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

[Cconvert2G36]

That is the stated Blocksrteam/small-blockian view: bitcoin should be used only for large-value settlements between institutions, like the Lightning network hubs

As a small-blockian myself, I can say the above is not my view.

Bitcoin should be used primarily for transactions where capital controls or other forms of monetary censorship exist.

The amount of data required to keep the Bitcoin network functioning should remain small enough that it is difficult to censor, especially considering it is needed most in places where censorship exists.

-- not for ordinary e-purchases by ordinary citizens.

This, however, is my view.  There is simply no reason to use censorship-proof money for ordinary purchases. It's a terrible waste of resources for starters. A decentralized system has no reason to compete with centralized systems. They each do different things well. Using Bitcoin to buy goods from Amazon is like using a chainsaw to mow your lawn. Yeah, a chainsaw will certainly cut grass, but there are much better tools for the job.

All transactions do not need to be censorship-proof in a world where censorship-proof transactions exist. The possibility of censorship-proof transactions by itself will cut down on censorship because it will be seen as futile. So, it's important that any decision to change Bitcoin be considered in this light, and it's imperative not to make changes which move in the opposite direction (such as drastically increasing the amount of data needed to be shared in order to keep the network functioning).

Bitcoin is not blessed with being the only censorship resistant network by virtue of atomic organizaion. The block reward is our manna to consume while eating everyone else's lunch.

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[rebuilder]

Holliday, I don't think a theoretical 7 TPS (or less than 3, as is apparently the actual case) can support global underground markets. Those are estimated to involve around 1.8 billion people, and account for 15% or so of the global economy. You're still left with only providing settlements for even this limited sector.

Your point about Bitcoin being poorly suited to regular transactions seems valid to me.The blockchain model itself seems inefficient when applied to long timescales and large userbases. Perhaps that's an insurmountable flaw.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin

Explanation

[marcus_of_augustus]

so all the usual trolls and bears have taken to swimming in the swamp of endlessly discussing big block politics (not technicals) now that the price is rising?

[Cconvert2G36]

so all the usual trolls and bears have taken to swimming in the swamp of endlessly discussing big block politics (not technicals) now that the price is rising?

Nope, just being realistic about the happy case of us receiving what we wish for.

[billyjoeallen]

Bitcoin should be used primarily for transactions where capital controls or other forms of monetary censorship exist.

Censorship is everywhere. Ever heard of legal tender laws? 

This, however, is my view.  There is simply no reason to use censorship-proof money for ordinary purchases. It's a terrible waste of resources for starters. A decentralized system has no reason to compete with centralized systems. They each do different things well. Using Bitcoin to buy goods from Amazon is like using a chainsaw to mow your lawn. Yeah, a chainsaw will certainly cut grass, but there are much better tools for the job.

All transactions do not need to be censorship-proof in a world where censorship-proof transactions exist. The possibility of censorship-proof transactions by itself will cut down on censorship because it will be seen as futile. So, it's important that any decision to change Bitcoin be considered in this light, and it's imperative not to make changes which move in the opposite direction (such as drastically increasing the amount of data needed to be shared in order to keep the network functioning).

They don't make laws against murder because they think it will prevent all murders.  They don't see such laws as futile because they are not 100% effective.  If they can restrict and reduce behavior they don't like, they don't see that as futile. 

A network that can only support ~ half a million active users will not mean zip diddly shit in a world of 7 Billion people.  The "drastic" increase in data shared is completely in line with technical advancements in bandwidth and hardware.  Your argument is so foolish it makes me question your sincerity.

What's worse, a network that only supports censored transactions will bring down the wrath of the Establishment upon us. It NEEDS ordinary commerce or we will be persecuted.

[marcus_of_augustus]

so all the usual trolls and bears have taken to swimming in the swamp of endlessly discussing big block politics (not technicals) now that the price is rising?

Nope, just being realistic about the happy case of us receiving what we wish for.

reviving the corpse of Hearn's abortion XT for some necrophiliac loving is just sick and embarassing ... but if that is what you wish? Go for it, just do not expect to be taken seriously by the technical knowledgeable people in bitcoin.

[Cconvert2G36]

so all the usual trolls and bears have taken to swimming in the swamp of endlessly discussing big block politics (not technicals) now that the price is rising?

