Thoughts from Russia on the block size situation and Blockstream

[knight22]

You were the one who started praising 'Backamoto' and 'gmax' while bashing Gavin and Hearn.  so those comments were ad hominem and have nothing to do with the issue.

I am praising the actions (IE HashCash/sidechains/lightning/tree sigs/CT) of Backamoto and gmax (and pwuille).

Recognizing their demonstrated (via those actions) expertise is not the same as 'gee aren't they swell guys' ad hom.

The same goes for gavin@tla.mit.gov and hearn@sigint.google.mil.  I DGAF about their personalities because I'm too busy being amused and entertained by their ill-advised shitlord fail-clown antics (and thus demonstrated lack of expertise relative to Blockstream).

I seriously doubt you are qualified to make a technical judgement about Hearn's or Gavin's technical abilities.  
I may not be either, but I know they both have concrete technical accomplishments in the Bitcoin space, so you sound foolish.  ....And this still has nothing to do with the issue.

Go argue with someone else please.

jonald_fyookball   Date Registered:    March 02, 2014

I seriously doubt you are qualified to make a technical judgement about my technical judgement abilities.

Go assclown somewhere else please.  I hear voat/v/bitcoinxt is looking for new members, as is bitco.in's tiny disgruntled splinter group.   

#R3KT

What does that change exactly?

[jonald_fyookball]

"Don’t argue with idiots because they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience." 

[tvbcof]

I seriously doubt you are qualified to make a technical judgement about Hearn's or Gavin's technical abilities.  
I may not be either, but I know they both have concrete technical accomplishments in the Bitcoin space, so you sound foolish.  ....And this still has nothing to do with the issue.
...

Examples?

Rough recollection after reading reddit/fora (I could be wrong).
Mike: Adding levelDB, implementing bitcoinJ
Gavin: Relay network proposal?, counting codes on blocks to trigger fork in xt
For both: Code reviewing a lot of core code  

I was running bitcoind at the time of the levelDB fork.  I agree that it was a helpful and necessary thing.  For a long while I credited Hearn as the driving force behind this but later I ran across info that called this into question.  I'll go ahead and leave him with the credit though.

As we know, the levelDB/BDB swap created a hard-fork accidentally.  I lay the blame for this on whoever neglected to ever even try to run Bitcoin BDB up to the point when the mis-config would have been detected.  I see that as the 'principle scientist's job.  I in fact suggested this to Gavin in person back in 2011 and he just sort of looked at me like I was from Mars.

I do credit Gavin with making the decisions necessary to get the hard-fork resolved nicely.  I had a gut sense that Hearn pushed him to 'not let a good crisis go to waste' and do something (associated with block size IIRC) which would have complicated recover and Gavin resisted.  I don't remember the full details, but that was my take-away.

I got in before QT was fully developed.  There was a primitive GUI prior based on WX iirc.  I thought that development effort would be better put toward certain other things in these early times while it was still more practical (pruning in particular.)  I've never used any GUI so it didn't matter to me very much that QT was a focus.  Ultimately I will concede that Gavin was right and I was wrong and that Bitcoin actually did need to get some more people sucked in.  The various 'sales pitches' used at the time always bothered me though as there were several mutually exclusive ones which were used simultaneously.  Now in 2015 with the latest round of block size debates this is becoming more clear.  For my part, I only recommended Bitcoin to people who had Phd's in computer science and I was perfectly up-front about the theoretical problems that lay on the horizon so my conscience is clear...at least in my mind.

One you missed was the effort to simplify addresses via x.509.  I thought that was a dreadful idea due to how certs are issued and ultimately it exposed us to the OpenSSL heartbleed bug.

Since I have NEVER seen Bitcoin as something which would scale to serve the masses or should grow beyond what could realistically be supportable in the face of global network provider attacks of the most vicious kind, I don't have any use for IBLT's (I suppose is what you mean by 'relay') and am not terribly wild about SPV anything so bitcoinj doesn't do much for me.

