Bitcoin XT - Officially #REKT (also goes for BIP101 fraud)

[hdbuck]

Stop the crap, forking is purely an attack on bitcoin.

Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin.

saying "Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin" is an attack on consensus.

No. Because the fork can't happened without a consensus either ways.

Actually, a fork could happen and consensus could not be achieved, which is one good reason why the 75% threshold is far too low. 95% is the standard. 75% is only half the hashing power with a lucky run. This is what people mean by two, or multiple chains. If consensus isn't achieved nearly immediately, we run a greater and greater risk of having competing chains.

Litecoin and any other altcoin is a bitcoin fork. See? it can work out

Thing is 75% of miners is not the same as 75% of bitcoiners, and im not even talking 95% of them.. ^^

If the big miners want to play that power grabbing game, they'll loose quite a lot of money mining some cheap altcoin before eventually crawling back in the real game...  that is within the economic valid majority.

[RoadTrain]

Stop the crap, forking is purely an attack on bitcoin.

Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin.

saying "Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin" is an attack on consensus.

No. Because the fork can't happened without a consensus either ways.

[img]-nip-[img]
The fork can happen whenever there's a divergence in consensus.

That's because you don't think the "economic incentive to achieve consensus" actually works as it should be. I think the opposite.

Are you talking about achieving consensus pre-fork or post-fork? If it's the former, I don't see how XT can get any meaningful consensus, except by pushing it with force, and then real consensus can only be reached post-fork. If it's the latter, it perfectly fits my point.

[poeEDgar]

Stop the crap, forking is purely an attack on bitcoin.

Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin.

saying "Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin" is an attack on consensus.

No. Because the fork can't happened without a consensus either ways.

[img]-nip-[img]
The fork can happen whenever there's a divergence in consensus.

That's because you don't think the "economic incentive to achieve consensus" actually works as it should be. I think the opposite.

That's a dicey situation. Consider that the hard fork is triggered with 50% or so of the hashing power only, with a lucky run to momentarily hit 75%. There may be an immediate push to mine on the chain that is supported by exchanges, but a) can we assume that all exchanges will support the same fork? and b) is this enough to tip the balance towards one chain or the other?

Consider that that some miners are playing the long game -- not concerned with the immediate ramifications of mining on a smaller 1MB block chain if they believe that the 8MB chain will inevitably be invalid. Consider that some miners will be politically motivated towards one chain or the other, regardless of economic incentives (this cannot be ruled out, especially considering that miners still have very high profit margins).

Consider that in a 70-30 or 60-40 or 50-50 split, it may not be immediately clear which chain will win. By splitting hash power to two (or hypothetically more) chains, the relative hashing power of each miner increases (and therefore, so does their incentive to keep mining on the same chain as they have been, post-fork).

There are game theory considerations here. And there is no such thing as a 100% sure thing as an economic incentive as guarantee of consensus -- particularly when you use lower and lower thresholds to trigger the hard fork. How do you feel about using 51% hash power as a trigger for a hard fork? Why or why not?

There are many ways in which economic incentives are inefficient. Consider the blockchain stress test. There are disincentives in place to discourage such spam, but here we are. In fact, that's another consideration as to why it's so dangerous to allow for exponential capacity growth, particularly when it is not tied to actual real transaction growth. There may be incentives that arise in the future for bloating the blockchain, and yet we would continue to scale until forced by circumstance (mass orphaned blocks, successful double spend attacks, etc.) to soft fork the limit back down.

[poeEDgar]

Stop the crap, forking is purely an attack on bitcoin.

Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin.

saying "Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin" is an attack on consensus.

No. Because the fork can't happened without a consensus either ways.

Actually, a fork could happen and consensus could not be achieved, which is one good reason why the 75% threshold is far too low. 95% is the standard. 75% is only half the hashing power with a lucky run. This is what people mean by two, or multiple chains. If consensus isn't achieved nearly immediately, we run a greater and greater risk of having competing chains.

These numbers are a standard by according to who? The larger bitcoin grows, the more opposite views it will encounter and the less easy it would be to achieve consensus. Targeting a 95% is IMO too high and only guarantees to block any possible changes.

BIP66 is a good example of how and why this works well.

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34199290/

The BIP66 soft-fork recently passed the 75% support threshold. This
means that 75% of the hashing power has upgraded to support BIP66; 25%
of the hashing power has not. Once 95% of the hashing power has
upgraded, blocks created by the 5% who have not upgraded will be
rejected.

If you operate a pool, solo-mine, or mine on p2pool you'll very likely
need to upgrade your Bitcoin Core node to support the BIP66 soft-fork,
or your blocks will be rejected. If you only sell your hashing power to
a centralized pool you do not need to do anything.

