.

[madjules007]

However, when you have the major hash power supporting an upgrade, then the miners of the minority chain in a hard fork can not mine without suffering huge loss on the mining income (too slow mining), similar to the minority miners in a soft fork suffering huge loss when all the mined blocks are orphaned.So hash power will give up the minority chain quickly thus basically achieve the same result: After a few days, no one would be able to extend that old chain in any meaningful time. This has happened on that "50 bitcoin forever" fork during the first reward halving

This, of course, assumes that nodes reconcile and agree upon a single, valid ledger. Even if a majority of hashing power supports Hard Fork A and a minority supports the Original Fork, the relative hashing power of the minority increases by the amount of hashing power that is mining Hard Fork A, since they are building on separate blockchains. For example:

Pre-fork:
Minority = 30% hashing power                                                  Majority = 70% hashing power

Post-fork:
30% minority = 3.333x relative hashing power (Original Fork)        70% majority = 1.429x relative hashing power (Hard Fork A)

In a hard fork situation where there is a significant disparity between the proportion of nodes enforcing different rule sets, it becomes a game of speculation for miners to choose to increase their relative hashing power and by a factor of how much? And the only way to choose is to judge -- based on node proportion -- which blockchain is likely to store value against their mining expenditure?

It's gonna be fun to watch -- I'll tell ya that.

I guess the minority chain will be end very quick, if they dare to setup an exchange, they will face a sell off of pre-fork coins counted in millions of bitcoin, the price of that coin will be crash to 0 in a couple of minutes. In fact I guess no exchange dare to setup an exchange for a minority chain coin. The incentive to mine the minority chain will almost be 0

Why would you assume that? The most important thing to consider here is that miners are working off incomplete information. They don't really know how many nodes are running what implementation as it's very easy to run fake nodes. And it's nodes -- not hashing power -- that determine the validity of a blockchain. It's a more diverse and interesting question than most realize. Miners are pretty centralized. I think this is why Gavin is targeting them: it's much easier to trick a small number of highly centralized mining pools than it is to trick thousands of node operators. And if the 2MB implementation is capable of triggering the rule change based on hashing power (at 75% or whatever bullshit "democratic" threshold Gavin & Co. come up with -- 51%, etc.), then everyone else will crumble in submission, right?

Well...the dozen nodes that I run won't. The definition of "majority" and "minority" chain can change in a heartbeat; that's just a matter of miners temporarily pointing their hashing power at one chain or the other. It doesn't matter what Coinbase and Bitstamp say now, or where Bitfury points its hashing power. What really matters are the nodes that determine block validity, and what proportion of them enforce the new fork's consensus rules. Because if a significant proportion of them enforce the old rules, we will have an irreparable chain fork. These irrelevant musings about how a majority of hashing power will render all other blockchains instantly dead are amusing but not very informative. If nodes do not approach consensus, miners will have to choose which fork to built on top of. But, which one? All of the Classic/XT rhetoric says that a temporary majority of hashing power will surely solve everything. But what the hell does that have to do with nodes? What proof do you have that Classic nodes will comprise a majority of nodes -- simply because Bitfury and a few mining pools upgraded (if that happens at all)? Well, if a majority of nodes continue to enforce the 1MB rule, you may find quickly that the "majority chain" isn't a very meaningful phrase. It's all about validity. Miners will point their hashing power at the longest, valid chain. If it isn't clear which one is the longest valid chain (due to no clear consensus among nodes), we will have multiple blockchains and this will be irreconcilable. IMO, the most likely outcome of that is for mining farms to shut down en masse and for difficulty adjustment to drop significantly, as miners cannot risk expending resources to build on potentially invalid blockchains. The market would likely never recover -- probably rightfully so. For this to happen would mean that the only mechanism to enforce rules within the bitcoin protocol was broken, and all it took was the prodding of a loud minority.

By the way, you know that pre-fork coins could also be sold off on majority-fork exchanges? Particularly because early adopters might be a little pissed off at the commit keys for bitcoin's dominant implementation being in the hands of a junior dev who wants to make the question of inflating the money supply a democratic one (jtoomim). How do you know who controls millions of pre-fork coins? You can be sure that I'll be dumping everything the second Toomim gets the keys to the kingdom, and I know several likeminded people.

