Thoughts from Russia on the block size situation and Blockstream

[jonald_fyookball]

You are so funny. Here some cold truth for you.

Developer	Employer	In favor of
Gavin Andresen	MIT	8mb+
Mike Hearn	Google, now Vinumeris	8mb+
Meni Rosenfeld	Israeli Bitcoin Association, Bitcoil	tentative 8mb+
Jeff Garzik	Bitpay, now Dunvegan Space Systems, Inc.	2mb+
Peter Todd	Viacoin et al.	1mb
Luke-JR	Subcontracted by Blockstream	1mb
Adam Back	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Matt Corallo	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Gmaxwell	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Peter Wuille	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Mark Friedenbach(Maaku7)	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
laanwj	MIT	1mb

Do you have any argument? Let me adjust that list for you to make it... shall we say... a little more honest?

Developer	Employer	In favor of
Gavin Andresen	MIT, Coinbase	8mb+
Mike Hearn	Google, now Vinumeris, Circle	8mb+
Meni Rosenfeld	Israeli Bitcoin Association, Bitcoil	tentative 8mb+
Jeff Garzik	Bitpay, now Dunvegan Space Systems, Inc.	2mb+
Peter Todd	Viacoin et al.	1mb
Luke-JR	Subcontracted by Blockstream	1mb
Adam Back	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Matt Corallo	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Gmaxwell	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Peter Wuille	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Mark Friedenbach(Maaku7)	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
laanwj	MIT	1mb
Nick Szabo	N/A	1mb
Alex Morcos	Chaincode Labs	1mb
Suhas Daftuar	Chaincode Labs	1mb
Eric Lombrozo	Ciphrex	1mb
Jorge Timon	N/A	1mb
Bram Cohen	Bittorrent	1mb

But this is not accurate.

For example, Nick Szabo  said that "a rapid block size
increase is a huge security risk" and thought
Bip 103 type solution was more reasonable.

Jorge Timon drafted a consensus based block
size retargeting algorithm.

(Neither of them said we need to keep the
blocks at 1mb.)

Those are two just examples I bothered to
research just now.

You seem to be twisting facts.

You seem to be in denial about the fact
there's a problem (conflict of interest
or otherwise) with the leadership of
Bitcoin development under the blockstream
core devs.

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

It's really curious and quite honestly hypocritical for you to rail against the Blockstream paid core devs but make no mentions of Gavin's tie to MIT, Coinbase & Mike's work with Circle or Jeff Garzik & BitPay. I suppose that "doesn't count" right?

Cool defense - They are all doing it, so why can't we?  This is the best example yet of your ideological bankruptcy.  

[brg444]

You are so funny. Here some cold truth for you.

Developer	Employer	In favor of
Gavin Andresen	MIT	8mb+
Mike Hearn	Google, now Vinumeris	8mb+
Meni Rosenfeld	Israeli Bitcoin Association, Bitcoil	tentative 8mb+
Jeff Garzik	Bitpay, now Dunvegan Space Systems, Inc.	2mb+
Peter Todd	Viacoin et al.	1mb
Luke-JR	Subcontracted by Blockstream	1mb
Adam Back	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Matt Corallo	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Gmaxwell	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Peter Wuille	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Mark Friedenbach(Maaku7)	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
laanwj	MIT	1mb

Do you have any argument? Let me adjust that list for you to make it... shall we say... a little more honest?

Developer	Employer	In favor of
Gavin Andresen	MIT, Coinbase	8mb+
Mike Hearn	Google, now Vinumeris, Circle	8mb+
Meni Rosenfeld	Israeli Bitcoin Association, Bitcoil	tentative 8mb+
Jeff Garzik	Bitpay, now Dunvegan Space Systems, Inc.	2mb+
Peter Todd	Viacoin et al.	1mb
Luke-JR	Subcontracted by Blockstream	1mb
Adam Back	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Matt Corallo	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Gmaxwell	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Peter Wuille	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Mark Friedenbach(Maaku7)	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
laanwj	MIT	1mb
Nick Szabo	N/A	1mb
Alex Morcos	Chaincode Labs	1mb
Suhas Daftuar	Chaincode Labs	1mb
Eric Lombrozo	Ciphrex	1mb
Jorge Timon	N/A	1mb
Bram Cohen	Bittorrent	1mb

But this is not accurate.

