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

[modrobert]

I don't like the look of that last spike, might not mean people are moving wallet BTC to short on exchange, but something is up.

The price is moving, people started transacting again and.. the hash rate was falling yesterday by quite a lot.

Ah, yes, miners are having problems, and waiting for lower difficulty settling in.

It’s because several Chinese provinces have told miners to cease mining. They are turning off machines & ready to relocate.

Does this include the big miners using their own hydropower installations? If so, seems like a stupid decision.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

I don't like the look of that last spike, might not mean people are moving wallet BTC to short on exchange, but something is up.

The price is moving, people started transacting again and.. the hash rate was falling yesterday by quite a lot.

Ah, yes, miners are having problems, and waiting for lower difficulty settling in.

It’s because several Chinese provinces have told miners to cease mining. They are turning off machines & ready to relocate.

Does this include the big miners using their own hydropower installations? If so, seems like a stupid decision.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3136780/chinas-bitcoin-crackdown-pushes-miners-out-xinjiang-qinghai-baidu-and

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[modrobert]

I don't like the look of that last spike, might not mean people are moving wallet BTC to short on exchange, but something is up.

The price is moving, people started transacting again and.. the hash rate was falling yesterday by quite a lot.

Ah, yes, miners are having problems, and waiting for lower difficulty settling in.

It’s because several Chinese provinces have told miners to cease mining. They are turning off machines & ready to relocate.

Does this include the big miners using their own hydropower installations? If so, seems like a stupid decision.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3136780/chinas-bitcoin-crackdown-pushes-miners-out-xinjiang-qinghai-baidu-and

Another political bullshit spin on the news using "crackdown" and similar terms, showing handcuffs in video and talking about PCs illegally mining on graphic cards which rules out Bitcoin completely.

What I mean are Bitcoin mining facilities with their own hydropower (water power) installations using small river as energy source as part of the land they own or lease, like this one:
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2018/1/17/inside-the-world-of-chinese-bitcoin-mining

No one is stealing energy when they generate their own power (or build mining facility close to existing hydropower plant with contract to mine energy overproduction), and shutting down just means the river continues to flow through the plant without turbine, no environmental gain.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[vapourminer]

the builders thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5314398.0

these cheap nodes that mine at a small profit can be in 10 thousand homes.

building a super node with 32mb blocks would mean using 8tb ssds in arrays

you would need more than 300mb internet speed.

I loaded a node/wallet on a thread ripper about 18 months ago

used a threadripper 3970 with 128gb ram

used 200mb internet and a 2tb nvme m.2 ssd

took 2 hours to synch it.

the time was 2 hours due to a 100mb switch I downloaded at a constant 80-90mb. it was about 300gb

but if we had a 32mb block thread it would be 16x the size
take 32 hours to download
and use 4.8tb

if it were a 96mb block
it takes 96 hours to download

and use 13.4tb

so that would mean at least two 8tb ssds in an array to give 16tb
maybe the 2000 usd threadripper the 3970 is good enough
maybe the 128gb ram is enough.

but I would need to have built a 9 k rig to do a node.

i dont need my full node (which i use purely for validating my own transactions) to run on a rPi, but it at least needs to be able to run on a (probably beefy) commodity computer and be able to sync from scratch in a reasonable time. so i dont mind needing a 3-4k (or even 10k) computer to run a node purely for my own verification, but once you need business class internet and seriously potent server gear thats when i have issues. i will need to trust other nodes at that point. SPV clients have thier place but not as my main check for my transactions and balances. i suppose spinning up AWS type stuff for a personal verification node is a possibility but that seems drastic and likely expensive plus i like my gear in house.

blocks at its current size may have issues but they work for me at this point and thats good enough for now. high fees at the moment? pay up, wait, or go home: pretty simple. ill wait for the bulging brains types to figure the best way forward.

edit: slow and steady. this is Prod after all. i like my coin STABLE. let the alts blow up their blockchains. believe me its nice to have paper wallets from 2011 that are as safe and usable as the day i printed them. cant say that for a lot (likely most) shitcoins from back in the day, or even more recent ones.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[AlcoHoDL]

The problem with Big Blockers^TM, as with many of those trying to push their own perspective of "how it should be done" to the Bitcoin protocol, is that they tend to think highly of themselves, a kind of superiority complex, claiming to "know what's best" for Bitcoin. They usually have a computer programming background and may even be very competent programmers. I guess most of them mean well, i.e., they genuinely want to improve the protocol. What they fail to realise is that Bitcoin is a complex system, and tweaking a parameter can have unpredictable consequences that can gravely affect its stability and performance. It's easy to criticize and suggest modifications, increasing the block size limit and/or other improvements, but this is not some application you're trying to improve, that you can easily replace with a new version if it fails. This is a trillion-dollar digital monetary network, that entire countries are (and will soon be) using as legal tender, so you'd better be absolutely positively sure you know exactly what you're doing before even suggesting any changes.

