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

[knight22]

The decision making processes should be based on where the miners point their hashing power and what code people choose to run. This is the level at which consensus should be achieved. To think that important decisions should be made by a Core development team is tantamount to centralization of power.

There is a very big difference between being a benevolent dictator of your own implementation of Bitcoin and actually being the dictator of Bitcoin. This is a very important distinction. It is not wrong to be in charge of your own implementation of Bitcoin when people are free to choice whatever client they want. Having multiple implementations of Bitcoin is good for decentralization and freedom.

Agreed.  One group of developers should not be considered a permanent authority on what Bitcoin is or should be.  I don't see how anyone could possibly be advocating for such a thing, but sadly it seems increasingly common at the moment.  Disparate factions are emerging here and no one is any closer to agreeing on anything.  If anything, the gap appears to be widening.  We're not working towards a solution, we're working towards a split.  I honestly don't see this ending amicably.  


Points to remember:

• If you want to use an open source coin, that means anyone can modify that code and submit their own version under another name.
• Such actions are not an attack on the system and actually prevent the possibility of a single group having permanent control over development.
• Successfully forking with an alternative client does not give those developers any special power or diktat to enforce future changes on the network.
• Assuming that Core developers are the only permanent authority on what Bitcoin "is" or "should be" is an extremely dangerous mindset.
• Consensus is not a group of developers agreeing, because the people securing the network make the decisions, not the developers.

Oxymorons to avoid:

• "Bitcoin is great because it's decentralised, but only the core devs can be trusted to write code"
• "Bitcoin is great because it's open source, but releasing a client to propose a fork means you're a dictator"
• "Bitcoin is great because it's permissionless, but you can't use it to buy a cup of coffee"
• "Bitcoin is great because only the economic majority can decide the rules of the network, but only when I personally agree with them, otherwise I'll dismiss it as an altcoin like a petulant child"

No.

The dev team will be just as centralised under anyone else, you can't crowdsource engineering decisions (except if you're trying to hijack an open source p2p network of course...), except on github (which already happens for Bitcoin anyway)

XT was rejected. Get over it, we'll be scaling up without BIP101 or XT. Go away.

This is yet to be seen (which I am not really optimistic to be honest), otherwise expect a more aggressive fork that would cause a split. I would gladly support that if it means leaving "bitcoin that doesn't scale" right where it belongs: dust.

[RoadTrain]

You misunderstand, it should not be centralized under any development team. There should be many developer teams with many competing implementations of Bitcoin this is where the decentralization of development should lie.

It is interesting that you say we can not crowd source engineering decisions. If that is the case then it would make sense that different implementations of Bitcoin have their own internal decision making processes, and some like XT would decide on having a "benevolent dictator" so to speak. I believe this is rather common throughout open source projects. The consensus and the choice lies with the miners, the economic majority and the users in terms of the code they choose to run. This is how Bitcoin can remain free and decentralized.

Should? So what? How do you enforce it? We already have several implementations, and where are they?

Development skills are a scarce resource, and having multiple 'competing' implementations is actually wasteful. In a sense, Bitcoin Core is a kind of natural monopoly, because only this way it can attract sufficient expertise, and thus be robust and stable.

Maintaining a fork of Core code is actually much easier than maintaining different implementations, and XT, when it appeared, was OK -- it did implement some client-side BIPs that didn't make it into Core. It only became controversial when it started pushing changes to the protocol.

If you mean many competing versions of Bitcoin protocol, that's a completely different domain.

[VeritasSapere]

You misunderstand, it should not be centralized under any development team. There should be many developer teams with many competing implementations of Bitcoin this is where the decentralization of development should lie.

It is interesting that you say we can not crowd source engineering decisions. If that is the case then it would make sense that different implementations of Bitcoin have their own internal decision making processes, and some like XT would decide on having a "benevolent dictator" so to speak. I believe this is rather common throughout open source projects. The consensus and the choice lies with the miners, the economic majority and the users in terms of the code they choose to run. This is how Bitcoin can remain free and decentralized.

Should? So what? How do you enforce it? We already have several implementations, and where are they?

Development skills are a scarce resource, and having multiple 'competing' implementations is actually wasteful. In a sense, Bitcoin Core is a kind of natural monopoly, because only this way it can attract sufficient expertise, and thus be robust and stable.

