Open Letter to GMaxwell and Sincere Rational Core Devs

[sidhujag]

...

Ya exactly. I don't think Nash was Satoshi.  But you will find quotes of me saying he is. 

Perhaps you should update your blog then if that was you

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[traincarswreck]

I think you might be implying he cited my blog but I don't think that is the case.

[jbreher]

Yeah - I get that subtext. The fly in that ointment is that the value of Bitcoin (for any rational definition of 'value', which OP steadfastly refuses to define) is increasing spectacularly. By this criteria alone, it cannot be the Nash Other Alternative.

IOW, in no way does it resemble a duck.

As an aside, this is the very property that has led to the economy singling out Bitcoin.

You don't understand the difference between value and price.  

Well, I will grant you one thing. As long as you keep refusing to define 'value', you are free to assert any relation between value and price that you care to. But to make an argument upon undefined terms is simply wasteful.

Find a handful of people that agree with you that the value of Bitcoin is unchanging and I'll reconsider my position.

Just because and exchange tells you price is "x" doesn't mean the value is also "x".

Where did I state that conjecture?

You are just again clearly showing you have no understanding of market theory or global/macro-economics.

If you say so, chief.

[traincarswreck]

Re: bitcoin being relevant (and better than) gold, Szabo just retweeted this:

[traincarswreck]

Yeah - I get that subtext. The fly in that ointment is that the value of Bitcoin (for any rational definition of 'value', which OP steadfastly refuses to define) is increasing spectacularly. By this criteria alone, it cannot be the Nash Other Alternative.

IOW, in no way does it resemble a duck.

As an aside, this is the very property that has led to the economy singling out Bitcoin.

You don't understand the difference between value and price.  

Well, I will grant you one thing. As long as you keep refusing to define 'value', you are free to assert any relation between value and price that you care to. But to make an argument upon undefined terms is simply wasteful.

Find a handful of people that agree with you that the value of Bitcoin is unchanging and I'll reconsider my position.

Just because and exchange tells you price is "x" doesn't mean the value is also "x".

Where did I state that conjecture?

You are just again clearly showing you have no understanding of market theory or global/macro-economics.

If you say so, chief.

In regard to the bold, as i understand, you have implied that bitcoin's value is increasing rapidly.  By your question "where did I state that conjecture," you have implied that you do not equate value to price.

So where are you basing the claim that bitcoin is rising spectacularly in value?

Find a handful of people that agree with you that the value of Bitcoin is unchanging and I'll reconsider my position.

The entire significance of this project and the purpose that it exists is that bitcoin's value proposition is such that it   should remain fairly stable. If it wasn't expected to be as such there would be no argument that people would adopt it as an inflation hedge or a money.  Predictability of supply is the key quality it has.  You know nothing about bitcoin if you don't understand this.

[AgentofCoin]

Yeah - I get that subtext. The fly in that ointment is that the value of Bitcoin (for any rational definition of 'value', which OP steadfastly refuses to define) is increasing spectacularly. By this criteria alone, it cannot be the Nash Other Alternative.

IOW, in no way does it resemble a duck.

As an aside, this is the very property that has led to the economy singling out Bitcoin.

You don't understand the difference between value and price.  

Well, I will grant you one thing. As long as you keep refusing to define 'value', you are free to assert any relation between value and price that you care to. But to make an argument upon undefined terms is simply wasteful.

...

Not to get very involved here, since this is really your discussion.
But, I think OP's definitions would be this:

Price: the financial cost to purchase the financial device. (1,000 USD per 1 BTC)
Value: the perceived utility of the financial device. (bitcoin = gold and not currency)
Stable: the continual increase in price, only in relation to its predictable value. (Stability as Appreciation.)

So, the price could be based on the value, but the value is based on its stability.
(According to the overall Nash theory and OP being discussed.)
(Also, it could be argued that Stability of the device, feeds back into the Price, closing the circle to repeat.)

[sidhujag]

I think you might be implying he cited my blog but I don't think that is the case.

You obviously think Nash is/was Satoshi based on your blog, if not I think you should update it to reflect new knowledge or findings that made you think otherwise.

