So who the hell is still supporting BU?

[Holliday]

But what of this article?

Number of Bitcoin Unlimited Nodes Surpasses The 700 Mark

The ongoing “competition” between Unlimited and Core nodes remains quite intriguing to keep an eye on. Over the past few days, the number of Unlimited compatible nodes has increased to 736. Quite a significant number, even though it includes some nodes that other platforms may not see as “compatible”. It is evident the Bitcoin Unlimited support continues to grow. More progress is needed to address bitcoin’s scalability in the near future.

http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/02/15/number-bitcoin-unlimited-nodes-surpasses-700-mark/

They are toting coming upto more nodes available then bitcoin core.
So what does it offer to the network in terms of benefits?

[1715251711]

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[1715251711]

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[d5000]

So-called 'small block supporters'* have an annoying habit of switching to some other argument when asked to provide evidence supporting their previous argument.

* The SegWit Omnibus Changeset allows blocks as large as 4MB.

Both sides - "big blockers" and "segwitters" - have valid arguments in my opinion. It's all about a tradeoff between decentralization and centralization in two different areas:
- the Core plan would mean a more centralized payment system (becaues it realies on off-chain solutions), but a more decentralized full-node structure (because everyone could run a full node without even have to prune)
- while the Unlimited plan would maintain the decentralized payment system (on-chain payments for almost all use cases), but with a more centralized full-node structure (most nodes will have to be pruned/light nodes and full nodes will be limited to industrialized areas with good connections and datacenter users).

It's well possible that in well-connected areas of industrialized countries and urban areas upstream bandwith already is high enough for, let's say, 15-20 MB blocks (~1 TB/year). Now even in a highly developed country like Germany there are still "black holes" without >1 Mbit internet connections. In the developing world, naturally these black holes are much larger (almost the entire rural areas/small cities).

So the goal should be to find an agreement (Satoshi Roundtable Consensus 2?) on block size that makes possible for nearly everyone with a full-sized computer to run a full node, but not on a cheap smartphone, that would be too limited even today. And for the "payment system" my proposal would be to find a block size that should be able to handle all mid-to-large payments (let's say over 20-30 USD) on-chain but also facilitate off-chain payments with solutions like LN for real microtransactions (coffee, mp3's ...).

Edit: And for the future, the technologic progress - data like bandwidth growth and storage capacity - should be used to determine block size.

[IadixDev]

A Lightning type payment channel is simply a write cache for the blockchain.

Do you know how much the write cache improves a hard drive's performance?  Try turning yours off and find out.

Why don't you moan about the presence of write caches on hard drives, and spew FUD about how output operations to the write cache aren't real "on disk" transactions!  

You know it's not real "on disk" operations when the computer crash or power short age and the filesystem end up corrupted :p otherwise you would just keep all the data on ram disk and just write on the HD on shut down how safe would that really look Write cache aren't not all that fud free

Now with journalized filesystem it mitigiate the possible damage, but having reliable decentralized journalizing on LN would mostly ruin the concept. And in this context having only private journalizing is not changing much.

[iCEBREAKER]

mining incentives are already aligned to make the quadratic sig hash issue a non-problem

Objection.  Calls for speculation.

Assumes facts not in evidence.  Your anointed vision, epistemological closure, and metaphysical certainty don't count as evidence.  But good luck deducing from first principles empirical matters of fact!   

How about, instead of hurling insults, and non-responsive drivel, you actually engage the topic with reasoning? Incapable?.

I'll do that right after you familiarize yourself with the essential aspects of the topic and stop glossing over vital bits simply because you were not aware of them (or not aware of their significance). 

The devil is in the detail.  The details you casually and instantly dismiss as "irrelevant" are anything but.  Get a clue or STFU.

Asking you to know WTF you are talking about before promoting your worthless Bitcoin Horoscope opinion as incontrovertible fact is not asking too much; it's a reasonable request.

And in that entire tirade, your only argument is 'someone else called it a problem'.

Fine. I don't need to convince you. Market advantage for me.

Incidentally, I already laid out the rationale in our exchange, for anyone willing to actually read what I wrote.

There you go telling another lie.  Clearly you are unused to being curb stomped in an argument and are taking it badly, in the manner of a sore loser.

