Wondering out loud: Which should Chinese miners support - Core, Classic or another?

[Eric Mu]

Actually, I think more people in China are coming to realise that they may have nobody to blame but themselves.

We in the West are coming to the same conclusion.

And my company, HaoBTC, has been contemplating sponsoring a core developer recently.

My bet is that Chinese miners will sponsor Luke-jr so that he can change the PoW to put all the Chinese miners out of business.

It really seems that Chinese miners kowtow to those who show contempt for them, and they show contempt for anybody who listens to them and tries to take their concerns into account.

Do they know that in the West that's considered shameful behavior?

Case in point. Nationality does matter after all.

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[Eric Mu]

Do they know that in the West that's considered shameful behavior?

Do you really think they actually give a "rat's ass" about what westerners think?

(hint - I live in China and no they don't)

Hi CIYAM,

If you ever come near Zhongguancun area in Beijing, I'd like to buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brain.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Do they know that in the West that's considered shameful behavior?

Do you really think they actually give a "rat's ass" about what westerners think?

(hint - I live in China and no they don't)

Hi CIYAM,

If you ever come near Zhongguancun area in Beijing, I'd like to buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brain.

About that.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1086875.0;all

[af_newbie]

...
Do you need to be retaught the same lesson every year, when the latest shiny new potential hard fork declares its noble intention to push aside all contention and declare itself The New Bitcoin?

Aren't you assuming the cypherpunks who built and maintain the systems you presume to attack won't wreck Classic in self-defense?

+1

I'm sure scripts are already tested, ready to go...

Denying Bitcoin's anarchist/libertarian roots is like denying nature.

Bitcoin is and always should be "stick it to the man/free the people" typo of currency.

People like Gavin and Garzik are just sour grapes.  How many commits did Garzik do exactly?
Why you need bitcoin in space?  He is preparing for Armageddon? I'd worry about running it on dry land first

Anyway, I hope all this saga will be behind us soon and Gavin/Garzik types will leave bitcoin to run their "Bitcoin Classic Odyssey" in space or on some other distant planet.  Never to be heard from again.

[CIYAM]

If you ever come near Zhongguancun area in Beijing, I'd like to buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brain.

I don't live in Beijing now but if you travel around 500 kms south then let me know and maybe we can meet up.

[watashi-kokoto]

.....

Certain topics are taboo on the r/btc board
Post vanished within minutes after posting

[iCEBREAKER]

Some believe that the Chinese community's interest being underrepresented at the level of core development is much due to the fact that as a whole they have been myopically focusing on making money and not paying enough attention to protocol maintenance. As a result, they have almost no say and are little more than merely audience.

Please elaborate on what you mean by "the Chinese community's interest."

The three things I've heard about China-specific BTC interests relate to verification, bandwidth, propagation, and GFC latency issues.

- 20MB Gavinblocks are too big/slow for Chinese miners (and were vetoed by f2pool, etc.)

- 8MB XT blocks are lucky, because of some pun or superstition

- SPV mining was being done in unsafe/invalid ways by some Chinese miners, resulting in slightly more chaos and drama than usual

Other than geography and government related connectivity issues, I don't understand how a neutral protocol like Bitcoin would have any kind of nation-specific interests.

I also don't understand how you can arrive at general conclusions about a group so large, and thus full of conflicting and competing opinions and interests, as the Chinese Bitcoin community (which must number in the thousands or millions).

Are you doing the same thing as some big-blockers here in the west, which is to presume to speak for the majority even though no vote has been taken?

[Eric Mu]

Some believe that the Chinese community's interest being underrepresented at the level of core development is much due to the fact that as a whole they have been myopically focusing on making money and not paying enough attention to protocol maintenance. As a result, they have almost no say and are little more than merely audience.

Please elaborate on what you mean by "the Chinese community's interest."

The three things I've heard about China-specific BTC interests relate to verification, bandwidth, propagation, and GFC latency issues.

- 20MB Gavinblocks are too big/slow for Chinese miners (and were vetoed by f2pool, etc.)

- 8MB XT blocks are lucky, because of some pun or superstition

- SPV mining was being done in unsafe/invalid ways by some Chinese miners, resulting in slightly more chaos and drama than usual

Other than geography and government related connectivity issues, I don't understand how a neutral protocol like Bitcoin would have any kind of nation-specific interests.

I also don't understand how you can arrive at general conclusions about a group so large, and thus full of conflicting and competing opinions and interests, as the Chinese Bitcoin community (which must number in the thousands or millions).

Are you doing the same thing as some big-blockers here in the west, which is to presume to speak for the majority even though no vote has been taken?

