Open Letter to GMaxwell and Sincere Rational Core Devs

[traincarswreck]

The way I see it, we have two options:

1) disagree about how to move forward and not get anywhere but here

2) agree not to move forward and just stay where we are

[1715186770]

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[danda]

Actually I respect his opinion because over the course of the past 4 years I have witnessed that he usually says things that I agree with, and he backs up his statements with strong technical, mathematical, and moral/ethical arguments.  He stands firm in his convictions and politely attempts to educate those with less technical ability and less bitcoin experience, even in the face of constant vitriol from opponents who are almost always less knowledgeable on topics than he is.  I have not seen his stances or arguments change one iota since blockstream was formed, and anyway I think the team there is an incredible resource for the bitcoin community.  I am grateful for them, and for the financial backers that have made it possible for a group of such incredibly talented people to be able to to devote themselves fulltime to the task of improving the open-source bitcoin codebase.

[Killerpotleaf]

Actually I respect his opinion because over the course of the past 4 years I have witnessed that he usually says things that I agree with, and he backs up his statements with strong technical, mathematical, and moral/ethical arguments.  He stands firm in his convictions and politely attempts to educate those with less technical ability and less bitcoin experience, even in the face of constant vitriol from opponents who are almost always less knowledgeable on topics than he is.  I have not seen his stances or arguments change one iota since blockstream was formed, and anyway I think the team there is an incredible resource for the bitcoin community.  I am grateful for them, and for the financial backers that have made it possible for a group of such incredibly talented people to be able to to devote themselves fulltime to the task of improving the open-source bitcoin codebase.

so you're just going to ignore the question then?

ok

[danda]

It seem to me that (1) will naturally lead to (2) once enough time passes and people eventually begin to accept the reality that bitcoin consensus code (protocol) is and will remain frozen, like ipv4.

The way I see it, we have two options:

1) disagree about how to move forward and not get anywhere but here

2) agree not to move forward and just stay where we are

[jonald_fyookball]

 I have not seen his stances or arguments change one iota since blockstream was formed

ok fair enough -- i guess he always believed Bitcoin "couldn't scale" on its own without the layered solutions his company is now offering.

[traincarswreck]

It seem to me that (1) will naturally lead to (2) once enough time passes and people eventually begin to accept the reality that bitcoin consensus code (protocol) is and will remain frozen, like ipv4.

It makes you an important and relevant player imo.

1 is non-cooperative, and 2 is co-operative.

[Killerpotleaf]

The way I see it, we have two options:

1) disagree about how to move forward and not get anywhere but here

2) agree not to move forward and just stay where we are

this will end 1 of 3 ways

1) we finally do get a super majority rallying behind a solution, in which case the minority opposed to the change can easily be crushed.
2) we split the chain, in which case its unclear if one side can ever really call themselves "bitcoin" ever again.
3) we do nothing forever, in which case altcoins become more relevant

everyone wants #1 but.... there are two sides both with valid points, and its not at all obvious in anyway which is favorable, yet both sides are utterly convinced DOOM awaits if either side wins.

#2 is infinitely more favorable to #3

#3 appears to be where we are headed... which is probably why altcoins are doing so well these days.

[danda]

I think it is an opinion coming from someone that is probably not a developer and thus that does not understand the intricacies of the scaling debate in any real way and has instead allowed himself to be pursuaded by a bunch of mumbo-jumbo and character assassination from those who "wish" things could be a certain way by waving some kind of magic wand, but are not inisghtful enough to realize that their so-called wand would break the very thing they purport to care about.   I think you must also be a bad judge of character if you doubt the motives of the core team developers -- employed by blockstream or otherwise.

Is it reasonable for an uninformed person to hold such an opinion?   I guess that's arguable.   I personally usually do not make public statements about things I do not understand very well.  And I certainly do not make public statements impugning the character and motives of public persons based on random hearsay and groupthink.  

Surely, as a developer of 20+ years experience, you're intelligent enough to understand why that is a reasonable opinion for someone to have?  

[traincarswreck]

I'd say it will take about 10 people with any decent pull or reputation in the community to halt everything and highlight nash's argument as the reason to stop any non-critical development. Maybe 5 people.

[danda]

Although I prefer to believe that the status quo will prevail, there is one thing that makes me think segwit could actually get adopted.

It is the default behavior in bitcoin releases since v0.13.1.

In software, defaults are super powerful because most people never bother to change them.

Even further, the recommended way to NOT use segwit is to not upgrade.   So any new user installing recent versions of the software will get it.   Soon (if not already) this would include any linux user installing bitcoin from their distro's package repository.

