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

[jbreher]

Serious question - do you think Dr Craig S Wright is Satoshi?

I doubt it. I acknowledge the possibility.

OTOH, what difference does it make?

Really? It would be nice, but I haven't been able to find "loads" of alternatives.  Can you name a few, please?

I use Shift.

The further we go, the more we price out smaller miners and move mining to the cartels which is already a problem.

Bullshit. SHA256 is a block cipher. Miners' competitiveness are not affected by block size.

NOW IF what he says is true and this crypto of Satoshi's is locked up in a trust till Jan 1st 2020..well BTC and crypto is gonna be in a world of hurt if that is the case..because IF he is the

last man standing and gets those funds...CW imho will burn it to the ground and cash out and play power games...he is made at the crypto folk who don't believe him..he is mad at the press

it would be a sh*t storm of epic tulip proportions....

Nah. If such a thing happens, it would be but a tempest in a teapot. Sure, Bitcoin price would take a dive. Maybe even 50%. But then it would be over. And the specter of such a possibility (which any intelligent market participant should already be factoring in) would no longer be holding the price down. Half- recovered within a week. Fully recovered within a month. And thereforth climbing at an even higher rate.

You're focused upon the wrong bogeyman.

My problem with the bitcoin core folks are they ever gonna release ANYTHING ...lightning or whatever to offer a way forward on their scaling solutions....or are they going to continue to sit their hands

Good question. The AXA-backed-Blockstream-dominated core hasn't even defaulted their client to segwit transactions as of yet. I wonder why that might be?

[Torque]

How come you can't articulate the simple following explanation:

In what if any way is Bcash superior to LTC, DASH and DOGE as transactional currency?

I view money as a ledger.  Or "money as memory," as per the work of Kocherlakota. From this viewpoint, it is the information encoded in the ledger about who owns which coins that is of value.  The actual mechanism used to update that ledger is just a technical decision -- which is the best paper to write on?  Which is the best pen?

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin Core (BTC) share the same ledger up until August 1.  At this point, the "ledger updating mechanisms" diverged (BCH allowed more information about the state of the ledger to be updated every ten minutes to facilitate growth).

Switching to DOGE would be like ripping up the "ledger of money" because the pen we were using to update it ran out of ink.  Instead, just get a better pen and keep updating the same ledger.

Translation:
"Blah blah blah I got all my BCash for free because I bought Bitcoin before August 1st. I didn't have to actually buy any BCash directly, so I've got no real skin in the game, nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Switching to a different or newer, better coin and ledger would make my free coins irrelevant and worthless, so I continue to shill for BCash. And I could give two shits about anyone who actually now has to buy BCash after August 1st. (which is really like the rest of humanity on earth). Fuck them."

[Imbatman]

Possible "dividend" shit forks for hodlers, what a list...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bitcoin_forks

Lets not call them dividends because you have to pay taxes on those.

You have to pay taxes on stock dividends too

[Gab0]

I get what Torque is pointing at.
Here's a quote from Andreas book that lays it out plainly and I tend to agree.
"Bitcoin isn’t currency. That’s a really important thing to realize. Currency is an app that runs on the bitcoin network. Bitcoin is the internet of money, and currency is just the first application."
So... considering this, is everyone right?

I like that, thanks for posting.

[Peter R]

It will be interesting to watch BTC development move forward.  There was a huge portion of the community pushing for bigger blocks who have now shifted there holdings towards BCH.  These people will now support keeping BTC crippled at 1 MB, as they believe that shifting value from BTC -> BCH is now the best solution.  So we have a situation where both small-blockers will be pushing for no block size limit increase AND big-bockers (like me) will also be pushing for no block size limit increase.  So I think it will be difficult for BTC to scale if Lightning Network (LN) doesn't work out as planned.

Why would LN not work out as planned? Just out of curiosity, I'm eager to know where the BCash hope is.

I don't think the LN will work technically for two main reasons: (1) the high fees to open and close channels will make it too expensive to be practical, and (2) there is no known solution to route-finding with a mesh topology so the network will have a hub-and-spoke topology instead.

But let's ignore that for now and assume that LN will work like BS/Core expects.  There is still the _huge_ problem that LN is a new network and needs lots of people to adopt it in order for it to have value.  I think people think that when LN is "released" that suddenly all wallets will be able to make LN payments just like they can make bitcoin payments today.  But that's not what will happen; instead, the first people to open channels will only be able to send payments to a couple of vendors and a handful of connected people.  It will take years and years for the network infrastructure to get the point that Bitcoin was at 3 years ago.  Not only does every Bitcoin wallet need significant engineering development work done to it to make it "LN ready," but a huge amount of people need to take the risk to open LN channels and commit to keeping their money there to bootstrap the network.  