In general, I would say that from a mile-high view, Gavin's primary focus has been on end-user stuff which I jokingly refer to as 'talking paperclip class' stuff.  I simply don't agree with this priority.  As someone pointed out not to long ago, Hearn has had a lot of ideas but many of them seem to be of the 'redlisting class' and nearly universally despised by most of the core devs so his input has been quite modest.

That's just my take on things.  I will say that even Hearn's contribution to Bitcoin has been infinitely more significant than my own.

[megadeth]

I seriously doubt you are qualified to make a technical judgement about Hearn's or Gavin's technical abilities.  
I may not be either, but I know they both have concrete technical accomplishments in the Bitcoin space, so you sound foolish.  ....And this still has nothing to do with the issue.
...

Examples?

<snip>

I was running <snip>

Yeah I missed the bloom filtering stuff. Don't know what to think of the recent changes with wanting to making it optional on core clients.
Concur with you regarding Gavin's pro mainstream/masses features/thinking.
Mike's remains the firebrand proposing polarizing ideas. (redlisting class as you put it). I figure someone needs to step up with their learnings from a modern bigco software shop and try to apply it to Bitcoin development.

[tvbcof]

...
Mike's remains the firebrand proposing polarizing ideas. (redlisting class as you put it). I figure someone needs to step up with their learnings from a modern bigco software shop and try to apply it to Bitcoin development.

There are plenty of people 'in the wild' now who have experience with so-called 'big data.'

One of Mikes famous quotes is that Bitcoin could run just fine with 4 or 6 copies of the blockchain worldwide.  (I should find the quote and figure out if it was 4 or 6.)  This is fully true.  If/when that happens, the small integer number of entities running Bitcoin would likely set up back-channels between themselves.  Bitcoin could then easily and reliable offer real-time service.  The whole idea of a blockchain structure which is actually quite inefficient would probably be quietly abandoned as well, and at that point, who would know or care?

The question is not whether these things are possible and I am confident to say that they are.  The question is, is it a good idea for Bitcoin?

[Muhammed Zakir]

-snip-
1. Again:  This was debated for 3 years.

There was no continuous discussion. It popups and goes down. Besides, earlier, it was not important as it is now.

Gavin was forced to release something with Mike Hearn

First of all, read https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3ilbit/mike_hearn_responds_to_xt_critics/cuhpil1.

Mike Hearn proposed a hardfork without consensus.

-snip-
As nothing that has been proposed so far (Lightning, merge mined chains,
extension blocks etc) has much chance of actual deployment any time soon,
that leaves raising the block size limit as the only possible path left.
Which is why there will soon be a fork that does it.

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. 

Core developers said Gavin's 20 MB block size limit increase were not a good idea. They didn't say don't increase block size limit. And, it was Gavin and Mike who did not accept proposals other than Gavin's.

Either
their interests in Blockstream prevented that,

"Either Mike's and Gavin's Coinbase/Circle involvement made them do it or lack of communication/team skills." FTFY. I don't believe this though. FWIW, I am not choosing any side now.

or they lack leadership/communication/team
skills.

Mike and Gavin are the two people who in the middle of discussion proposed a hardfork without consensus.

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.

Urgency does not mean we should implement a bad solution of Gavin's. Applying Moore's law but it doesn't... You know what I mean!

Maybe they are willing to stall Bitcoin and take bigger risks.

But they are making progress and how can that be stalling?

They don't want to take technical
risks purportedly, but they are willing to risk slowing down adoption.

Purportedly?

Taking a technical risk is better and willing to risk slowing down adoption is better than not willing to risk slowing adoption and not taking technical risk. We should make our technical stuff better before going for adoption. Nonetheless, waiting for a solution for sometime does not slow down adoption.

There is a risk/reward.
and part of their reward is blockstream business activities.  This is what you seem to deny.

They will get their reward for working them and we, at least me, don't deny it. What I(we) deny is you telling they don't want an increase because of Blockstream. Both are false because Core developers didn't say they did not want an increase and Blockstream works work better in higher block size.

2.  This leads to the next point.

Above points are just your or other XT-supporters creation. So it does not leads to "next" point of yours.

Gavin says a fix is urgently needed.
I say an imperfect fix IS better than no solution.