Maintaining a fork of Core code is actually much easier than maintaining different implementations, and XT, when it appeared, was OK -- it did implement some client-side BIPs that didn't make it into Core. It only became controversial when it started pushing changes to the protocol.

If you mean many competing versions of Bitcoin protocol, that's a completely different domain.

Having multiple 'competing' implementations is indeed wasteful. So is sending every transaction to every full node on the network. The point is that decentralization is wasteful and very inefficient. However the cost of decentralization is worth paying because of the benefits it brings. Bitcoin would become more robust and stable once such competition and decentralization exists within development. Having multiple 'competing' clients would most likely eventually lead to having competing versions of the Bitcoin protocol, this might be unavoidable. I do hope that this block size debate will not cause a split but future issues might justify this however. Increasing the supply of Bitcoin for instance in the future might cause a split, I would not support such a change. However for people that strongly believe in inflationary economics as opposed to the deflationary model of Bitcoin this might make sense for them. One of the beautiful things about Bitcoin at least is that there would be no tyranny of the majority since people can choose what side of the fork they wish to support for themselves.

[RoadTrain]

You misunderstand, it should not be centralized under any development team. There should be many developer teams with many competing implementations of Bitcoin this is where the decentralization of development should lie.

It is interesting that you say we can not crowd source engineering decisions. If that is the case then it would make sense that different implementations of Bitcoin have their own internal decision making processes, and some like XT would decide on having a "benevolent dictator" so to speak. I believe this is rather common throughout open source projects. The consensus and the choice lies with the miners, the economic majority and the users in terms of the code they choose to run. This is how Bitcoin can remain free and decentralized.

Should? So what? How do you enforce it? We already have several implementations, and where are they?

Development skills are a scarce resource, and having multiple 'competing' implementations is actually wasteful. In a sense, Bitcoin Core is a kind of natural monopoly, because only this way it can attract sufficient expertise, and thus be robust and stable.

Maintaining a fork of Core code is actually much easier than maintaining different implementations, and XT, when it appeared, was OK -- it did implement some client-side BIPs that didn't make it into Core. It only became controversial when it started pushing changes to the protocol.

If you mean many competing versions of Bitcoin protocol, that's a completely different domain.

Having multiple 'competing' implementations is indeed wasteful. So is sending every transaction to every full node on the network. The point is that decentralization is wasteful and very inefficient. However the cost of decentralization is worth paying because of the benefits it brings. Bitcoin would become more robust and stable once such competition and decentralization exists within development. Having multiple 'competing' clients would most likely eventually lead to having competing versions of the Bitcoin protocol this might be unavoidable. I do hope that this block size debate will not cause a split but future issues might justify this however. Increasing the supply of Bitcoin for instance in the future might cause a split, I would not support such a change. However for people that really believe in inflationary economics as opposed to the deflationary model of Bitcoin this might make sense for them. One of the beautiful things about Bitcoin at least is that there would be no tyranny of the majority since people can choose what side of the fork they wish to support for themselves.

Quite the contrary, actually. More implementations, as they are diverting resources, mean lower quality of peer-review. This has already been demonstrated in case of btcd, where it could've forked because of a sublte bug in opcode handling. Jeez, even Core, despite extensive peer-review, has forked in the past because of code bugs!

Bitcoin is consensus-critical, so you can't apply the same principles to it as you would to other open-source projects.

As for "having competing versions of the Bitcoin protocol" --  this won't work. How do you enforce network consensus then?

Bitcoin is not about the tyranny of the majority. It's about tyranny of the protocol. Rules have to be enforced for the network to function.

Still, development decentralization is orthogonal to network decentralization. I believe (my sig) that generally decentralization is best measured by cost of creating a new instance of something, not by an amount of existing instances. In this case, creating a new instance of Bitcoin implementation is low (nearly free if it's a fork of existing code). This way, development is already decentralized. The hardest part is convincing the community that what you propose is good. XT failed at that, and rightfully so.

[OmegaStarScream]

That's nice and all , however I suppose that BitcoinXT was the only project planning to increase the Blocksize of bitcoin (altcoin) .. now without what are we supposed to do with bigger blocks ? are Bitcoin Core developpers planning to do anything , if not there is no reason to continue using Bitcoin I suppose .. no mainstream = no future . 

[VeritasSapere]

You misunderstand, it should not be centralized under any development team. There should be many developer teams with many competing implementations of Bitcoin this is where the decentralization of development should lie.