For example, Nick Szabo  said that "a rapid block size
increase is a huge security risk" and thought
Bip 103 type solution was more reasonable.

Jorge Timon drafted a consensus based block
size retargeting algorithm.

(Neither of them said we need to keep the
blocks at 1mb.)

Those are two just examples I bothered to
research just now.

You seem to be twisting facts.

You seem to be in denial about the fact
there's a problem (conflict of interest
or otherwise) with the leadership of
Bitcoin development under the blockstream
core devs.

I am merely re-using the list that was provided. I entirely agree that the "1mb" position ascribed is too simple and not quite accurate.

In fact it can be stated that most if not all the people on this list agree to a block size increase but differ on the approach and the actual size of the increase.

As far as twisting facts or denial of them I am not sure exactly what you are referring to  

If you have a problem with the Blockstream developers involvement in Bitcoin core development then you need to provide arguments that do not ignore facts and explain why exactly it is a problem and not just your opinion. I'm waiting.

[mallard]

I rarely post anything on the forums because I don’t speak English as fluently as I want

Your English is great. 

[jonald_fyookball]

You are so funny. Here some cold truth for you.

Developer	Employer	In favor of
Gavin Andresen	MIT	8mb+
Mike Hearn	Google, now Vinumeris	8mb+
Meni Rosenfeld	Israeli Bitcoin Association, Bitcoil	tentative 8mb+
Jeff Garzik	Bitpay, now Dunvegan Space Systems, Inc.	2mb+
Peter Todd	Viacoin et al.	1mb
Luke-JR	Subcontracted by Blockstream	1mb
Adam Back	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Matt Corallo	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Gmaxwell	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Peter Wuille	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Mark Friedenbach(Maaku7)	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
laanwj	MIT	1mb

Do you have any argument? Let me adjust that list for you to make it... shall we say... a little more honest?

Developer	Employer	In favor of
Gavin Andresen	MIT, Coinbase	8mb+
Mike Hearn	Google, now Vinumeris, Circle	8mb+
Meni Rosenfeld	Israeli Bitcoin Association, Bitcoil	tentative 8mb+
Jeff Garzik	Bitpay, now Dunvegan Space Systems, Inc.	2mb+
Peter Todd	Viacoin et al.	1mb
Luke-JR	Subcontracted by Blockstream	1mb
Adam Back	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Matt Corallo	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Gmaxwell	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Peter Wuille	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
Mark Friedenbach(Maaku7)	Blockstream Co-Founder	1mb
laanwj	MIT	1mb
Nick Szabo	N/A	1mb
Alex Morcos	Chaincode Labs	1mb
Suhas Daftuar	Chaincode Labs	1mb
Eric Lombrozo	Ciphrex	1mb
Jorge Timon	N/A	1mb
Bram Cohen	Bittorrent	1mb

But this is not accurate.

For example, Nick Szabo  said that "a rapid block size
increase is a huge security risk" and thought
Bip 103 type solution was more reasonable.

Jorge Timon drafted a consensus based block
size retargeting algorithm.

(Neither of them said we need to keep the
blocks at 1mb.)

Those are two just examples I bothered to
research just now.

You seem to be twisting facts.

You seem to be in denial about the fact
there's a problem (conflict of interest
or otherwise) with the leadership of
Bitcoin development under the blockstream
core devs.

I am merely re-using the list that was provided. I entirely agree that the "1mb" position ascribed is too simple and not quite accurate.

In fact it can be stated that most if not all the people on this list agree to a block size increase but differ on the approach and the actual size of the increase.

As far as twisting facts or denial of them I am not sure exactly what you are referring to  

If you have a problem with the Blockstream developers involvement in Bitcoin core development then you need to provide arguments that do not ignore facts and explain why exactly it is a problem and not just your opinion. I'm waiting.

Blocks are already half full, and transactions have
doubled since a year ago, which means in another year,
we'll be completely out of blockspace. 

And since it takes many months to roll out the blocksize
increase, and since peaks occur, it means we will be
having more problems sooner rather than later with backlogs.