Nope, just being realistic about the happy case of us receiving what we wish for.

reviving the corpse of Hearn's abortion XT for some necrophiliac loving is just sick and embarassing ... but if that is what you wish? Go for it, just do not expect to be taken seriously by the technical knowledgeable people in bitcoin.

I didn't say a word about XT, if you want my opinion, his added "features" and change of leadership killed it upon birth. I'm fine with adam's 2-4-8.

Fact is, 1MB4EVA needs to be rektd on the shores of romania. We need to seize our moment, or perish via paralysis or capture.

[JorgeStolfi]

That's a pretty low bar to set, isn't it? "Come to Brazil! It's not currently a military dictatorship."

Brazil is far from being the best country in the world, but it is still better than average, I dare say.  It is big and varied enough for you to find a niche of your liking.  (Unless you crave for skiing, kangaroos, salt flats, bears, cranberry sauce, volcanoes, sandstorms, yetis, tornadoes, edelweisses, or earthquakes; you will have trouble finding those here.)  Quite a few Americans and Europeans who come here love it enough to stay.

[cbeast]

Exchange trading volume is dropping fast. Blocks are full from people moving their bitcoins out of exchanges. Bitcoin is going back to sleep.

[marcus_of_augustus]

so all the usual trolls and bears have taken to swimming in the swamp of endlessly discussing big block politics (not technicals) now that the price is rising?

Nope, just being realistic about the happy case of us receiving what we wish for.

reviving the corpse of Hearn's abortion XT for some necrophiliac loving is just sick and embarassing ... but if that is what you wish? Go for it, just do not expect to be taken seriously by the technical knowledgeable people in bitcoin.

I didn't say a word about XT, if you want my opinion, his added "features" and change of leadership killed it upon birth. I'm fine with adam's 2-4-8.

Fact is, 1MB4EVA needs to be rektd on the shores of romania. We need to seize our moment, or perish via paralysis or capture.

1MB4EVA is not being proposed as a serious technical solution. On h/ware improvements alone capacity will grow but how to implement that in a secure algorithm is the challenge, given the myriad of parameters and delicate balance of the existing competing incentive structure.

It would not surprise me that after all the work that is going on now for secure transactions anchored in main chain, but off-chain, that it turns out blocks wont be demanded by the market to be much bigger at all. Highly distributed networks scale securely best self-similarly, not monolithically (simply bigger blocks is a monolithic approach, so likely wrong) and "big" is a temporally-relative term that is near to impossible to encode in network rules that need to persist for decades.

[billyjoeallen]

Let me put this another way:

I bought bitcoin because it never even occurred to me that it wouldn't scale.  Many new users don't know now that it doesn't scale, but when we run up against the hard limit and your beloved transaction fee market kicks off, everyone will know and nobody likes paying high fees for something they are used to getting nearly free.

The investors/speculators are the only reason this thing works at all.  You are taking us for granted.  We do not exist simply to facilitate drug deals.  WE buy the coins. WE supply the liquidity. If you don't give us what we want, we invest elsewhere.  Without us, nobody pays the miners and everything grinds to a halt.

[Cconvert2G36]

so all the usual trolls and bears have taken to swimming in the swamp of endlessly discussing big block politics (not technicals) now that the price is rising?

Nope, just being realistic about the happy case of us receiving what we wish for.

reviving the corpse of Hearn's abortion XT for some necrophiliac loving is just sick and embarassing ... but if that is what you wish? Go for it, just do not expect to be taken seriously by the technical knowledgeable people in bitcoin.

I didn't say a word about XT, if you want my opinion, his added "features" and change of leadership killed it upon birth. I'm fine with adam's 2-4-8.

Fact is, 1MB4EVA needs to be rektd on the shores of romania. We need to seize our moment, or perish via paralysis or capture.

1MB4EVA is not being proposed as a serious technical solution. On h/ware improvements alone capacity will grow but how to implement that in a secure algorithm is the challenge, given the myriad of parameters and delicate balance of the existing competing incentive structure.