[Lauda]

By the way, you know that pre-fork coins could also be sold off on majority-fork exchanges? Particularly because early adopters might be a little pissed off at the commit keys for bitcoin's dominant implementation being in the hands of a junior dev who wants to make the question of inflating the money supply a democratic one (jtoomim). How do you know who controls millions of pre-fork coins? You can be sure that I'll be dumping everything the second Toomim gets the keys to the kingdom, and I know several likeminded people.

This is the most likely outcome. Once we start selling everything and the price starts crashing, everyone will join in on it. I believe that If non-Core hard fork wins, major holders will sell BTC, driving price into the ground. 28113.50234684 Ƀ (84.89%)

[madjules007]

By the way, you know that pre-fork coins could also be sold off on majority-fork exchanges? Particularly because early adopters might be a little pissed off at the commit keys for bitcoin's dominant implementation being in the hands of a junior dev who wants to make the question of inflating the money supply a democratic one (jtoomim). How do you know who controls millions of pre-fork coins? You can be sure that I'll be dumping everything the second Toomim gets the keys to the kingdom, and I know several likeminded people.

This is the most likely outcome. Once we start selling everything and the price starts crashing, everyone will join in on it. I believe that If non-Core hard fork wins, major holders will sell BTC, driving price into the ground. 28113.50234684 Ƀ (84.89%)

Gavin said himself that he doesn't see bitcoin as a store of value, just a means of exchange like any other currency:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=204.msg1714#msg1714

This is my feeling about the loud-and-proud forkers. They're not very invested in bitcoin; they aren't big holders. They don't care about bitcoin's value proposition -- they don't bother to understand the limitations of the system and they don't care if they burn it to the ground. Those of us who have been investing in bitcoin for years don't take these issues lightly.

[Lauda]

Gavin said himself that he doesn't see bitcoin as a store of value, just a means of exchange like any other currency:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=204.msg1714#msg1714

Nice find though.

This is my feeling about the loud-and-proud forkers. They're not very invested in bitcoin; they aren't big holders. They don't care about bitcoin's value proposition -- they don't bother to understand the limitations of the system and they don't care if they burn it to the ground.

Correct. They either are unable to comprehend the limitations of the system or don't want to understand them. Cases of personal incredulity. You can't change the fact that Bitcoin was not designed to scale on a global level via the main layer, regardless of what you say or for which "side" you're arguing for. Technically "you could" if you don't want any users running nodes.

Those of us who have been investing in bitcoin for years don't take these issues lightly.

When the a Bitcoinocracy link appears they either ignore it or say that it's a bad way of measuring. Albeit it is one of the best ways of doing so and it is obvious that they aren't really some 'big holders'.

[Fatman3001]

By the way, you know that pre-fork coins could also be sold off on majority-fork exchanges? Particularly because early adopters might be a little pissed off at the commit keys for bitcoin's dominant implementation being in the hands of a junior dev who wants to make the question of inflating the money supply a democratic one (jtoomim). How do you know who controls millions of pre-fork coins? You can be sure that I'll be dumping everything the second Toomim gets the keys to the kingdom, and I know several likeminded people.

This is the most likely outcome. Once we start selling everything and the price starts crashing, everyone will join in on it. I believe that If non-Core hard fork wins, major holders will sell BTC, driving price into the ground. 28113.50234684 Ƀ (84.89%)

Gavin said himself that he doesn't see bitcoin as a store of value, just a means of exchange like any other currency:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=204.msg1714#msg1714

That's not what the post says. It didn't say that when Gmaxwell linked to it, and it doesn't say it now. I am really worried about the reading comprehension of Core supporters.

He clearly states that "[m]oney can be used as both a means of exchange and a store of value."

Nor does he imply that dollars, euros or yen aren't a store of value:

"If you use Bitcoins as a store of value... well, then you're a currency speculator, which can be highly profitable but is also highly risky.  Whether you're hoarding dollars or euros or yen or Bitcoins..."