I don't think we can come with a "perfect" solution but at least, we should come with a good solution. Not a solution with doubling every two years and hint Moore's law. Moore's law is not applicable anymore and it is not good to implement without proper testing.

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."

You are right. Core developers don't agree to Gavin's solution but does that mean they are against block size limit increase? No.

No one ever said Bip 101 was perfect, but who are you to say its "broken"
and its worse than no solution?

Because Gavin used Moore's law but it is not applicable anymore.

I guess you know more about bitcoin than
Gavin so we should listen to you. 
---

Certainly not!

The only way your position even makes sense is if you truly believe its not
important to have bigger blocks asap.

Its important to have bigger block size limit but we should not implemented a bad solution.

It must mean you agree with the devs

Not really. I agree with the developers that Gavin's solution is not a good one.

who aren't ready to raise the limit.

They will implement a good solution. We will get higher block size limit soon! Miners are voting...

Somehow it doesn't scare you.

It scares me when you and others say to implement Gavin's solution.

You're not
worried about scalability.

I am worried about Bitcoin's long-term success.

Again, risk/reward.  But you won't be getting the
rewards that blockstream and its investors get by taking their side.   

I certainly get a reward. Bitcoin.

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

Sorry but I don't see any relevant answer in it. Maybe you can post here with references.

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?

By the way, block size or bigger blocks is not equal to bigger block size limit.

[jonald_fyookball]

@MZ,  I'm not really interested in debating a dozen points with you, as I've already expressed my views/concerns/opinions/theories/observations about these issues in this and numerous threads.
Im burned out on this whole topic and not much of anything new that I feel I can comment on. 

There are threads discussing bip 100 vs 101 in the tech section you may be interested in.

The wiki states the core devs don't strictly oppose 1mb but I still call stonewalling here given the context.  You may disagree and that's fine.  Cheers, JF

[Muhammed Zakir]

@MZ,  I'm not really interested in debating a dozen points with you, as I've already expressed my views/concerns/opinions/theories/observations about these issues in this and numerous threads.
Im burned out on this whole topic and not much of anything new that I feel I can comment on. 

There are threads discussing bip 100 vs 101 in the tech section you may be interested in.

The wiki states the core devs don't strictly oppose 1mb but I still call stonewalling here given the context.  You may disagree and that's fine.  Cheers, JF

Okay. Understood. Thank you and goog luck!

[Lauda]

I am banned from /r/bitcoin for this very reason so yeah give me a break and STFU.

Who was talking about reddit? Stop diverting the argument. I was solely talking about the forum.

Fact is, threads r/bitcoin got deleted. That is censorship. If it is a private forum, doesn't matter at all in the definition of censorship.

Read the above mentioned, and stop mentioning irrelevant information.
Update: Read bolded part. Please stop commenting my character/view directly, this is not how you discuss.

It is the wrong thing to do even if you have the right to do it.

It might be wrong because you've been taught that it is wrong. Until someone gets punished here for mentioning XT, there is no problem. If someone doesn't like it, then they are free to leave.

If we do not increase the blocksize and there is a significant increase in adoption then transacting on the main chain would become prohibitively expensive. At this point the only alternative which would provide sufficient scale is using third parties on top of Bitcoin, or you could just use another cryptocurrency.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=946236.0

I never said that the blocksize should not be increased. I'm definitely aware of this 'problem' and the potential solutions. However, someone registered the OP's account solely to talk bad about Blockstream.
Interestingly, a month back I was seeing a lot of:"XT is cancer.", everywhere.

[iCEBREAKER]

  Im burned out on this whole topic and not much of anything new that I feel I can comment on  

Oh poor you.  It must be exhausting trying to defend indefensible ideas like XT's governance coup and technically ill-advised >>1MB blocks.

Why don't you bugger off to a less strenuous knitting circle or Oprah book club, and leave this difficult topic to those of us capable of (and indeed used to) multiscale modeling the involved cryptography, systems theory, computer science, economics, and politics?