It would not surprise me that after all the work that is going on now for secure transactions anchored in main chain, but off-chain, that it turns out blocks wont be demanded by the market to be much bigger at all. Highly distributed networks scale securely best self-similarly, not monolithically (simply bigger blocks is a monolithic approach, so likely wrong) and "big" is a temporally-relative term that is near to impossible to encode in network rules that need to persist for decades.

Believe it when I see it. For now, give me 2MB for some coasting and measuring.

[billyjoeallen]

That's a pretty low bar to set, isn't it? "Come to Brazil! It's not currently a military dictatorship."

Brazil is far from being the best country in the world, but it is still better than average, I dare say.  It is big and varied enough for you to find a niche of your liking.  (Unless you crave for skiing, kangaroos, salt flats, bears, cranberry sauce, volcanoes, sandstorms, yetis, tornadoes, edelweisses, or earthquakes; you will have trouble finding those here.)  Quite a few Americans and Europeans who come here love it enough to stay.

I'm sure it's beautiful, but I would guess most of the Americans and Europeans don't move there because of your enlightened governance.  They move there DESPITE the governance.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin

Explanation

[marcus_of_augustus]

so all the usual trolls and bears have taken to swimming in the swamp of endlessly discussing big block politics (not technicals) now that the price is rising?

Nope, just being realistic about the happy case of us receiving what we wish for.

reviving the corpse of Hearn's abortion XT for some necrophiliac loving is just sick and embarassing ... but if that is what you wish? Go for it, just do not expect to be taken seriously by the technical knowledgeable people in bitcoin.

I didn't say a word about XT, if you want my opinion, his added "features" and change of leadership killed it upon birth. I'm fine with adam's 2-4-8.

Fact is, 1MB4EVA needs to be rektd on the shores of romania. We need to seize our moment, or perish via paralysis or capture.

1MB4EVA is not being proposed as a serious technical solution. On h/ware improvements alone capacity will grow but how to implement that in a secure algorithm is the challenge, given the myriad of parameters and delicate balance of the existing competing incentive structure.

It would not surprise me that after all the work that is going on now for secure transactions anchored in main chain, but off-chain, that it turns out blocks wont be demanded by the market to be much bigger at all. Highly distributed networks scale securely best self-similarly, not monolithically (simply bigger blocks is a monolithic approach, so likely wrong) and "big" is a temporally-relative term that is near to impossible to encode in network rules that need to persist for decades.

Believe it when I see it. For now, give me 2MB for some coasting and measuring.

Noone is going to "give you" anything. Run a node, spin up a new client with the rules you want implemented or contribute civilly to a technical group that is producing a client.

Kind of off-putting to see all this "demanding" by the users ... if you want something build it. This is not the customer-supplier relationship that has been sold to you by Gavin, Hearn and the data-mining crowd. They want something from you for providing "convenient solutions, easy answers and goodies", your financial privacy. It is the same thing Google and Facebook and etc did to the web. Provide the goodies for free and meanwhile they pipe your humanity out the back-door.

[Cconvert2G36]

so all the usual trolls and bears have taken to swimming in the swamp of endlessly discussing big block politics (not technicals) now that the price is rising?

Nope, just being realistic about the happy case of us receiving what we wish for.

reviving the corpse of Hearn's abortion XT for some necrophiliac loving is just sick and embarassing ... but if that is what you wish? Go for it, just do not expect to be taken seriously by the technical knowledgeable people in bitcoin.

I didn't say a word about XT, if you want my opinion, his added "features" and change of leadership killed it upon birth. I'm fine with adam's 2-4-8.

Fact is, 1MB4EVA needs to be rektd on the shores of romania. We need to seize our moment, or perish via paralysis or capture.

1MB4EVA is not being proposed as a serious technical solution. On h/ware improvements alone capacity will grow but how to implement that in a secure algorithm is the challenge, given the myriad of parameters and delicate balance of the existing competing incentive structure.

It would not surprise me that after all the work that is going on now for secure transactions anchored in main chain, but off-chain, that it turns out blocks wont be demanded by the market to be much bigger at all. Highly distributed networks scale securely best self-similarly, not monolithically (simply bigger blocks is a monolithic approach, so likely wrong) and "big" is a temporally-relative term that is near to impossible to encode in network rules that need to persist for decades.

Believe it when I see it. For now, give me 2MB for some coasting and measuring.

