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

[gentlemand]

So what if he/they make a decision sometime late 2016/early 2017, and it turns out to be the "wrong" one? Will they spend three years to change that as well?

If it can't offer enough people usability then other systems will and it'll die. It's a trillion miles away from being 'too big to fail'. I can see why they'd grind to a halt but it doesn't exist in a vacuum and the world is a fast moving place that don't give a shit about Bitcoin's nobility.

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[Richy_T]

Then again, how exactly is status quo an irrational stance?

It depends on how you define the status-quo.

I would define it as we currently have more than ample space in a block for genuine transactions. I'd like to keep it that way.

[brg444]

So what if he/they make a decision sometime late 2016/early 2017, and it turns out to be the "wrong" one? Will they spend three years to change that as well?

If it can't offer enough people usability then other systems will and it'll die. It's a trillion miles away from being 'too big to fail'. I can see why they'd grind to a halt but it doesn't exist in a vacuum and the world is a fast moving place that don't give a shit about Bitcoin's nobility.

This works only under the presumption that Bitcoin competes only on the basis of transaction throughput which it does not.

[brg444]

Then again, how exactly is status quo an irrational stance?

It depends on how you define the status-quo.

I would define it as we currently have more than ample space in a block for genuine transactions. I'd like to keep it that way.

We also have a valuable limit used to avoid spam filling up blocks, I'd also like to keep it that way.

[Fatman3001]

So what if he/they make a decision sometime late 2016/early 2017, and it turns out to be the "wrong" one? Will they spend three years to change that as well?

If it can't offer enough people usability then other systems will and it'll die. It's a trillion miles away from being 'too big to fail'. I can see why they'd grind to a halt but it doesn't exist in a vacuum and the world is a fast moving place that don't give a shit about Bitcoin's nobility.

This works only under the presumption that Bitcoin competes only on the basis of transaction throughput which it does not.

No, that's not what's being talked about. We don't know what the decision will be, nor how it will play out technically. The "what if" scenario just presumes that whatever the decision is, it doesn't work. It's the decision process we're talking about.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[JorgeStolfi]

For the spam justification of the limit you have to ask Satoshi.

Spam attacks have also been proven a very real threat.

There are several hypothetical attacks that could be called "spam attacks".

One type (1) is what we have seen since July this year: issue hundreds of MB of cheap transactions, to fill the queues and maybe crash the relay nodes (and generally cause trouble for software that deals with the queues.  That attack does not affeact transactions that pay fees higher than the attacker pays.  It will delay zero- and low-fee transactions.  The delay depends on the clearance C - T between the average capacity C of the network (currently ~0.80 MB/block) and the average non-spam incoming traffic T (currently ~0.45 MB/block).  Currently, with less than 50'000 USD anyone can launch an attack that clog the queues and delay low-fee transactions for 2-3 weeks or more.

Another type (2), that we have not seen yet, tries to delay some of the high-paying fee too.  To hold up 50% of the legitimate traffic, for example, an attacker of this type would keep issuing transactions with suitable fees to ensure that the top 0.80 MB of the queue always included at least 0.58 MB of his own transactions.  That is, he would have to issue C - T/2 transactions per block, with enough fees to keep the low half of the legitimate traffic perpetually out of the next block.  I don't know how much this attack would cost per hour; but I guess that an attacker with 50'000 USD budget would be able to keep it up for at least half a day.  

Yet another type (3) of attack may be a miner creating and solving a large bock to cause relay nodes and some clients to crash.   Rumor is that the 1 MB limit was introduced to prevent hypothetical type (3) attacks, or some similar one.    But there was no such attack during the 20 months or so in 2009 and 2010 that bitcoin operated with a 32 MB block size limit; and it is not clear whether such a rogue miner could do much damage except to himself.

On the other hand, presently it is the 1 MB limit that makes attacks of type (2) viable, and causes type (1) attacks to delay low-fee transactions by weeks.  

If the block size limit were to be raised to 8 MB, the effective capacity C would rise from 0.80 MB/block to maybe 6.00 MB/block .  The clearance C - T would then increase from 0.35 to 5.65 MB/block.  That would speed up the recovery after type (1) attacks some 15-fold, so a backlog that now takes 2 weeks to clear (like the one that exists now) would be cleared in 1 day.

If the block size limit were to be raised to 8 MB, a type (2) attacker who wanted to hold up 50% of the legitimate traffic would have to issue 5.77 MB of transactions per block, instead of 0.58 MB/block; but he would need to pay the same fees in order to keep the half of the traffic out.  Therefore the cost to the attacker, per hour, would be ~10 times larger.

