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

[jbreher]

Is SegWit really just an ugly hack to accommodate LN? Is this true? Because nobody knows if anybody will use LN yet...

No. It fixes transaction malleability. Stupid.

Which killed Mt Gox.

ha. haha. Haha. HahaHa. HaHa HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ha.

Are you saying you want more Mt Goxes? And dead puppies?

Oh - you had me going there for a bit.

[jbreher]

Unlimited is a bit of a wildcard as it's designed to follow the network.

Close. But omits illustrative detail. BU block size limit is whatever the emergent consensus of the entire network is, configured by means of each user setting their own block size limit value.

[JayJuanGee]

I have difficulties understanding how someone who is trying to come off as an academic can get so side tracked with attempts at irrelevant digs into attempts to find bad motives and assertions that individuals are simple and driven by narrow agendas. 

The personalities in "bitcon space" are fascinating, quite unlike those of other communities I have known in the past 30+ years of forum surfing.  Most in a negative way, unfortunately.  People like Mark Karpelès, Danny Brewster, the BFL gang, the Bitcoin Foundation, and many other far too numerous to list. 

I cannot avoid taking sides in the block size limit war.  I am not exactly a fan of Mike and Gavin, but on the other hand I cannot find anything good to say about the Blocstream guys.  Not about character, not about ethics, not about respect for the project and its users, not even about competence.  Bankruptcy is the least they deserve.

A couple days ago, Luke-Jr trolled BitcoinClassic by posting a pull request that would change the PoW algorithm to make it impossible to mine with ASICs.  I then proposed that the Core devs do that on Core.  It was meant to be a just counter-trolling.  But it seems that Greg and Luke-Jr are seriously dreaming the option of doing just that in case the miners switch to Classic.  It is Idiocracy II -- but with bitcoin!

I consider myself to be really fucking skeptical about people and not trusting them to be generous to me without having various selfish motives; however, at the same time, if I sit down with anyone, I consider that people generally are attempting to make various contributions to society beyond their selfish motives, and that both selfish motives and contribution can live side by side and simultaneously.

In other words, if you actually sit down with people or hear them out in various ways, they are not all trying to get ahead by screwing everyone else like you seem to attribute to a large majority of public bitcoin figures. 

Maybe we can draw an analogy with cops?  Cops have a lot of power, and surely some police forces are more corrupt than others, but frequently, if they are getting paid a decent salary, for example in the USA, then less than a few percent of them are going to be with bad motives, even though frequently when bad incidents are occurring, a larger majority are painted as corrupt.

Surely, sometimes we can agree that some of the folks are just evil or they have become evil, and Karpeles may be one of those figures, but even though Charlie Shrem has been convicted, he shouldn't necessarily be considered as evil.. .and even Brock Pierce has been accused of a lot of negative things, but he generally seems to have a large number of contributions to bitcoin.  Maybe it's not easy to get caught up in various personalities because I generally do not want to get caught up in that and I prefer to see ideas and contributions, and yes, if there comes out some specific facts that may demonstrate that someone is not acting in good faith, such as Mike Hearn's public temper tantrum, then his personal motives may become an issue in my thinking about whether s/he is acting in good faith to contribute rather than destroy.

And, yes, I have some bias in that I want bitcoin to succeed in a variety of ways, and not only because of my own probable financial gain in its success but also because I believe that bitcoin has a lot to offer in a variety of ways that are currently unknown and on a weekly basis, i am still learning about bitcoin and its variety of contributions towards making a more interesting world.

[jbreher]

According to BitcoinHistory, a hardfork occurred March 12, 2013.

And some of us watched -- fascinated -- as it unfolded in real time.

[JayJuanGee]

I'd advise trader here to secure their long position.

We have consensus.

When did this royal "we" come to this result?

Should I act quickly, or do I have a few days of down before the up comes?

Not long ago.

I'd advise you act quickly.  

Well, maybe then I should stop waiting for $372, and buy a little more at $374...  because surely anything below $392 is going to seem to be a bargain...  hahahaha..

[jbreher]

doesn't bitfinex only hold some kind of custodial key so that owners can remain in control of their BTC while holding a balance on bitfinex?

Don't know. If so, then how could those BTC be lent to others?

