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

[Lauda]

So in other words miners make the ultimate decision? If this is the case, then Bitcoin Unlimited is even worse than I initially thought. Otherwise, elaborate what you mean exactly (since everyone can vote via software and miners create blocks).

I do not think that the miners having a lot of power in this decision making process is a bad thing, after all they are the only group that have a direct and lasting incentive mechanism acting upon them to do what is best for Bitcoin. Furthermore this would not just be up to the miners, they would still need to move with the economic majority, this is where the negotiation would take place.

So in other words, BU it is quite similar to BIP100 with the exception that with a combination of rogue nodes and miners the block size could be inflated so much that it would destroy Bitcoin? Don't deny this possibility with weird and not completely relevant to my statements.

I also do not see a better alternative then that since otherwise we would still be dependent on alternative implementations and their development teams in order to give us a range of choice. In that case however the power would still lie with the economic majority and the miners so it would not actually in effect be any different in that regard, it just turns what was a representative democracy into a more direct form of democracy in regards to the blocksize. BU is not even about increasing the blocksize, it is about giving everyone the freedom of choice.

This is your subjective opinion and is not based on facts. I'm assuming that you do not have extensive technical expertise (no, this is not ad hominem; more like a question).

After all the miners and the economic majority could decrease the blocksize under BU if they deem this to be necessary, BU just takes this power away from the development teams and returns it to where it belongs.

Return it? You are implying that it was like this before and that it was changed through time.

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[ATguy]

So in other words miners make the ultimate decision? If this is the case, then Bitcoin Unlimited is even worse than I initially thought. Otherwise, elaborate what you mean exactly (since everyone can vote via software and miners create blocks).

I do not think that the miners having a lot of power in this decision making process is a bad thing, after all they are the only group that have a direct and lasting incentive mechanism acting upon them to do what is best for Bitcoin. Furthermore this would not just be up to the miners, they would still need to move with the economic majority, this is where the negotiation would take place.

So in other words, BU it is quite similar to BIP100 with the exception that with a combination of rogue nodes and miners the block size could be inflated so much that it would destroy Bitcoin? Don't deny this possibility with weird and not completely relevant to my statements.

As I understand BU, unless economical majority finds certain block size acceptable, it cannot succeed. If there are just 75% miners creating very big blocks, it doesnt really matter if economical majority (miners+exchanges+services+people) doesnt accept these big blocks. I know this looks like potentionally fuzy enviroment with a lot of uncertainity, but it could be said giving miners ability to choose what transactions add to blocks might mean they destroy Bitcoin by just creating empty blocks - and the orphan rate risk with today low fees would suggest such rogue behaviour! So dont expect there is interest for the worst to happen all the time.

[Cconvert2G36]

Irrelevant given that we have SW coming.

Did you gather any opinions from miners asking them how they feel about creeping towards 1.75 MB equivalent sometime in 2017 with a soft fork that leaves all non-latest-Core-software nodes not validating transactions?

The 75% increase is immediate once the code is implemented.

Third-party software a free to enjoy additional headroom by adapting their code.

April 2016 you said somewhere else?

Also, you will be functionally knocking off quite a few nodes from actually being nodes. Only 2000 of the 5500 nodes are running the latest Core release.

[brg444]

Irrelevant given that we have SW coming.

Did you gather any opinions from miners asking them how they feel about creeping towards 1.75 MB equivalent sometime in 2017 with a soft fork that leaves all non-latest-Core-software nodes not validating transactions?

The 75% increase is immediate once the code is implemented.

Third-party software a free to enjoy additional headroom by adapting their code.

April 2016 you said somewhere else?

Also, you will be functionally knocking off quite a few nodes from actually being nodes. Only 2000 of the 5500 nodes are running the latest Core release.

That's what's in the Core roadmap.

BTW I have no idea what you're talking about in the second line. Do you understand how softforks work?

[morantis]

AT least they gave a shot to some new concepts.  I think that stays with the spirit of the game.

[Cconvert2G36]

Irrelevant given that we have SW coming.

Did you gather any opinions from miners asking them how they feel about creeping towards 1.75 MB equivalent sometime in 2017 with a soft fork that leaves all non-latest-Core-software nodes not validating transactions?

The 75% increase is immediate once the code is implemented.

Third-party software a free to enjoy additional headroom by adapting their code.

April 2016 you said somewhere else?

Also, you will be functionally knocking off quite a few nodes from actually being nodes. Only 2000 of the 5500 nodes are running the latest Core release.

