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

[BitcoinBunny]

Maybe it's been mentioned already but this is an entertaining watch:

"The Tragic Struggle of Telling your Friends to Buy Bitcoin (2011-2021)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8GDsddB1us&ab_channel=RadicalLiving

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[JimboToronto]

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

[Richy_T]

Do you have a citation for that?

https://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper.pdf

If all transactions using Bitcoin were conducted inside a network of
micropayment channels, to enable 7 billion people to make two channels
per year with unlimited transactions inside the channel, it would require
133 MB blocks (presuming 500 bytes per transaction and 52560 blocks per
year). Current generation desktop computers will be able to run a full node
with old blocks pruned out on 2TB of storage.

It does make a number of assumptions, some conservative, some less so. These things arise from the way the Lightning Network works which anyone not familiar with should make themselves so. All these things were being discussed quite robustly on both sides before Theymos did his big purge (which also precipitated me leaving at the time although I was not directly affected). Peter Rizun has some interesting dissection on the implications of the way LN is implemented too (I'm sure many here don't like him but he is smart and honest). LN itself is not really suitable for "buying a coffee". It's fine if you want to set up a coffee-buying relationship with an establishment though or perhaps deal with some Visa-like centralized payment processor (say, Visa).

 I have not seen such a thing, although I admit I that have not followed LN development closely as I should; I have been more checking into it from time to time, waiting for a few particular parts of it to mature.

We've all been waiting for that since Bitcoin's blocks became full in 2016

By the way, what use cases would you like to see?  If we get to the point of high-value transactions and upper-layer settlements on the blockchain, small-value transactions off-chain, and RGB/Spectrum doing smart contracts, tokens, NFTs, DEXes, etc., then what more is needed?  I am sincerely curious.  On this point, off the top of my head, all that can I think of are some smart contract edge cases where the contract code must be available for execution without parties being online; that’s not a case for bigger blocks, but rather, for one of the upstart competitors to ETH2.

Well, some of those. Others of those I think are just fads and will die out naturally. Satoshi himself also mentioned several options that were very interesting. I will just put in that I do agree that there is an apparent concern that unbounded block sizes could lead to bloated blocks. I don't think that's as likely a problem as you probably do but it is one that should be addressed (note, however that most looking for bigger blocks would have been happy with *incremental* increases. Probably more on that later.). I am also not really that interested in complex eth-style contracts and agree that eth is fine pursuing that endgame (though doubtless some do want that in Bitcoin). Note that high transaction fees have some quite serious security implications, including people relying on custodial wallets, added friction on mixers and making wallet management tasks expensive. It also tends to make dust too expensive to aggregate/spend (meaning UTXO bloat, something you have expressed concern about). And, of course, there's layer 2 solutions which typically require a couple of on-chain transactions somewhere along the line.

As I noted in one of my earlier posts, Bitcoin transaction demand is high enough that I don’t even think that a blocksize increase would meaningfully increase capacity.  And it only grows!  How do you propose that, say, twice a very low TPS would make any difference, when we need orders of magnitude higher TPS to cover all of the small-value tx use cases with mass adoption?  Bigger blocks wouldn’t get us to 10k TPS and up, unless you think that running a node should require a supercomputer hooked straight into an Internet backbone link.  (Or unless you want to make more radical changes to Bitcoin’s architecture, other than increasing the blocksize.)

I mean, sure it would (or at least a good part of the way there - just saw you wrote 10k), just as every capacity increase for computing in the past has improved things. We're no longer on acoustic couplers, 10 base T is now only a few components in the bottom of my junk drawer to me. You mention Raspberry Pis but Bitcoin was already two years old when the Raspberry Pi launched and now is up to the RPi 4 with commensurate increases in processor speed and storage and communication speed. An order of magnitude (10MB) would not be out-of-line at this point IMO. And RPi's are a pretty bad baseline. I've been throwing out MB/CPU combos that out-perform RPis. RPis have their place but any application as a Bitcoin node is for novelty purposes only (and yes, I've done it. It was not a pleasant experience even in 2012)


(Hah, $281.33. Cute.)