Therefore, I agree with Gavin when he says its an urgent
problem. 

Despite this, the other guys (who mostly work for blockstream)
couldn't manage to come to a consensus.  They want to dilly,
dally, delay, ponder, debate, nitpick, stonewall, whatever...

I get the fact we want to be careful and make the right
decision, but this has gone on for years.

They're not getting the job done, plain and simple.

They're not rolling out a scalability solution in
a timely manner. 

That's why its come down to Gavin and Mike Hearn to bring leadership.  It's
taken mining pools to sign blocks in support of bigger blocks.
Its taken joint statements from industry leaders.

[Har01d]

Sidechains are not a proposal for scalability - don't you mean Lightning?

I've seen many definitions of sidechains, so maybe we use different terminology. What I mean is I'm against using the blockchain for clearing transactions only, it doesn't matter whether this would be the Lightning Network or the sidechains.

About Blockstream:

1. They are currently participating on a voluntary basis to the development of the Lightning network. The lightning network being an open source development they have no proprietary advantage over its monetization. In fact, you should know the theory behind this protocol was NOT invented by Blockstream whose incorporation and 21 million $ funding round predates the announcement of the Lightning network by a full year. It was only recently following the hiring of developer Rusty Russel that Blockstream began their involvement with lightning development seeing as Rusty had shown previous interest in payment networks (he was working on a micro-transaction network before being hired). Out of a team of probably a dozen developers Rusty is the only one involved with Lightning work at Blockstream. You can find here the lightning development mailing list where you should realise a couple of different developers outside of Blockstream are collaborating to the development progress of this network : http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/. All this to say that Blockstream's economic model is evidently not based on the Lightning network and this development will not centralize the utility model of Bitcoin to their advantage.

First of all, I'd like to clarify that I don't think there is something really that bad about the Lightning Network itself. It may be a good idea for microtransactions or something like that. But it definitely should not finally replace traditional blockchain transactions. Blockstream developers have some very interesting ideas too, but that's off-topic here.

Can you answer one simple question for me? Because I've been reading materials on the topic for over 2 weeks now, but I haven't found the answer.
If, as you say, Blockstream's economic model won't be based on the fees coming from the LN, then it will based on what? How do investors plan to profit from "voluntary development"? I believe you have no answer. Even if the things are not as bad as I described, there is absolutely clear conflict of interests.

The next question is why if the LN and BIP101 8 Mb (or even Gb) blocks can coexist, and, as you say, Blockstream won't profit from the LN, there is so much censorship about it? Who is behind the censorship in the "open-source peer-to-peer without-needing-an-intermediary" community? Everyone agrees that block size should be increased. Well, even if someone is afraid that Mr. Anderson and Mr. Hearn may become "evil", why not to implement BIP101 into the Core? As for me, the answer is clear. BIP101 implementation with its 1 Gb blocks obviously will be not as profitable for Blockstream as if it were 1 Mb blocks. That's why we have this BIP100 nonsense.

Thank you Har01d.
I think you said something very intelligent here. Don't be so shy: your English is good.
You made your point very clear to me. And I?m really sorry about your post being deleted... but that's how it goes.

Post more often...

I rarely post anything on the forums because I don’t speak English as fluently as I want

Your English is great.  

Thank you

[knight22]

You don't seem to grasp the confilct of interest between blocksteam and Core development. I doubt you someday will because you don't seem to know what a conflict of interest actually is. That's OK.

I do understand it but from the list above you should understand, if you actually care about honesty, that there is a load of conflicts of interests to share between all Bitcoin developers. Conflict of interest does not imply ill intentions. You have to prove them. So far you trolls haven't done such a good job at providing factual information to back up your claims. Maybe... try harder?

Nope that's not how it works. Do you know that the opinion of experts in a position of conflict of interest are automatically disregarded in a court trial? The reason is simple, there is no way to prove if an intention is ill or not so they ate considered as ill by default.

Core devs shouldn't have put themselves in the position of working for Core and a private company in the first place. In no ways it should be considered as acceptable.

Scientific papers are published every day with stated conflicts of interest by their authors. It's nothing new really.