Besides, that post isn't about defining Bitcoin, it's about how he planned to use Bitcoin back in 2010.

Nice find though

Oh! For crying out loud...

[bargainbin]

...
When the a Bitcoinocracy link appears they either ignore it or say that it's a bad way of measuring. Albeit it is one of the best ways of doing so and it is obvious that they aren't really some 'big holders'.

Bitcoinocracy link may be many things, but it's not a Bitcoin mechanism, not a part of the Bitcoin protocol, not one of Bitcoin's game mechanics for reaching consensus. Satoshi explicitly stated that CPU power is the only voting mechanism Bitcoin needs. My mom says we should lift max_block_size, but she's as relevant to Bitcoin as a pollster site.
Not even sure  why this needs to be said.

[johnyj]

Just heard that there is a consensus among chinese miners: They will not favor a change that moves transaction off-chain, since that will reduce their mining fee income 

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." Keep trying.

Learn some chinese first before you tell a lie

[sgbett]

Another power grab from a desperate developer that might just work, if he play the fiddle in the right manner. The trolls with the limited knowledge will jump onto this proposal without considering the possible consequences. We are driving around with a bus that are 50% to capacity and we are already calling for a double decker replacement.

The Core developers have put a lot of thought into SegWit and scaling for the future and loads of other advantages and we just want to take the first proposal, because we were told the 2 MB Block size increase would be the Nirvana.  

Your whole post is appeal to emotion.

Using the phrase "power grab" is an acknowledgement that you think the core team have some kind of power, and that it might be taken away, and that the other guys *want* power.

Nobody should have exclusive control over bitcoin. Even Gregory agrees with Gavin on that!

[johnyj]

I guess the minority chain will be end very quick, if they dare to setup an exchange, they will face a sell off of pre-fork coins counted in millions of bitcoin, the price of that coin will be crash to 0 in a couple of minutes. In fact I guess no exchange dare to setup an exchange for a minority chain coin. The incentive to mine the minority chain will almost be 0

Why would you assume that? The most important thing to consider here is that miners are working off incomplete information. They don't really know how many nodes are running what implementation as it's very easy to run fake nodes. And it's nodes -- not hashing power -- that determine the validity of a blockchain. It's a more diverse and interesting question than most realize. Miners are pretty centralized. I think this is why Gavin is targeting them: it's much easier to trick a small number of highly centralized mining pools than it is to trick thousands of node operators. And if the 2MB implementation is capable of triggering the rule change based on hashing power (at 75% or whatever bullshit "democratic" threshold Gavin & Co. come up with -- 51%, etc.), then everyone else will crumble in submission, right?

Well...the dozen nodes that I run won't. The definition of "majority" and "minority" chain can change in a heartbeat; that's just a matter of miners temporarily pointing their hashing power at one chain or the other. It doesn't matter what Coinbase and Bitstamp say now, or where Bitfury points its hashing power. What really matters are the nodes that determine block validity, and what proportion of them enforce the new fork's consensus rules. Because if a significant proportion of them enforce the old rules, we will have an irreparable chain fork. These irrelevant musings about how a majority of hashing power will render all other blockchains instantly dead are amusing but not very informative. If nodes do not approach consensus, miners will have to choose which fork to built on top of. But, which one? All of the Classic/XT rhetoric says that a temporary majority of hashing power will surely solve everything. But what the hell does that have to do with nodes? What proof do you have that Classic nodes will comprise a majority of nodes -- simply because Bitfury and a few mining pools upgraded (if that happens at all)? Well, if a majority of nodes continue to enforce the 1MB rule, you may find quickly that the "majority chain" isn't a very meaningful phrase. It's all about validity. Miners will point their hashing power at the longest, valid chain. If it isn't clear which one is the longest valid chain (due to no clear consensus among nodes), we will have multiple blockchains and this will be irreconcilable. IMO, the most likely outcome of that is for mining farms to shut down en masse and for difficulty adjustment to drop significantly, as miners cannot risk expending resources to build on potentially invalid blockchains. The market would likely never recover -- probably rightfully so. For this to happen would mean that the only mechanism to enforce rules within the bitcoin protocol was broken, and all it took was the prodding of a loud minority.