It is interesting that you say we can not crowd source engineering decisions. If that is the case then it would make sense that different implementations of Bitcoin have their own internal decision making processes, and some like XT would decide on having a "benevolent dictator" so to speak. I believe this is rather common throughout open source projects. The consensus and the choice lies with the miners, the economic majority and the users in terms of the code they choose to run. This is how Bitcoin can remain free and decentralized.

Should? So what? How do you enforce it? We already have several implementations, and where are they?

Development skills are a scarce resource, and having multiple 'competing' implementations is actually wasteful. In a sense, Bitcoin Core is a kind of natural monopoly, because only this way it can attract sufficient expertise, and thus be robust and stable.

Maintaining a fork of Core code is actually much easier than maintaining different implementations, and XT, when it appeared, was OK -- it did implement some client-side BIPs that didn't make it into Core. It only became controversial when it started pushing changes to the protocol.

If you mean many competing versions of Bitcoin protocol, that's a completely different domain.

Having multiple 'competing' implementations is indeed wasteful. So is sending every transaction to every full node on the network. The point is that decentralization is wasteful and very inefficient. However the cost of decentralization is worth paying because of the benefits it brings. Bitcoin would become more robust and stable once such competition and decentralization exists within development. Having multiple 'competing' clients would most likely eventually lead to having competing versions of the Bitcoin protocol this might be unavoidable. I do hope that this block size debate will not cause a split but future issues might justify this however. Increasing the supply of Bitcoin for instance in the future might cause a split, I would not support such a change. However for people that really believe in inflationary economics as opposed to the deflationary model of Bitcoin this might make sense for them. One of the beautiful things about Bitcoin at least is that there would be no tyranny of the majority since people can choose what side of the fork they wish to support for themselves.

Quite the contrary, actually. More implementations, as they are diverting resources, mean lower quality of peer-review. This has already been demonstrated in case of btcd, where it could've forked because of a sublte bug in opcode handling. Jeez, even Core, despite extensive peer-review, has forked in the past because of code bugs!

The danger of centralisation of power and tyrrany of development would be to great of a cost to pay for not diverting resources. Since decentralisation implies the diversion of resources. Having multiple implementations would make the protocol more robust over the long term.

Bitcoin is consensus-critical, so you can't apply the same principles to it as you would to other open-source projects

We can apply some of the same principles to it since Bitcoin is also a open-source project.

As for "having competing versions of the Bitcoin protocol" --  this won't work. How do you enforce network consensus then?

You should not and can not enforce network consensus in the case of a split.

Bitcoin is not about the tyranny of the majority. It's about tyranny of the protocol. Rules have to be enforced for the network to function.

You are advocating tyranny of the protocol, I disagree. Bitcoin is and should be voluntary.

If you think that we should all rely on the internal decision making process of Core. Then we will run into some of the same problems that large corporations and states run into, since if we wanted the Core development to reflect the will of the economic majority or possible another measure of consensus. Then we would need to attempt to construct a type of centralized governance structure on top of Bitcoin in the form of Core development, this in my opinion would be in conflict to the principles of freedom and decentralization that Bitcoin was founded upon.

[RoadTrain]

That's nice and all , however I suppose that BitcoinXT was the only project planning to increase the Blocksize of bitcoin (altcoin) .. now without what are we supposed to do with bigger blocks ? are Bitcoin Core developpers planning to do anything , if not there is no reason to continue using Bitcoin I suppose .. no mainstream = no future . 

Look for Scaling Bitcoin workshop, it is meant to address scalability at least mid-term.

[yayayo]

This is yet to be seen (which I am not really optimistic to be honest), otherwise expect a more aggressive fork that would cause a split. I would gladly support that if it means leaving "bitcoin that doesn't scale" right where it belongs: dust.

Man, I really don't know what you are doing here, since you are so unsatisfied with Bitcoin the way it is (currently zero issues with blocksize for non-spam transactions despite Hearndresen-FUD the system would break). Personally, I came to Bitcoin because it is a one-of-a-kind decentralized and secure store of wealth and transaction system without counterparty risk. Otherwise I would have been satisfied with Paypal.

It seems to me that you want "scaling" at any cost, even if there is no current demand and this means giving up decentralization. Also, you want to scale the dumb way by implementing extremist block size increases only, instead of using much more efficient second layer solutions. Therefore I don't think it's Bitcoin you want (as indicated by the message in the genesis block) - you want a Paypal 2.0.