Moreover, core devs have to get paid somehow. You expect them to put in these types of hours for free? Do you happen to know under what model Blockstream was incorporated and what their stated goals are?

It's really curious and quite honestly hypocritical for you to rail against the Blockstream paid core devs but make no mentions of Gavin's tie to MIT, Coinbase & Mike's work with Circle or Jeff Garzik & BitPay. I suppose that "doesn't count" right?

Maybe... try harder?

Another thing you don't seem to grasp is that before XT blockstream developers was in position to block any Core development about the block size incentivised by their conflic of interest. This situation is so obvious to everyone but you. Funny isn't it?

[brg444]

First of all, I'd like to clarify that I don't think there is something really that bad about the Lightning Network itself. It may be a good idea for microtransactions or something like that. But it definitely should not finally replace traditional blockchain transactions. Blockstream developers have some very interesting ideas too, but that's off-topic here.

Can you answer one simple question for me? Because I've been reading materials on the topic for over 2 weeks now, but I haven't found the answer.
If, as you say, Blockstream's economic model won't be based on the fees coming from the LN, then it will based on what? How do investors plan to profit from "voluntary development"? I believe you have no answer. Even if the things are not as bad as I described, there is absolutely clear conflict of interests.

Blockstream's business plan is of course not out in the open as is the case for a majority of early-stage companies, that would be a little misguided  . Still, a little knowledge about what they plan to offer and the various business model in the open-source world should give you a clear hint of what their venture is about. To put it quite simply it seems apparent they would like to follow the long lineage of very successful businesses such as Red Hat, SUSE, the Mozilla Corporation by leveraging their expertise in Bitcoin development and sidechains to become these companies' equivalent for the Bitcoin ecosystem.

The next question is why if the LN and BIP101 8 Mb (or even Gb) blocks can coexist, and, as you say, Blockstream won't profit from the LN, there is so much censorship about it? Who is behind the censorship in the "open-source peer-to-peer without-needing-an-intermediary" community? Everyone agrees that block size should be increased. Well, even if someone is afraid that Mr. Anderson and Mr. Hearn may become "evil", why not to implement BIP101 into the Core? As for me, the answer is clear. BIP101 implementation with its 1 Gb blocks obviously will be not as profitable for Blockstream as if it were 1 Mb blocks. That's why we have this BIP100 nonsense.

I won't comment on the censorship issues other than to mention it is the product of only a couple of reddit & bitcointalk mods and that so far I have yet to see any developer sponsor or condone it.

Maybe "everyone agrees block size should be increased" although some people will raise their hands and claim the opposite. What is not clear amongst the proponents of a block size increase is what model of block "growth" should be adopted and under what parameters should this increase proceed.

You should understand that Lightning actually scales better with larger block and that the appeal of it is not only volume but efficiency. Lightning, unlike the Bitcoin blockchain (whatever size the blocks are) can accomodate micro or instant transactions in a safe and reliable manner.

Hope that helps!

[brg444]

You don't seem to grasp the confilct of interest between blocksteam and Core development. I doubt you someday will because you don't seem to know what a conflict of interest actually is. That's OK.

I do understand it but from the list above you should understand, if you actually care about honesty, that there is a load of conflicts of interests to share between all Bitcoin developers. Conflict of interest does not imply ill intentions. You have to prove them. So far you trolls haven't done such a good job at providing factual information to back up your claims. Maybe... try harder?

Nope that's not how it works. Do you know that the opinion of experts in a position of conflict of interest are automatically disregarded in a court trial? The reason is simple, there is no way to prove if an intention is ill or not so they ate considered as ill by default.

Core devs shouldn't have put themselves in the position of working for Core and a private company in the first place. In no ways it should be considered as acceptable.

Scientific papers are published every day with stated conflicts of interest by their authors. It's nothing new really.

Moreover, core devs have to get paid somehow. You expect them to put in these types of hours for free? Do you happen to know under what model Blockstream was incorporated and what their stated goals are?

It's really curious and quite honestly hypocritical for you to rail against the Blockstream paid core devs but make no mentions of Gavin's tie to MIT, Coinbase & Mike's work with Circle or Jeff Garzik & BitPay. I suppose that "doesn't count" right?

