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

[poeEDgar]

You can not simulate or test the social and economy impact of 8MB blocks in the test net, that's the key difficulty

No one can see the future of a complex decentralized social and economy system, the safest way is to make the change as small as possible, one small step at a time

Exactly. My thinking is that allowing for exponential scaling in this fashion is basically turning the blockchain into a testnet for the next two decades. There is too much money at stake to naively assume that nothing will ever go [very, very] wrong on the path to scaling 8000x in block size limit when we have never scaled past 1x.

An incremental approach is the only responsible approach. As I said above, we can probably safely run a 2MB block regime coming from a .5MB environment -- but an 8GB block regime from a .5MB environment? That's simply irresponsible. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

I do like that idea, however that means we would have to hard fork on a regular basis. I do not think that this is practical or even possible without splitting Bitcoin, especially as more people become involved, it will become even more difficult to reach consensus. It would be better if we do not have to debate this again in a few years from now.

I keep hearing this. People need to get over the fact that bitcoin is, and has always been, a work in progress. This is absolutely not the last contentious debate the community will have (likely this will pale in comparison to future issues). And it is very, very silly to have the mindset that "this is the fork to end all forks." Irrational fear of controversy, and of the idea of hard forking in the future (i.e. making decisions) is not an adequate reason to push a reckless regime of exponential scaling.

Have you considered that it's technically much better to have generous limits which you can reduce via soft forks if needed, than having the limit set too low and then be forced to do another hard fork to raise it.

Also we've already had 32 MB limit in Bitcoin's history and it created no problems. And the fact that Satoshi's idea was to remove blocksize limit entirely when light clients became available.

The eventual solution will be to not care how big it gets.

So you'd rather create arbitrarily large limits now, so we can fork them back down after serious lapses in network security? (Can you guarantee network security in an 8GB environment? How?) As one example, is waiting for mass orphaning of blocks to appear > waiting for transaction volume to warrant raising the limit?

What did Nick Szabo call that -- the Mark Karpeles formula?

You're taking Satoshi out of context. Yes, that may be the eventual solution. That doesn't mean everything should be decided with one hard fork in 2015.

Applying this patch will make you incompatible with other Bitcoin clients.

+1 theymos.  Don't use this patch, it'll make you incompatible with the network, to your own detriment.

We can phase in a change later if we get closer to needing it.

A need basis doesn't justify an 8000x scaling regime, when we have never scaled beyond 1x.

[VeritasSapere]

You can not simulate or test the social and economy impact of 8MB blocks in the test net, that's the key difficulty

No one can see the future of a complex decentralized social and economy system, the safest way is to make the change as small as possible, one small step at a time

Exactly. My thinking is that allowing for exponential scaling in this fashion is basically turning the blockchain into a testnet for the next two decades. There is too much money at stake to naively assume that nothing will ever go [very, very] wrong on the path to scaling 8000x in block size limit when we have never scaled past 1x.

An incremental approach is the only responsible approach. As I said above, we can probably safely run a 2MB block regime coming from a .5MB environment -- but an 8GB block regime from a .5MB environment? That's simply irresponsible. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Bitcoin is a giant living experiment, I do not think you can get around that no matter how much we prepare and plan. Some political experiments can only be carried out by actually implementing them on a large scale in reality, because the social dynamics are far to complex to attempt to predict and model every potential variable. The American revolution, Athenian democracy, central banking, fascism, the internet, the communist revolution, and there are many more examples in history where the only way to test such concepts is by actually implementing them in the real world. To think that Bitcoin should not be considered such a political and social experiment would be incorrect in my opinion. If we did apply this logic of needing absolute certainty of the effects of a hard fork it would in effect stifle all possibility for such a change. Since it is impossible to have such certainty in the first place, it in effect makes this an untenable position.

I do like that idea, however that means we would have to hard fork on a regular basis. I do not think that this is practical or even possible without splitting Bitcoin, especially as more people become involved, it will become even more difficult to reach consensus. It would be better if we do not have to debate this again in a few years from now.

I keep hearing this. People need to get over the fact that bitcoin is, and has always been, a work in progress. This is absolutely not the last contentious debate the community will have (likely this will pale in comparison to future issues). And it is very, very silly to have the mindset that "this is the fork to end all forks." Irrational fear of controversy, and of the idea of hard forking in the future (i.e. making decisions) is not an adequate reason to push a reckless regime of exponential scaling.