I have stayed away from BFX all these years, as its entire biz model seems predicated upon systemic risk of fractional reserve moral hazard. What am I missing?

[jbreher]

What kind of notice could/would/will we expect?

I've got coins spread across various devices, forms of storage etc. I don't fancy being left with a load of shitcoins (whichever becomes the defeated chain).

Acid rain, dogs eating cats...chaos everywhere.

 

Points off for missing the chance of a Ghostbusters reference.

Hate to bust your chops on this, but that would be 'dogs and cats... _living_ together...'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3ZOKDmorj0

[JayJuanGee]

According to BitcoinHistory, a hardfork occurred March 12, 2013.

And some of us watched -- fascinated -- as it unfolded in real time.

hahahaha...

I just have to read about some of these various phenomena in the history books and hear from some of you peeps in the forums (and maybe some day I will meet more people in real life - not so many people in my real life have bitcoin backgrounds).

In essence in early 2013, I was too busy gazing at my own navel and other aspects of my own real life, and even though I had heard the word bitcoin several times before, the reality of the matter is that to the best of my recollection, I did not really notice any meaningful live details about bitcoin until sometime in November 2013.....

Seems that cannot go back in time and change personal experiences, because I have already kept attempting to drudge up in my own memory what I knew or recall hearing about bitcoin before November 2013, and really, there is no real substance of any memory there... so, it is what it is... no?

[jbreher]

I've gone from being confused about opt-in RBF to sort of indifferent. Theymos may have seduced me with his charms tho.

You may wish to ponder his assertion that it is unlikely that anyone will customize a client to provide pushbutton 'rescind payment' abilities. If we have learned anything about script kiddies, it is that there are plenty who destroy only for the lulz of watching the world burn.

[jbreher]

<<Sorry for the horkedattribution>>

Not at all. JorgeStolfi was saying that if you settle to the Bitcoin blockchain only 1/10000 of your tx then you might as well not do it at all and use a fiat LN system. I'm saying that at 1/10000 of your tx, the cost of using real Bitcoin (even with, hypothetically, expensive BTC transactions) would be so low there is no reason not to just stay with Bitcoin. I don't think people will want fiat LN.

Doesn't make much sense. While 1/10000 of the transaction represents only 0.01% of the customer's transaction cost, it represents 100% of the tranasaction aggregator's cost - and that is the party tasked with selecting the ultimate settlement network.

And what makes the customer choose that aggregator? LN nodes are permissionless and will compete on the basis of the attributes of their service offering (reliability,etc.). Being collateralized or not is a differentiator that will form the basis of customers' decisions over which network/nodes to use.

Saying that customers will choose uncollateralized providers given the choice is equivalent to saying they don''t want Bitcoin, which may be the case.

With the indirection of the aggregator in between, I don't think most customers will give it a second thought. Quick - what actual bank underwrites your 'Best Buy' or 'Frontier Airlines' credit card?

[smooth]

<<Sorry for the horkedattribution>>

Not at all. JorgeStolfi was saying that if you settle to the Bitcoin blockchain only 1/10000 of your tx then you might as well not do it at all and use a fiat LN system. I'm saying that at 1/10000 of your tx, the cost of using real Bitcoin (even with, hypothetically, expensive BTC transactions) would be so low there is no reason not to just stay with Bitcoin. I don't think people will want fiat LN.

Doesn't make much sense. While 1/10000 of the transaction represents only 0.01% of the customer's transaction cost, it represents 100% of the tranasaction aggregator's cost - and that is the party tasked with selecting the ultimate settlement network.

And what makes the customer choose that aggregator? LN nodes are permissionless and will compete on the basis of the attributes of their service offering (reliability,etc.). Being collateralized or not is a differentiator that will form the basis of customers' decisions over which network/nodes to use.

Saying that customers will choose uncollateralized providers given the choice is equivalent to saying they don''t want Bitcoin, which may be the case.

With the indirection of the aggregator in between, I don't think most customers will give it a second thought. Quick - what actual bank underwrites your 'Best Buy' or 'Frontier Airlines' credit card?

There is no indirection here, unless customers decide they don't care about BTC and will happily accept jbrehercoin channel payments instead. A LN channel is a claim on BTC, which can be reassigned to another chain endpoint. You literally can not construct that transaction on a different chain.