It is unclear to me what will happen if segwit is not adopted within 1 year, because supposedly the code has a 1 year window for activation.   But there's no reason developers couldn't extend that indefinitely in future releases.

If that happens, then somebody would need to fork the non-segwit code and begin releasing and promoting and maintaining it to prevent a sort of adoption-by-default effect.

I imagine that core devs are relying on this default effect to kick in eventually, but are keeping quiet about it.   That's what I would do anyway in their shoes.

interesting to watch...

#3 appears to be where we are headed... which is probably why altcoins are doing so well these days.

[jonald_fyookball]

I think it is an opinion coming from someone that is probably not a developer and thus that does not understand the intricacies of the scaling debate in any real way and has instead allowed himself to be pursuaded by a bunch of mumbo-jumbo and character assassination from those who "wish" things could be a certain way by waving some kind of magic wand, but are not inisghtful enough to realize that their so-called wand would break the very thing they purport to care about.   I think you must also be a bad judge of character if you doubt the motives of the core team developers -- employed by blockstream or otherwise.

Is it reasonable for an uninformed person to hold such an opinion?   I guess that's arguable.   I personally usually do not make public statements about things I do not understand very well.  And I certainly do not make public statements impugning the character and motives of public persons based on random hearsay and groupthink.  

Surely, as a developer of 20+ years experience, you're intelligent enough to understand why that is a reasonable opinion for someone to have?  

Everyone knows that Blockstream has received $71M in VC.
  
As recently as a few months ago, there was a guise (imo) of Blockstream being primarily
interested in developing sidechain technology as their primary offering, which
never made sense since there is really no clear market for such a thing (afaik)

Now even Blockstream admits on their own website their intentions to
offer scaling solutions via LN, which makes perfect sense as far as having a
viable business plan to recoup the invested funds, which is what many suspected all along.

Blockstream's principals had a vision of how they wanted to scale Bitcoin and
formed a company around it.  Perhaps they truly believe their corporate interests
are 100% aligned with the interest of Bitcoin, and perhaps you believe that,
but if you cannot at least see why many would doubt this, or see a conflict of
interest, or see the possibility that technical positions could become influenced by
corporate positions , then I would question your judgement.

[traincarswreck]

Everyone knows that Blockstream has received $71M in VC.
  
As recently as a few months ago, there was a guise (imo) of Blockstream being primarily
interested in developing sidechain technology as their primary offering, which
never made sense since there is really no clear market for such a thing (afaik)

Now even Blockstream admits on their own website their intentions to
offer scaling solutions via LN, which makes perfect sense as far as having a
viable business plan to recoup the invested funds, which is what many suspected all along.

Blockstream's principals had a vision of how they wanted to scale Bitcoin and
formed a company around it.  Perhaps they truly believe their corporate interests
are 100% aligned with the interest of Bitcoin, and perhaps you believe that,
but if you cannot at least see why many would doubt this, or see a conflict of
interest, or see the possibility that technical positions could become influenced by
corporate positions , then I would question your judgement.

you could convince me to argue for the truth of this.

[Killerpotleaf]

Although I prefer to believe that the status quo will prevail, there is one thing that makes me think segwit could actually get adopted.

It is the default behavior in bitcoin releases since v0.13.1.

In software, defaults are super powerful because most people never bother to change them.

Even further, the recommended way to NOT use segwit is to not upgrade.   So any new user installing recent versions of the software will get it.   Soon (if not already) this would include any linux user installing bitcoin from their distro's package repository.

It is unclear to me what will happen if segwit is not adopted within 1 year, because supposedly the code has a 1 year window for activation.   But there's no reason developers couldn't extend that indefinitely in future releases.

If that happens, then somebody would need to fork the non-segwit code and begin releasing and promoting and maintaining it to prevent a sort of adoption-by-default effect.

I imagine that core devs are relying on this default effect to kick in eventually, but are keeping quiet about it.   That's what I would do anyway in their shoes.

interesting to watch...

#3 appears to be where we are headed... which is probably why altcoins are doing so well these days.

its not exactly as you describe, but this "adoption-by-default" without minner consent is probably the rout they will take.
core will create a minority fork...

https://gist.github.com/shaolinfry/743157b0b1ee14e1ddc95031f1057e4c

[danda]

that BIP reeks of desperation.

This comment is interesting, and may foretell the future.   how low will they go....?

There's no need to rush this. If segwit fails to activate by the deadline, we can try again with a lower activation threshold.

https://gist.github.com/shaolinfry/743157b0b1ee14e1ddc95031f1057e4c

[Killerpotleaf]

that BIP reeks of desperation.

