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

[billyjoeallen]

I'm a fan of Murray Rothbard, but I don't like the term "anarcho-capitalist" that he coined, because, although it is technically accurate, it is misleading to laymen.  Rothbard was an anarchist in the sense that he believed in "no rulers", but he absolutely believed in order and thought the central State was ultimately an agent of disorder and I agree with him.

I prefer to use the term "distributed governance".  Hierarchies are found throughout nature and I think it is contrary to human nature and therefor impossible to eliminate them entirely. But I still think Political power should be reduced as much as possible and reducing the amount of pooled resources to squabble over is a step in that direction. 

We can also dramatically reduce violence if it becomes taboo to ever initiate it, meaning defensive force is the only kind with any social sanction. The problem arises that there are differing views on what exactly constitutes "initiatory violence." This is because there are differing views on how threatening speech has to be before it constitutes an actual threat and because defense of property depends on the definition of rightful property.  Still, I think these problems are solvable after a few generations of children raised without corporal punishment grow up.

[Richy_T]

*Which isn't to say "anarchy" is a useless word. It's useful in its colloquial, everyday sense:
an·ar·chy
ˈanərkē/
noun
noun: anarchy

    a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority.
    "he must ensure public order in a country threatened with anarchy"

The big problem with anarchy is that many of its types are inconsistent and amount to "I should be free to tell others what to do". As such, you are correct that it is mainly of use only colloquially.

[JorgeStolfi]

The answer to your question of attacking one of the chains seems to be valid, still.

I don't think so...

When a fork is proposed, like XT or Classic (with 75% trigger and a few weeks of grace period between the trigger and the switch to new rules), I think that:

* Before the fork, holders should pray that it resolves neatly and quickly as a non-event, and keep quiet or voice their preferences quietly, so that it does not upset the price;

* If the proposal gains some support, but neither reaches 75% nor drops back to zero, and it looks like the impasse may continue for a while, they may want to speak out for one outcome, to help break the impasse -- but that may make things worse if they themselves cant agree on which side to support.   They may want to sell while the price is still OK, justin case; but that may cause the price to crash.  Or they may choose to bet on the price recovering later, and keep holding.

* If the proposal gets little suport and seems to be a sure fail, the holders shoul shout it down.

* If the proposal gets 51% and keeps increasing, the holders should cheer it along.

* If the proposal gets the required support and triggers, the holders should upgrade their clients accept it, and do what they can to convince the remaining miners and players to accept it too.

* If the change has triggered, but at the end of the grace period there is still a non-negligible fraction of the miners that refuse to accep it, then the holders should try to convince the exchanges and other services to boycott the minority chain and refuse its coins, and convince the miners to sabotage the minority chain.

[billyjoeallen]

The answer to your question of attacking one of the chains seems to be valid, still.

I don't think so...

When a fork is proposed, like XT or Classic (with 75% trigger and a few weeks of grace period between the trigger and the switch to new rules), I think that:

* Before the fork, holders should pray that it resolves neatly and quickly as a non-event, and keep quiet or voice their preferences quietly, so that it does not upset the price;

* If the proposal gains some support, but neither reaches 75% nor drops back to zero, and it looks like the impasse may continue for a while, they may want to speak out for one outcome, to help break the impasse -- but that may make things worse if they themselves cant agree on which side to support.   They may want to sell while the price is still OK, justin case; but that may cause the price to crash.  Or they may choose to bet on the price recovering later, and keep holding.

* If the proposal gets little suport and seems to be a sure fail, the holders shoul shout it down.

* If the proposal gets 51% and keeps increasing, the holders should cheer it along.

* If the proposal gets the required support and triggers, the holders should upgrade their clients accept it, and do what they can to convince the remaining miners and players to accept it too.

* If the change has triggered, but at the end of the grace period there is still a non-negligible fraction of the miners that refuse to accep it, then the holders should try to convince the exchanges and other services to boycott the minority chain and refuse its coins, and convince the miners to sabotage the minority chain.

When a minority can veto, we have what amounts to a game of "chicken". In the game of chicken, the side perceived to be the craziest and most hell-bent on winning at any cost (including their own destruction) is the side that wins.  This right now is the side of the smallblockers, unfortunately.  That's why I think this will take a while to play out, longer in fact than it will take to fill the blocks and hike fees. Possibly long enough to get a network congestion failure. 

[r0ach]

Another average day in Bitcoin.  

China FOMO short squeeze sucker's rally designed solely to margin call MatTheCat then immediately dump after while forum discusses fullblockalypse vs barackalypse.

[TReano]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/01/19/r-i-p-bitcoin-its-time-to-move-on/?postshare=691453395532622&tid=ss_tw

[ChartBuddy]

Coin


Explanation

[billyjoeallen]

riddle me this, cripplecoiners:

1. How do you grow network effects without scaling?
2. How do you attract new users by increasing fees and slowing service?
3. How do you reduce friction by increasing complexity?
4. How can you call a network dominated by a handful of miners in a totalitarian state decentralized?

Do you think code developers have or should have any accountability to the people who actually use their software?  If it's open source, shouldn't we have the right to modify it in any way we see fit?