That's what's in the Core roadmap.

BTW I have no idea what you're talking about in the second line. Do you understand how softforks work?

Oh, they'll still be there, but they won't be full validating nodes anymore. Clearer?

[brg444]

Irrelevant given that we have SW coming.

Did you gather any opinions from miners asking them how they feel about creeping towards 1.75 MB equivalent sometime in 2017 with a soft fork that leaves all non-latest-Core-software nodes not validating transactions?

The 75% increase is immediate once the code is implemented.

Third-party software a free to enjoy additional headroom by adapting their code.

April 2016 you said somewhere else?

Also, you will be functionally knocking off quite a few nodes from actually being nodes. Only 2000 of the 5500 nodes are running the latest Core release.

That's what's in the Core roadmap.

BTW I have no idea what you're talking about in the second line. Do you understand how softforks work?

Oh, they'll still be there, but they won't be full validating nodes anymore. Clearer?

They will be able to fully validate every transaction they're involved in.

It's great to have a certain number of nodes on the network but the most important one is the one you run.

As far as peers on the network are concerned their security model is in no way diminished so nice attempt at FUD but what you're describing applies to any other softfork.

[VeritasSapere]

I also do not see a better alternative then that since otherwise we would still be dependent on alternative implementations and their development teams in order to give us a range of choice. In that case however the power would still lie with the economic majority and the miners so it would not actually in effect be any different in that regard, it just turns what was a representative democracy into a more direct form of democracy in regards to the blocksize. BU is not even about increasing the blocksize, it is about giving everyone the freedom of choice.

This is your subjective opinion and is not based on facts. I'm assuming that you do not have extensive technical expertise (no, this is not ad hominem; more like a question).

I do not have a deep technical background, I can admit that. I have a background in the humanities instead. I have spent most of my time over the last year learning about Bitcoin, I understand the rules of the protocol, even though I might not fully understand how they have been implemented in terms of the code. I think that this does qualify me to discuss the game theory, economics and politics of Bitcoin.

My point being is that I do not need to have a technical background to answer questions like "who decides" or what the economic policy and governance structure of Bitcoin should be. I could even argue that having a background in the humanities makes me better equipped to answer some of these question which relate more to the macro scale game theory, economics and politics. If you look closer at what I am saying here you can see for yourself what disciplines of thought are best suited for these questions.

You are absolutely correct that this is a subjective opinion, all of political thought is subjective. If we where arguing socialism vs capitalism, neither one of us can claim objective fact, such theories are completely objective. I think you should try and look at this problem less from the perspective of an engineer and more from the perspective of a philosopher.

[VeritasSapere]

BU can even be configured to mimic the behavior of BIP100, BIP101, BIP102, BIP103 or BIP202. Or it can be setup to behave exactly the same as a Core node as well, the choice is yours, in different words it is up to the free market. Considering all of the possible options of who decides I would argue that this is the best solution.

It's not. It's up to the miners.

Stop promoting this misleading idea.

Consensus is an emergent property which flows from the will of the economic majority. Proof of work is the best way to measure this consensus. The pools act as proxy for the miners, pools behave in a similar way to representatives within a representative democracy. Then in turn the miners act as a proxy for the economic majority. Since the miners are incentivized to follow the economic majority. In effect the economic majority rules Bitcoin, in other words the market rules Bitcoin. Bitcoin relies on the economic self-interest of the masses to govern consensus.

Nodes decide the code they run and if there was consensus amongst these peers that the block size should be increased then it would.

For now, the consensus emerging from the economic majority is that the 1MB limit won't move.

You are actually just confirming what I have been saying, I suppose we can agree on this point now then. The economic majority does not want to increase the blocksize limit now. I suspect that they will want to increase it soon however, Bitcoin Unlimited is on the rise.

[brg444]

You are actually just confirming what I have been saying, I suppose we can agree on this point now then. The economic majority does not want to increase the blocksize limit now. I suspect that they will want to increase it soon however, Bitcoin Unlimited is still rising.

Support for XT was rising too, until people realized it's really a piece of turd.

What we can derive from this is that BU's got something coming its way since it's an even worst proposition.