This comment is interesting, and may foretell the future.   how low will they go....?

There's no need to rush this. If segwit fails to activate by the deadline, we can try again with a lower activation threshold.

https://gist.github.com/shaolinfry/743157b0b1ee14e1ddc95031f1057e4c

its the first i hear of this bip, idk if it comes from a core contributor, but i do believe most of core is not liking this bip.
but i think its a viable way forward for core, in fact its probably the only way they can get segwit activated without the hashrate backing them.
at this time it seems very unlikely any reasonable activation threshold will make segwit pass.
another very promising way for core to get segwit activated is to rework it. if they strip away all the blocksize/weight stuff, and segwit simply becomes a different way of calculating TX_ID, it would probably pass.
we'll see.

[Quickseller]

You can quote this all you want but it doesn't state his intentions.  That's why the debate exists.

Does this speak to his intentions?

Forgot to add the good part about micropayments.  While I don't think Bitcoin is practical for smaller micropayments right now, it will eventually be as storage and bandwidth costs continue to fall.  If Bitcoin catches on on a big scale, it may already be the case by that time.  Another way they can become more practical is if I implement client-only mode and the number of network nodes consolidates into a smaller number of professional server farms.  Whatever size micropayments you need will eventually be practical.  I think in 5 or 10 years, the bandwidth and storage will seem trivial.

Ya, bitcoin as a high powered settlement system.

Now you are just ignoring the evidence.

Now you are just ignoring the evidence.

No that's why i think its likely Szabo and I've already shown him to be inline with what I am saying.  His works are part of my argument, and part of what I have cited in this thread.  He wrote a lot on micropayments.

The thing about satoshi is that many people took whatever he said about Bitcoin to be accurate. Many people were very interested in Bitcoin but did not understand how it would work, and looked to Satoshi for guidance. Satoshi has no reason to be in any way inaccurate about his descriptions regarding anything about Bitcoin. If Satoshi thought that no new features should be added to Bitcoin then he would have said this, and most people would have accepted this. However this is not something that he said.

[traincarswreck]

The thing about satoshi is that many people took whatever he said about Bitcoin to be accurate. Many people were very interested in Bitcoin but did not understand how it would work, and looked to Satoshi for guidance. Satoshi has no reason to be in any way inaccurate about his descriptions regarding anything about Bitcoin. If Satoshi thought that no new features should be added to Bitcoin then he would have said this, and most people would have accepted this. However this is not something that he said.

On the other hand we can note that bitcoin never would have bootstrapped if it were advertised as the new gold standard (ie settlement system for banks).  But all of Nash Szabo and Finney write of this.

[Carlton Banks]

everyone wants #1 but.... there are two sides both with valid points, and its not at all obvious in anyway which is favorable, yet both sides are utterly convinced DOOM awaits if either side wins.

You're entirely wrong


Segwit may not be perfect, but the notion that BU is an honest or valid attempt at developing Bitcoin is a great big joke.


Today's fees are supposedly unbearable, prompting big block crusaders. What happens to BU when the price increases by more than 16x? The coveted 10,000 satoshis fees will suddenly become $2 again. We'll be right back in the same exact situation, big blockers screeching "blOkS arnT biG eNufffff, raISE thE ceilIinGGGG!!!!!!1"



Which part of "big blocks are not a valid scaling paradigm" do you not understand? How fucking stupid are you?

[Quickseller]

The thing about satoshi is that many people took whatever he said about Bitcoin to be accurate. Many people were very interested in Bitcoin but did not understand how it would work, and looked to Satoshi for guidance. Satoshi has no reason to be in any way inaccurate about his descriptions regarding anything about Bitcoin. If Satoshi thought that no new features should be added to Bitcoin then he would have said this, and most people would have accepted this. However this is not something that he said.

On the other hand we can note that bitcoin never would have bootstrapped if it were advertised as the new gold standard (ie settlement system for banks).  But all of Nash Szabo and Finney write of this.

I don't know. Although, even today, I think if Bitcoin were to be a settlement system for banks that people would probably not use it in mass, and would probably have near zero value.

Satoshi also could have said that he didn't know how Bitcoin could change in the future instead of giving affirmative examples as to how it might change.  

[classicsucks]

Today's fees are supposedly unbearable, prompting big block crusaders. What happens to BU when the price increases by more than 16x? The coveted 10,000 satoshis fees will suddenly become $2 again. We'll be right back in the same exact situation, big blockers screeching "blOkS arnT biG eNufffff, raISE thE ceilIinGGGG!!!!!!1"

LOL a massive hypothetical and a classic Malthussian fallacy. Go back to sleep Carlton.