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

[bambou]

I do have a half-written tech report detailing how a cartel of miners could force a change in the rules; but that has become common (if still denied) knowledge by now, so it would probably be rejected for that (if not for ideologocal reasons).

So let's say a majority of miners change the rules in a way that the rest of the bitcoin community does not agree with, then what?

What prevents the core developers from just changing the hash function, rendering all mining hardware useless and let the whole mining business start from scratch? Yeah it would be pretty messy, but the mere existence of that option keeps the miners in check.

That is the conventional argument that is used to dismiss that problem.  It is like the Captain "defeating" a sailor''s mutiny by taking off in a small lifeboat and declaring it to be "the real ship"...

The Core developers would have to convince all bitcoin users to get into that small boat with them and discard the coins that they have on the carte's branch of the chain. Good luck on that...

can you explain to me the reason why miners would form a cartel to destroy bitcoins value?

Thats right, that is the beauty of Bitcoin, they wouldnt dare.

Or else they loose money.

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[OSCA]

can you explain to me the reason why miners would form a cartel to destroy bitcoins value?

Can you not imagine a scenario in which maximizing [long term] BTC value is not in the best interest of the miners?
*need a hint?

[JorgeStolfi]

in the attempt of a miner/pool coup, the coin would just drop to 0 as trust in the (trustless) system would be seriously hampered.

Then the price should be zero right now, because the tot 4 Chinese miners can do a coup (e.g. by imposition of the Chinese government). 

Why is it not zero? Because bitcoiners have rationalized that problem away, claiming that it is the "economic majority" that matters and that everybody would commit financial seppuku if the miners (rather than the Core devs) tried to change the protocol in any way, therefore the miners will never do it.

Neither of those claims is grounded in evidence or common sense.  What is more likely is that a subtle change in protocol imposed by the miners (such as a postponement of the next halving, without changing the 21 M cap) would be rationalized as "harmless" or even "good for bitcoin"; and the "economic majority" would just submit to it.  (BIP100 is going that way: it says that the Core devs should "decide" the blocksize issue by handing over the decision to the miners. No wonder that the miners like it...)

May I remind you how BTC's price reacted when Ghash.io had 50% of the network? It crashed.

Did it? When was that?  How big was the crash?

I recall that there was much affliction among the people in the know, but BitFury promptly removed themselves from GHash.io and the problem was quickly forgotten.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[xyzzy099]

I do have a half-written tech report detailing how a cartel of miners could force a change in the rules; but that has become common (if still denied) knowledge by now, so it would probably be rejected for that (if not for ideologocal reasons).

So let's say a majority of miners change the rules in a way that the rest of the bitcoin community does not agree with, then what?

What prevents the core developers from just changing the hash function, rendering all mining hardware useless and let the whole mining business start from scratch? Yeah it would be pretty messy, but the mere existence of that option keeps the miners in check.

That is the conventional argument that is used to dismiss that problem.  It is like the Captain "defeating" a sailor''s mutiny by taking off in a small lifeboat and declaring it to be "the real ship"...

The Core developers would have to convince all bitcoin users to get into that small boat with them and discard the coins that they have on the carte's branch of the chain. Good luck on that...

can you explain to me the reason why miners would form a cartel to destroy bitcoins value?

Wouldn't it be vastly preferable if the good professor were to formalize his thoughts and publish them in a scientific journal, where his ideas could be subjected to all due academic rigor by his peers?

Dr. Stolfi is an academic who, according to his signature, at least, has an 'academic interest in Bitcoin' - and there now exists an academic journal created precisely for such academics.

I, for one, would much rather see Dr. Stolfi's support his ideas re: Bitcoin in a more formal atmosphere than to read yet another eight-paragraph opinion from yet another opinionated poster on this thread, wouldn't you?

I think we should all encourage Jorge to publish.  I would be interested to see if he actually has ideas with academic merit or not.

[adamstgBit]

Neither of those claims is grounded in evidence or common sense.  What is more likely is that a subtle change in protocol imposed by the miners (such as a postponement of the next halving, without changing the 21 M cap) would be rationalized as "harmless" or even "good for bitcoin"; and the "economic majority" would just submit to it.  (BIP100 is going that way: it says that the Core devs should "decide" the blocksize issue by handing over the decision to the miners. No wonder that the miners like it...)

if a subtle change is deemed "good for bitcoin" by everyone, then it is implemented and we are all happy things are moving along. price rises.

everyone agreed, what's the problem?

now explain to me why the FED doesn't just print 4 billion dollars a month and use that money to prop up the US stock market?
edit: oh wait ay they are a private centrally controlled entity and CAN do that if they so choose

[OSCA]

[yet another eightfour-paragraph opinion from yet another opinionated poster on this thread]

Passive-aggressive, to boot
@adam, why the preoccupation with the FED?  Aren't you Canadian?