Oh well.. I guess you people will figure it out eventually

[hdbuck]

bubye goldman sachs coinbase https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

[bambou]

bubye goldman sachs coinbase https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

[Lauda]

As I understand BU, unless economical majority finds certain block size acceptable, it cannot succeed. If there are just 75% miners creating very big blocks, it doesnt really matter if economical majority (miners+exchanges+services+people) doesnt accept these big blocks. I know this looks like potentionally fuzy enviroment with a lot of uncertainity, but it could be said giving miners ability to choose what transactions add to blocks might mean they destroy Bitcoin by just creating empty blocks - and the orphan rate risk with today low fees would suggest such rogue behaviour! So dont expect there is interest for the worst to happen all the time.

My question is still unanswered. How can the 'economic majority' (whatever this is supposed to be) prevent a huge block size that most of the miners and nodes are voting in favor of?

I do not have a deep technical background, I can admit that. I have a background in the humanities instead. I have spent most of my time over the last year learning about Bitcoin, I understand the rules of the protocol, even though I might not fully understand how they have been implemented in terms of the code. I think that this does qualify me to discuss the game theory, economics and politics of Bitcoin.

You are absolutely correct that this is a subjective opinion, all of political thought is subjective. If we where arguing socialism vs capitalism, neither one of us can claim objective fact, such theories are completely objective. I think you should try and look at this problem less from the perspective of an engineer and more from the perspective of a philosopher.

My assumption is correct. I'm glad that it is possible to agree on something. However, it is quite hard to view it differently. To become an engineer one has to change how they think, at some point there is no return.

My point being is that I do not need to have a technical background to answer questions like "who decides" or what the economic policy and governance structure of Bitcoin should be. I could even argue that having a background in the humanities makes me better equipped to answer some of these question which relate more to the macro scale game theory, economics and politics. If you look closer at what I am saying here you can see for yourself what disciplines of thought are best suited for these questions.

This is somewhat true. However, I do not see the need for the average user (not saying that you're one) to know exactly what is what and how what works. 99% people have no idea how fiat nor CC's work either.

bubye goldman sachs coinbase https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

There's nothing wrong with that; anyone claiming censorship or similar (possibly worse) is a ignorant idiot.

Some corrections to the post; probably more needed.

[hdbuck]

*troll feeding*

bubye goldman sachs coinbase https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

There's nothing wrong with that; anyone claiming censorship or similar (possibly worse) is a ignorant idiot.

Thank you, I know that.

[Cconvert2G36]

U guise. While we've been going back and forth I just realized that hdbuck has it already figured out.

Is there anyway to stop or block segregated witness? From what I understand, it hits testnet in two days...

The only people who want to stop it so far are ones that either hate on Core developers or any of their proposals, or who lack the understanding for Segwit.

I understand it and don't hate the core developers. Seg wit is a thoughtful solution, but not an elegant one. IMHO, it's just more spackle over the cracks and a further delay to increasing block size.  

Meh, people need to stop fucking around with The Protocol.

People are free to fork off and insert whatever 'solution' in their shitty altcoin.

There is no scaling problem for bitcoin that can be adresses by retardedly bending the rules.

Fuck the masses, fuck the industry, fuck the devs.

Bitcoin does not need them.

[johnyj]

It is the miners that create new blocks, that is what counts, nodes simply choose whether to follow the miners or not. Nodes can be spoofed, proof of work can not, this is why it works.

So in other words miners make the ultimate decision? If this is the case, then Bitcoin Unlimited is even worse than I initially thought. Otherwise, elaborate what you mean exactly (since everyone can vote via software and miners create blocks).

this is how really works something that known can undrestand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AikLs1P4_PA

every simple person in bitcoin ecosystem is very important. Many say that developers or miners has the power for changes that is not true. In ecosystem like bitcoin everyone must agree for a change and that is the real power of bitcoin because none can control it.

Nice video, finally someone has clearly put this topic on table: If a negotiation failed, then who had the most power will decide. He did not include the exchanges, and also he did not follow the route and dig further into the failed negotiation scenario. Saying everyone have the same power is definitely wrong

Let's analyze each actor's ability to attack another fork and defense against such attack

1. Developers
IMO, developers' can attack a forked chain use spams and special transactions, they can not do too much on a fork's code base that is not in their control. They can defend against a technical attack by committing new rules to deal with spams and false transactions. It is just like virus and anti-virus, a never ending fight but seldom affect the major functionality of a coin

Attack: 2
Defense: 10

2. Miners
Miners hold hash power, a weak chain with less hash power will be easily 51% attacked by the stronger hash power

However, a 51% attack does not affect the bitcoins in cold storage, it will just disturb the transactions in networks, and while those power are used on attacking, the attacking chain will become weaker, so this kind of fight might not be so effective to totally disable another chain