By the way, you know that pre-fork coins could also be sold off on majority-fork exchanges? Particularly because early adopters might be a little pissed off at the commit keys for bitcoin's dominant implementation being in the hands of a junior dev who wants to make the question of inflating the money supply a democratic one (jtoomim). How do you know who controls millions of pre-fork coins? You can be sure that I'll be dumping everything the second Toomim gets the keys to the kingdom, and I know several likeminded people.

If you still think in the terms of keys to the kingdom, then you don't understand how bitcoin works. Everything is voluntary here, if the rule does not serve for the public good, people will leave, not like in a sovereign country, people have to stay and being taxed

In fact, by design, when you command 51% hash power, you already can do anything to bitcoin network, so 51% or 75% really does not matter, this is the voting mechanism to solve the dispute in bitcoin network. And you can not really design a better way (a 2/3 rule will make a chain with 35% hash power intact forever thus the network forks into 2 chains permanently upon any small disagreement)

And this is reasonable, since miners are the biggest investor and infrastructure provider of this ecosystem, they are the policy makers. When you are making ASIC mining farms with millions of dollars, you surely deserve to have that power. If you are not satisfied with the rule, you can leave, but if you want to change it, show your hash power

[jonald_fyookball]

there is no HF without them at all regardless of how many people switch.

Hardforks are orthogonal with miners. If a miner is not complying with the rules of the network, then as far as the network is concerned they simply aren't miners. It was "classic"'s choice to gate their hardfork on miner support-- perhaps not a bad choice (though 75% is pretty much the worst possible threshold)-- but no force of nature made them do that.

The best reason for classic to use mining support as the trigger is, I believe, because most of the support for it is substantially fabrication and they believe it will be easy to trick the small number of miners needed to reach 75%, and by taking away 3/4 of the network hash-power they hope to coerce the users of Bitcoin to follow along. I think they greatly underestimate miners and the users of Bitcoin.

"Trick the miners"?

Oh you can't be serious.  Do you believe
miners aren't capable of making a rational
decision whether they want to support
2MB blocks or not?

As far as miners coercing users, I feel
this is a disingenuous argument.  Miners
can't meaningfully exist without users. 
If miners did something entirely unreasonable,
no one would use their coin.  Users are free
to support the network that they feel offers
the greatest overall value, not necessarily just
the highest hashing rate.

[Lauda]

"Trick the miners"?

Oh you can't be serious.  Do you believe
miners aren't capable of making a rational
decision whether they want to support
2MB blocks or not?

Miners do not really care much about it as long as the system is functioning. Trust me, I was in the business as well. Most of the people who were mining back in the GPU/ASIC days had very little knowledge about the exact workings of the protocol. I doubt that much has changed.

Learn some chinese first before you tell a lie

I don't need to; you're lying.

Using the phrase "power grab" is an acknowledgement that you think the core team have some kind of power, and that it might be taken away, and that the other guys *want* power.

It is nothing else but a power grab. The Core team technically has control over the main Bitcoin implementation (most used/developed right now). Classic is trying to take this place by a contentious HF. How is this not a "power grab"?

[jonald_fyookball]

"Trick the miners"?

Oh you can't be serious.  Do you believe
miners aren't capable of making a rational
decision whether they want to support
2MB blocks or not?

Miners do not really care much about it as long as the system is functioning. Trust me, I was in the business as well. Most of the people who were mining back in the GPU/ASIC days had very little knowledge about the exact workings of the protocol. I doubt that much has changed.

Like anything else, if they do not have knowledge of the protocol then they must decide which technical experts to listen to.  There are qualified experts who want an immediate block size increase and others who don't.   They can make up their own mind.  No one is being tricked.

[Lauda]

Like anything else, if they do not have knowledge of the protocol then they must decide which technical experts to listen to.  There are qualified experts who want an immediate block size increase and others who don't.   They can make up their own mind.  No one is being tricked.

