase, why is there BIPs such as 100 and 102?
 - There is nowhere in the paper telling they want to build sidechain on top of 1 MB limit.
 - Sidechain needs more size to exist. If the 1 MB exists, their project will die soon.
 - What does "artificially" mean in your 1 MB limit sentence?
 - XT just made this situation worse.

-snip-
If two developers can fork Bitcoin and succeed in redefining what "Bitcoin" is, in the face of widespread technical criticism and through the use of populist tactics, then I will have no choice but to declare Bitcoin a failed project.
 -snip-

[mookid]

This XT and block size debate is so inaccessible for people without the knowledge, the average joe already has a hard time understanding the bitcoin protocol, and now suddenly there are technological, moral, and economic issues that those problems raises... that's why it's so easy for forum admins and reddit mods to mold peoples opinion on this subject.

[Lauda]

...
The problem with BIP 100 is that it allows an attacker with 21% of the hash rate to arbitrarily dictate the block size cap and set it to the minimum.  

Yes. This is a very valid point.

No, it is not a very valid point. Could you please point me out to the implementation (i.e. code) of BIP100 to verify the flaw? Right, there is none. The flaw is only on the paper that is being worked on, not to mention the intensive testing that the code is going to go through.Jeff is hopefully going to answer it here.
It is also possible that someone just misinterpreted this part:

Miners vote by encoding ‘BV’+BlockSizeRequestValue into coinbase scriptSig, e.g. “/BV8000000/” to vote for 8M. Votes are evaluated by dropping bottom 20% and top 20%, and then the most common floor (minimum) is chosen.

He needs to elaborate on what he means with "most common floor (minimum)".

[Tstar]

NO nothing is turning ..if you think that any coin can replace the bitcoin then NO NO NO ,it is not going to happen
and plus i dont see a big difference in price of litecoin as it is halving event today ?

[Zarathustra]

No, BIP100 is directly against both BIP101 and XT.

No, it is primarily against the small blockians/blockers. The 1MBers will be forked away by BIP100 and/or BIP101.
JStolfi explained it very well:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1156489.500
https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinxt/comments/3iest2/watch_out_the_issue_is_not_core_vs_xt_it_is_small/

[turvarya]

I guess you haven't been following the blocksize debate very closely.

Let me summarize for you:

Core developers refused to raise the blocksize because of their involvement with
a private company called Blockstream who took $21M in venture capital and
wants to build an alternate payment network on top of an artificially limted 1mb bitcoin.

Meanwhile the rest of the bitcoin world is calling for bigger blocks.  Gavin questionably
decided to team up with Mike Hearn, who while brilliant, has said some dumbass
authoritarian things in the past so no one trusts him.  Unfortunately, they are only ones who released
the a client supports big blocks (called XT) that everyone hates
(but mostly just because they don't trust Hearn).
However, pools are signing blocks with support for one of the BIPs
and probably we'll have bigger blocks soon, with or without XT.

True story.

This is not "true story" or "summary", this is FUD.

 - If core developers are against an increase, why is there BIPs such as 100 and 102?
 - There is nowhere in the paper telling they want to build sidechain on top of 1 MB limit.
 - Sidechain needs more size to exist. If the 1 MB exists, their project will die soon.
 - What does "artificially" mean in your 1 MB limit sentence?
 - XT just made this situation worse.

-snip-
If two developers can fork Bitcoin and succeed in redefining what "Bitcoin" is, in the face of widespread technical criticism and through the use of populist tactics, then I will have no choice but to declare Bitcoin a failed project.
 -snip-

Could you please stop throwing this stupid fake mail around? Only a retard would think, that it came from Satoshi.

Everybody can fork Bitcoin, but it doesn't matter since nobody is forced to use their fork.
All Gavin did, was after years of debating the whole topic, finally providing code in a client, people can install.

What does finding consensus mean? It means persuading people about your idea. So, he couldn't persuade the other core devs and now a lot of people think it should have ended there? If that is true, than the definition of consensus is consensus of the core devs. You already answered that:

-snip-
Consensus became such a stupid buzzword. It can mean many things, but I don't think, it really was meant as consensus of a handful of core devs.

Nope.

So, when consensus doesn't mean, consensus of the core devs, what should have been the next step of Gavin? I'd really love to see your scenario.

[kano]

No, BIP100 is directly against both BIP101 and XT.

No, it is primarily against the small blockians. The 1MBers will be forked away by BIP100 and/or BIP101.
JStolfi explained it very well:

No, because BIP100 starts at 1MB and can stay at 1MB.
BIP101 starts higher so BIP100 would not accept BIP101 blocks.