If you think segwit uptake was slow (it's still only 10%!), then LN uptake will be like molasses.  In fact, a recent tweet by Jameson Lopp indicated that "LN is already released!  Now it's up to you guys to make it useful!" Watch how quickly it grows now [hint: very very slowly if at all].

Unless you want to keep it secret, so your master-plan to sabotage Bitcoin would not be revealed too soon.

BTC is sabotaging itself.

Bitcoin works because of incentives.  What I meant was that now we have a situation where the economic incentives for people like me (who hold more BCH than BTC) is to align ourselves with the small-blockers to _avoid_ increasing the block size limit.  This will push more commerce and value to the BCH network.  

[windjc]

It will be interesting to watch BTC development move forward.  There was a huge portion of the community pushing for bigger blocks who have now shifted there holdings towards BCH.  These people will now support keeping BTC crippled at 1 MB, as they believe that shifting value from BTC -> BCH is now the best solution.  So we have a situation where both small-blockers will be pushing for no block size limit increase AND big-bockers (like me) will also be pushing for no block size limit increase.  So I think it will be difficult for BTC to scale if Lightning Network (LN) doesn't work out as planned.

Why would LN not work out as planned? Just out of curiosity, I'm eager to know where the BCash hope is.

I don't think the LN will work technically for two main reasons: (1) the high fees to open and close channels will make it too expensive to be practical, and (2) there is no known solution to route-finding with a mesh topology so the network will have a hub-and-spoke topology instead.

But let's ignore that for now and assume that LN will work like BS/Core expects.  There is still the _huge_ problem that LN is a new network and needs lots of people to adopt it in order for it to have value.  I think people think that when LN is "released" that suddenly all wallets will be able to make LN payments just like they can make bitcoin payments today.  But that's not what will happen; instead, the first people to open channels will only be able to send payments to a couple of vendors and a handful of connected people.  It will take years and years for the network infrastructure to get the point that Bitcoin was at 3 years ago.  Not only does every Bitcoin wallet need significant engineering development work done to it to make it "LN ready," but a huge amount of people need to take the risk to open LN channels and commit to keeping their money there to bootstrap the network.  

If you think segwit uptake was slow (it's still only 10%!), then LN uptake will be like molasses.  In fact, a recent tweet by Jameson Lopp indicated that "LN is already released!  Now it's up to you guys to make it useful!" Watch how quickly it grows now [hint: very very slowly if at all].

Unless you want to keep it secret, so your master-plan to sabotage Bitcoin would not be revealed too soon.

BTC is sabotaging itself.

Bitcoin works because of incentives.  What I meant was that now we have a situation where the economic incentives for people like me (who hold more BCH than BTC) is to align ourselves with the small-blockers to _avoid_ increasing the block size limit.  This will push more commerce and value to the BCH network.  

What Bcash ultimately lacks is trust. No one trusts the competency of the developers. No one trusts Roger or the miners that advocated for Bcash. So what if LN takes 10 years? Bcash will not have earned the trust of Bitcoin in 10 years.  Your merchant adoption theory won't happen in any significant way in that period of time. You are typical of the microwave society with little patience.  Where was the internet 9 years in - January 1, 1992?  It was a complete mess.

Peter, you must know the history of Linux and how the exact same thing happened with competing factions declaring the core open source developers as wrong and splitting off to create a "better" Linux. All those competing attempts failed. Don't you see what is happening?

[JayJuanGee]

BIG BLOCKER nutjobs REEEEEEEEE!

Suggest a better (implementable in the real world) alternative for getting more throughput. Any of you.

What are you talking about?

You are one of those nutjobs who are not happy, and just complaining about what you got and you want more, and more, and more, and you really don't got no reason to complain.

Why don't you go to your Bcash or to some other alternative implementation if you believe that they are preferrable, and get the fuck out of here.

The truth of the matter is that bitcoin is good.  Bitcoin is not broken, and bitcoin is continuing to be developed and built upon.  You do not need to invest into it, if you believe that it is inferior in the ways that you are suggesting with your BIG blocker allegation about some supposed current "throughput" deficiency.

[Peter R]

What Bcash ultimately lacks is trust. No one trusts the competency of the developers. No one trusts Roger or the miners that advocated for Bcash. So what if LN takes 10 years? Bcash will not have earned the trust of Bitcoin in 10 years.  Your merchant adoption theory won't happen in any significant way in that period of time. You are typical of the microwave society with little patience.  Where was the internet 9 years in - January 1, 1992?  It was a complete mess.

We will have to see about that.  From my vantage point, I see a narrative being pushed that Roger Ver, Craig Wright and Jihan Wu are in control of Bitcoin Cash.  But I know this is not true.  BCH, like BTC, is governed directly by hash power and indirectly by the market.  

