Keeping Bitcoin Decentralized!

[jdillon]

I have been around Bitcoin for awhile now and have been an investor for almost as long. I really believe that Bitcoin has the potential to be the worlds decentralized, inflationproof store of value, really electronic gold, and it's only been in the past few months that I've been reading Peter Todd's and Gregory Maxwell's writings about the bitcoin blocksize and how important the 1MB limit is to keeping Bitcoin decentralized.

Peter has a new project to create a video/website explaining the limit and how important it is to Bitcoin: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=189792 I just donated 1BTC to it myself.

Bitcoin as a payment system just doesn't drive up the price in a long-term stable way. It's just basic supply and demand and as using Bitcoin as a payment system becomes more efficient and the velocity of money goes up, the overall demand for Bitcoins goes down. At the same time you're investment is subject to the risk of alternatives that provide the same low-fees and no-refunds policies that make Bitcoin useful for payments. It really worries me to see the foundation mainly funded by companies that are invested in payments rather than Bitcoin as the store of value that it could be.

I don't think the people in Cyprus, Russia and China care about payments. I think they care about anonymity and the inability of anyone to take your coins from you. We can't let that be risked for the sake of SatoshiDice.

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[UltimateReaper]

It isn't gold its rhodium!

Anyways I question your intelligence. BTC is beyond your power, probably. It's going to do its own thing and change in ways few if any are likely to see coming.

[XXthetimeisnowXX]

I have been around Bitcoin for awhile now and have been an investor for almost as long. I really believe that Bitcoin has the potential to be the worlds decentralized, inflationproof store of value, really electronic gold, and it's only been in the past few months that I've been reading Peter Todd's and Gregory Maxwell's writings about the bitcoin blocksize and how important the 1MB limit is to keeping Bitcoin decentralized.

Peter has a new project to create a video/website explaining the limit and how important it is to Bitcoin: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=189792 I just donated 1BTC to it myself.

Bitcoin as a payment system just doesn't drive up the price in a long-term stable way. It's just basic supply and demand and as using Bitcoin as a payment system becomes more efficient and the velocity of money goes up, the overall demand for Bitcoins goes down. At the same time you're investment is subject to the risk of alternatives that provide the same low-fees and no-refunds policies that make Bitcoin useful for payments. It really worries me to see the foundation mainly funded by companies that are invested in payments rather than Bitcoin as the store of value that it could be.

I don't think the people in Cyprus, Russia and China care about payments. I think they care about anonymity and the inability of anyone to take your coins from you. We can't let that be risked for the sake of SatoshiDice.

I like your post. thank you

[BitcoinAshley]

I really have no issue with this. Satoshi (IIRC) intended for the blocksize limit to be removed and tx fees to be priced in. (Please correct me if I am wrong; I have read this elsewhere on the forums, and you know what they say about stuff you read on the internet.) If you want to "defy Satoshi" and keep the training wheels on, that's fine - when it takes 96 hours for my fee-included tx to be included in a block, I will just use Litecoin for transactions

That's how this is supposed to work, right? Free market, may the winner/innovator take all? 

The cryptocoin with the fewest magic numbers is very likely to succeed for mass adoption. I'm not saying this will be Bitcoin, Litecoin, BBQcoin or any other, or even one that has been developed yet. 

[tvbcof]

... when it takes 96 hours for my fee-included tx to be included in a block, I will just use Litecoin for transactions ...

Great!  A credible mechanism by which Bitcoin can retain a 'p2p' structure and the strength against attack which such a structure provides.  Works for me.

[jdillon]

I really have no issue with this. Satoshi (IIRC) intended for the blocksize limit to be removed and tx fees to be priced in.

Who cares what Satoshi thought? He screwed up with the blocksize. He is not a god.

[Mike Christ]

I really have no issue with this. Satoshi (IIRC) intended for the blocksize limit to be removed and tx fees to be priced in.

Who cares what Satoshi thought? He screwed up with the blocksize. He is not a god.

Well, he did create Bitcoin.  I'd care a lot of what he thought, considering he's the one who made it, and not Bill Murray.

[tvbcof]

I really have no issue with this. Satoshi (IIRC) intended for the blocksize limit to be removed and tx fees to be priced in.

Who cares what Satoshi thought? He screwed up with the blocksize. He is not a god.

As I understand things Satoshi personally and somewhat covertly set the block size down to it's current size.  Since he did not comment on that particular change, his rational is open to debate...or at least wild guesses that tend to reinforce whatever side of the argument one wishes to promote.  I find the current size fairly nice as it would allow the solution to scale to a point where it would be very usable globally as a backing and balancing solution.

I would bet that Satoshi, like most everyone else with some level of involvement, had his thoughts evolve and change as time went by.  I have changed my tune dramatically on fees, for instance, as I understand the terrain a bit more.

[franky1]

everyone saying that satoshi dice is killing bitcoin by filling up the block size. in my opinion satoshi dice is the sandbox of the future.

when bitcoin becomes valued at thousands of dollars each, users will start transacting in satoshis, not whole coins. and because of the population increase within the community, there will be much more transactions.

so satoshidice is actually showing you what will happen in the future. and to find solutions that help small transactions flow freely. NOT be ignored or being priced out of being able to transact by having huge fee's in an attempt to stop these small transactions.