[conspirosphere.tk]

Looking at the 1d charts, I see a bubble from ~230 to ~290 that started when many bitcoiners believed that the Greek would rush to bitcoin as a way to escape devaluation /  confiscation / currency controls / etc.  That bubble neatly and completely deflated, bringing the price back to ~230, when the crisis got resolved and it became clear that the Greek wanted euros, not bitcoins.

The Greek 'crisis' was only delayed once more. What's now imminent is infinitely bigger. And considering that there are no safe places left for who has not the means for pro asset protection, and that no one can go anywhere with significant amount of precious metals given the ubiquitous metal detectors, not to speak about the incoming war on cash, and the last bailin regulations in europe (where depositors became bank savers of last instance), I see a nice expanding market niche for BTC.

And if it takes 20 bucks for a tx, so be it. How much does Western Union or banks take for international wires with no privacy at all and questionable safety?

[BTCjohn]

The "user mini-profiles" on the left-hand column force every response to consume ~2 inches of screen space, even if it is just one line long.

You must be unfamiliar with responsive web design, another exciting development that only emerged in the last 10 years or so.  Those "mini-profiles" appear where resolution allows to display post content at full width and there's room left for other things.  If you're viewing that site from a phone, the profiles (or the sidebar) don't appear.  It's a true joy to use compared to 1990s design of this site.  But maybe you don't own a smartphone or a tablet, in which case, it's irrelevant to you.

And don't get me started on the human eye-brain.  Since I actually work in publishing, I get to work with researchers who study the very minutia of people's reading habits on the web, such as eye and neck strain and eyeball tracking.  There IS such a thing as optimal width for reading text, and most websites that use industry-standard column dimensions already take that into account when implementing sidebars.  

If you have two meters of horizontal space available, that doesn't mean you should use that whole width to spread your paragraph over just two lines of text.  There is a balance between forcing the reader's eyeballs and neck to move left and right versus moving to the next line, and at some point, the latter is less work and causes less strain and fatigue.  We have a couple of millennia of publishing behind us, so this isn't exactly uncharted territory.

most sidebars out there are read and used by readers only once every solar eclipse.  Displaying that information all the time is distracting and inefficient.

This is terribly incorrect.  Sidebars get tons of usage, especially when they display links to other content (in the case of a forum it can be recent posts or newest threads).  

Most sidebars could be made into pull-down menus or separate pages, freeing screen estate for the information that readers are actually looking for.

Hiding that information within a drop-down menu would be just about as illogical as it gets and a disservice to the readers, who would be forced to scroll all the way up, hover over a drop down, select the correct link, and click on it.

The general problem is using low-contrast font-background pairs, like white on yellow or gray on tan; there are several examples of that on that forum.

I believe they are working on the yellow links, which other users have commented on.  But the issue is kind of moot because the ad styler allows each user to have his own color palette.  

Again, compared to Bitcontalk, the new Bitcoin forum is about 2 light centuries ahead, both in design, the way feedback from users is collected and paid attention to, and the way the forum is run overall (I'm not even talking about collecting a million dollars in user donations and spending half of it on a site redesign that somehow evaporated along the way).  I am posting this from a smartphone and am afraid of going blind by the end of this post.

And of course, all the pretty design in the world will not make up for quality content, which this site has been sorely lacking since the degenerates have taken over in the past few months.

[OSCA]

...
And if it takes 20 bucks for a tx, so be it. How much does Western Union or banks take for international wires with no privacy at all and questionable safety?

Do you rely on Western Union for every transaction (your morning coffee, etc., etc.)?

[marcus_of_augustus]

people are taking refuge in Brazilian real?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/18/emergingmarkets-latam-idUSL1N11O1HL20150918

Professor Trolfi could have been protecting his compatriots from the ravages of state-managed currency crises and extreme savings devaluation but he here wasting his time on bitcoin speculation forum thread waggling his finger .... something's not right here

[conspirosphere.tk]

...
And if it takes 20 bucks for a tx, so be it. How much does Western Union or banks take for international wires with no privacy at all and questionable safety?

Do you rely on Western Union for every transaction (your morning coffee, etc., etc.)?

If it takes to pay a coffee with cash in order to keep BTC serious, I'm all for it.

[findftp]

...
And if it takes 20 bucks for a tx, so be it. How much does Western Union or banks take for international wires with no privacy at all and questionable safety?

Do you rely on Western Union for every transaction (your morning coffee, etc., etc.)?

Did they ever use a gold coin for that purpose?

[xyzzy099]

[yet another eightfour-paragraph opinion from yet another opinionated poster on this thread]

Passive-aggressive, to boot

?