I guess the question is, perhaps, what is the "right size" for the block size. Well, not for everyone. Some believe that changing the protocol in any way is a fork and thus not Bitcoin. There is, perhaps some truth in that though it should be noted that Bitcoin *has* already forked the protocol several times in the past and that this ideal is one that CSW holds for his own shitcoin (so fine company there). But for those who are more open to discussion, it is one to be had. So let's start with "Why 1MB?". Satoshi apparently was concerned with spam so added it as a limit that was small enough to prevent horrible network disruption but large enough (approximately 100x the block size at the time) that it would not affect normal operation. He even suggested a way that it could be removed. Now, it's fashionable to disparage Satoshi's opinion when it's convenient but then why should we give any more weight to his arbitrary choice of 1000000 bytes? As far as I know, only Luke-Jr has seriously suggested that blocksize should be smaller.

I feel we have a lot of common ground outside of this issue so I think I can safely talk about the free market with you here. Fees buy space on the blockchain. Normally, in a free market, if demand for something goes up, this causes rising prices which encourages more supply of the thing in demand. The problem with the block size limit as it stands is that there is no way to increase that supply. Block space is effectively provided by a mandatory cartel where supply is fixed. Can you imagine if Henry Ford would have never been able to expand beyond his original factory? If, when GM came onboard (I may have my chronology incorrect there), he had to split his ability to produce vehicles with them? Can you imagine how expensive cars would be? The non-monopoly price for a transaction would be the nominal cost to mine a fraction of a block and store the transaction (a piddling number of bytes) with a multiplier because miners often don't win any given block and then a small amount as profit. Realistically, we're talking sub-10c. More indicates a market failure and when we're up into tens or twenties of dollars, it's an indication something is seriously amiss (if we're talking free markets). Now, it can be argued that this aspect of Bitcoin is not supposed to be free market (after all, the 21 million cap isn't really either) but then let's not be talking about free market forces.

[Torque]

Just in case if you were wondering if selling Bitcoin works?

So I guess now he's planning on having Tesla pump and dump some bitcoin every quarter to make their numbers look good on paper? Lol.

Fucking company has yet to make a profit. Like ever.

[Krubster]

Another publicly traded company just bought bitcoin.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/japans-nexon-spends-100-mln-012342139.html

Japan's Nexon spends $100 mln to buy bitcoin

TOKYO, April 28 (Reuters) - Japanese games maker Nexon said on Wednesday it has spent around $100 million to buy bitcoin, joining companies like Tesla in lending support to the cryptocurrency.

Nexon said it has used less than 2% of its reserves on the purchases, which were made at an average cost of $58,000 per bitcoin.

"We believe bitcoin offers long-term stability and liquidity while maintaining the value of our cash for future investments," Nexon CEO Owen Mahoney said in a statement.

[JayJuanGee]

Forget bigblockers.  To stick one’s head n the sand with that type of thinking is to cede the field to altcoins, in the manner of

Yup. 100kB or bust. Then onward to 10kB. After that, zero transaction blocks are only a short step away and no transactions = 100% SOV security.

Oh gawd richie...

Getting excited about block size is so 2017, and sure I will grant you, perhaps 2018.....

but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.... while you are not activating our real good buddy... and you know the one.   

I'm not going to argue for bigger blocks right now though. I think the need is going to become ever more self evident. Indeed, the recent hashrate crash would have been largely a non-even if there was adequate capacity.

Yes.. this will be interesting to see how these matters play out, for sure.

Tentatively, I am personally considering the playing around with the hashrate last week to end up being a BIG ASS nothing burger - even though it surely had some testing effects on the system.. but gosh did not seem to be sustainable... in other words, better throw some more withdrawal of the mining before it even will start to matter.. try to sustain it for a few months (if there is such a will to stay away from mining king daddy for that long without actually losing out to other miners who end up coming on line), then maybe we might need to start paying attention...

I will agree with you Richy, that the direction of such hashrate strikes has not been resolved yet, so it will be interesting to see if it happens again (you seem to be presuming that it will) and then if it does what kind of effect it ends up having, overall, whether during a price rise period or during a correction (or used as an excuse to make the correction seem to be based on fundamentals rather than folks dicking around and trying to attack our little fiend, aka king daddy bitcoin)... again.. tentatively thinking it is a nothing burger except for peeps who get scared easily and for peeps who want to spread some bullshit narrative about bitcoin being broken.. blah blah blah

[DaRude]

-Accuses me of not having balls to do something (lol we in 5th grade?)✔

Deflection.  I will ask outright:  In your prior reply to me, what did you mean by this?

