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

[TERA]

This is no fun without a Bitcoinity full of walls somewhere to look at.

[rolling]

There is really nothing useful in this thread anymore.

[mymenace]

bitstamp





what happens when the green shaded peaks meet back down to the yellow line, seems to be occurring again

[jbreher]

In this case, if you allow miners the liberty to include as large blocks as they like, an external actor that hates bitcoin can just say to a miner "you know what? I'll pay you more fees than what the others are making, and if your block is orphaned, I'll pay that too - just make sure to put in there as many txs as you like".

At that point, the enemy of bitcoin who has employed "bad miners" for very little money (compared to the multi-billion dollar interests of banks/payment companies/governments), can bloat bitcoin to death for extremely small costs.

Just because the miners (in this hypothetical) are allowed to create blocks as large as they desire, does not mean that other miners are forced to accept those blocks as valid. If such a large block (presumably the result of your bribe above) is deemed detrimental to the system by the other miners (i.e., detrimental to these other miners' interests), these other miners are incentivized to orphan that block. Resulting in no problem to the network. The 'problem' solves itself.

Not really.

1) The network is being spammed every day - even with stated spam attacks and stress tests. These blocks are now sitting in the blockchain as bloat. If the rejection scenario actually happened, they wouldn't be sitting in there.

Well, no. Any transaction that has made it into the blockchain is -- by definition -- a valid transaction. You don't get to call valid transactions 'bloat'.

Not to mention the fact that this has nothing to do with the scenario you posited to which I was replying.

2) Let's asssume I'm the exo-attacker and plan to do what I laid above. I also hire a programmer, modify bitcoin core to use GPU for validating big blocks, the ability to process blocks is raised significantly, and then release that software as open source so that miners will use it to "speed up new block verification and help scale bitcoin".

By employing GPU power *and* the fact that network propagation between the large miners is good, there is no valid reason for others to reject very big blocks because I've also given them the tools to process them. I mean the (other) miner is not going to need minutes to process them, so why not?

There is nothing wrong with your scenario 2. Other than the fact that you are completely changing the terms of the scenario re: the single attacker incentivized by an external payment that you opened with. If miners make bigger blocks, and other miners accept them as valid, then great. The system is able to accommodate more transaction volume. Wishful transactors don't need to shuffle off to alt coins in order to transactionate. The only possible problem here is if a critical number of validators can't keep up. Note that validators are free to employ the same techniques to improve their performance. Regardless, I say good riddance to a network hobbled by RasPis.

(this could happen too:)
3) The larger the miner, the biggest the incentive to accept even bigger blocks so that they can crush the opposition who can't handle them. It's like corporate cartel forming. You lower the price (to your detriment) until others fall out of the market. And then you raise the price. You can do the same with blocks. You accept the largest blocks possible, so that those who can't catch up fall behind. It's their problem, not yours. The less they mine, the more you earn.

Technological advancement rather akin to the CPU > GPU transition, the GPU > FPGA transition, the FPGA > ASIC transition, etc. That's worked out reasonably well in practice. Except this advantage is really not about size, but rather efficiency.

But really - you want to put some efficiency improvement numbers out for discussion? If it is more than a scant percent or two, would such not already be coded up and in the wild? Lacking evidence, reasoning suggests your 'crushing' speedup is not a potential significant possibility.

[jbreher]

the whole situation loops back to what is the supposed problem that the big block is supposed to fix

Nonsense. We keep telling you that the problem that needs fixing is the limited transaction volume.

[JayJuanGee]

the whole situation loops back to what is the supposed problem that the big block is supposed to fix

Nonsense. We keep telling you that the problem that needs fixing is the limited transaction volume.

Who's this "we"?    This could be a further sign of weakness in your argument, when you feel some kind of patronizing need to assert the royal we from time to time.

And, you are making up problems when there are no problems?  How long is it taking for transactions to go through?  Less than 2 hours, right?

yeah, you will not admit it, yet your non admission does not mean that there is supposedly a problem of transactions clogging up.

[hv_]

the whole situation loops back to what is the supposed problem that the big block is supposed to fix

Nonsense. We keep telling you that the problem that needs fixing is the limited transaction volume.