Oh, and BTW, there are at least two Big Block^TM live "versions" of Bitcoin: BCH (a.k.a. Bcash LOL) and BSV (CSW's creation). The toughest critic is the market itself. If these two shitcoins had any benefit to offer, as compared to Bitcoin, the "flippening" would have long happened, they would now be at the top of the "cryptocurrency" list, and everyone and their dog would be talking about them. Well, they aren't, and I've never heard anyone talking about them, except Ver, CSW, Ayre, and their propaganda sites (CoinGeek, their toxic reddit threads, etc.).

Block size changes should (and will) happen, but they will happen gradually, and after being excruciatingly tested for bugs and other side-effects. Personally, I see Bitcoin as a kind of living entity. Just as evolution, with its Darwinian "survival of the fittest" has proven to be the best improvement strategy in the biological domain, so it should be in the case of Bitcoin. A "survival of the fittest" strategy, with consensus as its core mechanism of choice, enabling slow, gradual, incremental changes, which, after a good amount of time and testing, will advance Bitcoin to a higher state of evolution into a better coin than it currently is. Sure, I'd really like to have one extra eye at the back of my head, 12 fingers in each hand and two dicks. Guess what. This may not be the best choice for me, despite what I may think. Mother nature has made us the way we are, because that's the best for us, for now. Bitcoin will evolve too, but we'd better not force changes to the protocol just because we think they're good for it, but which could cause damage to it in the long run.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It ain't broke. Not yet. When it is, it will be fixed by those who can fix it. Want to help? Go ahead, propose things, suggestions, improvements, let them be evaluated, scrutinized, tested. Be thankful you are part of this. Don't be bitter because your brilliant ideas are not immediately implemented.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[Dabs]

i dont need my full node (which i use purely for validating my own transactions) to run on a rPi, but it at least needs to be able to run on a (probably beefy) commodity computer and be able to sync from scratch in a reasonable time. so i dont mind needing a 3-4k (or even 10k) computer to run a node purely for my own verification, but once you need business class internet and seriously potent server gear thats when i have issues. i will need to trust other nodes at that point. SPV clients have thier place but not as my main check for my transactions and balances. i suppose spinning up AWS type stuff for a personal verification node is a possibility but that seems drastic and likely expensive plus i like my gear in house.

You don't need 3k computer to run a node. You can easily get refurbished workstations for under $200 that will have enough cores and processing power, at least 16 GB RAM, and you can add either a brand new SSD or even a spinning platter and it will sync fine from scratch given a little time. After it has sync'd, it will stay in sync for several years or decades.

Enterprises need bigger hardware on their nodes because they perform other functions and act as part of the wallet, like gaming sites or exchanges. For personal usage, any brand new laptop I can find under $300 will probably work (not including Chromebooks).

edit: slow and steady. this is Prod after all. i like my coin STABLE. let the alts blow up their blockchains. believe me its nice to have paper wallets from 2011 that are as safe and usable as the day i printed them. cant say that for a lot (likely most) shitcoins from back in the day, or even more recent ones.

If you are still using paper wallets from 2011, I would suggest you upgrade to current address formats of today, like ones starting with bc1qxxxxx instead of those starting with 1xxxx. They're reasonably safe today. I've seen someone move 40k BTC from a legacy address to a segwit address, it's still there.

Oh, and BTW, there are at least two Big Block^TM live "versions" of Bitcoin: BCH (a.k.a. Bcash LOL) and BSV (CSW's creation).

There is at least one other thing different about those big block coins vs Bitcoin, they intentionally took out SegWit when they forked.

It would have been interesting to see if they took BTC as is and only added bigger blocks, but that's not what they did, so here we are and the market has spoken.

[lightfoot]

Shutting down cheap Chinese mines is a good thing. Fewer miners is not a problem as the chain is far more secure then it reasonably should be. Likewise miners paying more to mine will weed out older mining gear thus increasing efficiency. Finally if miners need to pay more for power they are less likely to dump cheap coinz on the market and bitcoin prices go up, which is bullish.

[Richy_T]

I am not moving the goalposts.  Segwit passed and became a part of bitcoin in August 2017.  You are the one who seems to be suggesting that something might need to be done about that or that you are complaining about something that the blocks are not big enough that relate to issues from 2017.. .. so my who fucking cares should suggest to you that you have some kind of burden to show facts and logic for it to be relevant.  

