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

[nioc]

All the quick-witted people are slowly crowding back in. This is speculation! Why isn't anybody yelling out random numbers

I don't know about quick witted but I have $1359 under my mattress.  Yes I actually keep spare cash under my mattress.

Does that qualify as a random #?

I assume you mean the price of btc at sometime in the future.  I haven't a clue.  I actually thought that something more would have come from the Dec. scaling conference.  Silly me.  My last buy was a couple a weeks ago on the first dip to $425 where I got them for $427.  My desire for accumulating seems to have dissipated.  Therefore I anticipate that more stuff will accumulate under my mattress. 

[billyjoeallen]

Explanation

I take it that means the last block was 860KB.  Getting  closer. 

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Lots of numbers up there. Let me sleep on those

Rough estimate: 1,861,359

[suda123]

back up we go

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[nioc]

Explanation

I take it that means the last block was 860KB.  Getting  closer.  

I don't know how ChartBuddy calculates that given he posts once a hour.

The last 6 blocks were 926, 693, 357, 243, 267, and 469KB according to blockchain.info

Edit: well he just posted again @50% which is about the average of the blocks I listed.

[xyzzy099]

Home. My entire bitcoin folder tree amounts to less than 64 GiB - or less than USD $10 of disk space. Bandwidth is such that I don't even notice any degradation to other apps. I admit that my ISP is better than many. I've never thought to measure it with any finer resolution than 'computing demands are irrelevant'.

Care to share how many peers you're connected to?

Hmm... just a sec... checking....

OK, back. 8. I'm guessing that's a default. I've not modified that part of bitcoin.conf.

As long as we're nitpicking my particular node, it may be worth pointing out that I am running it over Tor.

If you have exactly 8 connections, it almost certainly means you have no incoming connections at all.  This usually indicates a network misconfiguration, such as port 8333 blocked by your firewall, or maybe in your case, it's a Tor issue.

The default is 8 outgoing, unlimited incoming.  If you open the Help->Debug Window menu item, it will show the relevant information.

[Cconvert2G36]

Home. My entire bitcoin folder tree amounts to less than 64 GiB - or less than USD $10 of disk space. Bandwidth is such that I don't even notice any degradation to other apps. I admit that my ISP is better than many. I've never thought to measure it with any finer resolution than 'computing demands are irrelevant'.

Care to share how many peers you're connected to?

Hmm... just a sec... checking....

OK, back. 8. I'm guessing that's a default. I've not modified that part of bitcoin.conf.

As long as we're nitpicking my particular node, it may be worth pointing out that I am running it over Tor.

If you have exactly 8 connections, it almost certainly means you have no incoming connections at all.  This usually indicates a network misconfiguration, such as port 8333 blocked by your firewall, or maybe in your case, it's a Tor issue.

The default is 8 outgoing, unlimited incoming.  If you open the Help->Debug Window menu item, it will show the relevant information.

Running a full node over tor requires setting up a tor hidden service first. I found this tutorial but don't have personal experience with it:

https://www.sky-ip.org/configure-bitcoin-node-debian-ubuntu.html

If you just want to run from your home IP, it's as simple as forwarding port 8333 in your router to your machine running bitcoind. Once you see more than 8 connections, you will be contributing to the network.

Be advised that XT nodes have had their broadcasted IP's DDoS'd in the past, although that seems to have subsided vs the days when it was quickly gaining share. I imagine it will happen again to XT and Unlimited nodes if they continue growing.

[Alley]

I'd like to see a business start to pay people for running nodes.  Maybe they can get advertisers to pay them money to cover the cost.  I end up running a node for a few weeks then stop since I get nothing.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[Cconvert2G36]

I'd like to see a business start to pay people for running nodes.  Maybe they can get advertisers to pay them money to cover the cost.  I end up running a node for a few weeks then stop since I get nothing.

Sounds more like a charity than a business. Also, a bunch of nodes under the control of one person or in one place isn't all that helpful. It would also be rife with dbags trying to game the system with pseudo nodes and such.

I think the expense/hassle makes sense for someone with a decent amount of coin. If you are interested in the long term success of your investment, you may want to contribute to the health of the network behind that investment, and have your own copy of the blockchain with the means to verify that it's accurate.  

[AlexGR]

Why?

If everyone uses litecoin why would Bitcoin be better for larger transactions?

If *everyone* uses litecoin, it won't be.

The chances of that happening is near zero for a long list of reasons.

What will happen, at most, is that shitcoins will be used for low-value txs and btc will be used for high value txs. You want to gamble for a few cents => you use a shitcoin. You want to buy a chewing gum => you use a shitcoin. You want to transfer 500$ or $5 mn, you use BTC.

You are advancing a hypothesis as a known. I think your hypothesis is faulty.

I believe that, should any alt be adopted for small value transactions, the line between 'small value' and 'large value' will quickly trend upwards in absolute value, eventually subsuming all of the actual value within the so-called 'high value' transaction space. If indeed this vision is correct, the Bitcoin would be left eventually as valueless.