But you are aware that it is almost impossible to speak without some level of generalisation, aren't you? Sure, I by very definition can't have perfect knowledge of all people who identify themselves as Chinese.
But let's not get too philosophical.
What prompted me to post this topic is that I went to a BTC conference in Beijing last week - there were about 60 people, all Chinese with exception of two who don't speak the Chinese language. I assume that the rest are representative of the Chinese to some degree?
And I find that their views are echoed again and again by the Chinese articles and forum posts that I read on daily basis, which reinforce my impression that these are indeed what the Chinese believe.
Also, I work at a Chinese office in Zhongguancun district, Beijing and sometimes, have meals with them, and I sometimes shares a dormitory with some Chinese colleagues - paid for by the company. I assume they are representative in a way too?
If that doesn't matter, I lived three months in a Chinese Bitcoin data centre in Western Sichuan and interviewed scores of people when I write for some Bitcoin media outlets.
If all these don't qualify me to speak for the Chinese according to your standard, then fine, just ignore me.
  

[iCEBREAKER]

In Bitcoin, only the code matters and the protocol is nationality-neutral.

I think it is a bit disingenuous to argue that nationalities don't matter as many western bitcoiners, including prominent ones, cite Chin as a factor in their assessment of the success of Bitcoin or lack thereof.
It is almost like to say that on the level of atoms, there is no sexuality or race, therefore the society should heed nothing but laws of physics.
I agree that code itself doesn't recognise nationality, but it is not only the code, but people who are involved with it.

The code is everything!  We did not come to Bitcoin because of satisfaction with our governments, etc.  

http://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html

Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. ...

We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy ...

We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any. ...

Cypherpunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to defend privacy, and ... we're going to write it. ...

So I repeat: In Bitcoin, only the code matters and the protocol is nationality-neutral.

All of the rest is just noise and context.

I recognize that the noise and context exist, but deny they matter more than Bitcoin's code and neutral protocol, because talking about Bitcoin does not make you part of Bitcoin.

Of course China, as the world's largest economy, matters in speculative discussion about "assessment of the success of Bitcoin or lack thereof."

But the chattering masses' idle ramblings about Bitcoin's fiat exchange rate have nothing to do with critical engineering decisions like max block size.

[ATguy]

The 2nd half of the Scaling Bitcoin conference was China, where many photos were taken of the world's biggest miners sharing a stage.  So I don't see how Chinese Bitcoiners have "little say in the matter" of scaling.

But as one of the Chinese panelists said at the event, they felt like merely an audience who are asked to sit there to choose between options given to them.

Please explain the perceived benefit of 2MB over 1MB blocks at this time.  Why are they, right now, superior in a cost vs. benefit analysis?

The perceive benefit varies. For some, it is that Bitcoin will continue to function as a payment network for individual users rather than a settlement network where only large transactions can be processed cost-efficiently. It is a modest change. It introduces less complexity. It gives SigWit more time.
Also, some believe that it is a test of Core team's willingness to listen to them. If they don't make what appears to be a small compromise, the Chinese fear that they will unlikely to do so in the future.

Some believe that the Chinese community's interest being underrepresented at the level of core development is much due to the fact that as a whole they have been myopically focusing on making money and not paying enough attention to protocol maintenance. As a result, they have almost no say and are little more than merely audience.

The way you repply gives me a lot of confidence the miners acting in best longterm interest of Bitcoin, at least haobtc. Any way biggest miners + biggest Bitcoin services could form partnersip where their views about longterm future of Bitcoin should be actually considered as a Bitcoin roadmap and any individual or corporate core developer going against such roadmap would just risk losing development time because economic Bitcoin majority would likely not merge such work in their mantained repo? I mean with today situation giving ultimate power over Bitcoin to just few, although talented coders, is all I know about against how succesfull product is created and delivered - they just excell in coding, probably nothing more notably - seems more like recipe for longterm fail at least for miners + Bitcoin services.

[CIYAM]

@eric - If you do have a potential team of developers then I would be happy to work between them and Bitcoin Core.

[hdbuck]

In Bitcoin, only the code matters and the protocol is nationality-neutral.

I think it is a bit disingenuous to argue that nationalities don't matter as many western bitcoiners, including prominent ones, cite Chin as a factor in their assessment of the success of Bitcoin or lack thereof.
It is almost like to say that on the level of atoms, there is no sexuality or race, therefore the society should heed nothing but laws of physics.
I agree that code itself doesn't recognise nationality, but it is not only the code, but people who are involved with it.

The code is everything!  We did not come to Bitcoin because of satisfaction with our governments, etc.  

http://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html

Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. ...

We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy ...

We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any. ...

Cypherpunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to defend privacy, and ... we're going to write it. ...

So I repeat: In Bitcoin, only the code matters and the protocol is nationality-neutral.

All of the rest is just noise and context.

I recognize that the noise and context exist, but deny they matter more than Bitcoin's code and neutral protocol, because talking about Bitcoin does not make you part of Bitcoin.

