Bitcoin: The Digital Kill Switch

[AnonyMint]

No one will be hurt by this. The bitcoiners are already being rewarded. This is all open. Everybody can see what is coming and plan accordingly (if it comes).

More markets are better for all of us.

If someone can implement my idea before I can, then great! Let them win.

Can someone donate a great domain name in exchange for something (permalink in the About?)?

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[nwbitcoin]

Could you retract the nonsense claim? That isn't the way to have a civil debate. I never said "instantly a zero-sum game". You are putting words in my mouth which I never wrote or argued for.

Please go re-read my prior posts. I explained that I do not expect the threat to come suddenly. I expect it to come so slowly that you will not resist, because you will not even perceive it as a threat. And by the time you do, it will be too late.

Your point essentially is that P2P currencies won't overtake all commerce, or that not all P2P currencies will have this flaw that Bitcoin has. Well I hope so too! That is why I am here to say we need to make sure that happens.

So what is our disagreement? You think it will just happen naturally that cartels won't push Bitcoin? Do you not see what is happening now? First mover advantage is going heavily to Bitcoin (and Litecoin), both of which have this same design flaw.

I happen to believe that in 20 years or less, all transactions will be settled by P2P currency payment systems.

I don't agree that it will be easy to launch another P2P currency after one becomes dominant and heavily used by the general population and institutional investors. It is easy now, because there is a great unfilled demand. Once the demand has been filled, you can't replace.

Do you know how difficult it has been for us to replace Microsoft Windows and Microsoft's monopoly cartel? It took us 2 decades.

We would have never gotten there if not for the disruptive technology of the internet, server, and mobile Android phone (Linux).

But in currencies, you don't get another chance. P2P is it. After that, there won't be another paradigm shift opportunity in currencies for a loooonnng time probably.

The masses won't switch after their wallets are set in Bitcoin. They hate technology hassles. They just want it to work and give them their junk.

Firstly, I don't retract my opinion - if you are offended, tough.

Your whole approach seems top down, and while it makes it easy to create a strategy, reality is different.

You also are conveniently forgetting every technology which has failed even though it had 'cartel' support.

For instance, nobody replaced Windows. It was the market that changed, with lots of little innovations from individuals and small groups like those that got bitcoin off the ground and Microsoft couldn't keep up.  The same thing will happen to Google, and Apple, and bitcoin (eventually!)

As for this worry of not being able to get rid of currencies, you have obviously forgotten the Euro experiment in Europe where 17 currencies were deleted and a new one introduced in a weekend.  With full political support, anything is possible! That is also true in reverse!

Finally, you have a very off putting dismissive attitude to the public's ability to make a choice. The public change things all the time, in fact the whole concept of the free market depends on it!

If people feel that the advantages of using bitcoin is being compromised by some big forces, they might do something about it, or maybe they won't, however, without actually offering a solution, your post is a bit meaningless.  

On the other hand, if you had started the thread with 'there are some problems brewing for bitcoin, and here is my solution..' you might have got a fairer hearing

The fact is that good enough is actually all you need, and at the moment, bitcoin is almost good enough - it just needs to be more public friendly to hit the mainstream! That is something I am working on and when I'm ready, I will be posting my solution!

[TransaDox]

That is not entirely correct (partially yes). Difficulty will scale up accordingly. But I do agree the ASICs hardware cost now far exceeds the electricity cost. This may change as ASICs are converted to IC chips that are mass produced.

My design uses hard-disk space, which is much more reliable to predict. We won't have these phase-shift changes causing miners to waste capital in a direction that becomes obsolete. The Moore's Law for hard-disks is very predictable.

I want miners to be healthy. I want every user to be able to mine some. In the design of a P2P currency, you can't neglect a part of your ecosystem. Investment requires predictability.

You are missing the point. Difficulty is irrelevant. It just takes longer to glean bitcoins as difficulty increases. As the electricity is free (and you have already sold some bitcoins to recoup the initial outlay), you can just leave it switched on without incurring electricity costs. The issue becomes is it more profitable to mine bitcoins or sell the juice to the grid.

But this is an aside to your main points (it was just a comment to the poster about electricity).

More in line with your OP...........

I find the 51% very troubling. As I pointed out in this thread a 51% hashing power takeover has already taken place and was been proven to be effective. In this case the "cartel" was the bitcoin community, but it might not have been.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I am not talking about a large debasement. Very slow similar to gold. Set in the protocol, nobody can manipulate it.

