Open Letter to GMaxwell and Sincere Rational Core Devs

[traincarswreck]

bitcoin's price and value will die off if the user experience is such that the rising fees cause them to flee.  Therefore, the argument goes, we must scale bitcoin to support a higher tp/s. This will keep the price and value going up.

Is this not an admission of inflation control?

no
inflation control is about adding more coins endlessly with no cap.. and LIMITING utility while producing endless coins.
bitcoin is deflationary over time so EXPANDING or limiting utility over time is deflationary control.

We have to use the accepted definitions of these words.  Can't make up our own definitions:

In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time[1] resulting in a loss of value of currency.

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

The definition does not speak to money supply.

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[franky1]

We have to use the accepted definitions of these words.  Can't make up our own definitions:

In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time[1] resulting in a loss of value of currency.

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

The definition does not speak to money supply.

depends on what side of the fence you are

$1200 may have got you 200 bitcoins 5 years ago
1btc may have got you $6 bitcoins 5 years ago

both same thing. but dependant on what side of the fence you are on. are you a fiat lover or a bitcoin lover

[traincarswreck]

The relevant point is that it is not only money supply which affects inflation/deflation.

[franky1]

The relevant point is that it is not only money supply which affects inflation/deflation.

this whole topic has not been about messing with 21m coin cap..
so lets not meander down that rabbit hole.

many things have given bitcoin its desire

sticking to development (your main gripe)
halting development wont stabilise the price because many other factors are interplaying bitcoins desire.

[traincarswreck]

halting development wont stabilise the price

you have conflated value and price.  and its not halting development.  It's 'halting increasing bitcoin's utility in regard to tps'.  That would destabilize the value.  I'm not speaking to price.

[franky1]

halting development wont stabilise the price

you have conflated value and price.  and its not halting development.  It's 'halting increasing bitcoin's utility in regard to tps'.  That would destabilize the value.  I'm not speaking to price.

halting tx/s is already destabilising bitcoins value(utility/desire)
which cause and effect(chain reaction) destabilises bitcoins value(price)

[traincarswreck]

halting tx/s is already destabilising bitcoins value(utility/desire)
which cause and effect(chain reaction) destabilises bitcoins value(price)

no.  this is your tacit assumption.  Gold's value is fairly stable and its tps does not change.  Bitcoin is cheaper and easier to send than gold.  halting the tx/s does not destabilize its value and there is no founded scientific argument that it does.  You can re-assert this opinion all you want, but you cannot move the market with an irrational unfounded argument.

"bitcoins value(price)"  <<< stop saying this, its a fundamental misunderstanding.  value and price are not synonymous, it doesn't matter what your syntax is..

[jonald_fyookball]

You're still making the mistake of treating Bitcoin like a static system
when in fact it is dynamic.  Something like TPS is actually a variable that has
changed over time and will continue to change. 

Thus, treating the current level of TPS as a determinant of value is not appropriate/accurate.

Not sure why i'm bothering to make this point since you don't listen.




 

[traincarswreck]

You're still making the mistake of treating Bitcoin like a static system
when in fact it is dynamic.  Something like TPS is actually a variable that has
changed over time and will continue to change. 

Thus, treating the current level of TPS as a determinant of value is not appropriate/accurate.

Not sure why i'm bothering to make this point since you don't listen.
 

You aren't speaking to the act of targeting value through changing the IMPLICATE tps.

[AgentofCoin]

It is the belief of many that constricting TPS is constricting the value of the network for them.  It is the belief of others that constricting the TPS maintains the value of the network for them (yourself included here).

That is all belief.   I am looking for an argument based on economic facts.

No.  I don't need to prove the negative.  Science.  In order to make a change to the system, in order for a rational order to accept the change, it must be shown to be scientific.  I am not proposing any change to the system.  

I am showing there is no founded argument to change the tps. It doesn't speak to a founded economic argument.

I don't what the truth is in this sense, but I can sure tell you that if someone says changing the tps alters the value then this is an admission of value targeting/changing.

And lastly, are you really asking me to prove that not changing bitcoin means not re-targeting the value?  It's tautologically correct.

To leave bitcoin alone means to leave the value targeting alone.  To change bitcoin in order to change the value, is to target the value.

