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

[julian071]

All people are seeing with ETH is a rising number on an exchange. I'd love to see a survey of its, er, 'users' trying to break down what it actually is. That's not gonna stop it becoming a beast of course. The number one utility for the majority of crypto users is being able to sell it for more than you paid for it.

So the BTC price not doing well is like a self-fulfilling prophecy? Will it spiral down from here on?

[1714844632]

1714844632

[Fatman3001]

http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2016-March/012489.html

We are coming up on the subsidy halving this July, and there have been some
concerns raised that a non-trivial number of miners could potentially drop off
the network. This would result in a significantly longer block interval, which
also means a higher per-block transaction volume, which could cause the block
size limit to legitimately be hit much sooner than expected.
[...]
To alleviate this risk, it seems reasonable to propose a hardfork to the
difficulty adjustment algorithm so it can adapt quicker to such a significant
drop in mining rate. BtcDrak tells me he has well-tested code for this in his
altcoin

Hahahaha
Go go Core!

In all truthfulness, I have always wondered the reason for the 2016-block difficulty adjustment. A finer-grained adjustment seems just natural to me. Though I've never looked into it. What are the arguments against a more continuous adjustment?

(The four-year halving always seemed funny to me too. Done merely for simplicity of implementation?)

I don't see why it should matters much. All the miners know about this. If they start fiddling with the halving parameters now, they're messing with the mining market.

If we had BIP101 we'd simply get slightly longer block times. Maybe they should rush that in instead.

[Chef Ramsay]

All people are seeing with ETH is a rising number on an exchange. I'd love to see a survey of its, er, 'users' trying to break down what it actually is. That's not gonna stop it becoming a beast of course. The number one utility for the majority of crypto users is being able to sell it for more than you paid for it.

So the BTC price not doing well is like a self-fulfilling prophecy? Will it spiral down from here on?

The Accumulator just moved roughly 1.4m ETH to an exchange. What usually happens next?

http://etherscan.io/address/0xd12cd8a37f074e7eafae618c986ff825666198bd

[xyzzy099]

If we had BIP101 we'd simply get slightly longer block times. Maybe they should rush that in instead.

FWIW, Gavin officially withdrew BIP101 from consideration a while ago:

BIP: 101
  Title: Increase maximum block size
  Author: Gavin Andresen <gavinandresen@gmail.com>
  Status: Withdrawn
  Type: Standards Track
  Created: 2015-06-22

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0101.mediawiki

[gentlemand]

So the BTC price not doing well is like a self-fulfilling prophecy? Will it spiral down from here on?

It's doing fine isn't it? albeit not much is happening.

I think what plenty are forgetting though is that many, many bitcoiners flocked to it because of profit potential. Maybe they slipped over into making actual use of it too but that's always in the back of plenty of minds. If there was something that looked like a dead cert elsewhere, not that ETH is that, then no shortage would make the leap. It would probably go up in smoke but there'd at least be some action for a while.

There surely will be some very muscular alts in the future with way more ammunition than the shite that's been floating around until now.

[julian071]

All people are seeing with ETH is a rising number on an exchange. I'd love to see a survey of its, er, 'users' trying to break down what it actually is. That's not gonna stop it becoming a beast of course. The number one utility for the majority of crypto users is being able to sell it for more than you paid for it.

So the BTC price not doing well is like a self-fulfilling prophecy? Will it spiral down from here on?

The Accumulator just moved roughly 1.4m ETH to an exchange. What usually happens next?

http://etherscan.io/address/0xd12cd8a37f074e7eafae618c986ff825666198bd

Wow thanks for the tip bro, really appreciate it!!!

Edit gentlemand I agree.

[Auxi]

All people are seeing with ETH is a rising number on an exchange. I'd love to see a survey of its, er, 'users' trying to break down what it actually is. That's not gonna stop it becoming a beast of course. The number one utility for the majority of crypto users is being able to sell it for more than you paid for it.

