69,000 (69K) Unconfirmed Transactions! ....WTF...???

[dinofelis]

Stronger Chain is the one that is Longest with the Highest Difficulty, therefore it is the most Protected from an outside attack.

There won't be an attack if you are, say, over 25% of mining power.  And there's no competition.  A chain with "more hash power" but invalid blocks according to the protocol at hand doesn't matter.

I.E.
Compare ETH & ETC
ETH =>$18.53
ETC =>  $1.34

This is a market choice.  ETC wasn't obliterated by the miners of ETH.  They put up a big mouth, and in the end, joined.

You see BTW that the market shares correspond more or less to the initial voter casts.  Grossly some 10% vs 90%.  So a 10% HF is viable.

At certain points, the ratio was closer to 1:4.  Recently, ETH has been pumped like DASH.  But that's the market.

But essentially, this means that you can pull a HF from the moment you're over 10% of miners with you.  And you will probably leave the old chain alive if you have less than 90% of miners AND USERS with you.  So I don't see what is so special about 51%.

[kiklo]

But essentially, this means that you can pull a HF from the moment you're over 10% of miners with you.  And you will probably leave the old chain alive if you have less than 90% of miners AND USERS with you.  So I don't see what is so special about 51%.

Ok Dino,

The higher the % of Miners, means the greater Hash Rate,
Meaning the Greater Hash Rate will find more blocks at faster intervals,
BTC Split into 2 chains

BTC Unlimited with 55% of the previous total

SegCrap with 45% of the Previous Total,

Both are now mining , Due to Greater Hash Rate
BTC Unlimited Pulls ahead by 20 blocks higher block height with higher Difficulty

Segcrap is 20 Blocks lower and has a lower Difficulty.

BTC Unlimited Miners stop mining their chain and start mining Segcrap's Chain,
Not to earn segcrap coins , but using the power of a 51% attack rewrite a few blocks of their transactions and destroy any image of security they had.

After rewriting the segcrap chain history, they immediately switch back to their chain and mine normally.

Since BTC Unlimited has a larger over 51% of the Miners , the segcrap miners can not do the same damage to the BTC unlimited chain.

Do you get it now?

 

[dinofelis]

But essentially, this means that you can pull a HF from the moment you're over 10% of miners with you.  And you will probably leave the old chain alive if you have less than 90% of miners AND USERS with you.  So I don't see what is so special about 51%.

Ok Dino,

The higher the % of Miners, means the greater Hash Rate,
Meaning the Greater Hash Rate will find more blocks at faster intervals,
BTC Split into 2 chains

BTC Unlimited with 55% of the previous total

SegCrap with 45% of the Previous Total,

Both are now mining , Due to Greater Hash Rate
BTC Unlimited Pulls ahead by 20 blocks higher block height with higher Difficulty

Segcrap is 20 Blocks lower and has a lower Difficulty.

BTC Unlimited Miners stop mining their chain and start mining Segcrap's Chain,
Not to earn segcrap coins , but using the power of a 51% attack rewrite a few blocks of their transactions and destroy any image of security they had.

After rewriting the segcrap chain history, they immediately switch back to their chain and mine normally.

Since BTC Unlimited has a larger over 51% of the Miners , the segcrap miners can not do the same damage to the BTC unlimited chain.

Do you get it now?

 

They said exactly that of the ETC/ETH case.  No miner did so.  Because he's not crazy.  He wants to maximize his profits, and not waste his hash rate on an attack while his buddies take profit.   If he uses his hash rate, he wants profit from it.  If he uses his hash rate on the minority chain, that is to earn minority chain coins that are worth more on the market per "unit of hash rate" than in the majority chain where the difficulty is higher, and hence the reward for hash rate is lower.
As he doesn't know what way the MARKET will go, there's no reason to destroy minority coins that may be easily mined, and maybe worth a lot on the market.  