Hard forks are not supposed to be easy to carry out. That is intentional.

Consensus is far more important than pushing forward with controversial changes to the protocol that a large proportion of the community does not support. Competing blockchains become a legitimate concern in this context.

[RoadTrain]

Consider than the hard fork is triggered with 50% or so of the hashing power only, with a lucky run to momentarily hit 75%.

One correction here: it's nearly impossible to trigger it with 50% hashpower. But there's one uncertainty: NotXT.
I can even imagine an attack vector here, arising from the fact that the hard fork can't resolve itself: if the 1Mb chain has more hashpower (even 50-50 would work due to variance), it will orphan XT blocks, while it doesn't work the other way. So, XT miners would be wasting their  hashes unless they mine sub-1Mb blocks.

That's a theoretical attack, but in case of a significant ideological split because of XT it certainly can happen.

[poeEDgar]

Consider than the hard fork is triggered with 50% or so of the hashing power only, with a lucky run to momentarily hit 75%.

One correction here: it's nearly impossible to trigger it with 50% hashpower.

I did say "or so"

Can't be bothered to run the numbers, but the point is that it is possible to trigger hard fork with significantly less than 75% hashing power.

[brg444]

Bitcoin XT is an attack on Bitcoin consensus.

XT shills lead by Mike himself are trying to teach the controversy by spinning the debate into a governance issue.

They mainly use two talking points:

1. The BIP resolution process is broken. They are attempting to sell people into thinking the existing consensus-based development process has not worked. Now understand they have been setting this up from the beginning, stifling discussion and launching a PR campaign led by Gavin blog posts rather than approach the issue within the existing developer community.

Their solution: Mike Hearn, benevolent dictator.

2. That Bitcoin XT is just another Bitcoin implementation and in true open source nature we should have no right to oppose it. They argue their proposal respects the concept of "permissionless innovation".

"Let's throw this irresponsible half-baked chinese number pos in the open and consensus shall decide. Free market guys right!!!?"

This tactic has led a number of foolish sheep into this delusion that somehow there are problems within Bitcoin Core that are so absolutely irresolvable the whole development process should be thought again from the beginning starting with a central figure and a bunch of decentralization theater "implementations" non sense. Here's the kicker: they will pretend that this is how we all got started, with Satoshi, Gavin, blabla. All of this is a bunch of nonsense. You people have two things confused: reputation and authority.

The development of Bitcoin began with Satoshi leading the charge not because "the people", "the community" had made him "benevolent dictator" but because he, of course, had the most influential reputation and weight in decision for being the creator of the system. Don't try to tell me he'd make changes without asking you noobs opinion because he obviously knew better than to do that. Had he stayed with us and grown around the Bitcoin development community it makes no sense to suggest he would have continued to claim "authoritarian control". A part of me is convinced he left partly to avoid this cesspool of power grabs.

[brg444]

Stop the crap, forking is purely an attack on bitcoin.

Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin.

saying "Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin" is an attack on consensus.

No. Because the fork can't happened without a consensus either ways.

Actually, a fork could happen and consensus could not be achieved, which is one good reason why the 75% threshold is far too low. 95% is the standard. 75% is only half the hashing power with a lucky run. This is what people mean by two, or multiple chains. If consensus isn't achieved nearly immediately, we run a greater and greater risk of having competing chains.

These numbers are a standard by according to who? The larger bitcoin grows, the more opposite views it will encounter and the less easy it would be to achieve consensus. Targeting a 95% is IMO too high and only guarantees to block any possible changes.

Did I read that right? We should lower consensus threshold as Bitcoin grows so as to make it more easy to achieve consensus!?!

You're out of your mind 

[knight22]

Stop the crap, forking is purely an attack on bitcoin.

Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin.

saying "Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin" is an attack on consensus.

No. Because the fork can't happened without a consensus either ways.

Actually, a fork could happen and consensus could not be achieved, which is one good reason why the 75% threshold is far too low. 95% is the standard. 75% is only half the hashing power with a lucky run. This is what people mean by two, or multiple chains. If consensus isn't achieved nearly immediately, we run a greater and greater risk of having competing chains.

These numbers are a standard by according to who? The larger bitcoin grows, the more opposite views it will encounter and the less easy it would be to achieve consensus. Targeting a 95% is IMO too high and only guarantees to block any possible changes.

Did I read that right? We should lower consensus threshold as Bitcoin grows so as to make it more easy to achieve consensus!?!

You're out of your mind 

I am out of mind while you are delusional 

[poeEDgar]

Stop the crap, forking is purely an attack on bitcoin.

Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin.

saying "Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin" is an attack on consensus.