FYI:
New gold is mined at about the rate of 2.5% per annum, based on existing mined stock. And this "debasement" has held steady over very long time scales.

Why not just create a hard fork of bitcoin (or with merged-mining) and a new rule to hold inflation at 2.5% once it drops to that level around block 600,000 in year 2020.

[AnonyMint]

Simply create your new BetterCoin in all its glory from the open source Bitcoin code and let the market decide.  It appears one of the main ideas is to have no cap on the total number of BetterCoins.

I for one single person will not buy any alt coin that does not have a cap.

Good luck!

Then you hand the power of the cartel to monopolize your mining. There is no other alternative choice.

Do you hate gold because it is debased every year? Every year new supply of gold is added to total supply.

Debasement is not stealing from your value. It is adding to your value, by keeping the total ecosystem healthy.

Static wealth is the antithesis of innovation and the human spirit. Do you want to force all the new innovators to respect what you innovated 1000 years ago? Come on. Idle capital has to be deplete slowly over time, else you are trying to fight against nature. Put your capital to work in investments that produce innovation, if you don't want it to deplete.

[itsunderstood]

itsunderstood, the human spirit will prevail. How else would you characterize my attempt to make a fix or better bitcoin?

Let's keep progressing, that is the way to win.

Martin is out of jail (7 years held in jail without a trial) and he writes much more sensibly now. I couldn't understand him when he was writing from jail. Now that he gets daily email questions, he is able to explain his stuff better.

Now I realize he is not nonsense. Before I thought he was.

Your response here makes me interested in reading some of his newer stuff.

Any comments on Leo Wanta or the destruction of the Russian ruble?  That's a key component of the chaos which is coming.

Let me flesh this part out a bit:  See, for example, Silk Road marketplace, allows humans to be free.  They are free to buy what they want.  HOWEVER, the political power-cartel, CANNOT allow SR to continue.  ...So who is right?

Where would bitcoin be, without black markets?  It would be nowhere.  So the essential battle which will be waged, is one of freedom.  The freedom which Americans think they have, but really do not, but which bitcoin and SR, allow to be realized.  There are many people who suggest that drugs should be legal.  Well, bitcoin and all hash-based money, essentially acts like Alexander cutting the gordian knot of this discussion, because the drug war as such, WILL NEVER END, until those who are the enemies of freedom, are diminished from opressing those who are on the side of freedom.  Yes, I am saying that if my neighbor wants to be a meth head, I must, as an American who loves freedom, allow him to be that meth head.  Here is where all your (and Martin's) talk, hits a wall of pain.

Talk to me about how your hash-based money will make drugs more or less accessible to people.  Thats where the real money is.  As you know full well, all the major HSBC type banks were kept afloat in 2008 crisis by the clearing houses and their massive piles of laundered drug money.  I am saying that bitcoin itself, and yes, all anon-enabled hash-money, serves to act as a magnet for black market money, and what this does is severely weaken the existing banks and all their cadre.

Bitcoin right now, stands to acquire literally hundreds of billions of dollars of true, flowing black money.  That is what will cause it to hasten the chaos, because gangsters have a lot of power.  BUT, here also, does bitcoin threaten the gangs of Earth, because on SR for example, it allows the averge joes to sell product.  And the gangs cannot allow that.

You speak of "cartels"  ...Tell me, what is rockefeller cartel, compared to the Sicilian and Columbian cartels?  In the answer to this question, lies the war which is looming.  Bitcoin is like a Promethean weapon given to those who love freedom.  But yes, it may be destroyed, but not by cartels.  It will be destroyed by the same sort of government monitoring that has always been done. 

QUESTION:  Have you read the essays "The End of Money" by J. Orlin Grabbe?  If not, I will post a link.  These are the two most important essays about money, and prostitutes and drugs, and freedom.  Anyone like Martin and his genius friends, who talk at such high levels, without addressing the base human products of hookers and drugs, fail to achieve a realness at the level of J. Orlin Grabbe.  Money as such, is a control matrix, but bitcoin strikes at the root of that concept.  Though I think you are trying to 'perfect' bitcoin, I think the higher conversation is about freedom as a notion, because if the Pope and the Religious and the Politically Obsessed, end up running the world after this next war, it will be a new dark age for humanity anyway.  So I am suggesting there is a bitcoin subject that is not politicall correct to discuss, but which is as obvious as a 1000lb nude digital gorilla in the room, doing lines of coke.