Roger Ver is a big advocate for BCH but he wasn't involved when we were planning for the fork.  Craig Wright is largely irrelevant in my opinion, I don't think he has any real influence.  Jihan Wu has the most influence, but that's because he's the owner of the most-successful Bitcoin company and controls a large amount of hash power.  But Jihan has significant influence over BTC too, which is another reason it will be difficult for BTC to raise the block size limit (Jihan and the miners can prevent it).  

There are lots of great developers working on BCH and in the technical and academic communities this is known.  Furthermore, developers are not tied to a particular blockchain.  As BCH grows, more and more developers will be attracted to work on it.  On the other hand, right now, BTC is losing developers...

So I think the narrative can flip very quickly and suddenly BCH will be recognized just as "Bitcoin" and it will carry all the same trust that Bitcoin had prior to the blockchain split.  But now it will have huge scaling capacity to meet the demands of new users as we grow BCH into a global peer-to-peer electronic cash system.

[windjc]

What Bcash ultimately lacks is trust. No one trusts the competency of the developers. No one trusts Roger or the miners that advocated for Bcash. So what if LN takes 10 years? Bcash will not have earned the trust of Bitcoin in 10 years.  Your merchant adoption theory won't happen in any significant way in that period of time. You are typical of the microwave society with little patience.  Where was the internet 9 years in - January 1, 1992?  It was a complete mess.

We will have to see about that.  From my vantage point, I see a narrative being pushed that Roger Ver, Craig Wright and Jihan Wu are in control of Bitcoin Cash.  But I know this is not true.  BCH, like BTC, is governed directly by hash power and indirectly by the market.  

Roger Ver is a big advocate for BCH but he wasn't involved when we were planning for the fork.  Craig Wright is largely irrelevant in my opinion, I don't think he has any real influence.  Jihan Wu has the most influence, but that's because he's the owner of the most-successful Bitcoin company and controls a large amount of hash power.  But Jihan has significant influence over BTC too, which is another reason it will be difficult for BTC to raise the block size limit (Jihan and the miners can prevent it).  

There are lots of great developers working on BCH and in the technical and academic communities this is known.  Furthermore, developers are not tied to a particular blockchain.  As BCH grows, more and more developers will be attracted to work on it.  On the other hand, right now, BTC is losing developers...

So I think the narrative can flip very quickly and suddenly BCH will be recognized just as "Bitcoin" and it will carry all the same trust that Bitcoin had prior to the blockchain split.  But now it will have huge scaling capacity to meet the demands of new users as we grow BCH into a global peer-to-peer electronic cash system.

Jihan can't block a blocksize increase, because it can be done with a soft fork.  But chances are you and BCash will go down just like those competing Linux factions did - as a footnote in history. Maybe all these anonymous "brilliant developers" will come out of the woodwork and change the game. But I doubt it. History repeats itself, all you need is a little arc in your vision to see over all the noise.

[Peter R]

Peter, you must know the history of Linux and how the exact same thing happened with competing factions declaring the core open source developers as wrong and splitting off to create a "better" Linux. All those competing attempts failed. Don't you see what is happening?

I acknowledge that I could be wrong.  That's why I still hold 1 BTC for every 3 BCH I hold

[jojo69]

critical vulnerability in electrum?

[d_eddie]

Why would LN not work out as planned? Just out of curiosity, I'm eager to know where the BCash hope is.

I don't think the LN will work technically for two main reasons: (1) the high fees to open and close channels will make it too expensive to be practical,

There are two CoinJoin-like solutions being developed, at least one of which is at a fairly mature stage of progress, as I understand it.

and (2) there is no known solution to route-finding with a mesh topology so the network will have a hub-and-spoke topology instead.

No exact solutions in the sense of optimal, shortest-metric routing. A decent heuristic is enough to get the system going and avoid a hub-and-spoke topology. How does TOR manage to create circuits?

But let's ignore that for now and assume that LN will work like BS/Core expects.  There is still the _huge_ problem that LN is a new network and needs lots of people to adopt it in order for it to have value.  I think people think that when LN is "released" that suddenly all wallets will be able to make LN payments just like they can make bitcoin payments today.  But that's not what will happen; instead, the first people to open channels will only be able to send payments to a couple of vendors and a handful of connected people.  It will take years and years for the network infrastructure to get the point that Bitcoin was at 3 years ago.

What I'm saying now is pure speculation, but bear with me. All the users that whine about high fees should be able to put some pressure on vendors - and especially exchanges. I agree that segwit adoption is going slowly; but that's because few wallets support it. If half of the users had a segwit-enabled wallet, it would be much harder for exchanges to delay upgrading. The customers would flock to the first exchanges to adopt the new technology.

BTC is sabotaging itself.