'Not being tricked' and 'trying to trick' someone are two different statements. If you knew the real story behind Gavin's departure then you might understand why, albeit that's not really public. However, there are only a small amount of 'experts' who want 2 MB. You can exclude Garzik from this list though, he wants it for different reasons than Gavin (e.g. experience with HF's).

[David Rabahy]

Hmm, if jumping up from 1MB to 2MB is controversial then perhaps we should try incrementing to 1.1MB or something just to get our feet wet.  If we like it then we can try 1.2MB and so on.  Waiting until the backlog is huge is not wise.  The tension between full blocks = higher fees and barriers to adoption is certainly interesting.  Personally I think we should favor adoption for now and defer cranking up fees until a little later.

[madjules007]

By the way, you know that pre-fork coins could also be sold off on majority-fork exchanges? Particularly because early adopters might be a little pissed off at the commit keys for bitcoin's dominant implementation being in the hands of a junior dev who wants to make the question of inflating the money supply a democratic one (jtoomim). How do you know who controls millions of pre-fork coins? You can be sure that I'll be dumping everything the second Toomim gets the keys to the kingdom, and I know several likeminded people.

This is the most likely outcome. Once we start selling everything and the price starts crashing, everyone will join in on it. I believe that If non-Core hard fork wins, major holders will sell BTC, driving price into the ground. 28113.50234684 Ƀ (84.89%)

Gavin said himself that he doesn't see bitcoin as a store of value, just a means of exchange like any other currency:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=204.msg1714#msg1714

That's not what the post says. It didn't say that when Gmaxwell linked to it, and it doesn't say it now. I am really worried about the reading comprehension of Core supporters.

Wat?

I plan on using Bitcoins as a convenient, very-low-cost means of exchange.

I don't plan on saving a significant number of Bitcoins as a store of value.

He then goes on to compare hoarding bitcoin to

hoarding dollars or euros or yen

Some people, like Gavin, don't care about bitcoin's value proposition. They just see it as a payment channel. That's okay, but I strongly disagree.

[madjules007]

I guess the minority chain will be end very quick, if they dare to setup an exchange, they will face a sell off of pre-fork coins counted in millions of bitcoin, the price of that coin will be crash to 0 in a couple of minutes. In fact I guess no exchange dare to setup an exchange for a minority chain coin. The incentive to mine the minority chain will almost be 0

Why would you assume that? The most important thing to consider here is that miners are working off incomplete information. They don't really know how many nodes are running what implementation as it's very easy to run fake nodes. And it's nodes -- not hashing power -- that determine the validity of a blockchain. It's a more diverse and interesting question than most realize. Miners are pretty centralized. I think this is why Gavin is targeting them: it's much easier to trick a small number of highly centralized mining pools than it is to trick thousands of node operators. And if the 2MB implementation is capable of triggering the rule change based on hashing power (at 75% or whatever bullshit "democratic" threshold Gavin & Co. come up with -- 51%, etc.), then everyone else will crumble in submission, right?

Well...the dozen nodes that I run won't. The definition of "majority" and "minority" chain can change in a heartbeat; that's just a matter of miners temporarily pointing their hashing power at one chain or the other. It doesn't matter what Coinbase and Bitstamp say now, or where Bitfury points its hashing power. What really matters are the nodes that determine block validity, and what proportion of them enforce the new fork's consensus rules. Because if a significant proportion of them enforce the old rules, we will have an irreparable chain fork. These irrelevant musings about how a majority of hashing power will render all other blockchains instantly dead are amusing but not very informative. If nodes do not approach consensus, miners will have to choose which fork to built on top of. But, which one? All of the Classic/XT rhetoric says that a temporary majority of hashing power will surely solve everything. But what the hell does that have to do with nodes? What proof do you have that Classic nodes will comprise a majority of nodes -- simply because Bitfury and a few mining pools upgraded (if that happens at all)? Well, if a majority of nodes continue to enforce the 1MB rule, you may find quickly that the "majority chain" isn't a very meaningful phrase. It's all about validity. Miners will point their hashing power at the longest, valid chain. If it isn't clear which one is the longest valid chain (due to no clear consensus among nodes), we will have multiple blockchains and this will be irreconcilable. IMO, the most likely outcome of that is for mining farms to shut down en masse and for difficulty adjustment to drop significantly, as miners cannot risk expending resources to build on potentially invalid blockchains. The market would likely never recover -- probably rightfully so. For this to happen would mean that the only mechanism to enforce rules within the bitcoin protocol was broken, and all it took was the prodding of a loud minority.