[Come-from-Beyond]

If someone can implement my idea before I can, then great! Let them win.

I read ur paper about Anonycoin. But it's still unclear to me how peers come to consensus. In Bitcoin it's done via proof-of-work (a blockchain with the highest cumulative difficulty is chosen). Could u post short summary of the approach that solves the consensus issue in Anonycoin, plz?

[AnonyMint]

I am not talking about a large debasement. Very slow similar to gold. Set in the protocol, nobody can manipulate it.

FYI:
New gold is mined at about the rate of 2.5% per annum, based on existing mined stock. And this "debasement" has held steady over very long time scales.

Why not just create a hard fork of bitcoin (or with merged-mining) and a new rule to hold inflation at 2.5% once it drops to that level around block 600,000 in year 2020.

That is the easiest fork.

I also wanted to fix the electricity consumption and ASICs removing the masses from mining.

I want they can download and mine, nothing to buy.

[AnonyMint]

How about I do that easy fork, then we test the hard-disk thing and decide whether to adopt it later?

I can do the easy fork in probably a day.

Should I fork Litecoin instead of Bitcoin, so the GPUs have a place to go to recover their capital, while I work on the hard-disk option?

[TransaDox]

How about I do that easy fork, then we test the hard-disk thing and decide whether to adopt it later?

I can do the easy fork in probably a day.

Better still. Post a link to the source so we can inspect and build it.

[AnonyMint]

@itsunderstood: on Leo Wanta:

http://solari.com/blog/solari-stories-the-black-budget/

[AnonyMint]

Could you retract the nonsense claim? That isn't the way to have a civil debate. I never said "instantly a zero-sum game". You are putting words in my mouth which I never wrote or argued for.

Please go re-read my prior posts. I explained that I do not expect the threat to come suddenly. I expect it to come so slowly that you will not resist, because you will not even perceive it as a threat. And by the time you do, it will be too late.

Your point essentially is that P2P currencies won't overtake all commerce, or that not all P2P currencies will have this flaw that Bitcoin has. Well I hope so too! That is why I am here to say we need to make sure that happens.

So what is our disagreement? You think it will just happen naturally that cartels won't push Bitcoin? Do you not see what is happening now? First mover advantage is going heavily to Bitcoin (and Litecoin), both of which have this same design flaw.

I happen to believe that in 20 years or less, all transactions will be settled by P2P currency payment systems.

I don't agree that it will be easy to launch another P2P currency after one becomes dominant and heavily used by the general population and institutional investors. It is easy now, because there is a great unfilled demand. Once the demand has been filled, you can't replace.

Do you know how difficult it has been for us to replace Microsoft Windows and Microsoft's monopoly cartel? It took us 2 decades.

We would have never gotten there if not for the disruptive technology of the internet, server, and mobile Android phone (Linux).

But in currencies, you don't get another chance. P2P is it. After that, there won't be another paradigm shift opportunity in currencies for a loooonnng time probably.

The masses won't switch after their wallets are set in Bitcoin. They hate technology hassles. They just want it to work and give them their junk.

Firstly, I don't retract my opinion - if you are offended, tough.

I am not offended as long as you are not trying to win a political argument with the use of colorful words. Let's see what logic you have put forth.

Your whole approach seems top down, and while it makes it easy to create a strategy, reality is different.

That is a reasonable point in the abstract. You should know that I love abstract. I regularly inhabit there

But here we have to come back into reality and try to discern abstract hypothesis from practice.

As my plumber friend says, "there is a big difference between theory and practice".

You also are conveniently forgetting every technology which has failed even though it had 'cartel' support.

Failed? Depends how you define fail. Decades of suffering from Windows, with Bill Gates now using the proceeds to sterilize Africans is failure for them?

For instance, nobody replaced Windows. It was the market that changed, with lots of little innovations from individuals and small groups like those that got bitcoin off the ground and Microsoft couldn't keep up.  The same thing will happen to Google, and Apple, and bitcoin (eventually!)

True, but someone had to articulate it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond

I assume you are younger than me (48), so hope you won't be offended if I say, "Get Off My Lawn":

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3335 (World Without Web)

The prior link explains that someone made the internet happen for you. Somebody was worried then, as I am now, or you would not have the internet now.