I also do not think that this will be the last hard fork, if we do get a sufficiently large enouth block size I do think that this would be the last hard fork I can imagine myself ever supporting. Since I personally can not foresee what other things will need to be changed to Bitcoin. I do not think it even should be changed at all beyond what we are discussing now, in terms of hard forks atleast. I do expect there to be more hard forks in the future, this is of political necessity. I would also expect Bitcoin to split at the next hard fork as well. When that does happen I will be on the conservative end of the spectrum thinking that we should not change Bitcoin. One of the reasons why I do support increasing the blocksize now is because I consider not increasing the block size as being the equivalent to breaking the social contract. It is ironic that you accuse me for having a fear of controversy when I am the one that is supporting a controversial fork. lol

I do not necessary think that BIP101 is the best technical solution, however right now it is the only alternative client that is proposing to increase the block size through consensus. Which is why I keep stressing the point that I would support a third option as soon as it becomes real, especially if that third alternative would represent a compromise between these two extreme positions.

[VeritasSapere]

I will believe it when the block size will be increased. Not before. I have absolutely no reasons to trust them.

Believe what? Their code is already out in the open. Are you even aware that the last functioning proposal for a Lightning network implementation was created by someone outside of Blockstream? No one's asking you to trust them.

I do not trust them to increase the block size, that is why it should be implemented by an alternative client. Unless the Core devs increase the blocksize, I will not trust them to do it. Especially since this has become a fundamental ideological disagreement, since not increasing the block size at all would lead to a very different future for Bitcoin compared to the future that restricting the block size would lead to.

Blockstream does not decide if changes are made to the Bitcoin core, the community of devs does.

I never said that Blockstream decides on changes within Bitcoin core. However you are missing a very important point. The core developers do decide what changes are made to the Bitcoin core implementation. However the core developers should not decide what goes into the Bitcoin protocol, this is a very important distinction, it is the economic majority that should and does ultimately decide on what the Bitcoin protocol should be, not the core developers. That is why it is so important that we have multiple implementations of the Bitcoin protocol, including multiple competing development teams. Decentralization of development should be a natural extension of the ethos of Bitcoin.

[poeEDgar]

Since I personally can not foresee what other things will need to be changed to Bitcoin.

This is what it all boils down to.

And the political arguments about revolution and social contract --

This is argumentum ad nauseam....

[hdbuck]

this: https://medium.com/@twobitidiot/the-21mm-btc-soft-cap-71e14cd09946

[erik777]

I think it's very important for the community to know the things that are going on right now. Some devs are kinda opaque about this discussion, Mike Hearn stated that he has tried to contact some core developers and has not received answers. How can we build a meaningful discussion and consensus about the issues that bitcoin faces if devs are still waiting for some miraculous voting system to appear from nothing?

The public discussion is public.  The Core devs addressed this assertion... publicly.  He did not reply to their response. 

One public discussion went like this...

M2C: proposes patch and BIP.
C2M: technical issues with patch.  need test data and other standard things to address concerns.
M2C: vague political analogies (to demonstrate idealogical superiority).
C2M: "vague political analogies" don't address our technical concerns.
...
M2P: they didn't reply.
C2P: we replied, he chose to not reply to our technical concerns. 

[erik777]

You can not simulate or test the social and economy impact of 8MB blocks in the test net, that's the key difficulty

No one can see the future of a complex decentralized social and economy system, the safest way is to make the change as small as possible, one small step at a time

Exactly. My thinking is that allowing for exponential scaling in this fashion is basically turning the blockchain into a testnet for the next two decades. There is too much money at stake to naively assume that nothing will ever go [very, very] wrong on the path to scaling 8000x in block size limit when we have never scaled past 1x.

An incremental approach is the only responsible approach. As I said above, we can probably safely run a 2MB block regime coming from a .5MB environment -- but an 8GB block regime from a .5MB environment? That's simply irresponsible. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

I do like that idea, however that means we would have to hard fork on a regular basis. I do not think that this is practical or even possible without splitting Bitcoin, especially as more people become involved, it will become even more difficult to reach consensus. It would be better if we do not have to debate this again in a few years from now.

I keep hearing this. People need to get over the fact that bitcoin is, and has always been, a work in progress. This is absolutely not the last contentious debate the community will have (likely this will pale in comparison to future issues). And it is very, very silly to have the mindset that "this is the fork to end all forks." Irrational fear of controversy, and of the idea of hard forking in the future (i.e. making decisions) is not an adequate reason to push a reckless regime of exponential scaling.