Noone is going to "give you" anything. Run a node, spin up a new client with the rules you want implemented or contribute civilly to a technical group that is producing a client.

Kind of off-putting to see all this "demanding" by the users ... if you want something build it. This is not the customer-supplier relationship that has been sold to you by Gavin, Hearn and the data-mining crowd. They want something from you for providing "convenient solutions, easy answers and goodies", your financial privacy. It is the same thing Google and Facebook and etc did to the web. Provide the goodies for free and meanwhile they pipe your humanity out the back-door.

I'm not "demanding" shit. You can keep it at 1MB censorship safe popescu pogs if you want, I'll spin down my node and sell my coins if you keep towing what's best for Blockstream ™ well through 2016. That's not a threat, just a statement.

(Lay down an olive branch and get smacked in the face with it.)

[billyjoeallen]

1MB4EVA is not being proposed as a serious technical solution. On h/ware improvements alone capacity will grow but how to implement that in a secure algorithm is the challenge, given the myriad of parameters and delicate balance of the existing competing incentive structure.

It would not surprise me that after all the work that is going on now for secure transactions anchored in main chain, but off-chain, that it turns out blocks wont be demanded by the market to be much bigger at all. Highly distributed networks scale securely best self-similarly, not monolithically (simply bigger blocks is a monolithic approach, so likely wrong) and "big" is a temporally-relative term that is near to impossible to encode in network rules that need to persist for decades.

I don't have to be an expert to recognize technobabble when I see it. You're like a crooked mechanic telling me I need my muffler bearings changed and my headlight fluid topped off.  It's too late for fucking blocktrees or whatever.  We're getting full blocks NOW. You think 8MB is drastic but you want to do something even more radical?  Like replacing the blockchain with trees or multiple chains?  Is that your idea of being careful?

It must take a genius to be that stupid.

[JorgeStolfi]

That is the stated Blocksrteam/small-blockian view: bitcoin should be used only for large-value settlements between institutions, like the Lightning network hubs

As a small-blockian myself, I can say the above is not my view.

Bitcoin should be used primarily for transactions where capital controls or other forms of monetary censorship exist.

The amount of data required to keep the Bitcoin network functioning should remain small enough that it is difficult to censor, especially considering it is needed most in places where censorship exists.

-- not for ordinary e-purchases by ordinary citizens.

This, however, is my view.  There is simply no reason to use censorship-proof money for ordinary purchases. It's a terrible waste of resources for starters. A decentralized system has no reason to compete with centralized systems. They each do different things well. Using Bitcoin to buy goods from Amazon is like using a chainsaw to mow your lawn. Yeah, a chainsaw will certainly cut grass, but there are much better tools for the job.

That is a sensible view, and close to what bitcoin was conceived and built for. 

However, Satoshi's stated goal was to remove the need for a trusted third party in peer-to-peer payments.  That is not the same as "censorship resistant" and does not imply it.  It does not imply anonymity or privacy, much less immunity from laws.  These goals that were tacked onto it afterwards, by others; it is not surprising that bitcoin fails to

With that caveat, I could almost say that that is my view too: bitcoin should not be used for ordinary payments -- person-to-person, e-commerce, remittance, settlement.  It should be used only in cases where the absence of a trusted intermediary is necessary or clearly advantageous. But "almost", because I believe that bitcoin's flaws will prevent even that use.

However, this view (in either version) is irrelevant for the community.  Neither Blockstream nor the big-blockians will accept it.  Both want the price of bitcoin to "go to the moon", which requires massive use.  Only that Blockstream wants to start pushing traffic offchain by next year, assuming that the LN will be ready by then; whereas the big-blockians want to keep it on-chain at least for a few more years.

it's important that any decision to change Bitcoin be considered in this light, and it's imperative not to make changes which move in the opposite direction (such as drastically increasing the amount of data needed to be shared in order to keep the network functioning).

If bitcoin were to evolve in this direction (which practically nobody wants) then one could begin by imposing a significant minimum fee, say 0.25 to 1.00 USD.  My guess is that it would cut down traffic by 90%.  But neither side wants that, either.

By the way, note that, for this purpose, other altcoins would be almost as good as Bitcoin. 

[Cconvert2G36]

SFYL