Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[AlexGR]

Can somebody explain this to me like I'm a 5 year old:

XT is supposed to make bitcoin futureproof, but how is it going to achieve that, when it can be spammed up to ~1.15gb / day, meaning that it'll take just 100 days for a determined attacker to increase the blockchain to +115gb, and around a year to take it up half a terabyte.

Terabyte hard drives are standard now. A year from now 5 TB drives will be standard. That's a worst case scenario and could still be easily handled. 

The worst case scenario is that someone starts spamming the blockchain with the 8mb blocks. Then, next thing you know, people will say "ohh these 8mb blocks are full, we need bigger blocks". Then you get 20mb blocks and ~3gb/day of bloat / >1 tb per year. And who is to stop them spamming the 20mb blocks and getting them full too? What's next? We'll be asking for 100mb blocks? This is madness.

Personally I don't believe that even the 750k/1mb blocks are full by legitimate transactions and not bogus transactions. I believe these bogus transactions are created to stir a "debate" about "ohh we need bigger blocks" and stuff so that we can then go on and shoot ourselves in the foot by "accepting" larger blocks as the "natural evolution".

We have to deal with a reality here: Big banks, credit cards, swift etc, don't want BTC to succeed. Bloating it is a very cheap way they can use to kill it. It's much cheaper than a 51% and cheaper than manipulating the BTC market. And it will be FAAAAAAAAAR cheaper to enable that attack vector with 8mb or 20mb blocks.

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[lebing]

There will only be a fork once 75% have moved to XT. Up to that point there is but one chain.  Once the fork occurs, there will be a very rapid migration of the remainder to the consensus chain. There will be no extended period of duplicate chains.

How do you know how long this will take and what the consequences will be in the meantime? Define extended period? As far as I understand it, this is going to be messy as hell and even if the old chain is sold into oblivion in 72 hours, the PR damage will be permanent and who knows who is going to get scammed or which transactions will get completely fucked in the meantime.

The main reason for a short life of two paralell coins, is that liquidity the the all importan statistics. Two coins almost exactly the same is totally unstable. It has to lean to one side or the other, then the one with smaller popularity will take the liquidity hit and land hard.

"As to what will happen if/ when there is a hardfork:

Currently MultiBit Classic and HD both will follow the chain with the most work done in it.
Thus in a hardfork all the existing MultiBit code will follow the 'winner'. This is how the normal one or two block forks (that occur reasonably frequently) get resolved so it should just be the same but on a larger scale.

Both MultiBit Classic and HD connects to Bitcoin Core and XT happily and they should work correctly with larger blocks. The bloom filtered blocks Core/ XT send back to MultiBit are the same - MultiBit is agnostic about connecting to Core or XT."

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43616.msg12154185#msg12154185

So all over in about twenty minutes or so.

That is just one wallet... Everyone needs to have a similar feature already built into their systems before that majority hits. At the current rate of adoption that looks to be less than 3 weeks away.

[BrewCrewFan]

Keep fuc*ing that bear guys. I want morz dumps until this gets resolved so I can get morz coins cheaper.

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

Can somebody explain this to me like I'm a 5 year old:

XT is supposed to make bitcoin futureproof, but how is it going to achieve that, when it can be spammed up to ~1.15gb / day, meaning that it'll take just 100 days for a determined attacker to increase the blockchain to +115gb, and around a year to take it up half a terabyte.

Terabyte hard drives are standard now. A year from now 5 TB drives will be standard. That's a worst case scenario and could still be easily handled. 

The worst case scenario is that someone starts spamming the blockchain with the 8mb blocks. Then, next thing you know, people will say "ohh these 8mb blocks are full, we need bigger blocks". Then you get 20mb blocks and ~3gb/day of bloat / >1 tb per year. And who is to stop them spamming the 20mb blocks and getting them full too? What's next? We'll be asking for 100mb blocks? This is madness.

Personally I don't believe that even the 750k/1mb blocks are full by legitimate transactions and not bogus transactions. I believe these bogus transactions are created to stir a "debate" about "ohh we need bigger blocks" and stuff so that we can then go on and shoot ourselves in the foot by "accepting" larger blocks as the "natural evolution".

We have to deal with a reality here: Big banks, credit cards, swift etc, don't want BTC to succeed. Bloating it is a very cheap way they can use to kill it. It's much cheaper than a 51% and cheaper than manipulating the BTC market. And it will be FAAAAAAAAAR cheaper to enable that attack vector with 8mb or 20mb blocks.

I think you have just gone Full Retard Conspiracy Theory there.  The issue is smaller than that, the solution is even simpler.

[conspirosphere.tk]

this, and the fact that the free fee market would solve any traffic glut is what make me suspect that the blocksize crusade is just an inside job for a controlled demolition of btc.

The worst case scenario is that someone starts spamming the blockchain with the 8mb blocks. Then, next thing you know, people will say "ohh these 8mb blocks are full, we need bigger blocks". Then you get 20mb blocks and ~3gb/day of bloat / >1 tb per year. And who is to stop them spamming the 20mb blocks and getting them full too? What's next? We'll be asking for 100mb blocks? This is madness.