There's a promised altcoin* out there that promises to satisfy this need: It's named Hearndresencoin / GavinCoin (short: HDC / GVC). Although it seems to be failing to get sufficient support to achieve its mere existence, competent altcoin adopters like you will surely push it for success... so I suggest you should join the altcoin boards full time and don't waste your time in a Bitcoin forum any longer.

*) Why promised altcoin? Because Hearndresencoin doesn't even have its own blockchain (it tries to live on Bitcoin's resources) it is not yet able to execute its core altcoin functionality (other "features" like IP filtering already work though). Therefore HDC is a promised or double-virtual altcoin.

ya.ya.yo!

[VeritasSapere]

That's nice and all , however I suppose that BitcoinXT was the only project planning to increase the Blocksize of bitcoin (altcoin) .. now without what are we supposed to do with bigger blocks ? are Bitcoin Core developpers planning to do anything , if not there is no reason to continue using Bitcoin I suppose .. no mainstream = no future .  

Look for Scaling Bitcoin workshop, it is meant to address scalability at least mid-term.

The answer is already here. Increase the block size and if Core takes to long to do it then an alternative implementation of Bitcoin will. This is not the same as an altcoin, embrace the freedom of choice. If enough people want the block size to be increased then it will be increased, even if that means we need to fork away from the Core development team.

[brg444]

You misunderstand, it should not be centralized under any development team. There should be many developer teams with many competing implementations of Bitcoin this is where the decentralization of development should lie.

It is interesting that you say we can not crowd source engineering decisions. If that is the case then it would make sense that different implementations of Bitcoin have their own internal decision making processes, and some like XT would decide on having a "benevolent dictator" so to speak. I believe this is rather common throughout open source projects. The consensus and the choice lies with the miners, the economic majority and the users in terms of the code they choose to run. This is how Bitcoin can remain free and decentralized.

Should? So what? How do you enforce it? We already have several implementations, and where are they?

Development skills are a scarce resource, and having multiple 'competing' implementations is actually wasteful. In a sense, Bitcoin Core is a kind of natural monopoly, because only this way it can attract sufficient expertise, and thus be robust and stable.

Maintaining a fork of Core code is actually much easier than maintaining different implementations, and XT, when it appeared, was OK -- it did implement some client-side BIPs that didn't make it into Core. It only became controversial when it started pushing changes to the protocol.

If you mean many competing versions of Bitcoin protocol, that's a completely different domain.

Having multiple 'competing' implementations is indeed wasteful. So is sending every transaction to every full node on the network. The point is that decentralization is wasteful and very inefficient. However the cost of decentralization is worth paying because of the benefits it brings. Bitcoin would become more robust and stable once such competition and decentralization exists within development. Having multiple 'competing' clients would most likely eventually lead to having competing versions of the Bitcoin protocol, this might be unavoidable. I do hope that this block size debate will not cause a split but future issues might justify this however. Increasing the supply of Bitcoin for instance in the future might cause a split, I would not support such a change. However for people that strongly believe in inflationary economics as opposed to the deflationary model of Bitcoin this might make sense for them. One of the beautiful things about Bitcoin at least is that there would be no tyranny of the majority since people can choose what side of the fork they wish to support for themselves.

You are totally off the track. "Competing versions of the Bitcoin protocol" = altcoins. There are multiple implementations of these as we speak supported by different teams of developers. You are welcome to look their way if you are not satisfied with current Bitcoin protocol.

[brg444]

That's nice and all , however I suppose that BitcoinXT was the only project planning to increase the Blocksize of bitcoin (altcoin) .. now without what are we supposed to do with bigger blocks ? are Bitcoin Core developpers planning to do anything , if not there is no reason to continue using Bitcoin I suppose .. no mainstream = no future . 

Where did you get the idea that Bitcoin needed to be adopted by mainstream to be successful in the first place?

[VeritasSapere]

This is yet to be seen (which I am not really optimistic to be honest), otherwise expect a more aggressive fork that would cause a split. I would gladly support that if it means leaving "bitcoin that doesn't scale" right where it belongs: dust.

Man, I really don't know what you are doing here, since you are so unsatisfied with Bitcoin the way it is (currently zero issues with blocksize for non-spam transactions despite Hearndresen-FUD the system would break). Personally, I came to Bitcoin because it is a one-of-a-kind decentralized and secure store of wealth and transaction system without counterparty risk. Otherwise I would have been satisfied with Paypal.