[knight22]

[img]-snip-[img]

  Im burned out on this whole topic and not much of anything new that I feel I can comment on  

Oh poor you.  It must be exhausting trying to defend indefensible ideas like XT's governance coup and technically ill-advised >>1MB blocks.

Why don't you bugger off to a less strenuous knitting circle or Oprah book club, and leave this difficult topic to those of us capable of (and indeed used to) multiscale modeling the involved cryptography, systems theory, computer science, economics, and politics?

Are you trying to make an argument? Because I don't see any.

[Peter R]

It is the wrong thing to do even if you have the right to do it.

It might be wrong because you've been taught that it is wrong. Until someone gets punished here for mentioning XT, there is no problem. If someone doesn't like it, then they are free to leave.

Cypherdoc's thread was locked after the discussion turned heavily towards XT.  A Forum Administrator claimed the reason for locking the thread was that it was too broad in scope, so maybe you won't count this as "punished here for mentioning XT":

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1157185.msg12199651#msg12199651

Anyways, he's had to relocate his thread to a new location:  

http://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/

[iCEBREAKER]

Anyways, he's had to relocate his thread to a new location: 

http://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/

Could you possibly be any more melodramatic?  "Had to relocate" makes it sound like Frap.doc was chased out (with only the clothes on his back) by violent men bearing assault rifles and German Shepards.

Frap.doc was welcome to continue his XT cheerleader thread in the proper altcoin sub.

But that wasn't good enough for him; he demanded it remain in place on the main board.

So it was locked, because there is no 'Frap.doc exemption' to the rules against altcoin shilling in the Bitcoin forum.

http://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/

Forum Statistics

Discussions:    22

Messages:    148

Members:    70

LOL, so much for Frap.doc's blather about network effects, Metcalfe's Law, and how altcoins are all doooomed because they dare defect from BTC's longstanding all-powerful majority.

Serves him right!   

[uxgpf]

[img]-snip-[img]

  Im burned out on this whole topic and not much of anything new that I feel I can comment on  

Oh poor you.  It must be exhausting trying to defend indefensible ideas like XT's governance coup and technically ill-advised >>1MB blocks.

Why don't you bugger off to a less strenuous knitting circle or Oprah book club, and leave this difficult topic to those of us capable of (and indeed used to) multiscale modeling the involved cryptography, systems theory, computer science, economics, and politics?

Are you trying to make an argument? Because I don't see any.

No. He's just trolling and trying to bait.

ICEBREAKER is a well known XMR troll who goes to threads of other coins to spread FUD and do personal attacks.
I'm invested in Monero, but I think his actions cause much more harm than good. (By hurting the image of that community)

[tvbcof]

Anyways, he's had to relocate his thread to a new location: 

http://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/

Could you possibly be any more melodramatic?  "Had to relocate" makes it sound like Frap.doc was chased out (with only the clothes on his back) by violent men bearing assault rifles and German Shepards.

Frap.doc was welcome to continue his XT cheerleader thread in the proper altcoin sub.

But that wasn't good enough for him; he demanded it remain in place on the main board.

So it was locked, because there is no 'Frap.doc exemption' to the rules against altcoin shilling in the Bitcoin forum.

Although we all delight in the lulz provided by the piteous wailings of the Gavanistas, I must voice my opposition to closing cypherdoc's epic gold thread.

 - For one, the thread was not on the 'main' board.  It was on speculation which always has been a wasteland beyond any redemption.  Even by trolltalk standards.

 - For two, that thread in particular had a long history of drifting way way way off-topic.  It was noted back in the low double digits of it's ultimate 1500 pages.

 - For three, ya, some people were shilling (probably...or at least heavily cheerleading) for XT and other alts.  Other's were countering.

 - For four, there always was a smattering of completely on-topic conversation through the long life of the thread.  It simply waxed and wained depending on how boring gold/btc prices were and how many more interesting things were on the threat board.

I myself have had a post revoked for drifting off-topic recently.  Admittedly it was the case compared to the OP, but it was relevant to the thread of conversation which was associated with shilling and possible state involvement.  I would suggest to ~theymos that one of the most compelling things about his board is that it is damn difficult to end up being censored and I imagine that a lot of people feel that way.  Some of his mods might indeed be getting a bit heavy handed.