Maybe... try harder?

Another thing you don't seem to grasp is that before XT blockstream developers was in position to block any Core development about the block size incentivised by their conflic of interest. This situation is so obvious to everyone but you. Funny isn't it?

Absolutely not what happened. You can read about it here.

In short, Blockstream developers (and others by the way) blocked Gavin's implementation of bigger blocks considering its lack of safe and sound technical backing. As far as I know they have never unequivocally shut the down on a block size increase. Unless you can point me to proofs of your assertions?

For someone who accuses me of "not grasping" things you sound quite ignorant and misinformed..

[jonald_fyookball]

You don't seem to grasp the confilct of interest between blocksteam and Core development. I doubt you someday will because you don't seem to know what a conflict of interest actually is. That's OK.

I do understand it but from the list above you should understand, if you actually care about honesty, that there is a load of conflicts of interests to share between all Bitcoin developers. Conflict of interest does not imply ill intentions. You have to prove them. So far you trolls haven't done such a good job at providing factual information to back up your claims. Maybe... try harder?

Nope that's not how it works. Do you know that the opinion of experts in a position of conflict of interest are automatically disregarded in a court trial? The reason is simple, there is no way to prove if an intention is ill or not so they ate considered as ill by default.

Core devs shouldn't have put themselves in the position of working for Core and a private company in the first place. In no ways it should be considered as acceptable.

Scientific papers are published every day with stated conflicts of interest by their authors. It's nothing new really.

Moreover, core devs have to get paid somehow. You expect them to put in these types of hours for free? Do you happen to know under what model Blockstream was incorporated and what their stated goals are?

It's really curious and quite honestly hypocritical for you to rail against the Blockstream paid core devs but make no mentions of Gavin's tie to MIT, Coinbase & Mike's work with Circle or Jeff Garzik & BitPay. I suppose that "doesn't count" right?

Maybe... try harder?

Another thing you don't seem to grasp is that before XT blockstream developers was in position to block any Core development about the block size incentivised by their conflic of interest. This situation is so obvious to everyone but you. Funny isn't it?

Absolutely not what happened. You can read about it here.

In short, Blockstream developers (and others by the way) blocked Gavin's implementation of bigger blocks considering its lack of safe and sound technical backing. As far as I know they have never unequivocally shut the down on a block size increase. Unless you can point me to proofs of your assertions?

For someone who accuses me of "not grasping" things you sound quite ignorant and misinformed..

You can argue who is to blame, Gavin or Greg Maxwell.
But consider this:  One of them ultimately made a scalability solution available,
the other didn't.





 

[brg444]

You don't seem to grasp the confilct of interest between blocksteam and Core development. I doubt you someday will because you don't seem to know what a conflict of interest actually is. That's OK.

I do understand it but from the list above you should understand, if you actually care about honesty, that there is a load of conflicts of interests to share between all Bitcoin developers. Conflict of interest does not imply ill intentions. You have to prove them. So far you trolls haven't done such a good job at providing factual information to back up your claims. Maybe... try harder?

Nope that's not how it works. Do you know that the opinion of experts in a position of conflict of interest are automatically disregarded in a court trial? The reason is simple, there is no way to prove if an intention is ill or not so they ate considered as ill by default.

Core devs shouldn't have put themselves in the position of working for Core and a private company in the first place. In no ways it should be considered as acceptable.

Scientific papers are published every day with stated conflicts of interest by their authors. It's nothing new really.

Moreover, core devs have to get paid somehow. You expect them to put in these types of hours for free? Do you happen to know under what model Blockstream was incorporated and what their stated goals are?

It's really curious and quite honestly hypocritical for you to rail against the Blockstream paid core devs but make no mentions of Gavin's tie to MIT, Coinbase & Mike's work with Circle or Jeff Garzik & BitPay. I suppose that "doesn't count" right?

Maybe... try harder?

Another thing you don't seem to grasp is that before XT blockstream developers was in position to block any Core development about the block size incentivised by their conflic of interest. This situation is so obvious to everyone but you. Funny isn't it?

Absolutely not what happened. You can read about it here.