[r0ach]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/01/19/r-i-p-bitcoin-its-time-to-move-on/?postshare=691453395532622&tid=ss_tw

Someone like Wences or Keiser should waste a few thousand with paid for media blowing the lid off the fact that Mike Hearn was not an actual core dev.  It would probably really fuck Hearn over and make him wish he never wrote that blog post if it appears that he was misrepresenting who he actually was.  He's not a complete idiot, but his authority figure status over Bitcoin is more similar to some random guy like Peter R than Satoshi.  The articles all pretend like he was running the show.

[ImI]

The answer to your question of attacking one of the chains seems to be valid, still.

I don't think so...

When a fork is proposed, like XT or Classic (with 75% trigger and a few weeks of grace period between the trigger and the switch to new rules), I think that:

* Before the fork, holders should pray that it resolves neatly and quickly as a non-event, and keep quiet or voice their preferences quietly, so that it does not upset the price;

* If the proposal gains some support, but neither reaches 75% nor drops back to zero, and it looks like the impasse may continue for a while, they may want to speak out for one outcome, to help break the impasse -- but that may make things worse if they themselves cant agree on which side to support.   They may want to sell while the price is still OK, justin case; but that may cause the price to crash.  Or they may choose to bet on the price recovering later, and keep holding.

* If the proposal gets little suport and seems to be a sure fail, the holders shoul shout it down.

* If the proposal gets 51% and keeps increasing, the holders should cheer it along.

* If the proposal gets the required support and triggers, the holders should upgrade their clients accept it, and do what they can to convince the remaining miners and players to accept it too.

* If the change has triggered, but at the end of the grace period there is still a non-negligible fraction of the miners that refuse to accep it, then the holders should try to convince the exchanges and other services to boycott the minority chain and refuse its coins, and convince the miners to sabotage the minority chain.

When a minority can veto, we have what amounts to a game of "chicken". In the game of chicken, the side perceived to be the craziest and most hell-bent on winning at any cost (including their own destruction) is the side that wins.  This right now is the side of the smallblockers, unfortunately.  That's why I think this will take a while to play out, longer in fact than it will take to fill the blocks and hike fees. Possibly long enough to get a network congestion failure. 

There won't be a "congestion failure". If blocks are full a order of importance builds itself, those TXs that are more important are paying more and those that are not important are paying less/nothing. You dont have to agree with this fee market evolving and its perfectly fine to be in the bigblockers-camp, but this "congestion failure" is just bullshit cause it paints a situation that will never occur.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Bitcoin was interesting when it was an experiment, when it ran. It’s crawling now, crawling toward instability.

http://www.coindesk.com/is-bitcoin-for-the-masses-or-against-the-state/

Even the cheap rags are onto us. 

[CuntChocula]

...
There won't be a "congestion failure". If blocks are full a order of importance builds itself, those TXs that are more important are paying more and those that are not important are paying less/nothing. You dont have to agree with this fee market evolving and its perfectly fine to be in the bigblockers-camp, but this "congestion failure" is just bullshit cause it paints a situation that will never occur.

So... Each time I transact via Bitcoin, I make a wager (that the tx fee I paid is sufficient to have my transaction included)?
Sort of like a blind auction?
On that like white on rice, the wackier & more probabilistic my money is, the better

[billyjoeallen]

The answer to your question of attacking one of the chains seems to be valid, still.

I don't think so...

When a fork is proposed, like XT or Classic (with 75% trigger and a few weeks of grace period between the trigger and the switch to new rules), I think that:

* Before the fork, holders should pray that it resolves neatly and quickly as a non-event, and keep quiet or voice their preferences quietly, so that it does not upset the price;

* If the proposal gains some support, but neither reaches 75% nor drops back to zero, and it looks like the impasse may continue for a while, they may want to speak out for one outcome, to help break the impasse -- but that may make things worse if they themselves cant agree on which side to support.   They may want to sell while the price is still OK, justin case; but that may cause the price to crash.  Or they may choose to bet on the price recovering later, and keep holding.

* If the proposal gets little suport and seems to be a sure fail, the holders shoul shout it down.

* If the proposal gets 51% and keeps increasing, the holders should cheer it along.

* If the proposal gets the required support and triggers, the holders should upgrade their clients accept it, and do what they can to convince the remaining miners and players to accept it too.

* If the change has triggered, but at the end of the grace period there is still a non-negligible fraction of the miners that refuse to accep it, then the holders should try to convince the exchanges and other services to boycott the minority chain and refuse its coins, and convince the miners to sabotage the minority chain.

When a minority can veto, we have what amounts to a game of "chicken". In the game of chicken, the side perceived to be the craziest and most hell-bent on winning at any cost (including their own destruction) is the side that wins.  This right now is the side of the smallblockers, unfortunately.  That's why I think this will take a while to play out, longer in fact than it will take to fill the blocks and hike fees. Possibly long enough to get a network congestion failure. 

There won't be a "congestion failure". If blocks are full a order of importance builds itself, those TXs that are more important are paying more and those that are not important are paying less/nothing. You dont have to agree with this fee market evolving and its perfectly fine to be in the bigblockers-camp, but this "congestion failure" is just bullshit cause it paints a situation that will never occur.