My tirade included several arguments besides 'someone else everyone not named jbreher called it a problem' but I understand you wish to avoid them, and so will simply pretend the other arguments don't exist.

My tirade also pointed out Gavin only wrote one patch to fix the quadratic validation problem, so you had absolutely no factual or logical basis on which to assert you couldn't know to which particular patch I was referring.

You contradicted yourself by first saying you weren't aware of Gavin's 100k/tx patch (which was roundly mocked for being an anti-future-proof kludge) then turning around and saying you were aware of it.

Anyone possessing a passing familiarity with the events of the last two years' Grand Schism would instantly recognize the 100k/tx patch to which I was referring.

It's not unreasonable to expect you to have an exceedinly firm grip on the subject matter when you are claiming to have made (from first principles LOL) some sort of supremely accurate prediction deduction based on nothing more than the phase "mining incentives."

Incentives appeal to motivations.  Different people have different motivations.  In this case, an attacker responds to your precious magical "mining incentives" differently than an honest (or at least non-adversarial) miner.

You got caught not knowing WTF you were talking about and then tried to cover it up, so I had to humiliate you in public.

You finally gave up trying to spin the quadratic validation time problem as something other than a problem, but not after an obnoxiously long period of defending the indefensible.

Everyone here in consensus reality (big- and small-blockers alike) agrees quadratic validation is problem.  Nobody cares about your crazy anointed vision where it's not.

Quadratic validation time and the attacks it engenders are clearly a problem.  Shame on you for using word games to distort reality, just so we can all admire your navel-gazing pet theories about "mining incentives" (which, by sheer coincidence, are also what supposedly make BU's loopy ideas about unlimited block sizes work).

That's what happens when you try to argue with someone who has the facts on their side.  You make a fool of yourself and get BTFO.

I demolished every single one of your shitty attempts at spin, from the "it's not an issue or a problem" BS to the completely implausible "you didn't say which specific Gavin patch so I couldn't know" excuse of ultimate lameness.

You never even tried to defend Gavin's quick-and-dirty 100k/tx limit workaround.

You never even tried to explain how you could possibly be confused as to which quadratic validation time quick-fix I was referring, given he only made one.

And now you won't even quote me or respond on point, because you got #REKT.   

[iCEBREAKER]

A Lightning type payment channel is simply a write cache for the blockchain.

Do you know how much the write cache improves a hard drive's performance?  Try turning yours off and find out.

Why don't you moan about the presence of write caches on hard drives, and spew FUD about how output operations to the write cache aren't real "on disk" transactions!  

You know it's not real "on disk" operations when the computer crash or power short age and the filesystem end up corrupted :p otherwise you would just keep all the data on ram disk and just write on the HD on shut down how safe would that really look Write cache aren't not all that fud free

Now with journalized filesystem it mitigiate the possible damage, but having reliable decentralized journalizing on LN would mostly ruin the concept. And in this context having only private journalizing is not changing much.

You'd have a point, if and only if

-Bitcoin's filesystem (The Blockchain) could be shut down, crash, or suffer from power outages (it can't)
-LN didn't already journalize when opening channels (it does)
-LN used private journalizing (it doesn't)

[jbreher]

...

And in that entire tirade, your only argument is 'someone else called it a problem'.

And now you won't even quote me or respond on point, because you got #REKT.  

If you say so. Of course, you've still not responded to a single element of my claim.

[iCEBREAKER]

...

And in that entire tirade, your only argument is 'someone else called it a problem'.

And now you won't even quote me or respond on point, because you got #REKT.  

If you say so. Of course, you've still not responded to a single element of my claim.

The "someone else" is Gavin.

I realize you are not yet very familiar with him or his infamous work on defanging XT and Classic's careless exaggeration of Bitcoin's quadratic sig validation time problem, but please do pursue the links I spoon fed to you like a baby provided earlier.

And it's not just Gavin (and me) calling the quadratic sig validation time issue a "problem."

"O(n^2) attacks are a problem" is the uncontroversial strong consensus of the entire Bitcoin (and wider Computer Science) community, including both sides of the Grand Schism.  I just used Gavin's words because he explains the problematic nature of the issue very well.

I did in fact respond to more than "a single element" of your claim.  Perhaps you are simply incapable of understanding those responses.

Here are two examples.