Personally I don't believe that even the 750k/1mb blocks are full by legitimate transactions and not bogus transactions. I believe these bogus transactions are created to stir a "debate" about "ohh we need bigger blocks" and stuff so that we can then go on and shoot ourselves in the foot by "accepting" larger blocks as the "natural evolution".

We have to deal with a reality here: Big banks, credit cards, swift etc, don't want BTC to succeed. Bloating it is a very cheap way they can use to kill it. It's much cheaper than a 51% and cheaper than manipulating the BTC market. And it will be FAAAAAAAAAR cheaper to enable that attack vector with 8mb or 20mb blocks.

[aztecminer]

I think the best solution is to make this whole ordeal automatic. Obviously, we're going to need larger blocks in the future, as bitcoin becomes accepted in more and more places. If we do not increase the limit, there will be no more bitcoin. An altcoin with a less stubborn dev team will take up the mantle of the face of cryptocurrency and pick up right where bitcoin left off.
The problem with leaving it up to the community is the same as leaving the halving up to the community, I think. Sorry to say, I dont trust people with that decision, be they node runners or not. There should be a set mathematical model based on community growth rates and estimated physical storage capacity. This is a fundamental issue that satoshi did did not seem to solve, this is about as important as the distribution of bitcoin and the 21 million limit. I also agree with ronald98, downloading and/or indexing the whole thing is a pain in the ass. I've recently had to reindex the blockchain and my computer has taken about 4 days doing so. What determines how long it takes, processing power?

it only takes me a few hours to do the work. you should consider upgrading your hardware if you want to do the work faster. in other words.. dont buy you pc from best buy because they dont care how long it takes you to download and index block chain. you trying to store everything on your one os drive and wondering why you are so slow. maybe one day pcs that u buy from best buy will care about the blockcahin and come with os drive + striped set of hard drives for you to download and index your blockchain.. not to mention your games will run better when run from striped drives as well. to be top your game is helpful to be ahead of the game. a best buy gimp pc isn't made for bitcoin.. if it takes you four days to download and index blockchain the you should consider keeping your coins on an exchange lol.

[Erdogan]

There will only be a fork once 75% have moved to XT. Up to that point there is but one chain.  Once the fork occurs, there will be a very rapid migration of the remainder to the consensus chain. There will be no extended period of duplicate chains.

How do you know how long this will take and what the consequences will be in the meantime? Define extended period? As far as I understand it, this is going to be messy as hell and even if the old chain is sold into oblivion in 72 hours, the PR damage will be permanent and who knows who is going to get scammed or which transactions will get completely fucked in the meantime.

The main reason for a short life of two paralell coins, is that liquidity the the all importan statistics. Two coins almost exactly the same is totally unstable. It has to lean to one side or the other, then the one with smaller popularity will take the liquidity hit and land hard.

"As to what will happen if/ when there is a hardfork:

Currently MultiBit Classic and HD both will follow the chain with the most work done in it.
Thus in a hardfork all the existing MultiBit code will follow the 'winner'. This is how the normal one or two block forks (that occur reasonably frequently) get resolved so it should just be the same but on a larger scale.

Both MultiBit Classic and HD connects to Bitcoin Core and XT happily and they should work correctly with larger blocks. The bloom filtered blocks Core/ XT send back to MultiBit are the same - MultiBit is agnostic about connecting to Core or XT."

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43616.msg12154185#msg12154185

So all over in about twenty minutes or so.

That is just one wallet... Everyone needs to have a similar feature already built into their systems before that majority hits. At the current rate of adoption that looks to be less than 3 weeks away.

I want every wallet provider, electrum, mytrezor, mycelium... to declare where they stand. There should be enough time, no rush.

[Erdogan]

this, and the fact that the free fee market would solve any traffic glut is what make me suspect that the blocksize crusade is just an inside job for a controlled demolition of btc.

The worst case scenario is that someone starts spamming the blockchain with the 8mb blocks. Then, next thing you know, people will say "ohh these 8mb blocks are full, we need bigger blocks". Then you get 20mb blocks and ~3gb/day of bloat / >1 tb per year. And who is to stop them spamming the 20mb blocks and getting them full too? What's next? We'll be asking for 100mb blocks? This is madness.

Personally I don't believe that even the 750k/1mb blocks are full by legitimate transactions and not bogus transactions. I believe these bogus transactions are created to stir a "debate" about "ohh we need bigger blocks" and stuff so that we can then go on and shoot ourselves in the foot by "accepting" larger blocks as the "natural evolution".

We have to deal with a reality here: Big banks, credit cards, swift etc, don't want BTC to succeed. Bloating it is a very cheap way they can use to kill it. It's much cheaper than a 51% and cheaper than manipulating the BTC market. And it will be FAAAAAAAAAR cheaper to enable that attack vector with 8mb or 20mb blocks.

The banks are all on the outside looking in, doing nothing. They think they can wait to see if it succeeds, maybe the second, third or fourth generation, then go all in using their share size power, and depending on the state to fend off competition. Not this time, bitcoin is the real thing, there is no second take.

