"Bitcoin Classic" is a classic attempt at a hostile takeover

[Quickseller]

What's the harm in a jump to 2MB??

If you were here to converse in good faith, you would have already researched that exhaustively-debated topic.

I admire your 'energy vampire' attempt to wear us down by repeatedly asking already answered questions and attempting to restart the conversation back at square one.

I don't think you are actually a Toominista; you smell more like a Buttcoiner here to troll.   

In other words there is no harm in raising the maximum block size to 2MB (other then it would destroy blockstream's business model)

[danielW]

If Bitcoin Classic wins then Gavin is going to be the "benevolent dictator" (which I think has always been his desire).

Do you want him as the overlord?

It isn't the code that is the issue - it is the hostile takeover that is.

Gavin has cleverly now gone with something that only changes the one thing (but more importantly puts him back in charge - after they take over who knows what will happen).

I can tell you with absolute 100% certainty what will happen.  People will use the code they agree with.  If developers of any client add code that users disagree with, they won't update to the new code.  Ergo, there's no such thing as a dictator in Bitcoin, benevolent or otherwise.  There's also no such thing as a takeover, hostile or otherwise.  There is only code and users freely choosing what code to run.  

Bitcoin is and should be whatever its users define by the code they run.  If you don't want people to have a choice, a closed-source coin would be far better suited to your goals.

For the most part users are already not important, and are reduced to whining on forums and reddit trying to convince those that do have power i.e. a handfull of exchanges, wallets and miners.

Thats why having decentralisation and small nodes is important. Gavin, Hearn, Coinbase and blockchain alliance would make this worse.

[danielW]

No, we don't need to increase the block size overnight. But I'd rather have it done in the next three month than in one year. Bitcoin will get a lot of publicity this summer and it will not offer sufficient space for the next breakthrough.

What about these empty blocks that are mined all the time now from 'rogue' pools, if this phenomenon increases it means the remaining miners must pick up the transactions. So if BTC hits it off even remotely with the general public, the problem will only escalate.

Ridiculous to call Classic a takeover attempt. It offers a solution to prevent the next crisis. Unless you believe - or rather want- Bitcoin to stay in a niche, Classic is the minimal consensus. So, stop whining unless you want to use this price depression to push down the price further with your FUD so you can load up at $250.

With the completely manufactured and unnecessary chaos caused by Classic and Gavin you will be lucky if we get above $400.

Bitcoin has plenty of "capacity" and Segwit will ensure it will have plenty more. Opt-in RBF will be like y2k i.e. nothing will happen.


All this is FUD to scare people to support the takeover attempt.

Whats worse is the takeover attempt is backed by coinbase and blockchain alliance. They want pro-regulation developers not cypherpunks in charge of the reference client.

A pro-regulation Bitcoin will be one of watered down potential and value. Paypal 2.0.

[danielW]

If Bitcoin Classic wins then Gavin is going to be the "benevolent dictator" (which I think has always been his desire).

I'm not choosing sides. I'm completely neutral on the whole block size situation.

But how does your statement above hold true if Gavin willfully gave up the CORE dev position to someone else?

Gavin did not give up anything except a meaningless title. Essentially he stopped doing the coding work. The title changed to show the reality. Political work and blog posts is all I see coming from him now. Meanwhile core developers have been providing real scaling solutions. Pieter Wuille was fakin coding on new Years Eve!!

Credit to Gavin though for his contribution earlier in the project.

[jonald_fyookball]

They want pro-regulation developers not cypherpunks in charge of the reference client.
 

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that they do.

So?

I say Bitcoin will never gain widespread adoption without regulation. 
I don't think we'd be seeing $400 Bitcoins today if governments
were more hostile to Bitcoin.

[coinableS]

If Bitcoin Classic wins then Gavin is going to be the "benevolent dictator" (which I think has always been his desire).

Do you want him as the overlord?

I guess that is the question (personally I am happier with the Bitcoin Core team as it stands).

I don't like the idea of the hard fork to bitcoin "classic".
I like Gavin, and don't think he has anything sinister planned if classic somehow wins. I support core.
There are too many unsubstantiated conspiracies floating around right now. Most conversations instantly turn into personal attacks regarding this topic.

[danielW]

They want pro-regulation developers not cypherpunks in charge of the reference client.
 

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that they do.

So?

I say Bitcoin will never gain widespread adoption without regulation.  
I don't think we'd be seeing $400 Bitcoins today if governments
were more hostile to Bitcoin.

Governments are a conglomerate of different interests. The harder Bitcoin is to control and regulate the less regulation will happen and better for us. The converse is true.

We need to design a Bitcoin that is hard to regulate. Institutions will then be forced to accept the reality.

There will always be some regulation but we want to minimize it.