Of course China, as the world's largest economy, matters in speculative discussion about "assessment of the success of Bitcoin or lack thereof."

But the chattering masses idle ramblings about Bitcoin's fiat exchange rate have nothing to do with critical engineering decisions like max block size.

Wherever you come from, whatever you do in bitcoin, you stfu and abide to the code.

Thereof in absence of consensus, status quo prevails.

[watashi-kokoto]

I would very much like to hear your views.

This post is my opinion.

The hard-fork / blocks are full narrative seems to be U.S social media specific.

There could be events like western media articles (Remember `Hearn quit` and `Bitcoin is Dead`). This could affect the demand.

But other events can have a decisive influence. Russia and E.U deployed bail-in legislative, if bank runs occur this could lift Bitcoin.

To comment on the original issue, I feel that Chinese miners need to take this situation into account.

What Chinese could do is to mine smaller blocks or upgrade the spam filters. This could debunk the "Blocks are Full" myth.

For example you could deploy 0.5 MB blocks (block size decrease) during the 1.4.2016 fun day. You could spam Dogecoin and release fun articles that people are moving to Dogecoin. The core team could release Block Size Decrease to 0.5 MB BIP.

[hdbuck]

The core team could release Block Size Decrease to 0.5 MB BIP.

I'll have some of that.

Be selective instead of this cheap "saving the world" tourette syndrome.

Be Honeybadger. Say no to inflation.

[iCEBREAKER]

Some believe that the Chinese community's interest being underrepresented at the level of core development is much due to the fact that as a whole they have been myopically focusing on making money and not paying enough attention to protocol maintenance. As a result, they have almost no say and are little more than merely audience.

Please elaborate on what you mean by "the Chinese community's interest."

The three things I've heard about China-specific BTC interests relate to verification, bandwidth, propagation, and GFC latency issues.

- 20MB Gavinblocks are too big/slow for Chinese miners (and were vetoed by f2pool, etc.)

- 8MB XT blocks are lucky, because of some pun or superstition

- SPV mining was being done in unsafe/invalid ways by some Chinese miners, resulting in slightly more chaos and drama than usual

Other than geography and government related connectivity issues, I don't understand how a neutral protocol like Bitcoin would have any kind of nation-specific interests.

I also don't understand how you can arrive at general conclusions about a group so large, and thus full of conflicting and competing opinions and interests, as the Chinese Bitcoin community (which must number in the thousands or millions).

Are you doing the same thing as some big-blockers here in the west, which is to presume to speak for the majority even though no vote has been taken?

But you are aware that it is almost impossible to speak without some level of generalisation, aren't you? Sure, I by very definition can't have perfect knowledge of all people who identify themselves as Chinese.
But let's not get too philosophical.
What prompted me to post this topic is that I went to a BTC conference in Beijing last week - there were about 60 people, all Chinese with exception of two who don't speak the Chinese language. I assume that the rest are representative of the Chinese to some degree?
And I find that their views are echoed again and again by the Chinese articles and forum posts that I read on daily basis, which reinforce my impression that these are indeed what the Chinese believe.
Also, I work at a Chinese office in Zhongguancun district, Beijing and sometimes, have meals with them, and I sometimes shares a dormitory with some Chinese colleagues - paid for by the company. I assume they are representative in a way too?
If that doesn't matter, I lived three months in a Chinese Bitcoin data centre in Western Sichuan and interviewed scores of people when I write for some Bitcoin media outlets.
If all these don't qualify me to speak for the Chinese according to your standard, then fine, just ignore me.
  

Ignoring you would not allow us to learn from each other, so I won't do that.

I am happy and thankful you are reporting on what you hear and see in the Chinese Bitcoin ecosystem.

But your experiences, although very interesting, are anecdotal and do not qualify you to be the Chinese Ambassador to Bitcoin.   

In the very large group of Chinese Bitcoiners, there are just as many different opinions as we find in American Bitcoiners or European Bitcoiners.

I don't presume to appoint myself American Ambassador to Bitcoin, because I think the idea of bringing old-fashioned nationalistic nonsense into a better future (based on a neutral protocol for value transfer) is silly.  And if you haven't noticed, we in the West love to disagree with each other!   

Maybe we have missed an important unique feature of Chinese Bitcoiners, that they may for cultural reasons be less likely to speak up for an opinion perceived to be unpopular.  Do you feel there may be truth in that hypothesis?  Have you met any outspoken Chinese small-blockers/Core supporters/Blockstream fanboys, do they simply not exist, or are they uncomfortable expressing disagreement with the majority?

[iCEBREAKER]

And my company, HaoBTC, has been contemplating sponsoring a core developer recently.

My bet is that Chinese miners will sponsor Luke-jr so that he can change the PoW to put all the Chinese miners out of business.

It really seems that Chinese miners kowtow to those who show contempt for them, and they show contempt for anybody who listens to them and tries to take their concerns into account.