Remember in late 2015, Peter wuille came up with a compromise (which was segwit), and for about 6 months (while segwit was coded and tested), there was a lot of consensus that it was great, but then with the passage of time, the disingenuine BIG blocker fucktwats just started to make up other shit about various disagreements they had with it.. .

You are the one who brought up segwit, Hueristic was asking about raising the block size limit, Marcus cast aspersions in big block advocates as a group. I replied to each of these, I did not bring them up. Until you can keep more than one thing in your li'l head at a time, there's no point continuing.

Yes, nothing can be done about Segwit. That was one of the complaints against it at the time.

[Dabs]

Maybe keep Segwit, but increase the block by 1 mb, and make a fork of that. See how it catches on. But fork it from BTC, not from the other ones which are already forks from BTC and forks of forks. Just start fresh from 0.21.1 (current version as of this post) and fork from there. You can call it BRH or something Bitcoin Richy? I dunno. hehe.. Or do serious research about the name. BBB.. Bitcoin Big Block.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[alevlaslo]

[Richy_T]

In any case, bitcoin is going the way of an El Salvadorian fisherman with an LN channel on a Pie node transacting his business for fraction of a cent. Surely this is not the end stage and there's plenty that still will need to be improved, but this is a best solution so far, if you think a global currency can keep every transaction on layer one while maintaining decentralization you're delusional.

It's really a false dichotomy. We could have more capacity for on-chain transactions *and* second layer solutions (which I have been an advocate for since the early part of my presence in the Bitcoin realm) which also need more capacity than we currently have. I mean, if LN is all that, we'll be preferring using it over on-chain anyway. The block size limit is just that, a limit, not a requirement.

Like I say, I have no sympathy for the RPis. They're just the wrong hardware for the job. It's cute to have a Bitcoin node running on one but that's all. It has no justification. Show me some hardware actually designed for the job at around $100 and we might be able to talk (probably Intel Atom, PCIE SSD, proper Gigabit ethernet and expandable RAM starting at 16G).

[cAPSLOCK]

Why not a adjustable limit based on a previous median timeframe?

Because on top of compromising decentralization for usability (the degree of compromise can and has been argued to death, and no there's no free lunch here) it introduces new attack vectors

Could you link that explanation for me, I'm not aware of how compromising decentralization could happen in this instance?

I'm usually pretty good at identifying attack vectors but I don't see the one here.

Ugh this again, it's rather simple, but lets try a flow chart

Code:

-nodes matter to decentralization                                             -------------NO---> go to: Faketoshi and BSv
       |
      YES
       |
      \|/
-larger capacity leads to higher resource use                                        ------NO---> go to: math class 
       |
      YES
      \|/
-raising resource reqs eliminates minimum req nodes (Pis can't handle 100mb blocks)    ----NO---> go to: math class
       |
      YES
      \|/
-Less nodes, less decentralization   -NO-> go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization
       |
      YES
      \|/
-Voilà

Some big blockers went full retard and argued for unlimited blocks, enter Faketoshi with his enterprise data center nodes
Other like Richy_T argues for cost/benefit compromise, for multiple reasons market decided against this thus here we are

It will not be very many years before tech gets to where we can move the blocksize up.

So I think it is still worth talking about.

-Currently I am mining on a 32thread 16 core CPU I bought for $700.  In a number of years 16 core cellphone processors will be a thing. (Not for mining for the most part, but for all the hashing done to validate things quicly enough)
-$400 will get you a 16T hard drive today.
-5G has Terabyte speeds at low latency WITHOUT WIRES.

Countries are coming online to bitcoin.

So this topic is not going away.  That is for SURE.

[Paashaas]

Jack Dorsey has hinted that Twitter will integrate the Lightning Network. 

https://www.coindesk.com/dorsey-suggests-twitter-lightning-network-integration

[Arriemoller]

Maybe keep Segwit, but increase the block by 1 mb, and make a fork of that. See how it catches on. But fork it from BTC, not from the other ones which are already forks from BTC and forks of forks. Just start fresh from 0.21.1 (current version as of this post) and fork from there. You can call it BRH or something Bitcoin Richy? I dunno. hehe.. Or do serious research about the name. BBB.. Bitcoin Big Block.

Yes, a new fork would be nice, free money is after all free money.

Now stop with the big block talk, it's not 2017 anymore, this has been a very nice place since the big blockers moved away, can we please have that back, just SHUT UP!

[modrobert]

Shutting down cheap Chinese mines is a good thing. Fewer miners is not a problem as the chain is far more secure then it reasonably should be. Likewise miners paying more to mine will weed out older mining gear thus increasing efficiency. Finally if miners need to pay more for power they are less likely to dump cheap coinz on the market and bitcoin prices go up, which is bullish.

Don't forget, miners also add the transactions to new block, that's where the fee go.