So please don't dismiss individual human action.

What have you contributed?

I for one created the first social network which inspired friendster, which inspired myspace, which inspired facebook.

Which is driving a lot of the effects that give rise to Bitcoin.

So I did my part once already.

As for this worry of not being able to get rid of currencies, you have obviously forgotten the Euro experiment in Europe where 17 currencies were deleted and a new one introduced in a weekend.  With full political support, anything is possible! That is also true in reverse!

Sorry but you fail to understand economics, because you over generalize.  Europe will not dis-unify. Watch and learn.

http://www.mpettis.com/2013/03/21/when-do-we-call-it-a-solvency-crisis/#comment-21988

You need to view this has different gears turning at different speeds.

The youth and skilled are migrating. The old and unskilled are staying put in the Euro.

So the Euro is decay itself, but the decay stay unified for as long as it has this political control, which appears to be more like 2033ish and by then the cartel will have another angle up their sleeve.

The cartel is moving their control up the ladder of leverage to the end of the nation-state.

This is precisely why I expected to find the vulnerability planted in Bitcoin, and I found it exactly where I expected to find it. The cartel is trying to find global controlling paradigms, and let us gain our efficiencies from the end of the nation-state structure.

I don't view the end of cartelized instances as failure on their part, rather they are always sacrificing an instance to gain another instance, when it is time to adjust to the movement of the masses.

The cartel (power elite) are like cattle herders. They watch where the cows want to go eat, and make sure they place their capture devices there. After all they are just businessmen trying to maximize profit by any unethical means. But they also claim it is ethical because they claim we are unable to organize ourselves against failure.

So if you leave a monopolization threat in the design of Bitcoin, you are doing exactly what they claim-- designing for failure.

Finally, you have a very off putting dismissive attitude to the public's ability to make a choice. The public change things all the time, in fact the whole concept of the free market depends on it!

You have to offer the choice to them. That is what I am talking about here, to motivate someone to offer the choice needed.

Choice doesn't create itself.

Nonsense.

If people feel that the advantages of using bitcoin is being compromised by some big forces, they might do something about it, or maybe they won't, however, without actually offering a solution, your post is a bit meaningless.

Okay now you have a valid point:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3514 (Those who can’t build, talk)

I first want to test my logic, to make sure I am correct. That is why I am here discussing. And also getting feedback on what the market wants and does not want.

I am doing a market survey in this thread.

On the other hand, if you had started the thread with 'there are some problems brewing for bitcoin, and here is my solution..' you might have got a fairer hearing

Fair enough. Point is very valid.

I came storming into the forum with "Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme".

The fact is that good enough is actually all you need, and at the moment, bitcoin is almost good enough - it just needs to be more public friendly to hit the mainstream! That is something I am working on and when I'm ready, I will be posting my solution!

Without fixing the "no debasement", the mining ecosystem will not be healthy enough and you leave the threat wide open to cartelization of mining.

I see you have a vested interest for Bitcoin to remain the only or best or favorite P2P currency. Okay fine. You decide where to invest your time. That doesn't mean you are correct about the threat I see.

You are asserting that the threat is not sure enough to worry about. I STRONGLY DISAGREE.

[AnonyMint]

If someone can implement my idea before I can, then great! Let them win.

I read ur paper about Anonycoin. But it's still unclear to me how peers come to consensus. In Bitcoin it's done via proof-of-work (a blockchain with the highest cumulative difficulty is chosen). Could u post short summary of the approach that solves the consensus issue in Anonycoin, plz?

I will make this more clear soon. I already answered some questions about the algorithm somewhere in my past posts in other thread. I can't find it at the moment. Suffice it for now, the proof-of-work is based on having a terabytye (or what ever we decide or maybe scale it by Moore's Law) of shared keys with the other peers, so you have to be ready when your random turn comes, to prove you had stored all those keys. Static storage does not cost electricity. Everybody owns a hard-disk. Hard-disks have numerous suppliers.

[AnonyMint]

GATA.org published. That is the first one possibly instigated by me. I emailed James Turk who I assume contacted Bill Murphy (I also have contact with Bill but didn't email him yet). "Is Bitcoin better than Gold?"

May only be in the subscriber area so far. I haven't had time to read it yet.