It seems to me that you want "scaling" at all costs, even if there is no current demand and this means giving up decentralization. Also, you want to scale the dumb way by implementing extremist block size increases only, instead of using much more efficient second layer solutions. Therefore I don't think it's Bitcoin you want (as indicated by the message in the genesis block) - you want a Paypal 2.0.

There's a promised altcoin* out there that promises to satisfy this need: It's named Hearndresencoin / GavinCoin (short: HDC / GVC). Although it seems to be failing to get sufficient support to achieve its mere existence, competent altcoin adopters like you will surely push it for success... so I suggest you should join the altcoin boards full time and don't waste your time in a Bitcoin forum any longer.

*) Why promised altcoin? Because Hearndresencoin doesn't even have its own blockchain (it tries to live on Bitcoin's resources) it is not yet able to execute its core altcoin functionality (other "features" like IP filtering already work though). Therefore HDC is a promised or double-virtual altcoin.

ya.ya.yo!

To quote adamstgBit because I could not have said it better myself:

i'd argue that not changing the 1MB is a change in and of itself, we were promised this limit would move up as needed. satoshi knew what that would do, and he talked about SPV clients becoming more important as time went on. not changing the limit is changing the game plan in a big way.

Even though it is factually incorrect that a protocol fork of Bitcoin is an altcoin. If you where to use such faulty logic then it would actually be the other way around. Since not increasing the blocksize could essentially be considered as equivalent to breaking the social contract of Bitcoin.

[brg444]

The danger of centralisation of power and tyrrany of development would be to great of a cost to pay for not diverting resources. Since decentralisation implies the diversion of resources. Having multiple implementations would make the protocol more robust over the long term.

Bitcoin has multiple implementations. There also exists multiple implementations of the Bitcoin protocol, they are called altcoin. Bitcoin is absolutely voluntary and there is no such thing as "tyrany of development". If you are not satisfied with existing protocol you are welcome to either submit your own pull request, develop your own altcoin or adopt an existing one that fits your need.

You should not and can not enforce network consensus in the case of a split.

In the case of a split the two groups will each reach consensus. It's likely one group will retain the economic majority, their fork will be considered Bitcoin, the others will fork into their own altcoin.

You are advocating tyranny of the protocol, I disagree. Bitcoin is and should be voluntary.

It absolutely is. If you don't agree with the Nakamoto consensus protocol you are free to abstain yourself from using it and creating your own version.

If you think that we should all rely on the internal decision making process of Core. Then we will run into some of the same problems that large corporations and states run into, since if we wanted the Core development to reflect the will of the economic majority or possible another measure of consensus. Then we would need to attempt to construct a type of centralized governance structure on top of Bitcoin in the form of Core development, this in my opinion would be in conflict to the principles of freedom and decentralization that Bitcoin was founded upon.

Bitcoin is an engineering project. Core has attracted the best mindshare in this industry and until another development team come forward with proper credentials there is no reason we should diverge from Core's leadership.

[brg444]

That's nice and all , however I suppose that BitcoinXT was the only project planning to increase the Blocksize of bitcoin (altcoin) .. now without what are we supposed to do with bigger blocks ? are Bitcoin Core developpers planning to do anything , if not there is no reason to continue using Bitcoin I suppose .. no mainstream = no future .  

Look for Scaling Bitcoin workshop, it is meant to address scalability at least mid-term.

The answer is already here. Increase the block size and if Core takes to long to do it then an alternative implementation of Bitcoin will. This is not the same as an altcoin, embrace the freedom of choice. If enough people want the block size to be increased then it will be increased, even if that means we need to fork away from the Core development team.

Your mistake is assuming the economic majority is supporting reckless increase of the blocksize.

It's increasingly obvious this isn't the case so your opinion of what "people want" is irrelevant to the reality.

[brg444]

This is yet to be seen (which I am not really optimistic to be honest), otherwise expect a more aggressive fork that would cause a split. I would gladly support that if it means leaving "bitcoin that doesn't scale" right where it belongs: dust.

Man, I really don't know what you are doing here, since you are so unsatisfied with Bitcoin the way it is (currently zero issues with blocksize for non-spam transactions despite Hearndresen-FUD the system would break). Personally, I came to Bitcoin because it is a one-of-a-kind decentralized and secure store of wealth and transaction system without counterparty risk. Otherwise I would have been satisfied with Paypal.