So the BTC price not doing well is like a self-fulfilling prophecy? Will it spiral down from here on?

The Accumulator just moved roughly 1.4m ETH to an exchange. What usually happens next?

http://etherscan.io/address/0xd12cd8a37f074e7eafae618c986ff825666198bd

Dump? Or scary newfags?

[Cconvert2G36]

Sorry - not following. Expanded explanation available?

Incidentally, the irony of Core calling for HF changes to the actual* consensus mechanism is not lost on me.

*I do not consider block size to be part of the fundamental consensus mechanism.

Say 75% of the miners agree with you, and begin using software that allows a larger max block size... Because the difficulty does not adjust immediately, whatever stragglers are left mining on the 1MB max chain will be at an extreme disadvantage, their blocks will come very slowly, if at all (I expect 75% quickly becomes 99.5-100%, before activation). Consequently, their difficulty adjustment would take a verrrrry long time. The minority side of the fork would be basically frozen, and not processing transactions.

If the difficulty adjusted very quickly or continuously, the minority side have a better chance of solving some blocks and keeping their chain somewhat functional while they roll out software that changes POW and reboots difficulty (if needed after this idea).

Given this, the somewhat long adjustment interval is a strong incentive for the miners to reach nakamoto consensus, and quickly, with dire consequences if they don't.  

Of course a PoW change would be needed to prevent being attacked relentlessly by the SHA256 majority... but this may buy precious time at a critical moment.

[bargainbin]

http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2016-March/012489.html

We are coming up on the subsidy halving this July, and there have been some
concerns raised that a non-trivial number of miners could potentially drop off
the network. This would result in a significantly longer block interval, which
also means a higher per-block transaction volume, which could cause the block
size limit to legitimately be hit much sooner than expected.
[...]
To alleviate this risk, it seems reasonable to propose a hardfork to the
difficulty adjustment algorithm so it can adapt quicker to such a significant
drop in mining rate. BtcDrak tells me he has well-tested code for this in his
altcoin

Hahahaha
Go go Core!

In all truthfulness, I have always wondered the reason for the 2016-block difficulty adjustment. A finer-grained adjustment seems just natural to me. Though I've never looked into it. What are the arguments against a more continuous adjustment?

(The four-year halving always seemed funny to me too. Done merely for simplicity of implementation?)

Yeah, I wondered about it too, not the difficulty adjustment but the rate of reward halving reduction (halving seems like adjusting a wristwatch with a 5-pound sledge). My only guess (other than laziness simplicity of implementation) is the chance of hitting some sort of overcompensating feedback loop/parasitic oscillation?

The point I was trying to make was Core claiming the evol of hard forks & necessity of keeping the race Bitcoin pure (changing parameters potentially bringing about unpredictable butterfly effects), while, at the same time, coming up with their own reasons to hardfork.

Edit: and this

... If the difficulty adjusted very quickly or continuously, the minority side have a better chance of solving some blocks and keeping their chain somewhat functional while they roll out software that changes POW and reboots difficulty (if needed after this idea). ...

[JayJuanGee]

All people are seeing with ETH is a rising number on an exchange. I'd love to see a survey of its, er, 'users' trying to break down what it actually is. That's not gonna stop it becoming a beast of course. The number one utility for the majority of crypto users is being able to sell it for more than you paid for it.

So the BTC price not doing well is like a self-fulfilling prophecy? Will it spiral down from here on?

The BTC price seems to be doing pretty well.  A year ago, we were hovering in the lower 200s (which probably was not that well), and 3 years ago, we were hovering in the arena below $100. (except for the brief rise to $266).  About 4 months of bouncing around, yet largely floating in the $360 to $440 price arena is not too bad, and really it seems that it would not be too easy to bring bitcoin prices below $360 - even though surely it is possible.

Now on the other hand, if you are attempting to compare with Ethereum, then possibly you are selectively delusional.  Ethereum's market cap is way small, its  liquidation channels way smaller, and good luck with stability with Ethereum or being able to sustain prices in the next 6 months... or to not suffer from some major disappearance of coins scandals in that same period of time.