Right, some of us are actually old enough to have lived through the bcash fork and have actually supported bitcoin financially and with UASF back in 2017, thus the reason we're here and not with bcash.

That not everyone you talk to are noobs. There is no reason to explain drawbacks of bigblock debate (which i was a part of) when replying to my question about why CSO of blockstream posting pictures of napkins with blockstream represented by a damn.  

As much as i enjoy the unexpected attention, but i got shit to do IRL.

So do I.  So why are you wasting my time?

We can play the "i say one word and you tie it to socialism" (Godwin's law for socialism) game later. Ta-ta

You argue like a Commie.  

no No NO!! Are you paying any attention to instructions at all!? I'm supposed to say a word first and only then you start yelling that the commies are coming! YOU NEED TO LEARN TO FOLLOW BASIC INSTRUCTIONS

Instead of admitting that you had a ridiculous and disproportional reaction in attacking my post...you went full retard over my off-hand remark about socialists in an unrelated context....

Wait what? Thnx, i guess, but we're not a couple and i'm not into dudes. Got enough of this at home you know IRL

if one is able to ignore the cheap attempt at drawing parallels between bigblockers and socialists (lol seriously? way to undermine your valid points there), other than that, a solid write up ...

is now considered "attacking my post" and "went full retard? ok there snowflake, perhaps someone is being a bit too emotional today?


You keep on baiting and trying to steer this conversation into discussing forms of government when all i wanted to know was WHY CSO OF BLOCKSTREAM POSTING PICTURES OF NAPKINS WITH BLOCKSTREAM REPRESENTED BY A DAMN! Your posts are not productive or constructive in any manner, now you made me miss rolling and farmer, at least they'd say something interesting. I'm sure no one here wants to read how you think i hurt your feelings. This conversation is over.

[DaRude]

✔

Oh no. You plagiarised checkmarks. Remember what happened to the last dude who committed this crime? Me neither.

damn thought i was special there for a second, but he appears to be a habitual troll, oh well he got me

[Richy_T]

while you are not activating our real good buddy... and you know the one.  

You will perhaps be glad to know that the little demo I did a few days ago moved things closer to being ready.

I'm not going to argue for bigger blocks right now though. I think the need is going to become ever more self evident. Indeed, the recent hashrate crash would have been largely a non-even if there was adequate capacity.

Yes.. this will be interesting to see how these matters play out, for sure.

Tentatively, I am personally considering the playing around with the hashrate last week to end up being a BIG ASS nothing burger - even though it surely had some testing effects on the system.. but gosh did not seem to be sustainable... in other words, better throw some more withdrawal of the mining before it even will start to matter.. try to sustain it for a few months (if there is such a will to stay away from mining king daddy for that long without actually losing out to other miners who end up coming on line), then maybe we might need to start paying attention...

To be fair, if things string out more than a couple of weeks, the difficulty adjustment will take care of things. Conversely though, we don't currently have large adoption of time critical transactions such as would be the case if second layers were heavily adopted (and I do expect them to be).

I will agree with you Richy, that the direction of such hashrate strikes has not been resolved yet, so it will be interesting to see if it happens again (you seem to be presuming that it will) and then if it does what kind of effect it ends up having, overall, whether during a price rise period or during a correction (or used as an excuse to make the correction seem to be based on fundamentals rather than folks dicking around and trying to attack our little fiend, aka king daddy bitcoin)... again.. tentatively thinking it is a nothing burger except for peeps who get scared easily and for peeps who want to spread some bullshit narrative about bitcoin being broken.. blah blah blah

It wasn't really speculation about the future as an observation about events which occurred. Though yes, it seems statistically likely that Bitcoin will take another hit to the hashrate at some point as much as it is likely California have the quake it is overdue for or the New Madrid fault will cause problems a bit closer to home. Shit happens and China's engineering projects are often of questionable quality.


I actually think the big test for Bitcoin is going to be if we see a protracted netsplit where a significant number of blocks are mined on competing chains. It will all be sorted out per Bitcoin's rules, of course but the normies are going to throw a fit.