Satoshi did not go to regulators asking what features to implement so they are happy. If he did Bitcoin would not exist. He designed a system that minimizes their ability to control and influence it.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

What's the harm in a jump to 2MB??

If you were here to converse in good faith, you would have already researched that exhaustively-debated topic.

I admire your 'energy vampire' attempt to wear us down by repeatedly asking already answered questions and attempting to restart the conversation back at square one.

I don't think you are actually a Toominista; you smell more like a Buttcoiner here to troll.   

In other words there is no harm in raising the maximum block size to 2MB (other then it would destroy blockstream's business model)

There is harm. If we can increase the transactions without increasing the block size it will be better.

The large size of the blockchain is a barrier to people running full nodes and that will only get worse if we increase it.

Some ISPs are starting to do data caps on broadband so setting up a full node client in those places ends up with an initial financial burden in data overage. It only gets worse as the blockchain increases in size.

-=-

Also, build a NUC with a 128 GB SSD today and it can run bitcoin full node just fine, hardware will likely die before the drive runs out of space. But if you increase each block by 2x or even 8x as some have proposed, and that may not be the case - larger block size gives opportunity for large volumes of small transactions that take place for the sole purpose of using data.

block size should only be increased when other options have been implemented and we still need more.

We aren't there yet. Not in my opinion.

Eventually we will have no choice but to increase it. But let's wait until it really is actually needed.

[jonald_fyookball]

They want pro-regulation developers not cypherpunks in charge of the reference client.
 

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that they do.

So?

I say Bitcoin will never gain widespread adoption without regulation.  
I don't think we'd be seeing $400 Bitcoins today if governments
were more hostile to Bitcoin.

Governments are a conglomerate of different interests. The harder Bitcoin is to control and regulate the less regulation will happen and better for us. The converse is true.

We need to design a Bitcoin that is hard to regulate. Institutions will then be forced to accept the reality.

There will always be some regulation but we want to minimize it.

Satoshi did not go to regulators asking what features to implement so they are happy. If he did Bitcoin would not exist. He designed a system that minimizes their ability to control and influence it.

I agree 100%.

Consider that having multiple implementations makes it much harder to regulate
than there being one single group of developers in charge.  

They cannot easily control what is decentralized.

"Classic" may be spearheaded by "pro regulation" people like Gavin,
but if it shatters the one-team paradigm, isn't that infinitely
better?

[Peter R]

@danielW:

I agree too.  This is what I'm trying to communicate with this visualization:

[Quickseller]

What's the harm in a jump to 2MB??

If you were here to converse in good faith, you would have already researched that exhaustively-debated topic.

I admire your 'energy vampire' attempt to wear us down by repeatedly asking already answered questions and attempting to restart the conversation back at square one.

I don't think you are actually a Toominista; you smell more like a Buttcoiner here to troll.   

In other words there is no harm in raising the maximum block size to 2MB (other then it would destroy blockstream's business model)

There is harm. If we can increase the transactions without increasing the block size it will be better.

The large size of the blockchain is a barrier to people running full nodes and that will only get worse if we increase it.

SegWi (as I understand it)is really just a complex way of raising the maximum block size to a size that varies depending on the transactions contained in each found block. A fully validating node will still need to validate the signatures of each transaction contained in each block. I would predict that SegWi will essentially turn a lot of nodes into something similar to SPV clients while calling themselves full nodes, or thinking of themselves as full nodes.

Having a maximum block size of 2MB does not mean that we will see any blocks >1MB, all that it means is that if there is demand (based on the number of transactions at the time) for a ~2MB block, then a miner/pool can mine a 2MB block.

There is also not a need for many people to be running a full node as there are running a full node. If I am trading with coinbase, and coinbase is not going to send me USD until they have received BTC from me, then there is no reason why I need to fully validate the block that confirms the transaction to coinbase (this is something that coinbase does need to do however). Also if I were to buy BTC from coinbase, then I would need to first send coinbase USD, and coinbase will send BTC once the USD is received, and sending an invalid transaction to me would make little sense, because if they wanted to scam me, then they could just send nothing, so there is little need for me to fully validate the block that confirms the transaction of BTC from coinbase to me.

Also the fact that running a full node is too resource/bandwidth intensive has nothing to do with the maximum block size, it means that more people are using/spending bitcoin then the value of resources that are necessary to run a full node "cheaply".

[kelsey]

I say Bitcoin will never gain widespread adoption without regulation. 

the entire point of p2p currency is to be indifferent to regulation.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

There is also not a need for many people to be running a full node as there are running a full node.

Actually there is. Full nodes are needed to keep distributed consensus.

The fewer people run full nodes, the easier it is for a government or company to influence how bitcoin works by running their own full nodes that then control the consensus.