Who's this "we"?    This could be a further sign of weakness in your argument, when you feel some kind of patronizing need to assert the royal we from time to time.

And, you are making up problems when there are no problems?  How long is it taking for transactions to go through?  Less than 2 hours, right?

yeah, you will not admit it, yet your non admission does not mean that there is supposedly a problem of transactions clogging up.

I'd say it's all about scaling and the Maximum freedom of ways to achieve it. Block size is just a piece and should be free (un-limited)  as the internet is.

[JayJuanGee]

the whole situation loops back to what is the supposed problem that the big block is supposed to fix

Nonsense. We keep telling you that the problem that needs fixing is the limited transaction volume.

Who's this "we"?    This could be a further sign of weakness in your argument, when you feel some kind of patronizing need to assert the royal we from time to time.

And, you are making up problems when there are no problems?  How long is it taking for transactions to go through?  Less than 2 hours, right?

yeah, you will not admit it, yet your non admission does not mean that there is supposedly a problem of transactions clogging up.

I'd say it's all about scaling and the Maximum freedom of ways to achieve it. Block size is just a piece and should be free (un-limited)  as the internet is.

Apparently, you do not understand the issue if you are spewing out blanket buzz statements without really describing the implications of such.

Ultimately, there is more "freedom" in bitcoin, especially for the unbanked or those who do not have easy access to other low cost ways to store and transmit value, if it is not put at jeopardy towards attacks and/or being taken over or controlled by either banks, governments or other possibly hostile players.

So you can spew out ideas of "unlimited" equalling "freedom", but in reality you are spewing out nonsense.

Currently, there seems to be a very sensible plans and testing in place regarding accommodating growth in transaction volume, including with seg wit.  And, of course, at some time in the future, if there seems to be some kind of actual need to make an actual hard limit increase, then it seems quite likely that there remain abilities to consider those kinds of hard limit increase options if that seems to be a feasible and reasonable way forward in such future circumstances.

[ashman102]

Interested in your thoughts

http://bravenewcoin.com/news/bitcoin-price-analysis-here-comes-the-breakout/

[JayJuanGee]

Interested in your thoughts

http://bravenewcoin.com/news/bitcoin-price-analysis-here-comes-the-breakout/

What about your thoughts, newbie?

I take all short term BTC price predictions with a grain of salt.

[ashman102]

Interested in your thoughts

http://bravenewcoin.com/news/bitcoin-price-analysis-here-comes-the-breakout/

What about your thoughts, newbie?

I take all short term BTC price predictions with a grain of salt.

Well I feel rather skeptical regarding Deutche Bank. Not so sure about the ETF deadline on the 12th Oct, I haven't been following it closely, but its bound to be pushed back again.

[petahashminer]

in the recent month there is no volatility in all the exchange sites,

i wonder , is this a good thing or a bad thing.

[ashman102]

in the recent month there is no volatility in all the exchange sites,

i wonder , is this a good thing or a bad thing.

There were times when it was volatile in Sept.

[JayJuanGee]

Interested in your thoughts

http://bravenewcoin.com/news/bitcoin-price-analysis-here-comes-the-breakout/

What about your thoughts, newbie?

I take all short term BTC price predictions with a grain of salt.

Well I feel rather skeptical regarding Deutche Bank. Not so sure about the ETF deadline on the 12th Oct, I haven't been following it closely, but its bound to be pushed back again.

I would not put too much weight in a few macro-events, even though it is quite possible that bitcoin prices could move in one direction or another, and possibly the odds for up are greater than the odds for down, but really, none of this is a given.  In the short term, BTC Prices can be manipulated in either direction, especially when we have relatively low trade volume across all exchanges.

One thing that can give us some assurance that there is a possibility for prices to move in one direction or another is the fact that they have been relatively flat for a couple of months - yet even the fact that they have been flat for a couple of months does not necessarily mean with any high probability that they are going to break out in one direction or another.

In that regard, it is also possible that we could have an additional couple of months of relatively flat prices... everyone waiting for someone else to attempt to make the move.

[JayJuanGee]

in the recent month there is no volatility in all the exchange sites,

i wonder , is this a good thing or a bad thing.