Example One

Your anointed vision, epistemological closure, and metaphysical certainty don't count as evidence.

Here I've responded to the element of your claim whereby you believe yourself capable of deducing future events with perfect, irreproachable clarity.  Obviously that's insane, and so I do indulge in a bit of pushing back against your imaginative hubris.

Example Two

Incentives appeal to motivations.  Different people have different motivations.  In this case, an attacker responds to your precious magical "mining incentives" differently than an honest (or at least non-adversarial) miner.

Here I've responded to the element of your claim's internal logic, ie the mechanism of action which you believe understanding gives you singular prescient insight into empirical (to be determined) outcomes.  Like the other elements of your silly claim, it is simultaneously reprehensible and laughable.

Your argument has been destroyed from within and without, its purported external and internal logic have been completely debunked.

You've made an extraordinary claim at odds with everyone else in the universe, but failed to provide any evidence besides the courage of your conviction (which, sorry, doesn't count).  And so I dissolved your specious claims in a vat of basic logic and acidic wit.

Trifle with me again, and I shall mock thee a second time!  

REALITY

IMAGINATIONLAND

[Lauda]

It's just intuition for now, we shall see if it becomes reality, in the following years.

Completely useless in this case. Keep the baseless propaganda to your own mind.

For now I can't decide which one is better, because BTC has the obvious security advantage. But that might change in the following years, if BTC is unable to evolve.

Segwit or not, there may come a point when an upgrade will be crucial, and if BTC will be unable to evolve, that will be it's certain demise.

I'm pretty sure that no single serious investor gives zero fucks about Dash or whatever "tech" it provides. The same goes for 99.9% cryptocurrencies.

Banks used to be decentralized before central banks. But slowly it became this centralized monolithic financial system.

False equivalency.

bitcoin 2016 stats could easily have run on Raspberry Pi v1

2016.. "easily"? Go test this and update me after you've spent several days/weeks trying to catch up with the network.

Both sides - "big blockers" and "segwitters" - have valid arguments in my opinion.

Segwit = big blocks. They are not opposing sides.

So the goal should be to find an agreement (Satoshi Roundtable Consensus 2?) on block size that makes possible for nearly everyone with a full-sized computer to run a full node, but not on a cheap smartphone, that would be too limited even today. And for the "payment system" my proposal would be to find a block size that should be able to handle all mid-to-large payments (let's say over 20-30 USD) on-chain but also facilitate off-chain payments with solutions like LN for real microtransactions (coffee, mp3's ...).

Simple: Segwit then implement a hard fork for a base block size increase to 1.5 or 2 MB.

[jbreher]

...

And in that entire tirade, your only argument is 'someone else called it a problem'.

And now you won't even quote me or respond on point, because you got #REKT.  

If you say so. Of course, you've still not responded to a single element of my claim.

Your anointed vision, epistemological closure, and metaphysical certainty don't count as evidence.

Here I've responded to the element of your claim whereby you believe yourself capable of deducing future events with perfect, irreproachable clarity.  Obviously that's insane, and so I do indulge in a bit of pushing back against your imaginative hubris.

Well, no. You've responded to nothing but your own straw man.

Incentives appeal to motivations.  Different people have different motivations.  In this case, an attacker responds to your precious magical "mining incentives" differently than an honest (or at least non-adversarial) miner.

Here I've responded to the element of your claim's internal logic, ie the mechanism of action which you believe understanding gives you singular prescient insight into empirical (to be determined) outcomes.  

Well, no again. The incentives are what they are. Sure some miner can play the role of 'attacker', and include a transaction that takes an inordinate amount of time to validate. My claim is that incentives are aligned to render this a non-problem.

Riddle me this: built off a parent of the same block height, a miner is presented -- at roughly the same time:
1) an aberrant block that takes an inordinate amount of time to verify but is otherwise valid;
2) a 'normal' valid block that does not take an inordinate amount of time to verify; and
3) an invalid block.
Which of these three do you suppose that miner will choose to build the next round atop?

[iCEBREAKER]

The incentives are what they are. Sure some miner can play the role of 'attacker', and include a transaction that takes an inordinate amount of time to validate. My claim is that incentives are aligned to render this a non-problem.

