Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong calls the industry to fork Bitcoin Core

[knight22]

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong calls the industry to fork Bitcoin Core by the end of December

In my view, Bitcoin XT is the best option I've seen so far. Not just because it has working code, but also because it has a simple implementation that is easy to understand, the block-size increases seem about right to me, and I have confidence in the people behind the project. My preference at this point would be to have Gavin step up as the final decision-maker on Bitcoin XT, and have the industry move to that solution with help from Mike Hearn, Jeff Garzik and others that wish to do so.”

The CEO believes an upgrade is urgently needed in order for the Bitcoin network to handle a sudden increase of Bitcoin usage. As such, Armstrong emphasized that Coinbase will not wait for consensus to form among the Bitcoin development community.

“We will upgrade regardless of whether Bitcoin Core is updated,” Armstrong said. “Capacity planning is something you should try to get ahead of. Growth can be unpredictable, and I want to remove all blockers to Bitcoin's success. I've been disappointed to see how slow Bitcoin Core has moved on this issue, and we're open to switching forks.”

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/coinbase-ceo-brian-armstrong-bip-is-the-best-proposal-we-ve-seen-so-far-1446584055

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[tvbcof]

x-posted: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1162684.msg12876312#msg12876312

[BitcoinNewsMagazine]

Someone please tell Coinbase that XT is dead in the water? Last time I looked Coinbase is not mining so what they want matters not.

[Holliday]

I say this with all sincerity to those who want bigger blocks now. Please fork already instead of this constant posturing! Fork the code. Mine your fork. Trade your forked coins. I wish you all the best, and would prefer the community split along these irreconcilable lines.

Do it! Let the chips fall where they may.

Stop talking. Do.

[Plento]

That guy is a puppet for Paypal.
BIP101 is DITW.

[Holliday]

People on these forums and the /r/bitcoin sub-reddit are being misled to think Core devs are maintaining "peace" by their use of censorship, when in fact they are orchestrating the censorship to intentionally cripple Bitcoin so they can provide the solution. Can anyone not see that?

There will be no peace. There are two sides with irreconcilable differences. The only solution that will please everyone is a fork.

Both sides can get exactly what they want with a fork (unless what they really want is to drag the other side with them kicking and screaming).

[Bit_Happy]

When will these forkin' issues finally be settled? Hasn't this gone on long enough?

[Adrian-x]

I say this with all sincerity to those who want bigger blocks now. Please fork already instead of this constant posturing! Fork the code. Mine your fork. Trade your forked coins. I wish you all the best, and would prefer the community split along these irreconcilable lines.

Do it! Let the chips fall where they may.

Stop talking. Do.

You've been here long enough to know how Bitcoin works, there are no forked coins to trade only Bitcoin. And only Bitcoin on the longest chain is valid.

When small block cause Bitcoin to fork Bitcoin won't become an altcoin.
.

[knight22]

I say this with all sincerity to those who want bigger blocks now. Please fork already instead of this constant posturing! Fork the code. Mine your fork. Trade your forked coins. I wish you all the best, and would prefer the community split along these irreconcilable lines.

Do it! Let the chips fall where they may.

Stop talking. Do.

You've been here long enough to know how Bitcoin works, there are no forked coins to trade only Bitcoin. And only Bitcoin on the longest chain is valid.

When small block cause Bitcoin to fork Bitcoin won't become an altcoin.
.

Well technically the old fork will still be usable but I fail to see why would anyone use it if the coins can't be traded anywhere.

[Holliday]

I say this with all sincerity to those who want bigger blocks now. Please fork already instead of this constant posturing! Fork the code. Mine your fork. Trade your forked coins. I wish you all the best, and would prefer the community split along these irreconcilable lines.

Do it! Let the chips fall where they may.

Stop talking. Do.

You've been here long enough to know how Bitcoin works, there are no forked coins to trade only Bitcoin. And only Bitcoin on the longest chain is valid.

When small block cause Bitcoin to fork Bitcoin won't become an altcoin.
.

If there is a client coded which creates blocks that other clients do not accept as valid and there is mining being done using both clients, there will be a fork. If mining continues on both sides of the fork, both sides will continue to exist. If you create a transaction with an input which is only valid on one chain, and the rest of your coins, you will have separate coins on both chains. If someone is willing to trade other things of value for coins on both sides of the fork, there will be an exchange rate between the two.

