Montreal scaling Bitcoin workshop recap.

[Mickeyb]

Hey guys, does anybody have any news from Montreal? Did anything interesting happen or been decided?

Please share this info here if you have any. I have been very busy this weekend so I couldn't watch the live broadcast or listen to it on the YouTube. I am very interested by this and can't find anything.

Thanks!

[brg444]

Hey guys, does anybody have any news from Montreal? Did anything interesting happen or been decided?

Please share this info here if you have any. I have been very busy this weekend so I couldn't watch the live broadcast or listen to it on the YouTube. I am very interested by this and can't find anything.

Thanks!

Nothing was decided but it was a fantastic opportunity for the industry, developers and miners to share concerns and ideas about Bitcoin moving forward.

Coindesk has a good article on the first day here:

http://www.coindesk.com/scaling-bitcoin-day-1-constructive-debate-shines/

You can find transcripts of most of the discussion here:

http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/

Most of the slides used by presenters:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xrnpadhhee26482/AAD1UYgVDXgYByGe4FnqIWBka?dl=0

My highlights:

- Ittay Eyal's tests and models

- Bram Cohen's talk on fees handling

- Miles Carlsten's work on the "mining gap"

- All of sunday morning sessions on payment channels and layer 2 as well as mining & network costs

Overall it was a great experience and I had a really good time.

[Peter R]

...

Brg444, I'm not sure I got to meet you! Did we meet?

[Peter R]

...

Brg444, I'm not sure I got to meet you! Did we meet?

I'm sorry I don't think we can be friends 

Well I'm sorry to hear that. Best of luck to you in your future.

[jonald_fyookball]

...

Brg444, I'm not sure I got to meet you! Did we meet?

I'm sorry I don't think we can be friends 

Well I'm sorry to hear that. Best of luck to you in your future.

I think this little exchange right here is a great indicator of character.

[BitProdigy]

Scaling Bitcoin Day 1 - Afternoon Session:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oefTRnM9SPY

Scaling Bitcoin Day 1 - Afternoon Session Wrap-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6PnLSH40lQ

Scaling Bitcoin Day 2 - Morning Session:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgjrS-BPWDQ

Scaling Bitcoin Day 2 - Afternoon Session:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SnjrdQtf8Y

Scaling Bitcoin Day 2 - Afternoon Session Wrap-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuZnYDtBJiY

[Peter R]

Scaling Bitcoin Day 1 - Afternoon Session:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oefTRnM9SPY

Scaling Bitcoin Day 1 - Afternoon Session Wrap-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6PnLSH40lQ

Scaling Bitcoin Day 2 - Morning Session:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgjrS-BPWDQ

Scaling Bitcoin Day 2 - Afternoon Session:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SnjrdQtf8Y

Scaling Bitcoin Day 2 - Afternoon Session Wrap-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuZnYDtBJiY

What about the Day 1 morning session?

[BitProdigy]

What about the Day 1 morning session?

I can't find a video of the Day 1 Morning Session, post a link if you can.

[meono]

...

Brg444, I'm not sure I got to meet you! Did we meet?

We didn't and I'm sorry to say I had no interest in doing so.

Some might be oblivious to your character and your sly ways but I know better.

It just wouldn't be honest for me to pretend there could exist some cordiality between us and act like nothing. The "block the stream" trolling pretty much sealed the deal for me in that sense. You might've gotten a few laughs out of it but I thought that was of very bad taste.

I'm sorry I don't think we can be friends 

oh.... you're afraid to meet in real life because it would show you know jack shit about bitcoin in general.

We get it....

[jonald_fyookball]

...

Brg444, I'm not sure I got to meet you! Did we meet?

We didn't and I'm sorry to say I had no interest in doing so.

Some might be oblivious to your character and your sly ways but I know better.

It just wouldn't be honest for me to pretend there could exist some cordiality between us and act like nothing. The "block the stream" trolling pretty much sealed the deal for me in that sense. You might've gotten a few laughs out of it but I thought that was of very bad taste.

I'm sorry I don't think we can be friends 

oh.... you're afraid to meet in real life because it would show you know jack shit about bitcoin in general.

We get it....

Afraid ?

 

it would be like me refusing to me meet Greg Maxwell because I disagree with what he is trying to do with blockstream.  you have a bad attitude IMO.  bct is one thing but you were at the same event and you refused to meet Peter because he made a blockstream joke.  kinda lame.  maybe you really are afraid.

[jonald_fyookball]

interesting.  how is he misleading?

[BitProdigy]

Brg444, I'm not sure I got to meet you! Did we meet?

We didn't and I'm sorry to say I had no interest in doing so.

Some might be oblivious to your character and your sly ways but I know better.