One proposal involved having the max block size calculated based on previous blocks, allowing the max block size to scale automatically.  So, it won't necessarily need to hard fork every time. 

[iCEBREAKER]

   Time for Schadenfreude Theater, courtesy of the dead-ender Gavinista Sad Pandas at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bitcoin-xt/IoGjEt89CeM.

bitcoin-xt ›
XT nodes dropping. I am concerned about adoption.

  I hope there are some bright ideas as to how to get Bitcoin XT adopted by miners because right now it's looking pretty bleak. I don't mean to be a negative Nancy but there needs to be a real campaign and concerted effort to bring this change about.

The number of XT nodes are dropping. Does anyone know of a specific reason why?   

  XT looks like a deflated balloon   

  Current situation took XT side by surprise, so we need to regroup and come up with a new strategy, and announce it clearly for people to stop feeling depressed and lost.

And it requires stronger leadership. Saying things like:

> Ultimately XT just gives the community another option. It's up to the wider Bitcoin world to take it. If the community collectively decides that this whole decentralisation thing is too dangerous and unstable to be worth it, well, I guess that means lots of people will lose interest and drift away.

is as weak as Obama's "sorry folks, I can't do anything, call your congressman... err... miner". Except we don't have one.

Without leadership nothing will happen, XT will flop and a lot of best and brightest, who gathered around it, will feel betrayed and leave.   

  my XT node doesn't live for longer than a few seconds and then dies.   

  >In which case, OK then. As long as the block size keeps ahead of traffic, so be it.

This passive attitude from our side (not just you) is one of the reasons why XT looks so bad now with its 1.5% of blocks.

Yes, we all hoped that support would be much stronger, but then BIP100 happened and other things, and our side was in limbo for a week. And now what, we just give up?

If there is no firm resolution and no active effort but "meh", people won't treat XT seriously and won't consider switching. You need a will first.

Right now those on the fence are just waiting for the 8 companies to change their minds and XT will be dead, supporters will feel betrayed and disappointed.   

  The DDoS attack is annoying. Although I don't want the 'bad guy(s) to win', I am also not happy about the extra time and effort (not to mention annoyances) that this takes.

I don't want to spend my time fighting to keep a service online that I provide for free, and am considering just taking the nodes offline

It is really sad that the attacks on my nodes seem to be coming from the bitcoin community itself   

Aww, poor Team XT.  It's just so sad they are getting fukkin' rekt, exactly as predicted.   

[brg444]

Herr Hearn :

WRT adoption - Gavin and I will go talk to some miners next week. I suspect having the possibility of more power dangled in front of them by BIP 100 means they aren't going to support any other option now regardless of what the economic majority thinks. But we can try anyway.

Dude is still convinced he's got the support of "the economic majority" 

Wonder the amount of USD he was granted by USG to "dangle" in front of the miners.

[tvbcof]

...
Aww, poor Team XT.  It's just so sad they are getting fukkin' rekt, exactly as predicted.   

 https://i.imgur.com/QZvcb2g.jpg

Damn, I wish my old pal cypherdick was around to enjoy the laughs but he ran away with his tail between his legs and leaving a yellow trail some time ago.  So sad.

[brg444]

...
Aww, poor Team XT.  It's just so sad they are getting fukkin' rekt, exactly as predicted.  

 https://i.imgur.com/QZvcb2g.jpg

Damn, I wish my old pal cypherdick was around to enjoy the laughs but he ran away with his tail between his legs and leaving a yellow trail some time ago.  So sad

Him and his cargo cult are still entertaining the no block size cap idea in their new forum  

[knight22]

XT lost nodes because of a massive DDOS attack. Not because it lost support.

Expect XT to be around for a loooong time. At least as long as it will take for Core to scale up the block size enough to satisfy everybody.

[marky89]

XT lost nodes because of a massive DDOS attack. Not because it lost support.

Expect XT to be around for a loooong time. At least as long as it will take for Core to scale up the block size enough to satisfy everybody.

I think the reaction to BIP 100 made it pretty obvious that BIP 101 (and XT) never had much support in the first place. As soon as miners could show support for something else, they did. I'm just glad the hysteria phase is over. This community had me worried for a bit....

[RGBKey]

Honestly I don't really understand fully what's happening, and what the difference between the three is, but all of these people acting self-entitled and like they know everything is just pissing me off.