Do they know that in the West that's considered shameful behavior?

Case in point. Nationality does matter after all.

There was no point in fatbitcoinfan's post.  He was only being a rude sarcastic troll, by making fun of Luke-jr and your excellent idea to sponsor a core dev.


If you are convinced nationality does matter to Bitcoin's code and protocol, what should we expect from your core dev?

What could possibly make Bitcoin's neutral code and protocol 'more Chinese?'  Just the dev's nation of origin, or some new feature like Lucky 8MB blocks?

That line of thought makes no sense to me, especially given the Cypherpunk Manifesto's emphasis on code, privacy, and individualism.

I don't see how your emphasis on national identity is compatible with it.

Since we desire privacy, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible. In most cases personal identity is not salient. When I purchase a magazine at a store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am. When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, my provider need not know to whom I am speaking or what I am saying or what others are saying to me; my provider only need know how to get the message there and how much I owe them in fees. When my identity is revealed by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no privacy. I cannot here selectively reveal myself; I must always reveal myself.

Therefore, privacy in an open society requires anonymous transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. An anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. An anonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of privacy.

The personal/national identities of our fellow Bitcoiners should not matter, and it's not any of our business to violate their privacy.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

It's a legitimate concern. When's the last time you read a BIP submitted in Chinese? If socio-economic majority means anything...

Edit: I don't post in Technical Discussions for a reason. But I don't think this is one.

[Fatman3001]

It is helpful to clarify and confirm that some of the agitation for 2MB is merely for the sake of "a test of Core team's willingness to listen" (wherein "listen" actually means "obey").

A contentious hard fork is not a "a small compromise" because it puts the entire system at risk of catastrophic consensus failure (and will almost certainly crash the price).

The 'you have to give me something because otherwise you're uncompromising and I will pout' negotiation tactic will not work on Bitcoin engineering decisions.

Our Honey Badger really does not care about hurt feelings from pushy token-demanding nobodies (of any nationality).

If Honey Badger starts negotiating and compromising simply to appease emotionally needy peoples' pleas for a pat on the head, the Bitcoin experiment ends in failure.

I hope this helps you understand why a 2MB increase is not as easy as throwing a bone to a barking dog.

I thought that the core devs wanted to listen to "the community"? Now you are telling me that yes, they may condensed themselves but whatever you Chinese may have to say, it is of no consequence and should have zero effect on the outcome because we know better? Excuse my poor English but this strikes me as a bit condescending.

FYI, Eric, iCEBREAKER is not a core dev.

I see.

Actually, I think more people in China are coming to realise that they may have nobody to blame but themselves.  And my company, HaoBTC, has been contemplating sponsoring a core developer recently.

What do you mean?

Some believe that the Chinese community's interest being underrepresented at the level of core development is much due to the fact that as a whole they have been myopically focusing on making money and not paying enough attention to protocol maintenance. As a result, they have almost no say and are little more than merely audience.

Sponsoring one or several developers sounds like a very good investment. I've noticed resentment towards the Chinese Bitcoin community for not contributing enough to development. There also seems to be a need for more communication channels between the Chinese Bitcoin community and the rest of the Bitcoin community. China is very important to Bitcoin and the lack of communication and understanding is creating friction where there doesn't need to be.

One common phenomenon is the conflation, in the minds of bitcoiners outside of China, of Chinese Bitcoin companies with the Chinese government. This is important, since the large majority of mining is located in China and Chinese pools are seen as a potential point of failure for Bitcoin as a decentralized system. The worry that the Chinese government could decide to interfere with Bitcoin, in a similar way as it interfered with Chinese exchanges in 2013/2014, needs to be addressed. And the initiative should come from the Chinese Bitcoin community. Making crucial Chinese business actors more visible in the community and seeing them engage with the community like you're doing now is one very important step. Another is to respect the unease among bitcoiners worldwide about the theoretical potential for Chinese government interference by taking some solid steps to improve the decentralization of Bitcoin mining by, in the short to medium term, sending hashing power to established and trusted non-chinese pools so that Chinese pools don't hold a majority; in the long term,  create joint ventures outside of China and get more HW physically outside of Chinese jurisdiction. You and your Chinese colleagues might see other solutions, but it's important for the future of Bitcoin that it doesn't have to trust the "good will" of any nations government. Solving, or at least mitigating, this problem/worry would go a long way to further China's influence in the Bitcoin community. And with the potential for Bitcoin in China it would be a disservice to the entire Bitcoin community if China wasn't heard.

Best Regards

Beware: iCEBREAKER is a bully. His main goal is normally to disrupt dialogue.

[watashi-kokoto]

 BlindMayorBitcorn & Fatman3001 are shills

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

BlindMayorBitcorn & Fatman3001 are shills

That's a half-truth.