[marcus_of_augustus]

There is also another effective constraint and it is related to bitcoin's first mover advantage and the length of time until the deficiencies that you've identified become apparent to the bitcoin users/miners.

It won't be until the block reward drops sufficiently low that the issues with fees structures becomes apparent. Until then competing with bitcoin's zero-debasement protocol rule in the open market will be nigh on impossible and meanwhile it will keep building on its first mover advantage.

So not only do you need to produce a monetary product that competes with bitcoin in the long term, when it will be easier due to better fee structure, debasement rules, etc ... you also need to compete with it in the short term to gain enough market share that your product can survive long enough to prove itself when the "abstract" problems of bitcoin become real. Also you run the risk that bitcoin could always just adopt any solutions you provide to their long term problems and incorporate them into the source, since by necessity your product will be open source also.

Edit: this is all not to say that it can\t be done, just it should not be underestimated the size of the task. Strong anonymity or inherently easy to use privacy of transactions is an area that bitcoin can be competed with in the short term.  ... which is why I'm following this thread. Zerocoin has some good ideas it seems.

[AnonyMint]

There is also another effective constraint and it is related to bitcoin's first mover advantage and the length of time until the deficiencies that you've identified become apparent to the bitcoin users/miners.

It won't be until the block reward drops sufficiently low that the issues with fees structures becomes apparent. Until then competing with bitcoin's zero-debasement protocol rule in the open market will be nigh on impossible and meanwhile it will keep building on its first mover advantage.

So not only do you need to produce a monetary product that competes with bitcoin in the long term, when it will be easier due to better fee structure, debasement rules, etc ... you also need to compete with it in the short term to gain enough market share that your product can survive long enough to prove itself when the "abstract" problems of bitcoin become real. Also you run the risk that bitcoin could always just adopt any solutions you provide to their long term problems and incorporate them into the source, since by necessity your product will be open source also.

Exactly. That is why I didn't just implement first. I need to see what the market thinks.

Also you run the risk that bitcoin could always just adopt any solutions you provide to their long term problems and incorporate them into the source, since by necessity your product will be open source also.

That won't happen. Too many people don't understand and would view that as treachery.

Very clever the trojan horse that Satoshi planted. I may not be able to defeat it. (but I found a secret weapon, see below)

However, realize I don't need to beat Bitcoin. I only need it to be enough marketshare that it doesn't wither. So then we have the option in case Bitcoin never fixes in future.

Isn't that worth throwing a few coins my way? (even if you keep most in Bitcoin)

Due to "smaller things grow faster", you may earn more appreciation in my design.

And you mine in my design with only your PC (no need to buy ASICs or GPUs), and get free coins too. Media would love this, they can show themselves earning a coin during a broadcast with a regular PC.

The ability for common people to earn coins simply by downloading the client, is the killer feature that could overtake Bitcoin.

More users == more marketshare.

I've been known to be clever jerk

[marcus_of_augustus]

And you mine in my design with only your PC (no need to buy ASICs or GPUs), and get free coins too. Media would love this, they can show themselves earning a coin during a broadcast with a regular PC.

The ability for common people to earn coins simply by downloading the client, is the killer feature that could overtake Bitcoin.

Agreed. That and user-friendly strong privacy.

What language are you going to be writing it in? Send me the source if you need someone to look over it.

[mmmmyah]

Very fascinating thread. Are you saying there is no way to change the mining reward system to prevent the 51% takeover scenario (eg by a cartel)? I assumed bitcoin developers were already working on this issue..

[AnonyMint]

And you mine in my design with only your PC (no need to buy ASICs or GPUs), and get free coins too. Media would love this, they can show themselves earning a coin during a broadcast with a regular PC.

The ability for common people to earn coins simply by downloading the client, is the killer feature that could overtake Bitcoin.

Agreed. That and user-friendly strong privacy.

What language are you going to be writing it in? Send me the source if you need someone to look over it.

Would the community accept Java?

I would really love to code in Scala (but avoid the shit that makes it hard to read and understand), and (maybe later migrate to my Copute language which I am designing).

Perhaps the first step is to fork the C++ code with say 2.5% annual perpetual debasement (or maybe greater in the start and scale it down to give early adopter miners more incentive), without the hard-disk proof-of-work?

Then move forward on the hard-disk version with new code base.

[AnonyMint]

Name?