Or...for savers, the second take is to go in now, late compared to the Elder Whales, but early compared to just about anyone else.

[billyjoeallen]

Can somebody explain this to me like I'm a 5 year old:

XT is supposed to make bitcoin futureproof, but how is it going to achieve that, when it can be spammed up to ~1.15gb / day, meaning that it'll take just 100 days for a determined attacker to increase the blockchain to +115gb, and around a year to take it up half a terabyte.

Terabyte hard drives are standard now. A year from now 5 TB drives will be standard. That's a worst case scenario and could still be easily handled.  

It's not only the physical sizeof the hard drive needed to store the blockchain that's causing problems. The length of time it takes to index the blockchain is getting longer as the size of the blockchain increases. That creates problems for anyone running a full wallet that needs to use it in a hurry if it takes hours, days, or weeks to index.

oh, right. Because bandwidth never increases and CPUs never get faster.  These arguments are bullshit. What's the real reason here?  is this FUD to drive the price down or is this some game of chicken between different factions to see who can rule That Which Cannot Be Ruled _tm?

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[Norway]

Bitcoin XT just became the third largest user agent:
https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/nodes/

[ssmc2]

Lol I feel sorry for people coming into BTC for the first time and having to decipher all of this. Shit is crazy. Whatever, I'm holding til the end.

[redsn0w]

Lol I feel sorry for people coming into BTC for the first time and having to decipher all of this. Shit is crazy. Whatever, I'm holding til the end.

Ahahaha, it's a crucial time for everyone. I hope all the bitcoin will choose the right thing--- because sooner or later the block size must increase.

[Cconvert2G36]

Can somebody explain this to me like I'm a 5 year old:

XT is supposed to make bitcoin futureproof, but how is it going to achieve that, when it can be spammed up to ~1.15gb / day, meaning that it'll take just 100 days for a determined attacker to increase the blockchain to +115gb, and around a year to take it up half a terabyte.

Terabyte hard drives are standard now. A year from now 5 TB drives will be standard. That's a worst case scenario and could still be easily handled. 

The worst case scenario is that someone starts spamming the blockchain with the 8mb blocks. Then, next thing you know, people will say "ohh these 8mb blocks are full, we need bigger blocks". Then you get 20mb blocks and ~3gb/day of bloat / >1 tb per year. And who is to stop them spamming the 20mb blocks and getting them full too? What's next? We'll be asking for 100mb blocks? This is madness.

Personally I don't believe that even the 750k/1mb blocks are full by legitimate transactions and not bogus transactions. I believe these bogus transactions are created to stir a "debate" about "ohh we need bigger blocks" and stuff so that we can then go on and shoot ourselves in the foot by "accepting" larger blocks as the "natural evolution".

We have to deal with a reality here: Big banks, credit cards, swift etc, don't want BTC to succeed. Bloating it is a very cheap way they can use to kill it. It's much cheaper than a 51% and cheaper than manipulating the BTC market. And it will be FAAAAAAAAAR cheaper to enable that attack vector with 8mb or 20mb blocks.

1MB blocks actually incentivize a spammer, as we saw during the tx spam exercises of the last weeks. Reason: it's much cheaper to do. Spammers get their transactions (and attached fees) kicked out of the mempool after not getting into maxed out blocks. This allows them to just do it over and over again, much more cheaply than if those tx were actually included in a block with their fees collected by the miners. The scenario you propose would be much more expensive to sustain with larger blocks, with that increased expense going to the miners.

Node concentration is a concern with more demanding requirements for running a full node, and should not be ignored, but staying at 2.7 tx per second to infinity is potentially much more damaging to this grand experiment. We'll never know how it might impact node count and concentration unless we do a modest increase and measure the result.

The intransigence and vitriol coming from MP, the PR gal, and his toadies is a sign of the weakness inherent in their position. Rather than appeal to reasoned judgement, it devolves into name calling and fear mongering in a grand ego stroking exercise. There will be no larger blocks unless 75% of solved blocks are made by nodes supporting >1MB, this means consensus will have already happened, and the orphaned chain will die quickly as <25% of hashing power will face an impossible difficulty. My prediction is that the 25% will quickly upgrade so they are mining the chain that will actually be worth something.

There's no question this debate and stalemate has been impacting confidence in the exchange rate, and rightly so. On a positive note, once this is settled and Bitcoin has a tx throughput that isn't laughable for a global p2p digital cash system... the fear dissolves and we can dust off those old moon boots.

[fonsie]

We've past 400 nodes https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/nodes/?q=70010

[Alley]

Do nodes really matter though if miners don't switch to XT?

[redsn0w]

Do nodes really matter though if miners don't switch to XT?

Yes of course, miners without nodes are useless. Because the nodes broadcast the transactions through the network, so actually it is best firstly the nodes and after the miners (aka big pool).

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[becoin]

Ahahaha, it's a crucial time for everyone.

Every day is crucial for bitcoin during last 6 years. Nothing really new here.

[babaquara]

what's the blue thing below explanation in the chartguy's posts?