[AGD]

...

Ya exactly. I don't think Nash was Satoshi.  But you will find quotes of me saying he is. 

You might say about the same, when people quote your current blocksize discussion.

Why you are not coming to the point of impact to the Bitcoin community?

If it is all about the blocksize and you think Nash's papers will support you with that, I think you are completely misled. OK. Let's say - which will be the most possible event - that Bitcoin Core Devs will raise the blocksize some day in the future, because a majority wants a higher transaction rate and now (as you stated) Bitcoin will lose its gold properties and will not become Nash's Alternative Currency (the one which will force governments to create Nash's Ideal Money). What will happen? Bitcoin will die? So what??? It was not worth it then. Another ecoin will talke its place and keep the blocksize of 1 MB forever.

I say, Bitcoin (with bigger blocks) will still be the number one decentralized currency backed by math and cryptography and most likely will stay on top of all altcoins forever. Side chains will make small transactions faster and cheaper and Bitcoin will act just like gold and money together. Something that even Nash couldn't foresee (or calculate).

Also as I stated before I am pretty sure, that no government of the world in the near future will be able to create a currency that can compete against a decentralized currency, like Bitcoin, because it will not be decentralized when a government would create it. Government is about control and decentralization is not good to control. When the code is in the wild there is nothing you can do...

[sidhujag]

...

Ya exactly. I don't think Nash was Satoshi.  But you will find quotes of me saying he is.  

You might say about the same, when people quote your current blocksize discussion.

Why you are not coming to the point of impact to the Bitcoin community?

If it is all about the blocksize and you think Nash's papers will support you with that, I think you are completely misled. OK. Let's say - which will be the most possible event - that Bitcoin Core Devs will raise the blocksize some day in the future, because a majority wants a higher transaction rate and now (as you stated) Bitcoin will lose its gold properties and will not become Nash's Alternative Currency (the one which will force governments to create Nash's Ideal Money). What will happen? Bitcoin will die? So what??? It was not worth it then. Another ecoin will talke its place and keep the blocksize of 1 MB forever.

I say, Bitcoin (with bigger blocks) will still be the number one decentralized currency backed by math and cryptography and most likely will stay on top of all altcoins forever. Side chains will make small transactions faster and cheaper and Bitcoin will act just like gold and money together. Something that even Nash couldn't foresee (or calculate).

Also as I stated before I am pretty sure, that no government of the world in the near future will be able to create a currency that can compete against a decentralized currency, like Bitcoin, because it will not be decentralized when a government would create it. Government is about control and decentralization is not good to control. When the code is in the wild there is nothing you can do...

They can and will but the question is will the market think of it being a sufficiently competent successor of bitcoin given its properties especially if all it is, is solving the generals problem along with a direct inflation/deflation metric tied to some auditable GDP or something which is directly aligned with economic health. I don't know the answer but I'm guessing negative. Let's take the web for example, its horrible and can be superceded by many technologies around its time even before it but it was chosen because it solved the problem and was simple, since then new technologies have come and gone trying to change how the web works, operates and grows into what we need it to be moving away from DNS, but the market disagrees because of infrastructure costs etc. So we are left with innovating on a rotting web core, unless we move to things like IPFS. It is up to the market to decide if something like IPFS is a successor because it would have to present enough value to the market to let it decide that it will be used instead. Similar to Bitcoin, it has network affect and first mover advantage, it will be the blockchain based money until a proper successor offering value that is too hard to resist emerges, if that happens.

[jbreher]

So where are you basing the claim that bitcoin is rising spectacularly in value?

Anecdotally, it is spectacularly rising in value for me. Despite the fact that the meager percentage of the overall quantity of Bitcoin that I control is nearly fixed, the purchasing power of that Bitcoin has increased drastically. While that is skirting close to 'price' it is not the same thing. I can derive increasing value from it over time in the form of products and services.

And as near as I can tell, the number of Bitcoin holders is increasing over time. They are doubtless experiencing increasing economic capability due to their holdings of Bitcoin.