I wish there had been a way to design bitcoin to prevent mining pools. To few control too much. I don't want the same to happen with relay nodes.

[jonald_fyookball]

I say Bitcoin will never gain widespread adoption without regulation. 

the entire point of p2p currency is to be indifferent to regulation.

Sure. 

But we can grow much faster if its able to be used freely by businesses.
And the bigger the businesses that use it, the more quickly it will grow.

 

[Quickseller]

There is also not a need for many people to be running a full node as there are running a full node.

Actually there is. Full nodes are needed to keep distributed consensus.

The fewer people run full nodes, the easier it is for a government or company to influence how bitcoin works by running their own full nodes that then control the consensus.

I wish there had been a way to design bitcoin to prevent mining pools. To few control too much. I don't want the same to happen with relay nodes.

I have to disagree with you here.

If my full node receives a transaction/block that does not follow it's rules then it will not re-broadcast such transaction/block, however it does not have any influence on any other node. This would still be true if I had 1,000 full nodes.

Going back to my previous example, if I send USD to coinbase, and coinbase sends me BTC that does not follow the rules that I want followed then there is nothing I can do about it. If I know in advance that coinbase is following different rules then what I agree with then I can choose to not do business with coinbase, which would give them an economic incentive to follow consensus rules.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

Here is an article on the importance of full nodes to bitcoin network security :

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-nodes-need/

We need as many people to run them as we can get, and right now, the number is dropping.

Increases in block size will only serve to expedite that dropping rate.

This is a far more serious problem than the tx per minute that everyone is talking about - and to me, it looks like the core developers understand this is far more serious of the two issues.

-=-

I'm trying to do my part, I have personally introduced several people to bitcoin - none of which have fully embraced it meaning they don't give a damn about buying things with bitcoin but they use it as a hedge against inflation. Every one of them I have set up with a PC that just sits there running the bitcoin-core client.

Unfortunately I'm in North America where there still are plenty of nodes. Places like Africa really need them, and places like Africa the size of the blockchain is an even bigger barrier to full node than it is here.

[HostFat]

I just think that the idiocy is taking over Bitcoin

[Quickseller]

Here is an article on the importance of full nodes to bitcoin network security :

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-nodes-need/

We need as many people to run them as we can get, and right now, the number is dropping.

Increases in block size will only serve to expedite that dropping rate.

This is a far more serious problem than the tx per minute that everyone is talking about - and to me, it looks like the core developers understand this is far more serious of the two issues.

-=-

I'm trying to do my part, I have personally introduced several people to bitcoin - none of which have fully embraced it meaning they don't give a damn about buying things with bitcoin but they use it as a hedge against inflation. Every one of them I have set up with a PC that just sits there running the bitcoin-core client.

Unfortunately I'm in North America where there still are plenty of nodes. Places like Africa really need them, and places like Africa the size of the blockchain is an even bigger barrier to full node than it is here.

I believe that my previous statements would address what is written in that article.

At the end of the day, it is the economic majority that is going to decide what the rules of Bitcoin are.

[iCEBREAKER]

I say Bitcoin will never gain widespread adoption without regulation. 

One of the most stupid things ever posted to this forum.  Noted for future reference.

Meanwhile back in reality.

It is an Engineering Requirement that Bitcoin be “Above the Law”  Paul Sztorc 2015

[BitUsher]

@danielW:

I agree too.  This is what I'm trying to communicate with this visualization:

I agree with this sentiment, but isn't there 2 aspects deliberately misleading about the above animation? Namely, the fact that you are leaving off multiple existing implementations and how the implementations you cite aren't necessarily cooperative but attempting to stage a coup. I am not suggesting you shouldn't have the right to make an attempt, but merely suggesting the model you reflect would indeed add security to our ecosystem as long as the different implementations weren't trying to subvert and compete with each other but merely have different repositories, developers, and sets of features that didn't break any primary consensus rules or try and split the chain.

I say Bitcoin will never gain widespread adoption without regulation.  

the entire point of p2p currency is to be indifferent to regulation.

Sure.  

But we can grow much faster if its able to be used freely by businesses.
And the bigger the businesses that use it, the more quickly it will grow.

This is dangerous rhetoric which undermines the whole project. Need we remind people we are not investors in paypal 2.0 but a p2p currency that was designed to be self regulating and p2p outside the reach of corrupt banks, regulators and central planners?  We can fix technical mistakes along the way and even increase the blocksize if needed,  but one thing that cannot so easily be undone if whitewashing and corrupting Bitcoins primary principles in order to hastily become mainstream for some big payoff. If you believe we need to move quicker , than lets indeed work together and solve these problems in solidarity... but taking lazy shortcuts, especially ones that go against bitcoin's raison d'être, undermine everything.