You can construct cross chain channels but the customer would have to want that service. I can't ask for BTC as a payment and you send me LTC and expect my endpoint to accept it. It won't.

[jbreher]

Conversely 1:10000 is so close to 0:10000 that you might as well just leave it on the Bitcoin blockchain. The benefit of not doing so would be negligible.

No. Makes no sense whatsoever.

True, the choice of settlement platform is leveraged 10,000:1 in this scenario for the transacting party. As such, it probably does not much matter to the transaction party whether the underlying settlement platform is Bitcoin or a vastly cheaper alt.

It certainly does matter to the customer. Customers will chose a BTC LN over an alt LN for the same reasons they (usually) choose BTC over alts. Those are well known so I will not repeat them.

Regarding the idea of a completely uncollateralized fiat payment network, I already answered that, twice. If people want that they will just use existing fiat networks. LN offers nothing special to them at all (nor does Bitcoin in any form, or alts).

Yeah... about that post... sorry... I didn't realize I was doubling (long boring story).

But I still think you put too much faith in the purchaser.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[tifozi]

 I then proposed that the Core devs do that on Core.  It was meant to be a just counter-trolling.  But it seems that Greg and Luke-Jr are seriously dreaming the option of doing just that in case the miners switch to Classic.  It is Idiocracy II -- but with bitcoin!

Just read that thread for amusement. Saw this post

One of them is that he may have realized that bitcoin was quickly becoming a speculation instrument rather than the payment system he had set out to design; and that people were using MtGOX as a bank and intermediary, which defeated the goal of bitcoin. A rational person like him should have seen that things would only get worse -- and would have lost intrest.

This isn't really accurate. Satoshi knew exactly where it would go and he never dismissed Hal's outlandish predictions about the value of Bitcoin's either during the conversation in the cryptography mailing list.

The fact that new coins are produced means the money supply increases by a
planned amount, but this does not necessarily result in inflation. If the
supply of money increases at the same rate that the number of people using it
increases, prices remain stable. If it does not increase as fast as demand,
there will be deflation and early holders of money will see its value increase.

[smooth]

A couple days ago, Luke-Jr trolled BitcoinClassic by posting a pull request that would change the PoW algorithm to make it impossible to mine with ASICs.  I then proposed that the Core devs do that on Core.  It was meant to be a just counter-trolling.  But it seems that Greg and Luke-Jr are seriously dreaming the option of doing just that in case the miners switch to Classic.  It is Idiocracy II -- but with bitcoin!

Apparently the only one who got trolled by Luke-Jr was you because he wasn't trolling. He has been proposing this for some time and it has always been on the table.

I know it doesn't fit your narrative about how miners control everything, but it has always been, and always will be, the option of users to opt for a PoW-reset if miners are viewed by the consensus of economic majority as misbehaving. (I don't know that there is any such consensus and probably Luke-Jr does not either, but who knows, maybe there is or will be.)

[solitude]

Hey faggots you done selling? You waiting for the next faggot-in-bed-with-the-kike-banksters to declare bitcoin dead before you sell the rest of your coins?

Grow a spine you fucking faggots.

[jbreher]

In essence in early 2013, I was too busy gazing at my own navel and other aspects of my own real life, and even though I had heard the word bitcoin several times before, the reality of the matter is that to the best of my recollection, I did not really notice any meaningful live details about bitcoin until sometime in November 2013.....

Yeah, and I was aware of (and even following) Bitcoin for something like a year before I bought in too. And today, some other person is just becoming aware of Bitcoin - and they'll buy some months down the road at a large increment in price. And _they'll_ score a hundred-bagger. If this thing goes where I'm 80% convinced it is headed, we have several orders of magnitude to go. Still opportunity for riches for everyone.

If _we_ don't F it up.

And if we are capable of F-ing it up, it wasn't the right solution anyhow.

[smooth]

 I then proposed that the Core devs do that on Core.  It was meant to be a just counter-trolling.  But it seems that Greg and Luke-Jr are seriously dreaming the option of doing just that in case the miners switch to Classic.  It is Idiocracy II -- but with bitcoin!