[iCEBREAKER]

...
Aww, poor Team XT.  It's just so sad they are getting fukkin' rekt, exactly as predicted.  

 https://i.imgur.com/QZvcb2g.jpg

Damn, I wish my old pal cypherdick was around to enjoy the laughs but he ran away with his tail between his legs and leaving a yellow trail some time ago.  So sad

Him and his cargo cult are still entertaining the no block size cap idea in their new forum  

You mean the new forum that typically has about 4 people online, one of which is me lurking and laughing?   

[tvbcof]

...
Aww, poor Team XT.  It's just so sad they are getting fukkin' rekt, exactly as predicted.  

 https://i.imgur.com/QZvcb2g.jpg

Damn, I wish my old pal cypherdick was around to enjoy the laughs but he ran away with his tail between his legs and leaving a yellow trail some time ago.  So sad

Him and his cargo cult are still entertaining the no block size cap idea in their new forum  

You mean the new forum that typically has about 4 3 people online, one of which is me lurking and laughing?   

Ah oh.  World domination is right around the corner.

I wonder if fap.doc will sue theymos for stealing his perceived mojo?  Theymos giveth, theymos taketh away I guess.

[danielW]

Mike Hearn

If the community collectively decides that this whole decentralisation thing is too dangerous and unstable to be worth it, well, I guess that means lots of people will lose interest and drift away. There's no point in replacing central bankers with central developers.

Interesting thing to say from someone who thinks Gavin should have taken over the reins at core and just made the decisions, in his favour presumably.

So he now has genuine  concern about decentralisation? The person who pushes for blacklists, passports for nodes, envisions a future where nodes are only run by larger companies. Defends gov prosecution of Shrem and their non-punishment of HSBC?

Not that I see a future where XT is the reference client, run by Hearn, as more decentralised then the situation now.


It really looks to me like Mikes main concern is about 'winning' and getting 'his way', and he will just use whatever reasoning to try and get that.

[iCEBREAKER]

Him and his cargo cult are still entertaining the no block size cap idea in their new forum  

You mean the new forum that typically has about 4 3 people online, one of which is me lurking and laughing?   

Ah oh.  World domination is right around the corner.

I wonder if fap.doc will sue theymos for stealing his perceived mojo?  Theymos giveth, theymos taketh away I guess.

XT is sure to win dominate now that Doctor Frappe, the LeBron of Bitcoin, is aboard!   

The problem we can't tell if XT is winning, because they are admitting defeat (by NotXT and Bitkiller) and spoofing their version as Core.

bitcoin-xt ›
Changing XT ver string to be the same as Core
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bitcoin-xt/IWg3JHvOWJo

The funniest part of this is Hearn sacrificing Lighthouse in a vain attempt to save his vanity fork of Bitcoin!   

Hearn and Frap.doc are such epic lulzcows.  Every day, we get to enjoy fresh buckets of comedy thanks to their hapless, domesticated nature.

How quickly then went from 'fine, we'll make our own Bitcoin with giant blocks and blacklists' to 'aww, screw the whole thing.'

[knight22]

Mike Hearn

If the community collectively decides that this whole decentralisation thing is too dangerous and unstable to be worth it, well, I guess that means lots of people will lose interest and drift away. There's no point in replacing central bankers with central developers.

Interesting thing to say from someone who thinks Gavin should have taken over the reins at core and just made the decisions, in his favour presumably.

So he now has genuine  concern about decentralisation? The person who pushes for blacklists, passports for nodes, envisions a future where nodes are only run by larger companies. Defends gov prosecution of Shrem and their non-punishment of HSBC?

Not that I see a future where XT is the reference client, run by Hearn, as more decentralised then the situation now.


It really looks to me like Mikes main concern is about 'winning' and getting 'his way', and he will just use whatever reasoning to try and get that.

I think he is referring to the inability to fork the code even if the market wants it. Now what?

[Holliday]

I think he is referring to the inability to fork the code even if the market wants it. Now what?

How do we know if "the market" wants it?

You can try, but I don't think you can accurately predict what the "Bitcoin economic majority" is thinking until after the fact (fork). We have lots of people posting that they will do this or do that, but as they say, "Money talks, bullshit walks." The thing about Bitcoin is... you have no idea who the "economic majority" is. They can't even vote until after the fact (fork), so everything up until then is just posturing. Well, I suppose they can vote to walk away today, but anyone with a lick of sense should realize that is a mistake.