[Richy_T]

That not everyone you talk to are noobs. There is no reason to explain drawbacks of bigblock debate (which i was a part of) when replying to my question about why CSO of blockstream posting pictures of napkins with blockstream represented by a damn.  

That's actually a picture from fairly early in the debate. I'd assume that Samsung is poking fun at the suggestion of dead bulls what with the recent price rises. Then again, Samsung hasn't always been the best communicator (no idea why Blockstream picked him as CSO) so who knows?

[JayJuanGee]

while you are not activating our real good buddy... and you know the one.  

You will perhaps be glad to know that the little demo I did a few days ago moved things closer to being ready.

You might know better than me, but I recall ONLY seeing one strong vote against such buddy - and there were several who voiced a wish to see such revised contributions to this thread.  Seems quite leaning in favor.

I'm not going to argue for bigger blocks right now though. I think the need is going to become ever more self evident. Indeed, the recent hashrate crash would have been largely a non-even if there was adequate capacity.

Yes.. this will be interesting to see how these matters play out, for sure.

Tentatively, I am personally considering the playing around with the hashrate last week to end up being a BIG ASS nothing burger - even though it surely had some testing effects on the system.. but gosh did not seem to be sustainable... in other words, better throw some more withdrawal of the mining before it even will start to matter.. try to sustain it for a few months (if there is such a will to stay away from mining king daddy for that long without actually losing out to other miners who end up coming on line), then maybe we might need to start paying attention...

To be fair, if things string out more than a couple of weeks, the difficulty adjustment will take care of things.

That is probably part of the reason that such shenanigans started at the beginning of the difficulty period, even if some might proclaim it to be "pure coincidence," but whatever it does seem to be relatively a good thing for our little fiend to be experiencing a variety of challenges (short of irreparably damaging it or killing it... which would surely NOT be a preferred outcome.. especially for HODLers).

Conversely though, we don't currently have large adoption of time critical transactions such as would be the case if second layers were heavily adopted (and I do expect them to be).

That is the part that is going to be interesting to see evolve in terms of figuring out if improvements need to be made whether on the mainchain or second layer.  I did browse over your earlier seemingly strawman criticism about opening  7 billion channels.. and fuck richy, at least you should be trying to present valid criticisms rather than presuming that our current bitcoin (and second layer) needs to be able to support 7 billion peeps when we might be lucky if there even 70 million dabbling in bitcoin or 7 million dabbling on lightning.. or whatever.. and so in that sense genuine arguments are going to appreciate and recognize abilities to grow over time rather than measuring what we currently have being insufficient for some pie in the sky scenario that may even well be 20 to 70 years away (best case, slower adoption case).

I will agree with you Richy, that the direction of such hashrate strikes has not been resolved yet, so it will be interesting to see if it happens again (you seem to be presuming that it will) and then if it does what kind of effect it ends up having, overall, whether during a price rise period or during a correction (or used as an excuse to make the correction seem to be based on fundamentals rather than folks dicking around and trying to attack our little fiend, aka king daddy bitcoin)... again.. tentatively thinking it is a nothing burger except for peeps who get scared easily and for peeps who want to spread some bullshit narrative about bitcoin being broken.. blah blah blah

It wasn't really speculation about the future as an observation about events which occurred. Though yes, it seems statistically likely that Bitcoin will take another hit to the hashrate at some point as much as it is likely California have the quake it is overdue for or the New Madrid fault will cause problems a bit closer to home. Shit happens and China's engineering projects are often of questionable quality.

For sure, there could be some world wide issues (such as an EMP) or maybe a variety of other scenarios that challenge the maintenance of hashrate, whether a short term phenomena within a difficulty period or something that might happen over several difficulty periods.

You may well recall (even though I recall that your spin on the event is quite different from mine) that from about early December 2017 to late January 2018, there was an ongoing attack (spamming) of the BTC blockchain, and sure you might want to call it innocent (organic) usage whatever, and I suppose no matter what it was, there has likely been some attempts to make such attacks more difficult to carry out, and I am not even suggesting that they might not be able to be carried out, especially if there might be a few hashrate crippling events that happen at the same time and then coupled with some purposeful attacks.. so sure, would it be a matter of just waiting it out or would there be some previously unprofittable hashrate coming online from machines that had been turned off..