Just read that thread for amusement. Saw this post

One of them is that he may have realized that bitcoin was quickly becoming a speculation instrument rather than the payment system he had set out to design; and that people were using MtGOX as a bank and intermediary, which defeated the goal of bitcoin. A rational person like him should have seen that things would only get worse -- and would have lost intrest.

This isn't really accurate. Satoshi knew exactly where it would go and he never dismissed Hal's outlandish predictions about the value of Bitcoin's either during the conversation in the cryptography mailing list.

The fact that new coins are produced means the money supply increases by a
planned amount, but this does not necessarily result in inflation. If the
supply of money increases at the same rate that the number of people using it
increases, prices remain stable. If it does not increase as fast as demand,
there will be deflation and early holders of money will see its value increase.

It isn't accurate because JorgeStolfi was either trolling or stubbornly ignoring facts. I already explained to him a few days ago, complete with numerous quotes (though I missed that one -- thanks for finding it), that satoshi was well aware that Bitcoin not only would be a speculative asset but that it was absolutely expected and even required that it would function that way.

[JayJuanGee]

In essence in early 2013, I was too busy gazing at my own navel and other aspects of my own real life, and even though I had heard the word bitcoin several times before, the reality of the matter is that to the best of my recollection, I did not really notice any meaningful live details about bitcoin until sometime in November 2013.....

Yeah, and I was aware of (and even following) Bitcoin for something like a year before I bought in too. And today, some other person is just becoming aware of Bitcoin - and they'll buy some months down the road at a large increment in price. And _they'll_ score a hundred-bagger. If this thing goes where I'm 80% convinced it is headed, we have several orders of magnitude to go. Still opportunity for riches for everyone.

If _we_ don't F it up.

And if we are capable of F-ing it up, it wasn't the right solution anyhow.

Actually, I think I agree with your every sentiment in this post.... and the longterm odds seem to be pretty good for bitcoin, whether it is 80% or some other number in that ball park.

Surely, bitcoin could regress in various ways, but I did get involved on the cusp of considerable worry about government regulation being a potential death knell or at least something that could really and meaningfully stifle expansion.

These days, the regulatory threat, to the extent it exists, seems to be a lot more indirect than what had been previously considered.


Furthermore, initially, I had been thinking that if I get into this thing (bitcoin), what are my liquidation possibilities and potential exit strategies.

Even though liquidation avenues may not have been good for bitcoin in the short term, over 2014 and 2015, these building of liquidation avenues are likely very valuable for bitcoin's long term prospects and just its becoming known and useful in a variety of ways for a large number of people in all corners of the world.  Yep, probably, we are going to see a lot more liquidation options and even abilities to use cell phone interface in poor countries, which will bring additional liquidation and utility to bitcoin.

[JayJuanGee]

 I then proposed that the Core devs do that on Core.  It was meant to be a just counter-trolling.  But it seems that Greg and Luke-Jr are seriously dreaming the option of doing just that in case the miners switch to Classic.  It is Idiocracy II -- but with bitcoin!

Just read that thread for amusement. Saw this post

One of them is that he may have realized that bitcoin was quickly becoming a speculation instrument rather than the payment system he had set out to design; and that people were using MtGOX as a bank and intermediary, which defeated the goal of bitcoin. A rational person like him should have seen that things would only get worse -- and would have lost intrest.

This isn't really accurate. Satoshi knew exactly where it would go and he never dismissed Hal's outlandish predictions about the value of Bitcoin's either during the conversation in the cryptography mailing list.

The fact that new coins are produced means the money supply increases by a
planned amount, but this does not necessarily result in inflation. If the
supply of money increases at the same rate that the number of people using it
increases, prices remain stable. If it does not increase as fast as demand,
there will be deflation and early holders of money will see its value increase.

It isn't accurate because JorgeStolfi was either trolling or stubbornly ignoring facts. I already explained to him a few days ago, complete with numerous quotes (though I missed that one -- thanks for finding it), that satoshi was well aware that Bitcoin not only would be a speculative asset but that it was absolutely expected and even required that it would function that way.

Stolfi doesn't really like to account for actual material and relevant facts, he would just prefer to select his own spin on minute and unimportant facts and then give grand eloquence to some trivial matters attempting to make those trivialities appear to be more centrally important than they are.  It's his MO.