I'm not being passive-aggressive, nor (I think) am I being particularly opinionated by suggesting that I would prefer to see Dr. Stolfi's ideas taken to the next level, rather than just encouraging him to continue to post random opinions.

He is the only poster on here that I know of that has identified himself specifically as an academic with an interest in Bitcoin, so that puts him in a unique position to educate us all with his erudite analysis of this subject.

Now that there is an official outlet for Dr. Stolfi's hard-won Bitcoin expertise, I would like to see him take advantage of it.  Wouldn't you?

[OSCA]

...
And if it takes 20 bucks for a tx, so be it. How much does Western Union or banks take for international wires with no privacy at all and questionable safety?

Do you rely on Western Union for every transaction (your morning coffee, etc., etc.)?

If it takes to pay a coffee with cash in order to keep BTC serious, I'm all for it.

"in order to keep BTC serious" as what, exactly?  Surely not money?

[conspirosphere.tk]

If it takes to pay a coffee with cash in order to keep BTC serious, I'm all for it.

"in order to keep BTC serious" as what, exactly?  Surely not money?

Not consumerist money.
Would you pay with silver coins your frap-thing?

[_biO_]

I do have a half-written tech report detailing how a cartel of miners could force a change in the rules; but that has become common (if still denied) knowledge by now, so it would probably be rejected for that (if not for ideologocal reasons).

So let's say a majority of miners change the rules in a way that the rest of the bitcoin community does not agree with, then what?

What prevents the core developers from just changing the hash function, rendering all mining hardware useless and let the whole mining business start from scratch? Yeah it would be pretty messy, but the mere existence of that option keeps the miners in check.

That is the conventional argument that is used to dismiss that problem.  It is like the Captain "defeating" a sailor''s mutiny by taking off in a small lifeboat and declaring it to be "the real ship"...

The Core developers would have to convince all bitcoin users to get into that small boat with them and discard the coins that they have on the carte's branch of the chain. Good luck on that...

Convincing should be pretty easy if the rule change goes against the interest of the majority of the bitcoin community. And if it doesn't we don't have a problem in the first place.

Why should the miners take such a huge gamble. What kind of rule change would justify taking such a risk?

[macsga]

If it takes to pay a coffee with cash in order to keep BTC serious, I'm all for it.

"in order to keep BTC serious" as what, exactly?  Surely not money?

Not consumerist money.
Would you pay with silver coins your frap-thing?

IMHO, if BTC gets the place it deserves it won't have to be THE currency but A currency. We're now just below 5bn total. Imagine 5bn, being 50bn or even 500bn. There's a place in the chart that there's no turning back. I guess we will have to wait a bit for it to happen (if it happens at all anyway). But do not limit your thoughts to micro transactions. There are about a gazillion other coins for that.

[OSCA]

[yet another eightfour-paragraph opinion from yet another opinionated poster on this thread]

Passive-aggressive, to boot

?

I'm not being passive-aggressive, nor (I think) am I being particularly opinionated by suggesting that I would prefer to see Dr. Stolfi's ideas taken to the next level, rather than just encouraging him to continue to post random opinions.

He is the only poster on here that I know of that has identified himself specifically as an academic with an interest in Bitcoin, so that puts him in a unique position to educate us all with his erudite analysis of this subject.

Now that there is an official outlet for Dr. Stolfi's hard-won Bitcoin expertise, I would like to see him take advantage of it.  Wouldn't you?

Sure you're passive-aggressive. Something about his doctorate just rubs you the wrong way (unpleasant grad school experience?), and so you vent.  Every chance you get.
As far as I know, Jorge hasn't identify himself as an academic, but rather was outed as one. If the phrase  "academic interest" misled you, it has nothing to do with degrees, tenure, or academic institutions.
Think "curiosity."

[xyzzy099]

[yet another eightfour-paragraph opinion from yet another opinionated poster on this thread]

Passive-aggressive, to boot

?

I'm not being passive-aggressive, nor (I think) am I being particularly opinionated by suggesting that I would prefer to see Dr. Stolfi's ideas taken to the next level, rather than just encouraging him to continue to post random opinions.

He is the only poster on here that I know of that has identified himself specifically as an academic with an interest in Bitcoin, so that puts him in a unique position to educate us all with his erudite analysis of this subject.

Now that there is an official outlet for Dr. Stolfi's hard-won Bitcoin expertise, I would like to see him take advantage of it.  Wouldn't you?

Sure you're passive-aggressive. Something about his doctorate just rubs you the wrong way (unpleasant grad school experience?), and so you vent.  Every chance you get.
As far as I know, Jorge hasn't identify himself as an academic, but rather was outed as one. If the phrase  "academic interest" misled you, it has nothing to do with degrees, tenure, or academic institutions.
Think "curiosity."

Apparently you're academic background is in psychology  

Thanks for the pop psychoanalysis.  I value your opinion.  Really.