The fee market dictates the transaction type. If you have, say, 1$ fee, you can't perform 1-2-3$ txs. You can however perform 50-100-1000-1mn USD txs.

When you have a network that does like 500.000 txs of an average 1.000-10.000$ (acting like the "SWIFT" of crypto), you are at 0.5 to 5bn USD per day.

And if you have a network that does 10 times the number of transactions, say 5mn txs, but for "small" values, like an average of 1 to 10$ per tx, it will only be at 5 to 50mn USD tx volume.

One would say "but why wouldn't people keep their money on the second coin with the many txs etc". The answer is: because it is a disposable coin / a joke coin, that will be unable to preserve functionality in the long run.

It is impossible for a low-fee coin to survive blockchain abuse, which, in the long run, will render that coin unusable. If there is no new mechanism that allows for scaling, all the reasons that prevent bitcoin from going into huge blocks are also there. And they are exploitable. Imagine you have an altcoin that tomorrow gets all the btc load for near zero fees. What's stopping script kiddies from inserting tonz of transactions for the lulz to see the network get clogged? And then people will say "oh fuck that, I came to this altcoin to escape higher fees and now I'm queued for ages and I have to pay fees again, and then, as the attackers are willing to pay even very small fees, I must now pay even higher fees, etc, etc... it's all fucked up". LTC, DOGE are affected in the same way. We'll see how DASH goes because it actually will try to do something different, through the masternode network, but anyway. If you can get many txs for free you can also spam for free and abuse the system (and then the devs will have to "react" by increasing fees to stop the abuse, etc etc). Monero got attacked that way last year I think, and they had to raise fees to prevent the blockchain from getting bloated to DOA levels.

At MOST, some people or group could sink billions into an altcoin, complete with incentives for miners to switch, a well-funded marketing effort, a competent development group that they can control (or at least trust), legal defense fund, lobbying team, focus groups, etc. 

What's seven billion dollars to Wall Street or Silicone Valley? What's the payoff if they succeed?  I'm surprised they haven't done this already.

If that altcoin has very low or near zero fees, it will be exploitable - no matter who creates it. Btw, the scenario of a Wall-Street-coin or Silicon-Valley-coin, is not a real threat due to being centralized. As I told you yesterday, these will be competing in the centralized space with visa and paypal, not with BTC.

If they are an alternative player with a decentralized currency and they arrive on the scene claiming that they can supply millions of txs for free, I can make a script to add gigabytes per day for the lolz into its blockchain. At some point, when people will not be happy with this, and the network will be threatened for its long-term sustainability, the devs will have to "react" and raise fees in order to prevent me from spamming it.

Big money will not necessarily solve the scaling issue. Code will (scaling improvements, new compression algorithms, etc). Or technology will (more storage, faster processing, greater bandwidth etc). Things that apply today, in terms of technological restrictions, might not apply in 3-5-10-15 years. But even if you have a far more capable network in terms of tx capacity, it will always be subject to abuse in a zero to low fee scenario. And thus it will need to be protected. This applies to both BTC and altcoins.

[Cconvert2G36]

Going from 2.7 tps to 5.4 tps isn't trying to make a VISA competitor where the world's cups of coffee will be forever on the blockchain. It's simply growing in line with (actually more conservatively than) hardware/bandwidth improvement. With current number of tx, and no block subsidy... this thing is as good as dead.

That's why the block reward exists, to provide cheapish transactions while we grow the base number of transactions that will eventually cover the cost of mining security. 

That's the baffling/infuriating part with small blockers, they assume that if we hard fork to 2MB once, 256MB is right around the corner... it's not. It's also completely different from changing the reward schedule, which is often raised in the next sentence.

If Bitcoin is artificially crippled at 1MB4EVA, or even 1.75MB with segwit through 2018, competitors will be picking away at that first mover advantage like a vulture on a corpse. This is not gold, it's not on the periodic table, it's open source software. It's value is derived from utility, and expected utility. Kill the utility, kill the coin... or at least relegate it to rpietila's new castle game.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[jbreher]

If you have exactly 8 connections, it almost certainly means you have no incoming connections at all.  This usually indicates a network misconfiguration, such as port 8333 blocked by your firewall, or maybe in your case, it's a Tor issue.

The default is 8 outgoing, unlimited incoming. 

Thanks. That's actionable info. Once I decide which larger-blocked node client I'll go with, I'll sink the time into reconfiguring.

[jbreher]

<< quite a good bit of factual info, but leading to what I believe are a few flawed conclusions, with no clear train of reasoning to draw the conclusions from the factual info >>

Just calling it the way I see it.

[billyjoeallen]

Why?

If everyone uses litecoin why would Bitcoin be better for larger transactions?

If *everyone* uses litecoin, it won't be.

The chances of that happening is near zero for a long list of reasons.

What will happen, at most, is that shitcoins will be used for low-value txs and btc will be used for high value txs. You want to gamble for a few cents => you use a shitcoin. You want to buy a chewing gum => you use a shitcoin. You want to transfer 500$ or $5 mn, you use BTC.