By the way, you know that pre-fork coins could also be sold off on majority-fork exchanges? Particularly because early adopters might be a little pissed off at the commit keys for bitcoin's dominant implementation being in the hands of a junior dev who wants to make the question of inflating the money supply a democratic one (jtoomim). How do you know who controls millions of pre-fork coins? You can be sure that I'll be dumping everything the second Toomim gets the keys to the kingdom, and I know several likeminded people.

If you still think in the terms of keys to the kingdom, then you don't understand how bitcoin works. Everything is voluntary here, if the rule does not serve for the public good, people will leave, not like in a sovereign country, people have to stay and being taxed

In fact, by design, when you command 51% hash power, you already can do anything to bitcoin network, so 51% or 75% really does not matter, this is the voting mechanism to solve the dispute in bitcoin network. And you can not really design a better way (a 2/3 rule will make a chain with 35% hash power intact forever thus the network forks into 2 chains permanently upon any small disagreement)

And this is reasonable, since miners are the biggest investor and infrastructure provider of this ecosystem, they are the policy makers. When you are making ASIC mining farms with millions of dollars, you surely deserve to have that power. If you are not satisfied with the rule, you can leave, but if you want to change it, show your hash power

All you've done is twist "keys to the kingdom" to write a whole response that ignores everything I've written. I didn't imply that bitcoin was not voluntary; I implied that the intent of this contentious hard fork is to remove Core's commit access to the dominant software implementation.

Your response that "when you command 51% hash power, you already can do anything to bitcoin network" shows that you ignored my post completely. Hash power is only one part of the equation, and where it is directed can change very quickly. A majority of hash power doesn't mean you can do anything to the bitcoin network. That is entirely dependent on the software node operators run, and whether most nodes recognize the blocks that this hash power is finding as valid:

Well...the dozen nodes that I run won't. The definition of "majority" and "minority" chain can change in a heartbeat; that's just a matter of miners temporarily pointing their hashing power at one chain or the other. It doesn't matter what Coinbase and Bitstamp say now, or where Bitfury points its hashing power. What really matters are the nodes that determine block validity, and what proportion of them enforce the new fork's consensus rules. Because if a significant proportion of them enforce the old rules, we will have an irreparable chain fork. These irrelevant musings about how a majority of hashing power will render all other blockchains instantly dead are amusing but not very informative. If nodes do not approach consensus, miners will have to choose which fork to built on top of. But, which one? All of the Classic/XT rhetoric says that a temporary majority of hashing power will surely solve everything. But what the hell does that have to do with nodes? What proof do you have that Classic nodes will comprise a majority of nodes -- simply because Bitfury and a few mining pools upgraded (if that happens at all)? Well, if a majority of nodes continue to enforce the 1MB rule, you may find quickly that the "majority chain" isn't a very meaningful phrase. It's all about validity. Miners will point their hashing power at the longest, valid chain. If it isn't clear which one is the longest valid chain (due to no clear consensus among nodes), we will have multiple blockchains and this will be irreconcilable.

Could you explain why 75% is better than consensus? Because you're saying it, but you're not proving it in any way.

Miners are nothing without a decentralized network of nodes. Miners are at the whims of nodes. You can call them the "biggest investors" and therefore the "policy makers" but bitcoin is not governed like a country. Running an ASIC farm doesn't give you any rights over what node software I run. And an army of nodes enforcing bitcoin's rules (including a 1MB block size limit) is here to tell you that they do not give a shit about the opinions of miners. If there is a question of multiple blockchains, miners are squeezed by economic incentive far quicker than are nodes. You won't be squeezing my nodes.