OK.  I think I get it now.  Would you agree to this:  There are many people/factions that believe that an increase in TPS will increase the overall value to the Bitcoin system.  They want to increase the value of the system so, of course, they want to increase the TPS.  They do not give a second thought to your desire for a stable unit of value, most have never heard of any desire from anyone for Bitcoin to be this stable unit of value so, given their desire to improve/increase the value of Bitcoin, it is obvious to them that TPS needs to be increased.

You come along and say wait a second here, I think that keeping the value constant is, unfortunately for a lack of a better term more valuable.  Well to avoid confusion lets call it a more expedient use or a more efficient use of Bitcoin as a revolutionary force.

Unfortunately you do have to prove your assertion that not increasing TPS is a better way for everyone to get what they want, just because you are in the minority.

Edit:  Again given your desire for no change and the fact that no change is almost certainly the outcome of all this debate I am not sure what you are so concerned about.  You are most likely going to "win" this argument by default, right?

Burt, I think you missed something important.

In prior statements, the OP is arguing that even LN or other off-chain
systems for bitcoin would also be considered a TPS increase. When I
started talking about TPS, I was not referencing the blocksize specifically
since a TPS increase and a blocksize increase are two separate things.
For value to remain stable for the proposed "future currency" bitcoins
will be TPS restricted on chain and can not have proxies off chain as
a secondary pegged token for any exchange or whatever.

What OP is saying without saying it is that Bitcoin must stop now and
can't have second layers, since that also erodes value through time.

An "absolute" value must be isolated and constant in all ways.
(And I think Bitcoin can never be a constant with human mining.
It needs to be fully automated. "Set it and forget it!".)

[danda]

as the bitcoin community increases in size and has more varied interests, changing consensus becomes harder and harder.  Thus it tends towards static, not dynamic.

You say it is dynamic, yet people have been wanting to change something as simple as the blocksize limit for years and continue to fail.  How can you ignore that?

You're still making the mistake of treating Bitcoin like a static system
when in fact it is dynamic.  Something like TPS is actually a variable that has
changed over time and will continue to change. 

Thus, treating the current level of TPS as a determinant of value is not appropriate/accurate.

Not sure why i'm bothering to make this point since you don't listen.




 

[franky1]

halting the tx/s does not destabilize its value and there is no founded scientific argument that it does. You can re-assert this opinion all you want, but you cannot move the market with an irrational unfounded argument.

hmmm lets change something

halting the tx/s does not destabilize its value and there is no founded scientific argument that it does.  You can re-assert this opinion all you want, but you cannot move the market with an irrational unfounded argument.

"bitcoins value(price)"  <<< stop saying this, its a fundamental misunderstanding.  value and price are not synonymous, it doesn't matter what your syntax is..

you yourself over use "value" but do not express which "value" you are talking about.
"value" is an umbrella term with multiple subcategories.

i only put the brackets to inform you which "value" you are trying to cause an end result of.
you want a stable price. but do not realise that halting utility wont cause a stable price

[AngryDwarf]

If I was to make a big international remittance to someone who accepted bitcoin, I would consider bitcoin to have value.
If I was to try and quickly pop in to my local shop to buy a packet of rolling papers, I would say bitcoin has no value. (They don't accept bitcoin anyway!)

I consider that to be the difference between value and price. Not sure how it correlates to what an economist would say.

[danda]

I'm not sure OP is saying it can't have secondary layers.

In fact, it seems to me that usage by the big banks as a settlement layer, as OP envisions, would itself be creating secondary layers, and that eventually fiat itself would be a secondary layer.

So I don't see how lightning is much different from that...

OP, what say you?

Burt, I think you missed something important.
In prior statements, the OP is arguing that even LN or other off-chain
systems for bitcoin would also be considered a TPS increase. When I
started talking about TPS, I was not referencing the blocksize specifically
since a TPS increase and a blocksize increase are two separate things.
For value to remain stable for the proposed "future currency" bitcoins
will be TPS restricted on chain and can not have proxies off chain as
a secondary pegged token for any exchange or whatever.

What OP is saying without saying it is that Bitcoin must stop now and
can't have second layers, since that also erodes value through time.

An "absolute" value must be isolated and constant in all ways.

[traincarswreck]

Burt, I think you missed something important.
In prior statements, the OP is arguing that even LN or other off-chain
systems for bitcoin would also be considered a TPS increase. When I
started talking about TPS, I was not refereeing the blocksize specifically
since a TPS increase and a blocksize increase are two separate things.
For value to remain stable for the proposed "future currency" bitcoins
will be TPS restricted on chain and can not have proxies off chain as
a secondary pegged token.