No. Because the fork can't happened without a consensus either ways.

Actually, a fork could happen and consensus could not be achieved, which is one good reason why the 75% threshold is far too low. 95% is the standard. 75% is only half the hashing power with a lucky run. This is what people mean by two, or multiple chains. If consensus isn't achieved nearly immediately, we run a greater and greater risk of having competing chains.

These numbers are a standard by according to who? The larger bitcoin grows, the more opposite views it will encounter and the less easy it would be to achieve consensus. Targeting a 95% is IMO too high and only guarantees to block any possible changes.

Did I read that right? We should lower consensus threshold as Bitcoin grows so as to make it more easy to achieve consensus!?!

You're out of your mind 

+1

I'm really trying to keep an open mind here, and debate this honestly. But that is just laughable. The idea basically guarantees that bitcoin will be broken into competing blockchains in the future.

This is not the last controversy bitcoin will have. It is not the last hard fork bitcoin will have. Those who think we can solve all of tomorrow's technical problems today are simply naive.

[knight22]

Stop the crap, forking is purely an attack on bitcoin.

Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin.

saying "Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin" is an attack on consensus.

No. Because the fork can't happened without a consensus either ways.

Actually, a fork could happen and consensus could not be achieved, which is one good reason why the 75% threshold is far too low. 95% is the standard. 75% is only half the hashing power with a lucky run. This is what people mean by two, or multiple chains. If consensus isn't achieved nearly immediately, we run a greater and greater risk of having competing chains.

These numbers are a standard by according to who? The larger bitcoin grows, the more opposite views it will encounter and the less easy it would be to achieve consensus. Targeting a 95% is IMO too high and only guarantees to block any possible changes.

Did I read that right? We should lower consensus threshold as Bitcoin grows so as to make it more easy to achieve consensus!?!

You're out of your mind  

+1

I'm really trying to keep an open mind here, and debate this honestly. But that is just laughable. The idea basically guarantees that bitcoin will be broken into competing blockchains in the future.

This is not the last controversy bitcoin will have. It is not the last hard fork bitcoin will have. Those who think we can solve all of tomorrow's technical problems today are simply naive.

And those who think they can wait forever are delusional. Time = money, you are about to experience it the hard way.

[brg444]

Stop the crap, forking is purely an attack on bitcoin.

Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin.

saying "Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin" is an attack on consensus.

No. Because the fork can't happened without a consensus either ways.

Actually, a fork could happen and consensus could not be achieved, which is one good reason why the 75% threshold is far too low. 95% is the standard. 75% is only half the hashing power with a lucky run. This is what people mean by two, or multiple chains. If consensus isn't achieved nearly immediately, we run a greater and greater risk of having competing chains.

These numbers are a standard by according to who? The larger bitcoin grows, the more opposite views it will encounter and the less easy it would be to achieve consensus. Targeting a 95% is IMO too high and only guarantees to block any possible changes.

Did I read that right? We should lower consensus threshold as Bitcoin grows so as to make it more easy to achieve consensus!?!

You're out of your mind  

+1

I'm really trying to keep an open mind here, and debate this honestly. But that is just laughable. The idea basically guarantees that bitcoin will be broken into competing blockchains in the future.

This is not the last controversy bitcoin will have. It is not the last hard fork bitcoin will have. Those who think we can solve all of tomorrow's technical problems today are simply naive.

And those who think they can wait forever are delusional. Time = money, you are about to experience it the hard way.

The first step in your rehabilitation will be admitting there is no problem with Bitcoin.

[brg444]

Stop the crap, forking is purely an attack on bitcoin.

Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin.

saying "Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin" is an attack on consensus.

No. Because the fork can't happened without a consensus either ways.

Actually, a fork could happen and consensus could not be achieved, which is one good reason why the 75% threshold is far too low. 95% is the standard. 75% is only half the hashing power with a lucky run. This is what people mean by two, or multiple chains. If consensus isn't achieved nearly immediately, we run a greater and greater risk of having competing chains.

These numbers are a standard by according to who? The larger bitcoin grows, the more opposite views it will encounter and the less easy it would be to achieve consensus. Targeting a 95% is IMO too high and only guarantees to block any possible changes.

Did I read that right? We should lower consensus threshold as Bitcoin grows so as to make it more easy to achieve consensus!?!

You're out of your mind  

I am out of mind while you are delusional  

Can you even defend that position? If not GTFO of my thread you troll. Hard forks should be hard. We're only going to get more noobs like you trying to "fix" Bitcoin into what they "think" is right. Consensus means you respect a majority of vetos. Stop trying to make Bitcoin into a democracy so that a "majority" of you idiots can somehow influence the decision of sane people.