[madjules007]

Just heard that there is a consensus among chinese miners: They will not favor a change that moves transaction off-chain, since that will reduce their mining fee income 

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." Keep trying.

Learn some chinese first before you tell a lie

Provide some evidence so we can verify your claims, please.

[madjules007]

there is no HF without them at all regardless of how many people switch.

Hardforks are orthogonal with miners. If a miner is not complying with the rules of the network, then as far as the network is concerned they simply aren't miners. It was "classic"'s choice to gate their hardfork on miner support-- perhaps not a bad choice (though 75% is pretty much the worst possible threshold)-- but no force of nature made them do that.

The best reason for classic to use mining support as the trigger is, I believe, because most of the support for it is substantially fabrication and they believe it will be easy to trick the small number of miners needed to reach 75%, and by taking away 3/4 of the network hash-power they hope to coerce the users of Bitcoin to follow along. I think they greatly underestimate miners and the users of Bitcoin.

"Trick the miners"?

Oh you can't be serious.  Do you believe
miners aren't capable of making a rational
decision whether they want to support
2MB blocks or not?

As far as miners coercing users, I feel
this is a disingenuous argument.  Miners
can't meaningfully exist without users. 
If miners did something entirely unreasonable,
no one would use their coin.  Users are free
to support the network that they feel offers
the greatest overall value, not necessarily just
the highest hashing rate.

In regards to my own posts above (I'll let gmaxwell speak for himself), it wasn't about whether miners are capable of being rational -- the implication was that a small group of highly centralized pool operators are easy to persuade to do what you want (in hopes that they will influence node operators). That's much easier than persuading thousands of node operators to do what you want. And that's the great danger of a contentious hard fork. Getting a majority of miners to temporarily point their hash power somewhere is much simpler than getting the majority of node operators to upgrade their software, particularly when the consensus rule changes it makes are controversial.

[Fatman3001]

By the way, you know that pre-fork coins could also be sold off on majority-fork exchanges? Particularly because early adopters might be a little pissed off at the commit keys for bitcoin's dominant implementation being in the hands of a junior dev who wants to make the question of inflating the money supply a democratic one (jtoomim). How do you know who controls millions of pre-fork coins? You can be sure that I'll be dumping everything the second Toomim gets the keys to the kingdom, and I know several likeminded people.

This is the most likely outcome. Once we start selling everything and the price starts crashing, everyone will join in on it. I believe that If non-Core hard fork wins, major holders will sell BTC, driving price into the ground. 28113.50234684 Ƀ (84.89%)

Gavin said himself that he doesn't see bitcoin as a store of value, just a means of exchange like any other currency:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=204.msg1714#msg1714

That's not what the post says. It didn't say that when Gmaxwell linked to it, and it doesn't say it now. I am really worried about the reading comprehension of Core supporters.

Wat?

I plan on using Bitcoins as a convenient, very-low-cost means of exchange.

I don't plan on saving a significant number of Bitcoins as a store of value.

He then goes on to compare hoarding bitcoin to

hoarding dollars or euros or yen

Some people, like Gavin, don't care about bitcoin's value proposition. They just see it as a payment channel. That's okay, but I strongly disagree.

Ok, it looks like part of the problem is that you don't see money as a store of value. Unless you didn't know that money is commonly thought to be a store of value it is very disingenuous of you to just assume that Gavin Andresen doesn't see money as a store of value. Especially when it is right there in his text. And even more so since I quoted that part and you cut it out in your reply. I still hope It is your reading comprehension that is at fault. If not, then it is your character.

[plorph]

Hmm, if jumping up from 1MB to 2MB is controversial then perhaps we should try incrementing to 1.1MB or something just to get our feet wet.  If we like it then we can try 1.2MB and so on.  Waiting until the backlog is huge is not wise.  The tension between full blocks = higher fees and barriers to adoption is certainly interesting.  Personally I think we should favor adoption for now and defer cranking up fees until a little later.

I like that. Anyone have thoughts?