It seems to me that you want "scaling" at all costs, even if there is no current demand and this means giving up decentralization. Also, you want to scale the dumb way by implementing extremist block size increases only, instead of using much more efficient second layer solutions. Therefore I don't think it's Bitcoin you want (as indicated by the message in the genesis block) - you want a Paypal 2.0.

There's a promised altcoin* out there that promises to satisfy this need: It's named Hearndresencoin / GavinCoin (short: HDC / GVC). Although it seems to be failing to get sufficient support to achieve its mere existence, competent altcoin adopters like you will surely push it for success... so I suggest you should join the altcoin boards full time and don't waste your time in a Bitcoin forum any longer.

*) Why promised altcoin? Because Hearndresencoin doesn't even have its own blockchain (it tries to live on Bitcoin's resources) it is not yet able to execute its core altcoin functionality (other "features" like IP filtering already work though). Therefore HDC is a promised or double-virtual altcoin.

ya.ya.yo!

To quote adamstgBit because I could have said it better myself:

i'd argue that not changing the 1MB is a change in and of itself, we were promised this limit would move up as needed. satoshi knew what that would do, and he talked about SPV clients becoming more important as time went on. not changing the limit is changing the game plan in a big way.

Even though it is factually incorrect that a protocol fork of Bitcoin is an altcoin. If you where to use such faulty logic then it would actually be the other way around. Since not increasing the blocksize could essentially be considered as equivalent to breaking the social contract of Bitcoin.

There is no such thing as a social contract. This is a typical socialist diversion. It won't work.

A protocol fork of Bitcoin, unless it obtains support from the economic majority, is absolutely and without doubt an altcoin.

[Lauda]

Man, I really don't know what you are doing here, since you are so unsatisfied with Bitcoin the way it is (currently zero issues with blocksize for non-spam transactions despite Hearndresen-FUD the system would break). Personally, I came to Bitcoin because it is a one-of-a-kind decentralized and secure store of wealth and transaction system without counterparty risk. Otherwise I would have been satisfied with Paypal.

It seems to me that you want "scaling" at any cost, even if there is no current demand and this means giving up decentralization. Also, you want to scale the dumb way by implementing extremist block size increases only, instead of using much more efficient second layer solutions. Therefore I don't think it's Bitcoin you want (as indicated by the message in the genesis block) - you want a Paypal 2.0.
-snip-

While there are some issues with the software itself like with every software, Bitcoin is fine with where it is now. There is nothing wrong with Bitcoin now. For the record, I'm not saying that I want a closed system for elitist or anything. Bitcoin does not have to be mainstream. In other words, if I were to chose between mainstream and decentralization I'd chose the second option. The only real reason for anyone to be pushing hard for solution designed for mainstream adoption right now, even though it damages decentralization, is profit.

Bitcoin Core is going to address scaleability (e.g. Lightning Network which is usually ignored by XT supporters; I wonder why) as necessary and will enable more people to use Bitcoin. This might not happen this year, or the next, but I still do not see the reason for which we should choose the risky path?

Where did you get the idea that Bitcoin needed to be adopted by mainstream to be successful in the first place?

It is already successful.

[VeritasSapere]

That's nice and all , however I suppose that BitcoinXT was the only project planning to increase the Blocksize of bitcoin (altcoin) .. now without what are we supposed to do with bigger blocks ? are Bitcoin Core developpers planning to do anything , if not there is no reason to continue using Bitcoin I suppose .. no mainstream = no future . 

Where did you get the idea that Bitcoin needed to be adopted by mainstream to be successful in the first place?

Increased adoption would help Bitcoins survival into the future, the history of file sharing can be considered as a precedent for this. I would also like to see more people benefit from the Bitcoin blockchain directly, because I think this would do much good in the world.

[brg444]

That's nice and all , however I suppose that BitcoinXT was the only project planning to increase the Blocksize of bitcoin (altcoin) .. now without what are we supposed to do with bigger blocks ? are Bitcoin Core developpers planning to do anything , if not there is no reason to continue using Bitcoin I suppose .. no mainstream = no future .  

Where did you get the idea that Bitcoin needed to be adopted by mainstream to be successful in the first place?