Far from being an argument against a block size increase, spam attacks are one of the strongest reasons why the increase should be a no-brainer.  In fact, deterrence of and resilience against spam attacks demand a large increase rather than a small one.

[muyuu]

Then, again, miscommunication -- unless you consider the likes of Mircea Popescu "not status quo", which would be just plain twisting of words.

I don't have any idea what his opinion is about this.

In other subjects in the past he's been completely right about the subject matter, excessive in his language. Something that has happened also to Luke. This doesn't make them any less right when they are right.

Then again, how exactly is status quo an irrational stance?

Obviously there can be several takes on what does that mean in practice. If they mean "oppose any progress, change or improvement" then obviously I'm against that but then again who isn't? If the statu quo (more correct Latin grammar is statu quo not status quo) means "the system works let's keep it working", then I'm all for it, as opposed to breaking it with absurd decisions.


----

Jorge, we already had this exact same conversation, I'm not going to have it again.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[Cconvert2G36]

I'm sure closed source, pay Blockstream per month, federated chains, using multi sig secured collateral have a place in the ecosystem. I welcome them and applaud the effort in their creation.

However, there is a real concern regarding the motivations of veto wielding devs. Are they making decisions that would be best for Bitcoin, or decisions that might mold Bitcoin towards an environment that benefits Blockstream software products?     

Their Bitcoin-related solutions surely would benefit from what is best for Bitcoin, wouldn't you think?

Their Bitcoin-related solutions might benefit from what artificially handicaps (without killing) Bitcoin. No need to distill it any further. I know you are fully aware of, and have summarily dismissed this possibility, but others are less trusting.

I have no issues with Blockstream itself, nor their work, but I tend to squirm when I see a glaring conflict of interest that not only can, but potentially has already directly affected the development of Bitcoin itself.

[EsBitcoin.org]

Are we on rally now?

the rally will top out at:
>320   - 73 (35.3%)
300   - 7 (3.4%)
290   - 4 (1.9%)
280   - 7 (3.4%)
260   - 20 (9.7%)
250   - 15 (7.2%)
it's topped out now   - 81 (39.1%)

[greenlion]

Yet another type (3) of attack may be a miner creating and solving a large bock to cause relay nodes and some clients to crash.   Rumor is that the 1 MB limit was introduced to prevent hypothetical type (3) attacks, or some similar one.    But there was no such attack during the 20 months or so in 2009 and 2010 that bitcoin operated with a 32 MB block size limit; and it is not clear whether such a rogue miner could do much damage except to himself.

There is also a cap on the number of sigops per block that more directly addresses this concern, but for some reason that seems to never get mentioned.

[billyjoeallen]

So what if he/they make a decision sometime late 2016/early 2017, and it turns out to be the "wrong" one? Will they spend three years to change that as well?

If it can't offer enough people usability then other systems will and it'll die. It's a trillion miles away from being 'too big to fail'. I can see why they'd grind to a halt but it doesn't exist in a vacuum and the world is a fast moving place that don't give a shit about Bitcoin's nobility.

+1

We are being played against each other.  Rough consensus attack:


http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2015-August/026151.html

It turns out that there is a really nice attack.  If the group has a
protocol in mind, then all the attacker has to do is:

   a) suggest a new alternate protocol.
   b) balance the group so that there is disagreement, roughly evenly
balanced between the original and the challenger.

Suggesting an alternate is really easy - as we know there are dozens of
prototypes out there, just gotta pick one that's sufficiently different.
  In this case I can think of 3 others without trying, and 6 people on
this group could design 1 in a month.

Balancing the group is just a matter of phone calls and resources.  Call
in favours.  So many people out there who would love to pop in and utter
an opinion.  So many friends of friends, willing to strut their stuff.



Because of the rules of rough consensus, if a rough balance is
preserved, then it stops all forward movement.  This is a beautiful
attack.  If the original side gets disgusted and walks, the attacker can
simply come up with a new challenger.  If the original team quietens
down, the challenger can quieten down too - it doesn't want to win, it
wants to preserve the conflict.

The attack can't even be called, because all contributors are doing is
uttering an opinion as they would if asked.  The attack simply uses the
time-tested rules which the project is convinced are the only way to do
these things.



The only defence I can see is to drop rough consensus.  By offering
rough consensus, it's almost a gilt-edged invitation to the attacker.
The attacker isn't so stupid as to not use it.

Can anyone suggest a way to get around this?  I think this really puts a
marker on the map - you simply can't do a security/crypto protocol under
rough consensus in open committee, when there is an attacker out there
willing to put in the resources to stop it.

Thoughts?