Increasing numbers of people deriving increasing economic ability is a multiplicative increase in value. For any reasonable definition of 'value'.

As an aside, until 2008, nobody was deriving any value from Bitcoin. That in itself disqualifies it from being 'unchanging in value', though I am willing to restrict the discussion to this step function. As long as the axiom is recognized and agreed.

[traincarswreck]

That in itself disqualifies it from being 'unchanging in value', though I am willing to restrict the discussion to this step function. As long as the axiom is recognized and agreed.

Do you know what a deflationary currency implies?

[traincarswreck]

Bitcoin's value proposition is that it has a predictable inflation scheduled in relation to a reasonably predictable cost of production. There is probably a more accurate way to say this, but the RELEVANT point is that the markets can find stability in the value because of this.

If you doubled the supply all of a sudden (ie hard forked and changed the schedule) this would destroy the predictable valuation of bitcoin.

When you point out that bitcoin used to have no price and therefore no value and then it had a price and therefore had value you are not speaking to the same relevant point I am making about bitcoin's GOLD LIKE properties.

I think of the possibility that a good sort of international currency might EVOLVE before the time when an official establishment might occur.
    
To be quite respectable, in a Gresham-advised sense, money needs only to be AS GOOD as other material commod-ities that might be hoarded.
    
Now the possible area for evolution is that if, say, an inflation rate of between 1% and 3% is now considered desirable and appropriate in Sweden, then, if it is really controllable, why shouldn’t a rate between 1/2 % and 3/2 % be even more desirable?

  Starting with the idea of value stabilization in relation to a domestic price index associated with the territory of one state, beyond that there is the natural and logical concept of internationally based comparisons.
    
The currencies being compared, like now the euro, the dollar, the yen, the pound, the swiss franc, the swedish kronor, etc. can be viewed with critical eyes by their users and by those who maybe have the option of whether or not or how to use one of them. This can lead to pressure for good quality and consequently for a lessened rate of inflationary deprecation in value.

    It seems possible and not unlikely, however, that if two states evolve towards having currencies or more stable value as measured locally by national CPI indices that then also these distinct currencies would tend to evolve towards more stable comparative relations of value.
    
Then the limiting or “asymptotic” result of such an evolutionary trend would be in effect “ideal money” but this as a result achieved without the adoption of anything like an ICPI index as a basis for the standard of value.”
  
 …intrinsically free of “inflationary decadence”..a true “gold standard”, but the proposed basis for that was not the proposal of a linkage to gold

All this has been explained and that you don't understand it is why you think it is wrong.

[traincarswreck]

OK. Let's say - which will be the most possible event - that Bitcoin Core Devs will raise the blocksize some day in the future, because a majority wants a higher transaction rate and now (as you stated) Bitcoin will lose its gold properties and will not become Nash's Alternative Currency (the one which will force governments to create Nash's Ideal Money). What will happen? Bitcoin will die? So what??? It was not worth it then. Another ecoin will talke its place and keep the blocksize of 1 MB forever.

I say, Bitcoin (with bigger blocks) will still be the number one decentralized currency backed by math and cryptography and most likely will stay on top of all altcoins forever. Side chains will make small transactions faster and cheaper and Bitcoin will act just like gold and money together. Something that even Nash couldn't foresee (or calculate).

Also as I stated before I am pretty sure, that no government of the world in the near future will be able to create a currency that can compete against a decentralized currency, like Bitcoin, because it will not be decentralized when a government would create it. Government is about control and decentralization is not good to control. When the code is in the wild there is nothing you can do...

The blocksize is not getting scaled/raised.  That's a fallacy.  Bitcoin with bigger blocks serves absolutely no purpose. You are functioning on the tacit belief that introducing a medium of exchange unto our society solves a problem but it doesn't. Raising bitcoin's tps does nothing valuable.

[traincarswreck]

And what the last three of you don't seem to understand is fiat's value in this context IS already controllable, and it has already been admitted in the US congressional research report on bitcoin that if it become more relevant the FED would be forced to react to the increased velocity of the USD.  It's basic economics its just ya'll don't understand how the current system works.