There were times when it was volatile in Sept.

Periods of non-volatility is part of the process when prices are going through a kind of consolidation period.  In that regard, trade volume goes down and everyone is waiting for others in order to figure out whether to attempt to move prices in one direction or another.  Sometimes, in that regard, a group of players may attempt to push the price in one direction or another based on news or an attempt at low trade volume momentum, but if they experience too much resistance in one direction or another, they may give up because they do not want to spend their own coins to cause the price to move in their preferred direction and instead they would prefer to create enough momentum that will cause others to use their coins to cause such price movement in the direction that they want.

[Meuh6879]

Their sizes are ridiculously high - if they want to attack BTC. There is no cost that is too high. The only thing that there is is whether this attack is visible or not (they don't want "banks are scared" type of publicity), and the cost of preparedness for the next "iteration" of BTC.

well, in reality, they move number in your privat database ... and that cost nothing.
if they want attack bitcoin network, they must SPEND.

they can't.
this is Bitcoin.

[Meuh6879]

but the problem of banks are ... they have the power to block the business :
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/dnb-norways-largest-bank-shuns-bitcoin-boots-bitcoin-association/

[JayJuanGee]

I saw the below thread today while I was waiting in line at the bank, and I noticed that some of the folks are really emotionally attached in one direction or another regarding how bitfinex is going about its attempt to deal with it's early August 2016 "hack."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/557w4b/bitfinex_redemption_of_13152_of_bfx_tokens/

So, in essence, in mid-August 2016, bitfinex gave tokens that they deemed valued at $1 per token (BFX coins), and gave a 36% haircut to all of their then customers and by calculating the balances of all of the funds that their customers were holding on Bitfinex.  All Bitfinex account holders received BFX tokens in the equivalent of 36% of the August 2, 2016 value that they were then holding on Bitfinex.

Even though the supposed  "hack" only involved their bitcoin assets, Bitfinex decided to spread out and to "socialize" the loss, which pissed off quite a few folks, and others considered the approach as being innovative regarding other options available to Bitfinex.  Also, if we look back at the situation, there were a lot of folks who were given really dismal odds to bitfinex even reopening after the supposed "hack", and questioning whether any of the funds would be returned.

We certainly don't know al the facts of the hacks nor all the options available, but bitfinex's approach has been a bit outside of normal approaches, and surely, some folks continue to question whether bitfinex is on the up and up or if they are just engaging in continuing scam attempts in their future approach to this matter.

Bitfinex also claims that they are continuing to investigate the matter, and they are also communicating the creation of other equity buy in options for folks who hold some of their BFX coins.   

When Bitfinex first opened back up in mid August 2016, the BFX tokens fluctuated in value largely between $.20 and $.40; however, by September 1, 2016, when Bitfinex redeemed 1.1812% of the BFX coins at full $1 value, the price of BFX tokens increased to float largely between $.50 and $.60.  So again today, Bitfinex engaged in another $1 redemption of 1.3152% of the outstanding BFX coins at full $1 value.

Yeah, sure, we can consider Bitfinex as potentially corrupt and potentially engaging in an ongoing scam, but they also have a reasonable story, and surely your perception of the matter and your approach may vary depending on whether you have some BFX coins with them and if you sold your coins earlier or if you took some other approach in which you are still holding BFX coins.

I personally held some value on Bitfinex on August 2, and I received the 36% haircut of what I was then holding on the exchange.  As a USA resident, Bitfinex has allowed these folks to sell BFX tokens, but not to buy BFX tokes.  Accordingly, I had decided to begin selling in small increments starting at about $.39, and accordingly, so far I have sold about 17% of my total BFX coin holdings at about an average price of $.58 (which includes the two 100% payouts that amount to a bit over 2% of my holdings).

Even though I have structured my incremental selling of BFX coins, I have my doubts about whether I am going to receive close to my lost amount, but in the end, I still consider this Bitfinex approach to be interesting and creative and the situation could have turned out much worse.

[coins101]

Price is being kept subdued because we don't have enough fresh blood coming in. Over all these years, we should be at 100m users:



https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1628738.msg16381537#msg16381537

[savetherainforest]

China.