In short, Blockstream developers (and others by the way) blocked Gavin's implementation of bigger blocks considering its lack of safe and sound technical backing. As far as I know they have never unequivocally shut the down on a block size increase. Unless you can point me to proofs of your assertions?

For someone who accuses me of "not grasping" things you sound quite ignorant and misinformed..

You can argue who is to blame, Gavin or Greg Maxwell.
But consider this:  One of them ultimately made a scalability solution available,
the other didn't

You are really simple heh 

Anyone could've patched core with an block size increase picked out of a chinese fortune cookie. There's a reason no one did: it's stupid. A broken solution is no better than no solution at all.

No one's arguing who's to blame. If one had to point fingers I'd start with you and your disappointing tendency to spread falsehoods and ignorance when you had previously be shown truth and facts.

[knight22]

You don't seem to grasp the confilct of interest between blocksteam and Core development. I doubt you someday will because you don't seem to know what a conflict of interest actually is. That's OK.

I do understand it but from the list above you should understand, if you actually care about honesty, that there is a load of conflicts of interests to share between all Bitcoin developers. Conflict of interest does not imply ill intentions. You have to prove them. So far you trolls haven't done such a good job at providing factual information to back up your claims. Maybe... try harder?

Nope that's not how it works. Do you know that the opinion of experts in a position of conflict of interest are automatically disregarded in a court trial? The reason is simple, there is no way to prove if an intention is ill or not so they ate considered as ill by default.

Core devs shouldn't have put themselves in the position of working for Core and a private company in the first place. In no ways it should be considered as acceptable.

Scientific papers are published every day with stated conflicts of interest by their authors. It's nothing new really.

Moreover, core devs have to get paid somehow. You expect them to put in these types of hours for free? Do you happen to know under what model Blockstream was incorporated and what their stated goals are?

It's really curious and quite honestly hypocritical for you to rail against the Blockstream paid core devs but make no mentions of Gavin's tie to MIT, Coinbase & Mike's work with Circle or Jeff Garzik & BitPay. I suppose that "doesn't count" right?

Maybe... try harder?

Another thing you don't seem to grasp is that before XT blockstream developers was in position to block any Core development about the block size incentivised by their conflic of interest. This situation is so obvious to everyone but you. Funny isn't it?

Absolutely not what happened. You can read about it here.

In short, Blockstream developers (and others by the way) blocked Gavin's implementation of bigger blocks considering its lack of safe and sound technical backing. As far as I know they have never unequivocally shut the down on a block size increase. Unless you can point me to proofs of your assertions?

For someone who accuses me of "not grasping" things you sound quite ignorant and misinformed..

You can argue who is to blame, Gavin or Greg Maxwell.
But consider this:  One of them ultimately made a scalability solution available,
the other didn't

You are really simple heh 

Anyone could've patched core with an block size increase picked out of a chinese fortune cookie. There's a reason no one Core devs employed by Blockstream did : it's stupid not good for Blockstream business. A broken solution is no better than no solution at all.

No one's arguing who's to blame. If one had to point fingers I'd start with you and your disappointing tendency to spread falsehoods and ignorance when you had previously be shown truth and facts.

FTFY

[brg444]

You don't seem to grasp the confilct of interest between blocksteam and Core development. I doubt you someday will because you don't seem to know what a conflict of interest actually is. That's OK.

I do understand it but from the list above you should understand, if you actually care about honesty, that there is a load of conflicts of interests to share between all Bitcoin developers. Conflict of interest does not imply ill intentions. You have to prove them. So far you trolls haven't done such a good job at providing factual information to back up your claims. Maybe... try harder?

Nope that's not how it works. Do you know that the opinion of experts in a position of conflict of interest are automatically disregarded in a court trial? The reason is simple, there is no way to prove if an intention is ill or not so they ate considered as ill by default.

Core devs shouldn't have put themselves in the position of working for Core and a private company in the first place. In no ways it should be considered as acceptable.

Scientific papers are published every day with stated conflicts of interest by their authors. It's nothing new really.

Moreover, core devs have to get paid somehow. You expect them to put in these types of hours for free? Do you happen to know under what model Blockstream was incorporated and what their stated goals are?