[Cconvert2G36]

The halving schedule is pretty extreme, at the beginning. It becomes less and less extreme quite quickly as the number of transactions scales up with their accompanying fees...

Wait... we're supposed to be scaling up the number of transactions!!?!

[Callahan]

Somebody could explain me? :

I believe one way or another "second layer solution" or otherwise, bitcoin will scale

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[Cconvert2G36]

Somebody could explain me? :

I believe one way or another "second layer solution" or otherwise, bitcoin will scale

Don't worry about it too much, it's just another in a long line of adam's vague and internally contradictory polls without meaningful conclusion.

The "second layer solution" means payment channels and hubs, I think. Or altcoins.

[bargainbin]

The halving schedule is pretty extreme, at the beginning. It becomes less and less extreme quite quickly as the number of transactions scales up with their accompanying fees...

Wait... we're supposed to be scaling up the number of transactions!!?!

Yeah, just have a hard time rationalizing why it had to be *halving* -- why not 10percenting, but more often?

[JayJuanGee]

Somebody could explain me? :

I believe one way or another "second layer solution" or otherwise, bitcoin will scale

Don't worry about it too much, it's just another in a long line of adam's vague and internally contradictory polls without meaningful conclusion.

The "second layer solution" means payment channels and hubs, I think. Or altcoins.

Yes, fairly vague, yet conceptually, "second layer solutions" include segregated witness, sidechains and lightning network, also... These kinds of "second layer solutions" are built on the bitcoin platform or at least while using bitcoin's platform as a springboard. 

I doubt that the poll is really referring to alts, except to the extent that alts could be absorbed into bitcoin's platform in some way or as possible sidechains (using aspects of segregated witness innovations).

[jbreher]

The halving schedule is pretty extreme, at the beginning. It becomes less and less extreme quite quickly as the number of transactions scales up with their accompanying fees...

To a miner, a halving is a halving. This has a good chance in causing step-function reductions in security, as hashpower becomes unprofitable overnight.

Seems to me a closer approximation to a continuous function might have been better design. But what do I know? I'm a bear. Waiting for mah dinner.

[Cconvert2G36]

The halving schedule is pretty extreme, at the beginning. It becomes less and less extreme quite quickly as the number of transactions scales up with their accompanying fees...

Wait... we're supposed to be scaling up the number of transactions!!?!

Yeah, just have a hard time rationalizing why it had to be *halving* -- why not 10percenting, but more often?

Obviously I don't know, but my guess is that it is to front load the distribution... for subsidizing the growth of transactions hard and early, attracting the most amount of mining power at the most vulnerable time for the network, the beginning. Giving outsized rewards to those who recognized and supported the network before there was big money involved. Having it be smoothed or stepped is another question, I'm not as sure about that one, just that it becomes exponentially less important over time.

As long as I'm making guesses, his decision to leave us with the 1MB hard coded max block size limit is his test to see if we're fit for survival without him.   

[JayJuanGee]

The halving schedule is pretty extreme, at the beginning. It becomes less and less extreme quite quickly as the number of transactions scales up with their accompanying fees...

To a miner, a halving is a halving. This has a good chance in causing step-function reductions in security, as hashpower becomes unprofitable overnight.

I doubt that we are going to witness extreme secondary changes "overnight" as a response to halving...

surely, "overnight" we are going to have half as many bitcoin's mined per each block, yet there is going to be some spreading out of the timeline with any responses, and in the end, even though there may be a short-term drop in hashpower, it is very likely that hashpower is going to continue to increase (possibly on continued exponential levels).

[jbreher]

Obviously I don't know, but my guess is that it is to front load the distribution... for subsidizing the growth of transactions hard and early, attracting the most amount of mining power at the most vulnerable time for the network, the beginning.

Right, but that could still be done while also ...

Having it be smoothed or stepped