I don't care which side of the fork gets the name Bitcoin and which side of the fork gets the name "random altcoin", I only care about the rules of the protocol.

I'm hoping that someone creates this client (which has happened) and starts mining on it without getting any percentage of consensus from other mines/users (which has not happened). If they are so sure of themselves, I don't understand why this hasn't happened yet. If you build it, they will come. Then we don't need to argue about the merits of small or large blocks anymore, we can simply vote with our wallet.

[Holliday]

Well technically the old fork will still be usable but I fail to see why would anyone use it if the coins can't be traded anywhere.

I currently control funded Bitcoin private keys. If XT ever happens, I will then have XT coins. You posit that these XT coins will have value, no? I will offer them (post XTainting) in exchange for non-XT coins. Since XTcoins have value, my offer will be accepted by someone. It's that simple. If I'm not the only one willing to make this exchange (and I am guessing that I am not), we will have a market and an exchange rate. Miners will find a way (possibly even through merged mining) to mine both coins to their profit.

[knight22]

I say this with all sincerity to those who want bigger blocks now. Please fork already instead of this constant posturing! Fork the code. Mine your fork. Trade your forked coins. I wish you all the best, and would prefer the community split along these irreconcilable lines.

Do it! Let the chips fall where they may.

Stop talking. Do.

You've been here long enough to know how Bitcoin works, there are no forked coins to trade only Bitcoin. And only Bitcoin on the longest chain is valid.

When small block cause Bitcoin to fork Bitcoin won't become an altcoin.
.

If there is a client coded which creates blocks that other clients do not accept as valid and there is mining being done using both clients, there will be a fork. If mining continues on both sides of the fork, both sides will continue exist. If you create a transaction with an input which is only valid on one chain and the rest of your coins, you will have coins on both chains. If someone is willing to trade other things of value for coins on both sides of the fork, there will be an exchange rate between the two.

I don't care which side of the fork gets the name Bitcoin and which side of the fork gets the name "random altcoin", I only care about the rules of the protocol.

I'm hoping that someone creates this client (which has happened) and starts mining on it without getting any percentage of consensus from other mines/users (which has not happened). If they are so sure of themselves, I don't understand why this hasn't happened yet. If you build it, they will come. Then we don't need to argue about the merits of small or large blocks anymore, we can simply vote with our wallet.

Because those running the show right now is the economic majority which means big market makers, those who sell the biggest amount of coins to the public. If they do a move, miners will follow, there is no doubt about that but these guys are being cautious and therefore slow to move. A bunch of them have settle December as a dead line back in August and now, as we approach this deadline and as the block are being full and the economic pressure is building up, Coinbase (which have received the largest investment) is now stepping up stating they will lead the move keeping the same deadline. It will happen, one must get prepared.

[Peter R]

...
I'm hoping that someone creates this client (which has happened) and starts mining on it without getting any percentage of consensus from other mines/users (which has not happened). If they are so sure of themselves, I don't understand why this hasn't happened yet. If you build it, they will come. Then we don't need to argue about the merits of small or large blocks anymore, we can simply vote with our wallet.

There are people running Bitcoin Unlimited today.  Bitcoin Unlimited is Core without the block size limit.  It will follow the longest chain composed of valid transactions, using the consensus mechanism described in the Bitcoin white paper.  The reason it is not forking with respect to Core is that the longest chain presently contains only blocks smaller than 1 MB.  In the future, if the longest chain includes blocks larger than 1 MB, then these nodes will follow that chain thereby forking off the Core nodes (assuming Core doesn't increase the block size limit too).  



At the moment, I don't think any miner would dare to publish a block greater than 1 MB because it would almost certainly be orphaned (even by nodes running Bitcoin Unlimited).  It would only make sense to publish large blocks when miners are confident that the majority of the network hash power would build on top of them.  

[Holliday]

Because those running the show right now is the economic majority which means big market makers, those who sell the biggest amount of coins to the public. If they do a move, miners will follow, there is no doubt about that but these guys are being cautious and therefore slow to move. A bunch of them have settle December as a dead line back in August and now, as we approach this deadline and as the block are being full and the economic pressure is building up, Coinbase (which have received the largest investment) is now stepping up stating they will lead the move keeping the same date. It will happen, one must get prepared.

