Gavin Andresen AMA happening now.

[Mickeyb]

Who thinks that forum is suspicious? Is Mr. Ver trying to steal our passwords?  

I am pretty sure that the only thing Roger Ver is trying to steal are the users of this forum. I think this is why this long list of AMA has been organized at the first place by him. As a perfect promotion of his new forum!

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[maokoto]

So Gavin has an account here and used to post?

Too bad being a newcomer. Would have loved to see it.

[RealBitcoin]

Im honestly too lazy to register in another forum, but I would love if someone can ask him what does he pretend to do in the case of the blocksize being too big so that average people can't run a node? Why is he ok with centralizing Bitcoin nodes when mining is already centralized? I assume someone has already asked him 40 questions about the blocksize so im going to start reading the 7 pages to see what happened.

Its not the blocksize centralization.

Bitcoin was already fucked when they added difficulty to mining.

There should not have been a rising difficulty in mining bitcoin. That was the first mistake.

[disclaimer201]

If we can accept that Bitcoin will not be primarily used as a currency by average people but mainly as a safe haven for assets or a retirement investment - while this will not stop Bitcoin's success story! - we won't ever need huge block sizes to allow everyone and their parents to send funds for free.

We will need gradually rising block sizes to allow a wider adoption, but 1) the majority of people won't use Bitcoin to buy everyday stuff knowing it will likely appreciate in price and fluctuate insanely and 2) they won't buy fractions of Bitcoins once they cost thousands of Dollars for psychological reasons (2019: Meanwhile in Kentucky. "Last weekend I bought 0.00245 Bitcoins for 75 Dollars to buy two pairs of jeans at Walmart. Ain't that great?") NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Why? If everyone and their mother's dream only come halfway true, BTC will easily be worth 4 digit prices.

Bitcoin will totally be fine for a long time if the block sizes are doubled. 2MB blocks have to be filled first while we haven't even seen many large blocks lately or hardly ever, except when BTC went into super bubble mode.

There will be another or many (soon maybe even national cryptos???) for everyday expenses. The European Court of Justice has made the first step to acknowledge Bitcoin as a currency, what's to stop governments or the FED/ ECB to start own digital tokens (decentralized or not) and declare them national currency? It would be absolutely in their interest, get rid of cash and even gain control over the money flow!

Even in this case Bitcoin will still be the real deal, safe and expensive, used by big players and a security for your retirement, but you won't go buy groceries with it. You won't see millions of transactions, neither now nor in the future. Yet, 1 Bitcoin will cost 3000 Dollars or more. It will be a huge success, just a bit different from you thought it would be.

[Kprawn]

I must say, I liked the guy.... before he signed up with Mike Hearn. He changed a bit after that.... you now find some of the arrogance in some of his statements, where he

talks down to average Bitcoin users. We cannot ignore his contribution to Bitcoin and the fact that he carry some weight in the industry..  I just think it went to his head a bit,

and he needs to appreciate the fact that normal Bitcoin users are a major part of the Bitcoin eco system. I would think with all the tracking software being used on that forum,

most users from this forum would be blocked from joining. 

[pawel7777]

...what's to stop governments or the FED/ ECB to start own digital tokens (decentralized or not) and declare them national currency? It would be absolutely in their interest, get rid of cash and even gain control over the money flow!

They already have it, it's called fiat currency and mostly exist in digital form.

Even in this case Bitcoin will still be the real deal, safe and expensive, used by big players and a security for your retirement, but you won't go buy groceries with it. You won't see millions of transactions, neither now nor in the future. Yet, 1 Bitcoin will cost 3000 Dollars or more. It will be a huge success, just a bit different from you thought it would be.

Sure, Bitcoin is like gold, except gold was around for thousands of years to establish itself as something valuable and there's still no guarantee that people one day won't turn away from it. Theres also demand for gold (jewelery, electronic components) which adds to the value. With no merchant adoption and practical usage Bitcoin will likely fade away.

Having Bitcoin only good as an investment and other, emerging cryptocurrency which can be used for both investment and day-to-day transaction - which one will win in the long run?

I don't get where you guys are coming from. If you take away any practical usage, you essentially fully rely on unidentified 'big players' who will just keep throwing more money in Bitcoin for some reasons. But most of all you would make Bitcoin fully controlled by governments and banks, since it could only be used on (regulated) exchanges.

[justbitcoins]

If he really is Gavin and apparently he is we could post the most interesting Q&A of this AMA in here.
It would be a good reference for us.

After the ask me anything finishes in bitcoin.com, somebody will post the questions and answers here. Gavin Andresen contributed a lot to bitcoin cause in the early days.

[Tstar]

rogerver wrote:
Hi Gavin,
Do you find yourself inspired to be involved with Bitcoin for the same reasons today, as you did originally?
What were those primary motivating reasons then, as well as today?


GA

I like working on interesting new technologies that have the potential to have a positive impact on the world. That's what drew me to Bitcoin in the beginning, and that still inspires me today.

Eventually the technology behind Bitcoin will stop being interesting to me-- and that's when I'll wander off and try to find something else to keep me busy.

That might surprise some people-- after all, if I believe that Bitcoin will have a positive impact on the world, why not work on it forever?

I'll feel comfortable stepping away because Bitcoin gets the incentives right-- there are lots of people with strong incentives to see Bitcoin succeed, and any one person's ability to help make Bitcoin succeedbecomes smaller and smaller over time.

flix wrote:
How much time do we have before the Bitcoin protocol begins to ossify?

GA

What are the most necessary changes, additions that we need to include before it becomes almost impossible to modify it anymore?

The Bitcoin protocol began to ossify back at the first transaction between Satoshi and Hal. The bigger it gets, the more people impacted, and the more careful "we" have to be about changing things.

If there are reasonable processes for making changes (e.g. some IETF-like process) then I don't think it will ever be impossible to make changes. In fact, with a good process I think it would be easier to make changes that today.

seenitor wrote:
Do you see a chance Bitcoin Core will come to a "consensus" to raise the block size limit in some way after the Hong Kong conference? I seems Mike doesn't think so at all: "Core won’t raise the limit" https://medium.com/@octskyward/on-block-sizes-e047bc9f830#.dzgubhu3m

GA

Mike and I have been really frustrated by "the other side's" unwillingness to meaningfully engage.

I'm still trying, but (as I said in a private email this morning) it is impossible to collaborate if one side refuses to communicate.