[RoadTrain]

Stop the crap, forking is purely an attack on bitcoin.

Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin.

saying "Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin" is an attack on consensus.

No. Because the fork can't happened without a consensus either ways.

Actually, a fork could happen and consensus could not be achieved, which is one good reason why the 75% threshold is far too low. 95% is the standard. 75% is only half the hashing power with a lucky run. This is what people mean by two, or multiple chains. If consensus isn't achieved nearly immediately, we run a greater and greater risk of having competing chains.

These numbers are a standard by according to who? The larger bitcoin grows, the more opposite views it will encounter and the less easy it would be to achieve consensus. Targeting a 95% is IMO too high and only guarantees to block any possible changes.

Did I read that right? We should lower consensus threshold as Bitcoin grows so as to make it more easy to achieve consensus!?!

You're out of your mind 

I am out of mind while you are delusional 

If we lower the consensus threshold, we only increase the chances Bitcoin becomes irrelevant.

And what about your lovely economic incentives? If the feature proposed is so cool and will allow Bitcoin to thrive, why would anyone block this change? You know why, because not all participants are behaving rationally, or they have different incentive structures.

I personally think 90% would be enough for a hard fork justification.

[brg444]

I personally think 90% would be enough for a hard fork justification.

These damn percentages are meaningless and perpetuate the myth that somehow the miners "decide". They are nothing but an activation threshold for miners adoption of a proposal decided on by the economic majority.

[RoadTrain]

I personally think 90% would be enough for a hard fork justification.

These damn percentages are meaningless and perpetuate the myth that somehow the miners "decide". They are nothing but an activation threshold for miners adoption of a proposal decided on by the economic majority.

I'm aware of the economic majority concept, and I'm inclined to think it applies. I've been talking about activation threshold as to minimize possible harm, really.

[knight22]

Stop the crap, forking is purely an attack on bitcoin.

Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin.

saying "Forking Bitcoin is not a attack on Bitcoin" is an attack on consensus.

No. Because the fork can't happened without a consensus either ways.

Actually, a fork could happen and consensus could not be achieved, which is one good reason why the 75% threshold is far too low. 95% is the standard. 75% is only half the hashing power with a lucky run. This is what people mean by two, or multiple chains. If consensus isn't achieved nearly immediately, we run a greater and greater risk of having competing chains.

These numbers are a standard by according to who? The larger bitcoin grows, the more opposite views it will encounter and the less easy it would be to achieve consensus. Targeting a 95% is IMO too high and only guarantees to block any possible changes.

Did I read that right? We should lower consensus threshold as Bitcoin grows so as to make it more easy to achieve consensus!?!

You're out of your mind  

+1

I'm really trying to keep an open mind here, and debate this honestly. But that is just laughable. The idea basically guarantees that bitcoin will be broken into competing blockchains in the future.

This is not the last controversy bitcoin will have. It is not the last hard fork bitcoin will have. Those who think we can solve all of tomorrow's technical problems today are simply naive.

And those who think they can wait forever are delusional. Time = money, you are about to experience it the hard way.

The first step in your rehabilitation will be admitting there is no problem with Bitcoin.

Yeah sure, bitcoin is perfect right?   Why we need Core devs at all then?



Problem #1: Bitcoin doesn't scale.
Problem #2: Core devs are incapable of making any decision in a timely manner.

Face it.

[poeEDgar]

And those who think they can wait forever are delusional. Time = money, you are about to experience it the hard way.

This is the crux of the argument for most BIP101 supporters. "If you don't support this single reckless proposal now, it means you are waiting forever and/or support only the status quo."

That's simply dishonest.

[knight22]

And those who think they can wait forever are delusional. Time = money, you are about to experience it the hard way.

This is the crux of the argument for most BIP101 supporters. "If you don't support this single reckless proposal now, it means you are waiting forever and/or support only the status quo."

That's simply dishonest.

What's dishonest? As far as I know bitcoin still doesn't scale, still has a 1 mb limit and Core has no clear timely path to change this.

Prove me wrong.

[brg444]

Problem #1: Bitcoin doesn't scale.
Problem #2: Core devs are incapable of making any decision in a timely manner.

Face it.

Fact #1: Bitcoin doesn't scale how you'd like it to. You will eventually get to accept this. Until then it seems your head is too far up into your ass to make any kind of valid judgement.

Fact #2. You were "sold the controversy" that Core decision process was broken by two defectors who stifled technical discussions in exchange for populist politics. There is absolutely no grounding in this accusation and quite simply a devilish attempt to make a lie into an half-truth by suggesting any sane persons actually consider the disagreements between core developers to be irresolvable.

You're a sheep.