We might not know the answers to some of these matters without experiencing some variation of them.. and perhaps in combination and perhaps in smaller forms before the BIGGER hits might come (perhaps somewhat expectedly unexpectedly, as you seem to suggest).

I actually think the big test for Bitcoin is going to be if we see a protracted netsplit where a significant number of blocks are mined on competing chains. It will all be sorted out per Bitcoin's rules, of course but the normies are going to throw a fit.

I am not sure, exactly what you mean, but I am NOT completely out of the loop that some attacks on bitcoin could come from within and about differing opinions that will end up causing the market to choose - while at the same time could well have a decent amount of division - and not just normies.. so if there is a battle, there can be pissed of people on both sides who vary in their technical expertise and their OG status or whatever (assuming that there might only be two sides when there could end up being more than two sides to make matters even more confusing)... I am not going to act like that those scenarios might not develop in bitcoin, but at the same time, I am not going to let my speculation about such scenarios to stop me from continuing to invest in bitcoin.. and to wait and see in some regards.. and even continue to recommend that others better fucking get a stake in bitcoin.. sooner rather than waiting around.,. hahahahaha

[DaRude]

That not everyone you talk to are noobs. There is no reason to explain drawbacks of bigblock debate (which i was a part of) when replying to my question about why CSO of blockstream posting pictures of napkins with blockstream represented by a damn.  

That's actually a picture from fairly early in the debate. I'd assume that Samsung is poking fun at the suggestion of dead bulls what with the recent price rises. Then again, Samsung hasn't always been the best communicator (no idea why Blockstream picked him as CSO) so who knows?

Ahh thank you, brief, to the point and without commies. Must've missed it back then. Would've saved me a day of headache a day ago

[Richy_T]

I am not sure, exactly what you mean, but I am NOT completely out of the loop that some attacks on bitcoin could come from within and about differing opinions that will end up causing the market to choose - while at the same time could well have a decent amount of division - and not just normies.. so if there is a battle, there can be pissed of people on both sides who vary in their technical expertise and their OG status or whatever (assuming that there might only be two sides when there could end up being more than two sides to make matters even more confusing)... I am not going to act like that those scenarios might not develop in bitcoin, but at the same time, I am not going to let my speculation about such scenarios to stop me from continuing to invest in bitcoin.. and to wait and see in some regards.. and even continue to recommend that others better fucking get a stake in bitcoin.. sooner rather than waiting around.,. hahahahaha

Simply put, if some large segment of the network became disconnected (probably China) each side of the split would continue building on whichever piece of the fork was closest to it, adding new transactions, confirming new blocks. This happens regularly for a block or two but if the split was protracted, many blocks could be "confirmed". When the net rejoins, the fork with the least hashrate gets evaporated and all the transactions undone. Some (most) of those transactions will get incorporated later in the winning chain but if it happens (less likely every year but who knows with what's going on), it could be the kind of thing that top English scientists would describe as a "brouhaha"

Indeed, I believe there was some fuss a little while back and that was only two-or-three blocks.

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-double-spend-that-never-happened

Jeez, that was just one block.

[ErisDiscordia]

https://twitter.com/sallymayweather/status/1386881393146408960?s=21

You mean the US won't stage a military coup to install a right-wing dictator friendly to US big business interests?

Well after January 2021 I wouldn't be so sure. The US might just end up invading itself if it feels itself becoming too socialist.

On that note, it sure would be nice if people knew what socialism means. Are the means of production owned by the workers? No? Not socialist then. Sorry,

[philipma1957]

https://twitter.com/sallymayweather/status/1386881393146408960?s=21

You mean the US won't stage a military coup to install a right-wing dictator friendly to US big business interests?

Well after January 2021 I wouldn't be so sure. The US might just end up invading itself if it feels itself becoming too socialist.

On that note, it sure would be nice if people knew what socialism means. Are the means of production owned by the workers? No? Not socialist then. Sorry,

Yeah I could see a right wing takeover.

Once Biden is gone I do not think the right wants Harris as the prez.

An opinion of mine is Biden has a lot of military loyalty but that Harris has very little.

Time will tell.