What OP is saying without saying it is that Bitcoin must stop now and
can't have second layers, since that also erodes value through time.

An "absolute" value must be isolated and constant in all ways.

yup but i don't think burt fully missed that.  just that their paraphrase hadn't yet been extended to that and that they hadn't inquired into that. So I would IF adding the LN changed the tps IN SUCH A WAY that the stable value parameters changed dramatically then we should absolutely consider NOT doing that.

In other words we need to consider the stability of value in the Nashian sense, with every change proposed. To not do so, is haphazard, and irresponsible, knowing that if we protect bitcoin's Nashian qualities (ie stability of value NOT price), then it will serve as the catalyst/component to bring about Ideal Money (which is not bitcoin).

[BurtW]

You're still making the mistake of treating Bitcoin like a static system
when in fact it is dynamic.  Something like TPS is actually a variable that has
changed over time and will continue to change. 

Thus, treating the current level of TPS as a determinant of value is not appropriate/accurate.

Not sure why i'm bothering to make this point since you don't listen.

I think he is saying that all of the arbitrary parameters (21 M, 10 min, 4 TPS) lead to a certain value proposition for Bitcion.  Changing any of these  parameters would change the value proposition of Bitcoin.  In this case changes to TPS would change the value.  Most believe that increasing TPS will lead to a higher utility, value and price.  I do not think there is any argument there.  TPS is only one of the parameters which feeds into the entire value proposition of Bitcoin.

you want a stable price. but do not realise that halting utility wont cause a stable price

HE DOES NOT WANT OR INTEND A STABLE PRICE.  He never said that.  Why do you keep saying that?

[traincarswreck]

as the bitcoin community increases in size and has more varied interests, changing consensus becomes harder and harder.  Thus it tends towards static, not dynamic.

You say it is dynamic, yet people have been wanting to change something as simple as the blocksize limit for years and continue to fail.  How can you ignore that?

yup exactly, and I don't need to convince them, THEY need to convince the network to change, and its not going to happen.  Thats why this dialogue is valuable, its a realization of truth, together.

And this is dawkins point about genes.  There value, is in their stability and unchanging nature, it is what evolves AROUND them that we see as evolution.  But the unchangingness of the genes is sign of their relevance, not irrelevance.

[traincarswreck]

you yourself over use "value" but do not express which "value" you are talking about.
"value" is an umbrella term with multiple subcategories.

i only put the brackets to inform you which "value" you are trying to cause an end result of.
you want a stable price. but do not realise that halting utility wont cause a stable price

no not stable price, if bitcoins value is stable, its price in relation to all currency's will NOT be stable, because all currencies are not stable in value, so their price will fluctuate in relation to bitcoin, even if bitcoin is stable in VALUE.

you need  to understand this in order to participate properly in the dialogue, and there are multiple participants who understand this very well.

[traincarswreck]

If I was to make a big international remittance to someone who accepted bitcoin, I would consider bitcoin to have value.
If I was to try and quickly pop in to my local shop to buy a packet of rolling papers, I would say bitcoin has no value. (They don't accept bitcoin anyway!)

I consider that to be the difference between value and price. Not sure how it correlates to what an economist would say.

You are speaking to the problem.  We have no metric for value so there is no easy why to say what you are trying to say.  Some people say "value is subjective" but its not true, if what they mean is, x is value to you but to me its worthless. 

That is not a useful thing to say.  But we don't need to sort that out, we can say that something that is left unchangeable, like gold, has a stable value.  Now if there is all of a sudden a lot more gold, then of course it's scarceness changes and we can see its value will change.

We can say what gold's value is, or what bitcoin's value is.  We can say, "It costs x usd".  Which is an example of price.  But usd are also not stable in value right, because the government/fed manipulates the SUPPLY. 

So do you understand where this problem arises and the nature of it?  There is no stable metric to show value.

[traincarswreck]

I'm not sure OP is saying it can't have secondary layers.

In fact, it seems to me that usage by the big banks as a settlement layer, as OP envisions, would itself be creating secondary layers, and that eventually fiat itself would be a secondary layer.

So I don't see how lightning is much different from that...

OP, what say you?

I am saying if we don't make the Nashian consideration every step of the way then we are being irresponsible.