Riddle me this: built off a parent of the same block height, a miner is presented -- at roughly the same time:
1) an aberrant block that takes an inordinate amount of time to verify but is otherwise valid;
2) a 'normal' valid block that does not take an inordinate amount of time to verify; and
3) an invalid block.
Which of these three do you suppose that miner will choose to build the next round atop?

Your question is poorly constructed because you do not define what qualifies as an "inordinate amount of time to verify."

As you know, the problem with troll blocks is precisely the fact they are valid, despite being trollish.

Who said anything about invalid blocks?  What a red herring.  Miners running Bitcoin Core compatible nodes don't mine invalid blocks, although there's no accounting for what zany harebrained scheme the lads at Unlimite will come up with this month. 

Empty blocks take no time to verify, yet miners only create them occasionally.

Miners' decisions depend on the amount of fees in the blocks, their software/hardware/network configuration/capabilities/limitations, what they expect other miners to do and/or their strategy for attacking other miners (game theory), etc.  For example, a computationally hard block construed in order to clean up a bunch of dust was intentionally mined not very long ago.  That functionality would be lost if we used Gavin's artificial 100k/tx limit.

Any more silly questions?   

Are you now ready to  join us here in the real world, where O(n^2) attacks are a problem, or are you going to stick with the wishful thinking, hand-waving, and "Because Mining Incentives!" slogan?

[Lauda]

BU supporters' understanding of consensus systems in general is completely wrong, not just decentralised ones. I don't know why; it's a simple concept: it means that several independent implementations of a program given the same input data will give the same output, and those that give different results will automatically be known to be wrong. In the specific case of Bitcoin, it means that given multiple conflicting transaction chains, of which only one of them can be valid, all Bitcoin nodes everywhere will always agree on which chain is valid.

BU's so-called "emergent consensus" is not a consensus system of any kind. It explicitly allows nodes to disagree on which of multiple conflicting chains is valid, and it's trivial for malicious miners to force a chain split among disagreeing nodes to allow double-spending. It's not even fair to call this an "attack" since this catastrophic breakdown of consensus is by design. Anyone supporting BU deserves to lose their coins, and I think they're likely to.

Unsurprisingly, this post was completely ignored because... I'm just going to state that it's well written and summarized. I'm looking forward to see how someone is going to attempt to refute it with pseudo-science.
Let's not forget this gem:

[alani123]

...

And in that entire tirade, your only argument is 'someone else called it a problem'.

And now you won't even quote me or respond on point, because you got #REKT.  

If you say so. Of course, you've still not responded to a single element of my claim.

The "someone else" is Gavin.

I realize you are not yet very familiar with him or his infamous work on defanging XT and Classic's careless exaggeration of Bitcoin's quadratic sig validation time problem, but please do pursue the links I spoon fed to you like a baby provided earlier.

And it's not just Gavin (and me) calling the quadratic sig validation time issue a "problem."

"O(n^2) attacks are a problem" is the uncontroversial strong consensus of the entire Bitcoin (and wider Computer Science) community, including both sides of the Grand Schism.  I just used Gavin's words because he explains the problematic nature of the issue very well.

I did in fact respond to more than "a single element" of your claim.  Perhaps you are simply incapable of understanding those responses.

Here are two examples.

Example One

Your anointed vision, epistemological closure, and metaphysical certainty don't count as evidence.

Here I've responded to the element of your claim whereby you believe yourself capable of deducing future events with perfect, irreproachable clarity.  Obviously that's insane, and so I do indulge in a bit of pushing back against your imaginative hubris.

Example Two

Incentives appeal to motivations.  Different people have different motivations.  In this case, an attacker responds to your precious magical "mining incentives" differently than an honest (or at least non-adversarial) miner.

Here I've responded to the element of your claim's internal logic, ie the mechanism of action which you believe understanding gives you singular prescient insight into empirical (to be determined) outcomes.  Like the other elements of your silly claim, it is simultaneously reprehensible and laughable.

Your argument has been destroyed from within and without, its purported external and internal logic have been completely debunked.

You've made an extraordinary claim at odds with everyone else in the universe, but failed to provide any evidence besides the courage of your conviction (which, sorry, doesn't count).  And so I dissolved your specious claims in a vat of basic logic and acidic wit.

Trifle with me again, and I shall mock thee a second time!  