You are advancing a hypothesis as a known. I think your hypothesis is faulty.

I believe that, should any alt be adopted for small value transactions, the line between 'small value' and 'large value' will quickly trend upwards in absolute value, eventually subsuming all of the actual value within the so-called 'high value' transaction space. If indeed this vision is correct, the Bitcoin would be left eventually as valueless.

The fee market dictates the transaction type. If you have, say, 1$ fee, you can't perform 1-2-3$ txs. You can however perform 50-100-1000-1mn USD txs.

When you have a network that does like 500.000 txs of an average 1.000-10.000$ (acting like the "SWIFT" of crypto), you are at 0.5 to 5bn USD per day.

And if you have a network that does 10 times the number of transactions, say 5mn txs, but for "small" values, like an average of 1 to 10$ per tx, it will only be at 5 to 50mn USD tx volume.

One would say "but why wouldn't people keep their money on the second coin with the many txs etc". The answer is: because it is a disposable coin / a joke coin, that will be unable to preserve functionality in the long run.

It is impossible for a low-fee coin to survive blockchain abuse, which, in the long run, will render that coin unusable. If there is no new mechanism that allows for scaling, all the reasons that prevent bitcoin from going into huge blocks are also there. And they are exploitable. Imagine you have an altcoin that tomorrow gets all the btc load for near zero fees. What's stopping script kiddies from inserting tonz of transactions for the lulz to see the network get clogged? And then people will say "oh fuck that, I came to this altcoin to escape higher fees and now I'm queued for ages and I have to pay fees again, and then, as the attackers are willing to pay even very small fees, I must now pay even higher fees, etc, etc... it's all fucked up". LTC, DOGE are affected in the same way. We'll see how DASH goes because it actually will try to do something different, through the masternode network, but anyway. If you can get many txs for free you can also spam for free and abuse the system (and then the devs will have to "react" by increasing fees to stop the abuse, etc etc). Monero got attacked that way last year I think, and they had to raise fees to prevent the blockchain from getting bloated to DOA levels.

At MOST, some people or group could sink billions into an altcoin, complete with incentives for miners to switch, a well-funded marketing effort, a competent development group that they can control (or at least trust), legal defense fund, lobbying team, focus groups, etc. 

What's seven billion dollars to Wall Street or Silicone Valley? What's the payoff if they succeed?  I'm surprised they haven't done this already.

If that altcoin has very low or near zero fees, it will be exploitable - no matter who creates it. Btw, the scenario of a Wall-Street-coin or Silicon-Valley-coin, is not a real threat due to being centralized. As I told you yesterday, these will be competing in the centralized space with visa and paypal, not with BTC.

If they are an alternative player with a decentralized currency and they arrive on the scene claiming that they can supply millions of txs for free, I can make a script to add gigabytes per day for the lolz into its blockchain. At some point, when people will not be happy with this, and the network will be threatened for its long-term sustainability, the devs will have to "react" and raise fees in order to prevent me from spamming it.

Big money will not necessarily solve the scaling issue. Code will (scaling improvements, new compression algorithms, etc). Or technology will (more storage, faster processing, greater bandwidth etc). Things that apply today, in terms of technological restrictions, might not apply in 3-5-10-15 years. But even if you have a far more capable network in terms of tx capacity, it will always be subject to abuse in a zero to low fee scenario. And thus it will need to be protected. This applies to both BTC and altcoins.

You have a serious denial issues if you think someone can't copy an open source project, tweak it to remove some bugs, rebrand it to get rid of the baggage and bullshit and give the dominant player some serious competition, especially with enough funding. It doesn't matter if it's grass roots or astroturf.  Fake it 'till you make it.   Billionaires who missed out on being early adopters can be early adopters of BTC2.0 It can even be decentralized and distributed. Haterz be worldwide, Bro.

[billyjoeallen]

Going from 2.7 tps to 5.4 tps isn't trying to make a VISA competitor where the world's cups of coffee will be forever on the blockchain. It's simply growing in line with (actually more conservatively than) hardware/bandwidth improvement. With current number of tx, and no block subsidy... this thing is as good as dead.

That's why the block reward exists, to provide cheapish transactions while we grow the base number of transactions that will eventually cover the cost of mining security. 

That's the baffling/infuriating part with small blockers, they assume that if we hard fork to 2MB once, 256MB is right around the corner... it's not. It's also completely different from changing the reward schedule, which is often raised in the next sentence.

If Bitcoin is artificially crippled at 1MB4EVA, or even 1.75MB with segwit through 2018, competitors will be picking away at that first mover advantage like a vulture on a corpse. This is not gold, it's not on the periodic table, it's open source software. It's value is derived from utility, and expected utility. Kill the utility, kill the coin... or at least relegate it to rpietila's new castle game.

+1

You can have a lot of little fees or a few big fees, but if you opt for a few big fees, you can expect competition who will choose the opposite business model.

[fisheater22]

back up we go

The thing that's happening right now... the very opposite of up... What's the word I'm looking for?

[Cconvert2G36]