[JayJuanGee]

I am not sure, exactly what you mean, but I am NOT completely out of the loop that some attacks on bitcoin could come from within and about differing opinions that will end up causing the market to choose - while at the same time could well have a decent amount of division - and not just normies.. so if there is a battle, there can be pissed of people on both sides who vary in their technical expertise and their OG status or whatever (assuming that there might only be two sides when there could end up being more than two sides to make matters even more confusing)... I am not going to act like that those scenarios might not develop in bitcoin, but at the same time, I am not going to let my speculation about such scenarios to stop me from continuing to invest in bitcoin.. and to wait and see in some regards.. and even continue to recommend that others better fucking get a stake in bitcoin.. sooner rather than waiting around.,. hahahahaha

Simply put, if some large segment of the network became disconnected (probably China) each side of the split would continue building on whichever piece of the fork was closest to it, adding new transactions, confirming new blocks. This happens regularly for a block or two but if the split was protracted, many blocks could be "confirmed". When the net rejoins, the fork with the least hashrate gets evaporated and all the transactions undone. Some (most) of those transactions will get incorporated later in the winning chain but if it happens (less likely every year but who knows with what's going on), it could be the kind of thing that top English scientists would describe as a "brouhaha"

Indeed, I believe there was some fuss a little while back and that was only two-or-three blocks.

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-double-spend-that-never-happened

Jeez, that was just one block.

Your scenario is much more of a creature of accident - rather than the one that I described, surely even seems to be quite speculative - and not something that we would get worked up about - even though it could happen and surely would affect those with transactions during that period whether it is 3-10 blocks or even quite higher numbers of blocks (such as 100 blocks) to make matters even more challenging in terms of whether any recourse would come to those on the shorter chain.. or however it should be described or potentially resolved.

I think that in then end, even though those are good technical and developer topics, they really do not seem to be too helpful to discuss in threads like this because they seem to be focusing on pie in the sky scenarios that had about a snow balls chance in hell of happening, so we should not be giving them any more emphasis than that.  

I recall on a regular basis between 2014 and maybe into 2017, dicktwat Jorge Stolfi ongoingly focusing on such theoretically feasible pie in the sky nonsense topics for seemingly years in this thread, and his ongoing theoretical speculations about negative matters that might happen did not tend to be very helpful in terms of understanding more important and more likely scenarios... such as number goes up while he was presenting 1001 ways that bitcoin would die and number would go down (but did not happen in any way even close to his ongoing speculation and attention to such nonsense - even though sometimes theoretically possible).

[Millionero]

Once Biden is gone I do not think the right wants Harris as the prez.

If Biden dies and we get a colored lady in the White House, it will be fun watching rube-publican heads explode.

[Arriemoller]

The L1/L2 distinction is not only a Bitcoin thing; it addresses problems which are fundamental to blockchain architectures.  As the market matures, developers and users will come better to recognize which transactions belong on a blockchain, and which don’t.  A beneficial side effect of Bitcoin’s scaling debates is that Bitcoin is years ahead of any altcoin in L2 developments.  (Notwithstanding how Ethereum has been spinning its wheels with L2 talk; it has much worse scaling problems than Bitcoin, and thus far much less to show in terms of solutions.)

The problem is that Bitcoin itself is not adequate to support the L2 systems being constructed for it. (Something explicitly acknowledged by the LN developers by the way). The problem is not that Bitcoin is inadequate to the purposes to which I would like to see it put (which might have fallen by the wayside, admitedly) but also to those you are suggesting for it.

I'm not going to argue for bigger blocks right now though. I think the need is going to become ever more self evident. Indeed, the recent hashrate crash would have been largely a non-even if there was adequate capacity.

"I'm not going to argue for bigger blocks right now though" argues for bigger blocks.

Stop your bcash shilling!!!

[Arriemoller]

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

If I personally had to chose, I would rather live in a MacArthur society that nips all socialism in the bud, then in the type of society the USA, and many other countries, is turning into now.
I would be fine with outlawing communism and radical socialism.

[Richy_T]

I think that in then end, even though those are good technical and developer topics, they really do not seem to be too helpful to discuss in threads like this because they seem to be focusing on pie in the sky scenarios that had about a snow balls chance in hell of happening, so we should not be giving them any more emphasis than that.  

That's probably fair.