The more important Bitcoins becomes, the more likely a congestion failure will be absent a scaling solution.  Let's assume half the transactions are either not important or urgent. Then what happens if that number grows by a factor of five? This is not unprecedented.  There is no way the price will sustainably go up without attracting new users EXPONENTIALLY and the network won't be able to handle them no matter how much in fees they pay. 

Let's use a hypothetical example: Imagine that the Chinese government announces that they will soon close the loophole that allows their citizens to avoid capital controls via crypto. This could cause a mad rush to the exits, particularly if the economic conditions inside China deteriorate. If one tenth of one percent of the Chinese try to get their money out through bitcoin, that's (1,600,000,000)X(0.001)=1,600,000 so at only one transaction each, we're looking at over four times the total daily network capacity IN ADDITION TO all the other traffic.  That's just one example. I can think of dozens more. Hyperinflation in a third world country. another Cypress type banking crisis.  A terrorist attack on the Bank of International Settlements. SWIFT or ACH getting hacked. etc.

The mempool has already been over 10MB for two days straight. We are looking at a permanent and growing backlog of transactions. 

[CuntChocula]

Bitcoin was interesting when it was an experiment, when it ran. It’s crawling now, crawling toward instability.

http://www.coindesk.com/is-bitcoin-for-the-masses-or-against-the-state/

Even the cheap rags are onto us. 

"One could even go so far as to claim the current banking system is more decentralized than bitcoin at this point. The Federal Reserve is composed of 12 banks across the country which then lend money to the nearly 7,000 banks in the country, not to mention the thousands of credit unions as well.

On the other hand, bitcoin (although still in its infancy) is currently managed primarily by four large mining pools, all out of China. While these pools are networks of many individual miners, there is uneasiness about this predisposition."

http://s2.postimg.org/dbb1ohovd/neigh.jpg

[Fatman3001]

The retard journalist (https://twitter.com/AaronvanW/status/690120783281156097) has published his article: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/f-pool-chinese-pools-will-stick-with-bitcoin-core-1453395328


Long story short: F2Pool and HaoBTC.

No real news then.

[CuntChocula]

... The mempool has already been over 10MB for two days straight. We are looking at a permanent and growing backlog of transactions.  ...

You mean "malicious spam"? >>>/dev/null

[Sitarow]

Bitcoin was interesting when it was an experiment, when it ran. It’s crawling now, crawling toward instability.

http://www.coindesk.com/is-bitcoin-for-the-masses-or-against-the-state/

Even the cheap rags are onto us.  

"One could even go so far as to claim the current banking system is more decentralized than bitcoin at this point. The Federal Reserve is composed of 12 banks across the country which then lend money to the nearly 7,000 banks in the country, not to mention the thousands of credit unions as well.

On the other hand, bitcoin (although still in its infancy) is currently managed primarily by four large mining pools, all out of China. While these pools are networks of many individual miners, there is uneasiness about this predisposition."

#1 BTC = Global, not a single country.
#2 BTC = Public Ledger and distributed, Unlike banks that don't even trust one another's books.
#3 BTC and its participants can migrate to a better horizon solution at a moments notice. Unlike bank that don't have a trusted backup that they would ever agree on due to political situations and commitments.

The list goes on. It is unfortunate to see this disingenuous type of approach to sell sensationalism while masquerading as journalistic reporting.

[AlexGR]

The mempool has already been over 10MB for two days straight. We are looking at a permanent and growing backlog of transactions.  

Check http://cointape.com

Tell me those who are waiting, how much they are paying in fees.

To help you with the math: 1 satoshi = $0.0000040927

From what I see, most want to pay <30 satoshi per byte with a lot of transactions being in the <10 satoshi per byte or 0 satoshi.

Most txs right now who are waiting, are paying <0.05$ - with the bulk paying <0.02$

First block inclusion is at 0.08$ right now.

Such Fullblockalypse... Very fees... WOW

[billyjoeallen]

Bitcoin was interesting when it was an experiment, when it ran. It’s crawling now, crawling toward instability.

http://www.coindesk.com/is-bitcoin-for-the-masses-or-against-the-state/

Even the cheap rags are onto us.  

"One could even go so far as to claim the current banking system is more decentralized than bitcoin at this point. The Federal Reserve is composed of 12 banks across the country which then lend money to the nearly 7,000 banks in the country, not to mention the thousands of credit unions as well.

On the other hand, bitcoin (although still in its infancy) is currently managed primarily by four large mining pools, all out of China. While these pools are networks of many individual miners, there is uneasiness about this predisposition."

#1 BTC = Global, not a single country.
#2 BTC = Public Ledger and distributed, Unlike banks that don't even trust one another's books.
#3 BTC and its participants can migrate to a better horizon solution at a moments notice. Unlike bank that don't have a trusted backup that they would ever agree on due to political situations and commitments.

The list goes on. It is unfortunate to see this disingenuous type of approach to sell sensationalism while masquerading as journalistic reporting.

#1 majority hashpower is in China. Chinese mines can be controlled or shut down by the People's Bank or the government.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin


Explanation