Increased adoption would help Bitcoins survival into the future, the history of file sharing can be considered as a precedent for this. I would also like to see more people benefit from the Bitcoin blockchain directly, because I think this would do much good in the world.

Bitcoin is a money protocol. The internet of VALUE. It is not Facebook and therefore the number of users is not representative of its adoption.

Increased adoption by capital is what we should be concerned about. It is not correlated with the number of users.

In that regard I shall remind you of iCEBREAKER's mention of Pareto's law of distribution. In the context of Bitcoin it means that if 20% of the world's population controlling 80% of the wealth is to adopt Bitcoin then it would bring about more success & change than if the other 80% adopted it. (The actual wealth disparity is by all account much worse)

[adamstgBit]

This is yet to be seen (which I am not really optimistic to be honest), otherwise expect a more aggressive fork that would cause a split. I would gladly support that if it means leaving "bitcoin that doesn't scale" right where it belongs: dust.

Man, I really don't know what you are doing here, since you are so unsatisfied with Bitcoin the way it is (currently zero issues with blocksize for non-spam transactions despite Hearndresen-FUD the system would break). Personally, I came to Bitcoin because it is a one-of-a-kind decentralized and secure store of wealth and transaction system without counterparty risk. Otherwise I would have been satisfied with Paypal.

It seems to me that you want "scaling" at all costs, even if there is no current demand and this means giving up decentralization. Also, you want to scale the dumb way by implementing extremist block size increases only, instead of using much more efficient second layer solutions. Therefore I don't think it's Bitcoin you want (as indicated by the message in the genesis block) - you want a Paypal 2.0.

There's a promised altcoin* out there that promises to satisfy this need: It's named Hearndresencoin / GavinCoin (short: HDC / GVC). Although it seems to be failing to get sufficient support to achieve its mere existence, competent altcoin adopters like you will surely push it for success... so I suggest you should join the altcoin boards full time and don't waste your time in a Bitcoin forum any longer.

*) Why promised altcoin? Because Hearndresencoin doesn't even have its own blockchain (it tries to live on Bitcoin's resources) it is not yet able to execute its core altcoin functionality (other "features" like IP filtering already work though). Therefore HDC is a promised or double-virtual altcoin.

ya.ya.yo!

there is demand, and lots of it. Fidelity Investments‎ is one of many.

"second layer solutions" are a nice idea but have yet to implement let alone proven, its going to take years to have a proper second layer and years more for it to prove itself.

"GavinCoin" failed because of many things, the least of which are bigger blocks.

the simple fact remains if bitcoin doesn't scale ( with big block or second layer ) soon ( within a year or 2 i guess) there will be a huge demand for an alternative solution, and we could very well see an altcoin capture a significant % of bitcoin's  market cap.

i always said that altcoins will never have any change at taking over bitcoin, because bitcoin's code isn't static it's protocol  has the ability to " learn and adapted", but if this proves false, then altcoins suddenly looks more promising, and then economic incentives ( altcoin4KTPS is in a bull market, while bitcoin is losing market share ) i could see a complete switch taking about 3 months.

luckily most of the devs do not share the extremist view that block size should always remain at 1MB, I read some of the top devs commentary, and it seems clear that they are simply delaying the increase to implement some optimizations which allow for bigger blocks being less of a burden on full nodes. I am confident bitcoin development will continue to outpace/outperform altcoins dev.

we will have optimized code, we will have bigger blocks, we will scale this thing sky high. all in good time.

also, sidechains are not a scaling strategy they are likely to increase TX on the main chain considerably actuly. ( another reason to scale the main chain...)   lighting network will also be instrumental in scaling bitcoin, trying to scale bitcoin skyhigh requires all possible  solutions.

[OmegaStarScream]

That's nice and all , however I suppose that BitcoinXT was the only project planning to increase the Blocksize of bitcoin (altcoin) .. now without what are we supposed to do with bigger blocks ? are Bitcoin Core developpers planning to do anything , if not there is no reason to continue using Bitcoin I suppose .. no mainstream = no future . 

Where did you get the idea that Bitcoin needed to be adopted by mainstream to be successful in the first place?

I got it from being logic honestly , if Bitcoin was used by couple of people how in the world it will gain any value and become successful ? , it won't . we need more demand and  with the "less supply of block halving price is supposed to go UP and that's it , there is other factors but I think the value is the most important thing on this situation and without a value it will simply die .