Attack: 5
Defense: 5


3. Exchanges
Exchanges are important, because they can affect the exchange rate to a degree. To be honest, most of the bitcoin's early success is ensured by MTGOX, it had the power to stablize and raise the exchange rate of bitcoin thus quickly gathered lots of fans

If majority of exchanges do not upgrade to the forked version, then that version will never gain any user support (buying expensive ASICs to mine some coin that has nowhere to sell for fiat money?). If only a few exchanges upgraded to a specific version, then the low liquidity there combined with the dump of pre-fork coins from other chains will make its exchange rate quickly drop to alt-coin level

In principle, an exchange can either create bitcoin or fiat money out of thin air, and even stop large withdraw to slowdown the market reaction, thus have certain ability to manipulate the exchange rate against a sell off short term wise. I'm not sure if an exchange will provide the trading for another forked coin, since that gives them chance to crash the exchange rate of that coin, maybe they will do that to show that forked coin is destined to fail

Attack: 10
Defense: 10


4. Investors
Investors are those who hold lots of bitcoins either through mining or through purchasing. Because over 90% of the coins are in the hands of investors, they have the biggest influence of the ecosystem. By dumping their pre-fork coins on the chain that they don't like, they will immediately create a sell pressure hundreds of times larger than average day, thus crash that coin's exchange rate to 0 in a very short time

However, when facing large amount of sell-off from opponents, unless they are super rich in fiat money, they can not defense a sell-off that is hundreds of time larger than normal, so their ability to defense against such attack is limited

You can imagine, if you are an investor holding 7 billion dollars fiat to make sure all the dumps from opponent's fork will be absorbed, the chain that you support will go mainstream. In fact you don't need that much at all, 3 billion is enough, but I guess none of the bitcoiners here have that much capital

Attack: 100
Defense: 5

5. Merchants and payment processors
Since merchant adoption and payment function require world wide transaction, they have to passively follow the strongest chain, they will not use a chain that has lower exchange rate or without super majority, and they won't support fork

Attack: 0
Defense: 0


Many early adopters are both developers, miners and investors, this makes the whole picture very complicated. But anyway, when a negotiation failed, it is not likely we will have a fork, since the power of an exchange rate attack is so huge and the defense is almost none, it is a mutually assured destruction, heavily hurt both chains and the bitcoin game is over

[VeritasSapere]

You are saying that a hard fork is mutually assured destruction? That is hyperbole, the ability to hard fork and split is what ensures the continued freedom of the protocol. If I believed what you did I would instantly leave Bitcoin because I would realize that it was doomed, fortunately I have a different understanding of how this works.

[ATguy]

As I understand BU, unless economical majority finds certain block size acceptable, it cannot succeed. If there are just 75% miners creating very big blocks, it doesnt really matter if economical majority (miners+exchanges+services+people) doesnt accept these big blocks. I know this looks like potentionally fuzy enviroment with a lot of uncertainity, but it could be said giving miners ability to choose what transactions add to blocks might mean they destroy Bitcoin by just creating empty blocks - and the orphan rate risk with today low fees would suggest such rogue behaviour! So dont expect there is interest for the worst to happen all the time.

My question is still unanswered. How can the 'economic majority' (whatever this is supposed to be) prevent a huge block size that most of the miners and nodes are voting in favor of?

Because those who dont allow such huge blocks in their client simply contine on the chain with their choosen maximum blocksize. Although there may be many compelling chains with diferent maximum blocksizes, it doesnt make much sence to using the one what has little support.

At least this is how I understand it, and it is step from today central planning to more freedoom for everyone with the associated responsibility - if you choose wrong blocksize value, you might not be using the chain most Bitcoiners are on.

[jbreher]

Bitcoin Unlimited is on the rise.

BU is intriguing. Where do I learn more? Is the client a fork of Bitcoin Core? Are all pulls publicly traceable?

[Lauda]

Because those who dont allow such huge blocks in their client simply contine on the chain with their choosen maximum blocksize. Although there may be many compelling chains with diferent maximum blocksizes, it doesnt make much sence to using the one what has little support.

At least this is how I understand it, and it is step from today central planning to more freedoom for everyone with the associated responsibility - if you choose wrong blocksize value, you might not be using the chain most Bitcoiners are on.

If this is truly the case and we are talking about chains splitting because of votes, then BU is worse than XT. Then I'm also starting to grasp the idea behind BU. The question is who hired the supporters?