[turvarya]

I am banned from /r/bitcoin for this very reason so yeah give me a break and STFU.

Who was talking about reddit? Stop diverting the argument. I was solely talking about the forum.

Fact is, threads r/bitcoin got deleted. That is censorship. If it is a private forum, doesn't matter at all in the definition of censorship.

Read the above mentioned, and stop mentioning irrelevant information.

It is the wrong thing to do even if you have the right to do it.

It might be wrong because you've been taught that it is wrong. Until someone gets punished here for mentioning XT, there is no problem. If someone doesn't like it, then they are free to leave.

If we do not increase the blocksize and there is a significant increase in adoption then transacting on the main chain would become prohibitively expensive. At this point the only alternative which would provide sufficient scale is using third parties on top of Bitcoin, or you could just use another cryptocurrency.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=946236.0

I never said that the blocksize should not be increased. I'm definitely aware of this 'problem' and the potential solutions. However, someone registered the OP's account solely to talk bad about Blockstream.
Interestingly, a month back I was seeing a lot of:"XT is cancer.", everywhere.

So, you are not going into, that you just used a propaganda-tactic(propaganda is not a word, that I use lightly) by changing the meaning of a word to suit your agenda?
There is also censorship in this forum, like was mentioned before. Censorship on r/bitcoin was just worse, but it was executed by the same person. So, yes, it is relevant. But you already showed, that your biased view, just doesn't allow facts, that don't suit you agenda, so, i guess, discussing with you is pointless.

[uxgpf]

Anyways, he's had to relocate his thread to a new location: 

http://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/

Could you possibly be any more melodramatic?  "Had to relocate" makes it sound like Frap.doc was chased out (with only the clothes on his back) by violent men bearing assault rifles and German Shepards.

Frap.doc was welcome to continue his XT cheerleader thread in the proper altcoin sub.

But that wasn't good enough for him; he demanded it remain in place on the main board.

So it was locked, because there is no 'Frap.doc exemption' to the rules against altcoin shilling in the Bitcoin forum.

Although we all delight in the lulz provided by the piteous wailings of the Gavanistas

Why do you have to resort in name calling?

We could have much more constructive discussion without all this hate and vitriol. People obiviously have different views on this subject and it doesn't help if you label everyone that disagrees with you as Gavinista or altcoiner.

I for example support a block size increase, preferably in predictable way, which is what BIP 101 provides. Whatever fork will accomplish that is good enough for me. I don't care who leads development teams or what developers personal views are, because it simply doesn't matter. Code is what matters and I will choose accordingly. I hope you can also make your choice whatever it is without attacking the people who choose differently.

[tvbcof]

Although we all delight in the lulz provided by the piteous wailings of the Gavanistas

Why do you have to resort in name calling?
...

I don't 'have to', and it would not be fair to characterize it as 'resorting' to.  Most of the time I just do it for personal pleasure and for the amusement of my comrades.  iCEBREAKER is a tough act to follow for statements exemplified by the quoted.

[Andre#]

Oh poor you.  It must be exhausting trying to defend indefensible ideas like XT's governance coup and technically ill-advised >>1MB blocks.

Why don't you bugger off to a less strenuous knitting circle or Oprah book club, and leave this difficult topic to those of us capable of (and indeed used to) multiscale modeling the involved cryptography, systems theory, computer science, economics, and politics?

Can you be any more childish? Gosh...

[Zarathustra]

Anyways, he's had to relocate his thread to a new location: 

http://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/

Could you possibly be any more melodramatic?  "Had to relocate" makes it sound like Frap.doc was chased out (with only the clothes on his back) by violent men bearing assault rifles and German Shepards.

Frap.doc was welcome to continue his XT cheerleader thread in the proper altcoin sub.

But that wasn't good enough for him; he demanded it remain in place on the main board.

So it was locked, because there is no 'Frap.doc exemption' to the rules against altcoin shilling in the Bitcoin forum.

Exemption? Why do you write such BS? This forum is full of unrelocated XT threads.