REALITY

IMAGINATIONLAND

That picture from github is quite telling. The fact that such a generlistic solution is provided for a specific yet very serious problem goes to show how little thought has been put into this project as a whole.

[IadixDev]

A Lightning type payment channel is simply a write cache for the blockchain.

Do you know how much the write cache improves a hard drive's performance?  Try turning yours off and find out.

Why don't you moan about the presence of write caches on hard drives, and spew FUD about how output operations to the write cache aren't real "on disk" transactions!  

You know it's not real "on disk" operations when the computer crash or power short age and the filesystem end up corrupted :p otherwise you would just keep all the data on ram disk and just write on the HD on shut down how safe would that really look Write cache aren't not all that fud free

Now with journalized filesystem it mitigiate the possible damage, but having reliable decentralized journalizing on LN would mostly ruin the concept. And in this context having only private journalizing is not changing much.

You'd have a point, if and only if

-Bitcoin's filesystem (The Blockchain) could be shut down, crash, or suffer from power outages (it can't)
-LN didn't already journalize when opening channels (it does)
-LN used private journalizing (it doesn't)

Well as far as i understand, LN channels can be somehow shut down, via certain glitches or other, and in that case, what would remain of the operation made in that channel ?

And what validity would this journalizing have regarding on chain state if there are difference at the end ?

The problem with caching is not about HD crash, but if the controller is stopped before the cache is a actually wrote, even if the hard drive works well the data is still lost.


Just to push analogy with cache to show certain caveeat, with smp system and cpu cache, there are certain case when the memory is shared with other chips with dma, or virtual pagination, in system with high concurency on the data, cpu cache can become "out of date", even with sse2 there are certain thing to help dealing with this, but as far as i know, most os disable caching on certain shared memory because of all the issues with cache, and instruction reordering etc When having access to up to date data in concurent system is more important than fast access to potentially out of date data.

If LN is to be seen as a cache system , it doesn't look like they are taking all the precautions for it to be really safe.

Cache  are easily safe when all the write access to the data are made throught the same interface doing the caching, which is not the case with bitcoin & LN.

With hard drive it works because all the access goes throught the same controller doing the caching.

But anyway as LN locks the bitcoin on the main chain, it's not even really a true cache system, because the principle of a cache system is to fasten multiple access on the same data, as the bitcoin are locked, the channel have exclusive access to it, and so it's not really to be seen as a true system of blockchain caching.

[franky1]

BU supporters' understanding of consensus systems in general is completely wrong, not just decentralised ones. I don't know why; it's a simple concept: it means that several independent implementations of a program given the same input data will give the same output, and those that give different results will automatically be known to be wrong. In the specific case of Bitcoin, it means that given multiple conflicting transaction chains, of which only one of them can be valid, all Bitcoin nodes everywhere will always agree on which chain is valid.

BU's so-called "emergent consensus" is not a consensus system of any kind. It explicitly allows nodes to disagree on which of multiple conflicting chains is valid, and it's trivial for malicious miners to force a chain split among disagreeing nodes to allow double-spending. It's not even fair to call this an "attack" since this catastrophic breakdown of consensus is by design. Anyone supporting BU deserves to lose their coins, and I think they're likely to.

Unsurprisingly, this post was completely ignored because... I'm just going to state that it's well written and summarized. I'm looking forward to see how someone is going to attempt to refute it with pseudo-science.

show me the simulations you ran..
show me your stats, facts, data

oh right you just read something that did not exceed your 3 paragraph attention span (2 minute) and deemed it law because it looked "well written"

when you gain post third grade ability to read something more than 2 minutes. try learning something
https://medium.com/@g.andrew.stone/emergent-consensus-simulations-99604190fa31#.4gjxzruv0

altcoins are not created in emergent consensus. what occurs is the ORPHAN mechanism sorts out which path the majority of nodes follow.
ofcourse its going to cause orphan drama. but what you may also realise is that merchants will become weary of this around the time of an 'activation' event and take precautions to raise the 'wait for X confirm' level.

end result is if the minority is the small block size they are simply left unsynced.
end result is if the minority is the higher block size they are simply fall back to the small blocksize.
because the higher blocksize acceptors can also accept small blocksizes (remember the rule for blocksize is anything below x)

again for emphasis, no altcoin is created.