It's really curious and quite honestly hypocritical for you to rail against the Blockstream paid core devs but make no mentions of Gavin's tie to MIT, Coinbase & Mike's work with Circle or Jeff Garzik & BitPay. I suppose that "doesn't count" right?

Maybe... try harder?

Another thing you don't seem to grasp is that before XT blockstream developers was in position to block any Core development about the block size incentivised by their conflic of interest. This situation is so obvious to everyone but you. Funny isn't it?

Absolutely not what happened. You can read about it here.

In short, Blockstream developers (and others by the way) blocked Gavin's implementation of bigger blocks considering its lack of safe and sound technical backing. As far as I know they have never unequivocally shut the down on a block size increase. Unless you can point me to proofs of your assertions?

For someone who accuses me of "not grasping" things you sound quite ignorant and misinformed..

You can argue who is to blame, Gavin or Greg Maxwell.
But consider this:  One of them ultimately made a scalability solution available,
the other didn't

You are really simple heh 

Anyone could've patched core with an block size increase picked out of a chinese fortune cookie. There's a reason no one Core devs employed by Blockstream did : it's stupid not good for Blockstream business. A broken solution is no better than no solution at all.

No one's arguing who's to blame. If one had to point fingers I'd start with you and your disappointing tendency to spread falsehoods and ignorance when you had previously be shown truth and facts.

FTFY

Show me the receipts. Until then keep your paranoia to yourself, it's really making you look desperate.

One last time:

Does bigger blocks benefit Lightning? Yes
Does bigger blocks benefit Sidechains? Yes

Does bigger blocks benefit Blockstream? Yes!

[Muhammed Zakir]

I am asking one thing to Jonald, knight22 and whoever else who is saying Core developers hired by Blockstream is only for 1 MB block size limit. Did all these Core developers actually say it?

[jonald_fyookball]

You don't seem to grasp the confilct of interest between blocksteam and Core development. I doubt you someday will because you don't seem to know what a conflict of interest actually is. That's OK.

I do understand it but from the list above you should understand, if you actually care about honesty, that there is a load of conflicts of interests to share between all Bitcoin developers. Conflict of interest does not imply ill intentions. You have to prove them. So far you trolls haven't done such a good job at providing factual information to back up your claims. Maybe... try harder?

Nope that's not how it works. Do you know that the opinion of experts in a position of conflict of interest are automatically disregarded in a court trial? The reason is simple, there is no way to prove if an intention is ill or not so they ate considered as ill by default.

Core devs shouldn't have put themselves in the position of working for Core and a private company in the first place. In no ways it should be considered as acceptable.

Scientific papers are published every day with stated conflicts of interest by their authors. It's nothing new really.

Moreover, core devs have to get paid somehow. You expect them to put in these types of hours for free? Do you happen to know under what model Blockstream was incorporated and what their stated goals are?

It's really curious and quite honestly hypocritical for you to rail against the Blockstream paid core devs but make no mentions of Gavin's tie to MIT, Coinbase & Mike's work with Circle or Jeff Garzik & BitPay. I suppose that "doesn't count" right?

Maybe... try harder?

Another thing you don't seem to grasp is that before XT blockstream developers was in position to block any Core development about the block size incentivised by their conflic of interest. This situation is so obvious to everyone but you. Funny isn't it?

Absolutely not what happened. You can read about it here.

In short, Blockstream developers (and others by the way) blocked Gavin's implementation of bigger blocks considering its lack of safe and sound technical backing. As far as I know they have never unequivocally shut the down on a block size increase. Unless you can point me to proofs of your assertions?

For someone who accuses me of "not grasping" things you sound quite ignorant and misinformed..

You can argue who is to blame, Gavin or Greg Maxwell.
But consider this:  One of them ultimately made a scalability solution available,
the other didn't

You are really simple heh  

Anyone could've patched core with an block size increase picked out of a chinese fortune cookie. There's a reason no one did: it's stupid. A broken solution is no better than no solution at all.

No one's arguing who's to blame. If one had to point fingers I'd start with you and your disappointing tendency to spread falsehoods and ignorance when you had previously be shown truth and facts.