How much of Coinbase's liquid assets are actually in bitcoins? If I had to guess, I'd imagine them to be a company which functions fully on fiat besides their operational requirements.

I suppose Gemini, with the information I have (twins own a lot of coin), is actually part of the economic majority, but I'm not so sure about other "Bitcoin" companies. It would be interesting to know how many of them are actually part of the economic majority.

[Carlton Banks]

I say this with all sincerity to those who want bigger blocks now. Please fork already instead of this constant posturing! Fork the code. Mine your fork. Trade your forked coins. I wish you all the best, and would prefer the community split along these irreconcilable lines.

Do it! Let the chips fall where they may.

Stop talking. Do.

You've been here long enough to know how Bitcoin works, there are no forked coins to trade only Bitcoin. And only Bitcoin on the longest chain is valid.

When small block cause Bitcoin to fork Bitcoin won't become an altcoin.
.

Near enough every altcoin out there is a fork of the Bitcoin codebase, so your assertion is better applied to you in the inverse: you've been here long enough to know how cryptocurrency works, there are no wholly original coins to trade, only Bitcoin forks.

[Holliday]

...
I'm hoping that someone creates this client (which has happened) and starts mining on it without getting any percentage of consensus from other mines/users (which has not happened). If they are so sure of themselves, I don't understand why this hasn't happened yet. If you build it, they will come. Then we don't need to argue about the merits of small or large blocks anymore, we can simply vote with our wallet.

There are people running Bitcoin Unlimited today.  Bitcoin Unlimited is Core without the block size limit.  It will follow the longest chain composed of valid transactions, using the consensus mechanism described in the Bitcoin white paper.  The reason it is not forking with respect to Core is that the longest chain presently contains only blocks smaller than 1 MB.  In the future, if the longest chain includes blocks larger than 1 MB, then these nodes will follow that chain thereby forking off the Core nodes (assuming Core doesn't increase the block size limit too).  

At the moment, I don't think any miner would dare to publish a block greater than 1 MB because it would almost certainly be orphaned (even by nodes running Bitcoin Unlimited).  It would only make sense to publish large blocks when miners are confident that the majority of the network hash power would build on top of them.  

Yes, I'd like to see someone start mining a fork with > 1 MB blocks. If everyone who wants big blocks now invested some money into mining hardware and just went ahead and did it, I'm sure some existing miners would join and we'd have ourselves a fork and an end to these seemingly endless discussions.

In fact, to make it easier for miners to decide (or remove them from the decision entirely), Bitcoin unlimited should be capable of being merge mined.

[Amph]

i'm all for not hindering adoption, but not with xt, something like bip103 is better for the feature, because it should mintain the current block limit, until the increase is actually needed

or 101, if 103 reveal to be problematic in some way

[Lauda]

Fork Bitcoin Core? No problem. Fork to XT? No, thank you. Stop with the propaganda. This is an appeal to authority, not an argument nor the right way to start a discussion. If you go down this path, we will end up in infinite circles of nonsense again. Wait for Hong Kong, and stop provoking each other.

There are people running Bitcoin Unlimited today.  Bitcoin Unlimited is Core without the block size limit.  

No limit? There are people who want to see Bitcoin burn, and you're one of them. You keep pushing the limits of our tolerance.

[Zarathustra]

Fork Bitcoin Core? No problem. Fork to XT? No, thank you. Stop with the propaganda. This is an appeal to authority, not an argument nor the right way to start a discussion. If you go down this path, we will end up in infinite circles of nonsense again. Wait for Hong Kong, and stop provoking each other.

There are people running Bitcoin Unlimited today.  Bitcoin Unlimited is Core without the block size limit.  It will follow the longest chain composed of valid transactions, using the consensus mechanism described in the Bitcoin white paper.  The reason it is not forking with respect to Core is that the longest chain presently contains only blocks smaller than 1 MB.  In the future, if the longest chain includes blocks larger than 1 MB, then these nodes will follow that chain thereby forking off the Core nodes (assuming Core doesn't increase the block size limit too).

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1236879.msg12877811#msg12877811

[marcus_of_augustus]

Armstrong should stick to what he is good at, shuffling money around, schmoozing up to political power brokers and extracting personal financial data for reporting to authorities ... and leave his limited technical ability out of the public spotlight, in case people begin to doubt the wisdom of investing in his company.