FTFY

[btcxyzzz]

Here's a gold medal for BULLSHIT OP post. Congratulations.

[Lauda]

show me the simulations you ran..
show me your stats, facts, data

You ask me to provide data, data which you yourself do not have.

when you gain post third grade ability to read something more than 2 minutes. try learning something
https://medium.com/@g.andrew.stone/emergent-consensus-simulations-99604190fa31#.4gjxzruv0

Random article full of pseudo-science by a BU developer, of course!

altcoins are not created in emergent consensus. what occurs is the ORPHAN mechanism sorts out which path the majority of nodes follow.

Also know as a horrible security revamp.

FTFY

Your fix is pure rubbish from a failed troll, which you are (e.g. I don't know who Amanda is nor why she is in it; I code, just not under this username; Maxwell enjoys peer review,etc.).

[Foxpup]

its the same consensus as bitcoin always has been its just a name change. (please learn something atleast)

No it's not. I've just explained that.

AD blocksize (consensus)
core: 1mb-4mb (currently 1)
BU 16mb

EB blocksize (preference)
core: 0.75-0.999mb
BU 1-2mb

Just for kicks, I'd like to see you explain this new hole you've dug yourself into, which definitively proves you don't know what you're talking about. Hint: AD is not a block size.

[jbreher]

The incentives are what they are. Sure some miner can play the role of 'attacker', and include a transaction that takes an inordinate amount of time to validate. My claim is that incentives are aligned to render this a non-problem.

Riddle me this: built off a parent of the same block height, a miner is presented -- at roughly the same time:
1) an aberrant block that takes an inordinate amount of time to verify but is otherwise valid;
2) a 'normal' valid block that does not take an inordinate amount of time to verify; and
3) an invalid block.
Which of these three do you suppose that miner will choose to build the next round atop?

Your question is poorly constructed because you do not define what qualifies as an "inordinate amount of time to verify."

Riddle me this: built off a parent of the same block height, a miner is presented -- at roughly the same time:
1) an aberrant block that takes an inordinate amount of time (e.g., one hour) to verify but is otherwise valid;
2) a 'normal' valid block that does not take an inordinate amount of time to verify; and
3) an invalid block.
Which of these three do you suppose that miner will choose to build the next round atop in order to maximize profit?

[franky1]

i was typing to fast.. oh well. grammar nazi

consensus.h BLOCKSTREAM_CORE_MAX_BLOCK_SIZE = 1000000-16000000; (1000000 currently in some nodes) - what nodes can cope with
policy.h DEFAULT_BLOCK_MAX_SIZE = 750000-999000; (999000 currently)   - what pools will make

same thing for BOTH core and BU just a word change.

consensus.h MAX_BLOCK_BASE_SIZE = 1000000; (1000000 currently(forever if gmaxwell had his way)) - what nodes can cope with
policy.h DEFAULT_BLOCK_MAX_SIZE = 750000-999000; (999000 currently) - what pools will make

if the only knit pick you can find is someones typo.. then you need to try harder
(cores is in purple)
the point is that pools will look at what consensus (EB) settings of nodes allow and then POOLS make blocks under that(policy).

end result is ORPHANS. not persistent surviving multiple chains. just orphan drama until blockheight/chainwork reveals one single chain
if the minority is larger blocks then they happily accept smaller blocks because anything below EB is acceptable, meaning even 1mb are acceptible even if EB is 16mb or whatever
if the minority is smaller blocks then they simply cannot sync and treat everything as an orphan. thus they stall.

its the same mechanism since 2009. just reworded

the only way to create an altcoin is if the minority small block scenario BILATERALLY (intentionally) banned/separate communications from the opposition nodes. to avoid bitcoins built in orphaning mechanism

[Foxpup]

i was typing to fast.. oh well. grammar nazi

consensus.h BLOCKSTREAM_CORE_MAX_BLOCK_SIZE  - what nodes can cope with
policy.h DEFAULT_BLOCK_MAX_SIZE   - what pools will make (EB)

same thing for BOTH core and BU just a word change.


if the only knit pick you can find is someones typo.. then you need to try harder

Nobody said anything about your grammar, and your embarrassing mistakes were more than a typo. After all, nobody deletes their post just because they made a typo.