It just wouldn't be honest for me to pretend there could exist some cordiality between us and act like nothing. The "block the stream" trolling pretty much sealed the deal for me in that sense. You might've gotten a few laughs out of it but I thought that was of very bad taste.

I'm sorry I don't think we can be friends 

Well I'm sorry to hear that. Best of luck to you in your future.

I really wish you two would have met and found some common ground. Here we have two people who were front row, in person, live action at the workshop that this thread is about, and instead of hearing your stories of who you met, what you saw, and if you think it was a productive with respect to the block size debate at large, we have to endure a bickering back and forth about hurt egos. 

[Peter R]

I really wish you two would have met and found some common ground. Here we have two people who were front row, in person, live action at the workshop that this thread is about, and instead of hearing your stories of who you met, what you saw, and if you think it was a productive with respect to the block size debate at large, we have to endure a bickering back and forth about hurt egos. 

I've been reporting in the uncensored Bitcoin Forum http://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/page-26

************
This conference has really opened my eyes to what I see as a huge divide in ideology between the small-block camp and the large-block camp.

The small-block camp seem to want to create rules to micromanage every aspect of the system; the large-block camp want the consensus rules to be as simple as possible and allow the market to sort out the details.

Here's a perfect example from maaku:



Here he's arguing with Gavin that propagation time is too long to support 8 MB blocks.  However, just last night he was arguing with me that propagation time is too short to support a fee market.

At first I couldn't understand how they could argue from both sides of most topics: how can they honestly think that there are too many orphans AND not enough orphans?  Well, it's simply that they can't see how the market will come to an equilibrium.  They actually think they need to micromanage everything in order for the system not to break.   This is why orphans can be too high (for safety) but too low (for a fee market) in their minds.

************

[Peter R]

Source: http://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/page-26#post-825

Other interesting observations:

I was involved in two "round tables" today: (1) communication without official structures, and (2) how to get 10x the number of devs involved in protocol development.

In the first round table, the problem of "trolling" and "low signal-to-noise" was brought up, especially as the number of people participating on (e.g.) the bitcoin-dev list had increased. I gave the XT fork as an example of how communication can be improved by splitting up into smaller groups full of people with better-aligned ideologies. As an example, I said the discourse here and on /r/bitcoinxt is much more friendly and positive now. I would say 75% of people agreed based on body language that this was good. However, there was at least one individual who appeared to strongly disagree with this suggestion. He said that although he agreed with the idea that people should "vote with their feet," that what XT did was wrong since it went against consensus. I said "well who defines consensus?" and then the moderator had to tell us both to shut up.

At the second round table (how to get more devs), I pointed out how XT had created a "vacuum" that sucked in new devs eager to play an important rule (that they couldn't with Core). I said that with even more friendly implementations that we could get even more programmers involved. Looking around the table, the idea was met with mostly smiles except for one heavily furrowed brow (a Core Dev) who quickly quizzed me on the number of GitHub pull requests to prove my claim. Someone else then reaffirmed that I was correct and I didn't have to answer the GitHub question

So again, there's this inconsistency with Core Dev: they want high SNR and more devs but they don't want to implement the obvious solution (more implementations each full of like-minded people)

[Peter R]

How do you propose...

I thought you didn't want to associate with me any longer.

[brg444]

After typing my previous post I have decided on deleting my posts not pertinent to the conference. I apologize for the distraction.

Peter, it would be great if you could do the same and in the spirit of the conference do respect Chatam house rules. I know you are always eager to attack characters but let's leave it to the content of the talks and round tables.

[Mickeyb]

Thanks guys a lot for all of the materials and videos. I guess I have something to keep me busy the next several days! Overall, I am very encouraged by this conference. This is a step in the right direction and it goes to show that in the end we will beat the differences, reach the consensus and move on with the development.

[Kakmakr]

I could not attend, but I watched the live streaming of the event. It was just a pity that we had problems with the streaming on the first day via Youtube. I also followed the conversations in the IRC channel, and that was even more interesting.

Overall impression : Very informative but like sex without a orgasm. I would have hoped for a final ruling on the whole Core vs XT thing.

[Zarathustra]

...

Brg444, I'm not sure I got to meet you! Did we meet?

I'm sorry I don't think we can be friends  

Well I'm sorry to hear that. Best of luck to you in your future.

I think this little exchange right here is a great indicator of character.

Yes. And here:

"Lies, lies and lies. You have no shame!" And then?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1170385.msg12329974#msg12329974

[BNO]

Very new and interesting was the presentation about the "mining gap" I didn't really get it though/slides where in livestream a bit hard to read. What was the idea? Miners shutting their computers of to save electricity and just "jumping in" again when the estimated fee for the block is high enough to make it worth their electricity? But would not be very unlogical, since when you start later mining the block your chances of getting the right solution in time is lower as if you started from beginning.
You see i'm very confused if someone could clear that up that would be appreciated...