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

So what if he/they make a decision sometime late 2016/early 2017, and it turns out to be the "wrong" one? Will they spend three years to change that as well?

If it can't offer enough people usability then other systems will and it'll die. It's a trillion miles away from being 'too big to fail'. I can see why they'd grind to a halt but it doesn't exist in a vacuum and the world is a fast moving place that don't give a shit about Bitcoin's nobility.

+1

We are being played against each other.  Rough consensus attack:


http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2015-August/026151.html

It turns out that there is a really nice attack.  If the group has a
protocol in mind, then all the attacker has to do is:

   a) suggest a new alternate protocol.
   b) balance the group so that there is disagreement, roughly evenly
balanced between the original and the challenger.

Suggesting an alternate is really easy - as we know there are dozens of
prototypes out there, just gotta pick one that's sufficiently different.
  In this case I can think of 3 others without trying, and 6 people on
this group could design 1 in a month.

Balancing the group is just a matter of phone calls and resources.  Call
in favours.  So many people out there who would love to pop in and utter
an opinion.  So many friends of friends, willing to strut their stuff.



Because of the rules of rough consensus, if a rough balance is
preserved, then it stops all forward movement.  This is a beautiful
attack.  If the original side gets disgusted and walks, the attacker can
simply come up with a new challenger.  If the original team quietens
down, the challenger can quieten down too - it doesn't want to win, it
wants to preserve the conflict.

The attack can't even be called, because all contributors are doing is
uttering an opinion as they would if asked.  The attack simply uses the
time-tested rules which the project is convinced are the only way to do
these things.



The only defence I can see is to drop rough consensus.  By offering
rough consensus, it's almost a gilt-edged invitation to the attacker.
The attacker isn't so stupid as to not use it.

Can anyone suggest a way to get around this?  I think this really puts a
marker on the map - you simply can't do a security/crypto protocol under
rough consensus in open committee, when there is an attacker out there
willing to put in the resources to stop it.

Thoughts?

Hey BJA. Didn't you mean to say Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares ??

Or something about Bitshares maybe?

[billyjoeallen]

So what if he/they make a decision sometime late 2016/early 2017, and it turns out to be the "wrong" one? Will they spend three years to change that as well?

If it can't offer enough people usability then other systems will and it'll die. It's a trillion miles away from being 'too big to fail'. I can see why they'd grind to a halt but it doesn't exist in a vacuum and the world is a fast moving place that don't give a shit about Bitcoin's nobility.

+1

We are being played against each other.  Rough consensus attack:


http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2015-August/026151.html

It turns out that there is a really nice attack.  If the group has a
protocol in mind, then all the attacker has to do is:

   a) suggest a new alternate protocol.
   b) balance the group so that there is disagreement, roughly evenly
balanced between the original and the challenger.

Suggesting an alternate is really easy - as we know there are dozens of
prototypes out there, just gotta pick one that's sufficiently different.
  In this case I can think of 3 others without trying, and 6 people on
this group could design 1 in a month.

Balancing the group is just a matter of phone calls and resources.  Call
in favours.  So many people out there who would love to pop in and utter
an opinion.  So many friends of friends, willing to strut their stuff.



Because of the rules of rough consensus, if a rough balance is
preserved, then it stops all forward movement.  This is a beautiful
attack.  If the original side gets disgusted and walks, the attacker can
simply come up with a new challenger.  If the original team quietens
down, the challenger can quieten down too - it doesn't want to win, it
wants to preserve the conflict.

The attack can't even be called, because all contributors are doing is
uttering an opinion as they would if asked.  The attack simply uses the
time-tested rules which the project is convinced are the only way to do
these things.



The only defence I can see is to drop rough consensus.  By offering
rough consensus, it's almost a gilt-edged invitation to the attacker.
The attacker isn't so stupid as to not use it.

Can anyone suggest a way to get around this?  I think this really puts a
marker on the map - you simply can't do a security/crypto protocol under
rough consensus in open committee, when there is an attacker out there
willing to put in the resources to stop it.

Thoughts?

Hey BJA. Didn't you mean to say Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares Bitshares ??

I only own about $2 worth of bitshares, but I'm keeping an eye on it. I know how annoying altcoin pushers are, so i'm sorry if that's what I'm doing. I thought it was tangentially related.

[alesx.onfire]

Bitstamp is the way.

[Meuh6879]

it's a hole (trap).

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[Richy_T]

We also have a valuable limit used to avoid spam filling up blocks, I'd also like to keep it that way.

OK, so now we have to define what is a valuable limit for *now*, not what was a valuable limit for *then*. You could spam the network with less than 100th of the dollar cost then.