And to the idiot that keeps asserting Nash Ideal Money would require a one world government, stop it, I have already refuted that ignorance:

[traincarswreck]

Fact:
https://thewealthofchips.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/us-congressional-research-service-on-bitcoin-rebutal-via-john-nashs-lecture-ideal-money/

However, if the scale of use were to grow substantially larger, there could be reason for some concern. Conceptually, Bitcoin could have an impact on the conduct of monetary policy to the extent that it would (1) substantially affect the quantity of money or (2) influence the velocity (rate of circulation) of money through the economy by reducing the demand for dollars.

[jbreher]

Bitcoin with bigger blocks serves absolutely no purpose.

Bullshit. It serves the purpose of allowing more transactions to occur on the blockchain per unit time. Whether or not that is something you desire is irrelevant.

[traincarswreck]

Bullshit. It serves the purpose of allowing more transactions to occur on the blockchain per unit time. Whether or not that is something you desire is irrelevant.

There is no significant and especially unique solution that provides or problem it solves. Its a tacit assumption that the introduction of a "better" medium of exchange solves something.

[BurtW]

Bullshit. It serves the purpose of allowing more transactions to occur on the blockchain per unit time. Whether or not that is something you desire is irrelevant.

There is no significant and especially unique solution that provides or problem it solves. Its a tacit assumption that the introduction of a "better" medium of exchange solves something.

Yes, I believe you have hit the nail on the head here.  The reason many people have a hard time with all of this is because they have believed for many years that Bitcoin is solving a problem in the world by becoming a medium of exchange.  We are talking years of writing, posts, belief, momentum, etc.

It is very hard for people with this amount of investment in the idea of Bitcoin as a future medium of exchange, including myself, to even temporarily consider the possibility that it may be more expedient to not expand the utility of Bitcoin as a medium of exchange.

Personally, what I have done is to temporarily suspend my belief that is must become a widely accepted medium of exchange long enough to see what you are talking about.

What we have been talking about here, long before you showed up is:  Bitcoin -> wider acceptance -> higher TPS -> price stability -> take on the banks -> etc.

The ideas you have presented in this thread are revolutionary given the collective closely held belief systems of the entire Bitcoin community.

[traincarswreck]

Yes, I believe you have hit the nail on the head here.  The reason many people have a hard time with all of this is because they have believed for many years that Bitcoin is solving a problem in the world by becoming a medium of exchange.  We are talking years of writing, posts, belief, momentum, etc.

It is very hard for people with this amount of investment in the idea of Bitcoin as a future medium of exchange, including myself, to even temporarily consider the possibility that it may be more expedient to not expand the utility of Bitcoin as a medium of exchange.

Personally, what I have done is to temporarily suspend my belief that is must become a widely accepted medium of exchange long enough to see what you are talking about.

What we have been talking about here, long before you showed up is:  Bitcoin -> wider acceptance -> higher TPS -> price stability -> take on the banks -> etc.

The ideas you have presented in this thread are revolutionary given the collective closely held belief systems of the entire Bitcoin community.

So then what do we do.  They say you only need 10 people firm in their belief: https://news.rpi.edu/luwakkey/2902

But thats silly, I think what it could mean tho, is 10 people who KNOW they are grounded in solid logic and reason, and then a tipping point can be viral.  There are many people that would understand me, and what I present I think, but i can't reach them, and I can't hold their attention long enough for them to realize that its not just something that insignificant.

And yes you say you temporarily suspended your beliefs, and this is LITERALLY what the protocol bohmian dialogue is for. The community on both sides has this tacit assumption, we should want to bring awareness to it.

cheers.

[traincarswreck]

Relevant:

Conclusion

During the Bretton Woods era the U.S. dollar, pegged to gold at $35 an ounce, served the entire free world as a common and reliable standard of value.  The transition from Bretton Woods to floating rates left the world with no common and reliable standard of value by which to guarantee future real returns on contracts or investments.

http://unenumerated.blogspot.ca/2016/02/two-malthusian-scares.html#links

See Szabo knows all this, and in the future I will be forgiven for implying Nash was Szabo and Nash was Satoshi.