It isn't. It's in a pupal stage IMO, preparing for the next metamorphosis.

[Dabs]

...
Instead, just get a better pen and keep updating the same ledger.  

The same ledger ... so lightning and segwit is the better pen, on the same ledger. Because the forks are no longer the same ledger, they are different. After August 1, I don't have the same ledger. I'd need to keep more than one ledger, because they are no longer the same.

So I think the narrative can flip very quickly and suddenly BCH will be recognized just as "Bitcoin"

And that's the goal, the plan. You said it. You will steal the "Bitcoin" name.


In other news, my double digits ... are still double digits... so far from you guys with quad digits... so far...

[Torque]

But Jihan has significant influence over BTC too, which is another reason it will be difficult for BTC to raise the block size limit (Jihan and the miners can prevent it).  

Holy hell, wtf am I actually reading here? You big blocker retards are now actually saying that Jihan Wu would move to *block* a block size increase for Bitcoin? After all the lobbying and shilling in favor of it the last few years?

Oh this is choice. If he were to do that, then his ulterior motive to create, prop up and support BCash would be crystal clear.

[JayJuanGee]

He is trying to rename Bitcoin. Just keep ignoring him.

Could it be he's trying to get even for the cute Bcash nickname? 

No way, Jose....   I mean eddie.

You are giving jbreher.. way too much benefit of the doubt and trying to attribute some kind of justification for his passive-aggressive trolling attack on bitcoin propaganda.  He is way more intentional than you seem to think.

No kind justification, Juan. I was teasing.

Names are important in an immature market filled with newbies. By calling Bitcoin as he does, he implies there are two bitcoins. One is cash (good), the other is ... some technical thing whatever about losing wits or something (bad).

In this forum, most readers know what's what and the risk of confusion is minimal, shills and trolls aside.. However, I think it's better to stick to safe, clear names that don't contain "bitcoin" - such as Bcash - for forkcoins, reserving the name Bitcoin for the real thing.

This has the added benefit of causing a few moments of comedy now and then, especially during interviews.

Seems that we are largely on the same page, eddie...   Certainly, I think that we should be sticking to our guns regarding various naming, it is not too likely that folks in this thread are going to get misled by some of the BIGBlocker bullshit talking points, and yeah, sometimes it does not hurt to throw in a bit of sarcasm and humor and taking the other side, just to keep matters relatively light hearted.  ..

MY BAAAAaaaaaad,  if I misunderstood your previous bleep.   

[Peter R]

But Jihan has significant influence over BTC too, which is another reason it will be difficult for BTC to raise the block size limit (Jihan and the miners can prevent it).  

Holy hell, wtf am I actually reading here? You big blocker retards are now actually saying that Jihan Wu would move to *block* a block size increase for Bitcoin? After all the lobbying and shilling in favor of it the last few years?

Oh this is choice. If he were to do that, then his ulterior motive to create, prop up and support BCash would be crystal clear.

Yes.  And it could be sold with him saying that "BTC is digital gold designed to be held and not spent.  Decentralization is critical.  We must retain the 1 MB block size limit to keep the blockchain small and make it easy to verify on low-cost machines.  If you want low fees and payments, use BCH or wait for LN to mature."

And I don't think supporting BCH is an "ulterior motive" -- it is a primary and transparent motive.

[jojo69]

Yes.  And it could be sold with him saying that "BTC is digital gold designed to be held and not spent.  Decentralization is critical.  We must retain the 1 MB block size limit to keep the blockchain small and make it easy to verify on low-cost machines.  If you want low fees and payments, use BCH or wait for LN to mature."

lol, we deserved that

[Gab0]

Holy hell, wtf am I actually reading here? You big blocker retards are now actually saying that Jihan Wu would move to *block* a block size increase for Bitcoin? After all the lobbying and shilling in favor of it the last few years?

Oh this is choice. If he were to do that, then his ulterior motive to create, prop up and support BCash would be crystal clear.

Yes.  And it could be sold with him saying that "BTC is digital gold designed to be held and not spent.  Decentralization is critical.  We must retain the 1 MB block size limit to keep the blockchain small and make it easy to verify on low-cost machines.  If you want low fees and payments, use BCH or wait for LN to mature."

LOL!

[Deeyoh]

"If you want low fees and payments, use BCH or wait for LN to mature."

Why, I already use LTC or ETH for low fee's and small payments.  BCH is looking to solve some problem that doesn't exist or there are already 1000 alt coins that do the same thing or better.   LTC just transfers so much faster. I sent some BCH and it took just as long as a BTC send. So in reality, it doesn't solve anything.

 

[windjc]

The fact that Peter talks about Jihan having so much power and that instead of bothering him he embraces it, is scary. Peter's top priority is not security.