I try to keep it simple and to the point because
you keep circling back around and dancing around the issue, which is why I previously
said you seem to be twisting facts and in denial, which you just confirmed.

1. Again:  This was debated for 3 years.   Gavin was forced to release something with Mike Hearn
because Greg and the kids on the blockstream wouldn't play ball.   If they really wanted to
release something, they would have worked with Gavin so the solution is more to their preferences.  Either
their interests in Blockstream prevented that, or they lack leadership/communication/team
skills.  Either way is a problem.  I think when you boil it down, they just don't see the urgency
as Gavin does.  Maybe that's because of their other solutions like the lightening network.
Maybe they are willing to stall Bitcoin and take bigger risks.  They don't want to take technical
risks purportedly, but they are willing to risk slowing down adoption.  There is a risk/reward.
and part of their reward is blockstream business activities.  This is what you seem to deny.

2.  This leads to the next point.  Gavin says a fix is urgently needed.
I say an imperfect fix IS better than no solution.  Gavin
essentially said "Core devs won't agree, but we need bigger blocks,
so I'm going to do the best thing I can and release Bip 101 on Mike's fork."
No one ever said Bip 101 was perfect, but who are you to say its "broken"
and its worse than no solution?  I guess you know more about bitcoin than
Gavin so we should listen to you.  
---

The only way your position even makes sense is if you truly believe its not
important to have bigger blocks asap.  It must mean you agree with the devs
who aren't ready to raise the limit. Somehow it doesn't scare you.  You're not
worried about scalability.  Again, risk/reward.  But you won't be getting the
rewards that blockstream and its investors get by taking their side.    

@ MZ: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability_FAQ

[Lauda]

Here we go again. Another round of false information, FUD, ad hominem and whatnot. Blockstream is not cancer. What if someone told you that you were cancer for calling them cancer? (for the record, I'm not stating this; some might try to abuse this). This is not how you discuss. This is not how you move forward.

Just because some people started a company, we should ignore both sidechains and the lightning network? This is not how everything works. As people have told me (when discussing XT) that nobody can force you to run Hearn's changes, then nobody can force you to use any solution from Blockstream.
There is no censorship. This is a privately owned forum. If you do not like the rules, start a new one and convince people to join it. Nobody can force you to be here either, can they?

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

I will not go deep into blockstream because I don't know exactly how that will be managed, but what i know for a fact, if you think XT was the solution to this you have no idea what you are talking about. With XT the nodes would become centralized which is an huge tradegy for Bitcoin. So keep looking for solutions.

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

One last time:

Does bigger blocks benefit Lightning? Yes
Does bigger blocks benefit Sidechains? Yes

Does bigger blocks benefit Blockstream? Yes!

Then why do they fight so hard against them? Why do you fight so hard against them?

You are now entering the Orwellian phase of your argument. You go from chanting "4 legs good, 2 legs bad" to "4 legs good, 2 legs Better!!"

Fact remains that the core desire towards a fee market is to facilitate the use of off-chain solutions such as sidechains/LN or whatever your having yourself.

[knight22]

Here we go again. Another round of false information, FUD, ad hominem and whatnot. Blockstream is not cancer. What if someone told you that you were cancer for calling them cancer? (for the record, I'm not stating this; some might try to abuse this). This is not how you discuss. This is not how you move forward.

Just because some people started a company, we should ignore both sidechains and the lightning network? This is not how everything works. As people have told me (when discussing XT) that nobody can force you to run Hearn's changes, then nobody can force you to use any solution from Blockstream.
There is no censorship. This is a privately owned forum. If you do not like the rules, start a new one and convince people to join it. Nobody can force you to be here either, can they?

Enough with this hyprocrisy. You are free to choose but not to talk about it on the main forums right?

Give us a break.

[Lauda]

Enough with this hyprocrisy. You are free to choose but not to talk about it on the main forum right?

Give us a break.

I'm pretty sure that anyone calling out for censorship has no idea what that is. You are not free to talk about it? Name me a single person who got punished for talking about XT? Because this is what censorship is.
You get killed (hello North Korea) for doing things that are not allowed. XT discussions are allowed in this forum, in the altcoin section. This was never, and is never going to be censorship.