Attacks suffer from the "tragedy of the commons".  You waste YOUR hash rate on a chain you want to kill, while your BUDDIES make money on the chain you want to protect, while you are NOT mining it.  By the time you won, and wasted all your hash rate on "acts of war", the winning chain is now full of miners, and you've ruined your chances to make a quick buck, while your buddies did.

[kiklo]

They said exactly that of the ETC/ETH case.  No miner did so.  Because he's not crazy.  He wants to maximize his profits, and not waste his hash rate on an attack while his buddies take profit.   If he uses his hash rate, he wants profit from it.  If he uses his hash rate on the minority chain, that is to earn minority chain coins that are worth more on the market per "unit of hash rate" than in the majority chain where the difficulty is higher, and hence the reward for hash rate is lower.
As he doesn't know what way the MARKET will go, there's no reason to destroy minority coins that may be easily mined, and maybe worth a lot on the market.  

ETH & ETC did not have segwit & LN to content with.
Whether the BTC Unlimited Guys would actually do it , who knows.
But the Fact of the matter is they could do it , and even through you are implying they will choose the greater profit margin.
To me the greatest profit margin would be not having the competing chain siphoning off buyers that would be buying my coins.

Time will tell and we will see what happens after BTC Unlimited reaches 51% or higher.  

 

[freedomno1]

The wise words of Satoshi came back from the grave to remind me
Miners just need to remember that increased trade volume wins over decreased volume in generating fees over time and that they are destroying their own growth with this near-sighted block-size return.

Is the fee enough to always ensure the profitability of running a node, even when BitCoin generation stops being profitable?

Right.  Otherwise we couldn't have a finite limit of 21 million coins, because there would always need to be some minimum reward for generating.  In a few decades when the reward gets too small, the transaction fee will become the main compensation for nodes.  I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume.

You do realize the Goal of Segwit & LN, is that in the Future ALL Transactions take place OFFCHAIN.
Miners will have No Volume, if LN with Segwit is activated.

Miners are not activating Segwit, to protect their future Transaction fee Volume.
However BTC Core is not offering any solutions to the unconfirmed transaction problems they can implement ,
so BTC Unlimited is the only real choice they have.


 

The off-chain mechanism is in there so they can build on off-chain in the future, while in the intermin this kicks the can down the road again. However if I recall correctly miners should be able to mine sidechains, unless its a chain that doesn't involve significant Txt fees like LN where the revenue earned for that is small.

Assuming there is more than one sidechain peg it's possible that miners can get demurrage (percentage of held coins are redistributed automatically to miners) or be rewarded by a separate unpegged asset on the side chain. Although it would be an alt-coin  

Either way I think I'm starting to confound blockstream and segwit. Just want to see something execute or hard-fork.

[Lauda]

"forking with 51%" is not the same as a 51% attack.  In a 51% attack, both prongs follow the same protocol, and are in competition, but there's more hash power in one prong that has been *rewriting* the past few blocks.  In how much this is an "attack" and in how much this is a "consensus decision" is left in the middle, but this is NOT what a hard fork is about.  Both prongs are "valid prongs" according to the unique protocol.  It is only an "attack" because it has orphaned the "good" last blocks.

In a hard fork, both prongs are incompatible. As such, the two prongs are not in "mining competition".  One prong is considered invalid according to the other prong's protocol.  There is no "longest chain".  There is no "chain with highest PoW".  One chain is simply INVALID according to the protocol you adhere to.

I did not say that it is equal to a 51% attack in all ways. Whilst what you say is true, a 51% fork is also an attack. Anything which causes a blockchain split, especially one that is this severe, should be seen and treated as an attack.

FYI:
@Dinofelis,
I recommend you study a 51% attack, so you can grasp the power having 51% or more in a PoW coin gives you.

See my previous post.  You confuse a 51% attack within the same protocol, where both prongs are valid according to the (unique) consensus rules, with a hard fork where the other prong is simply invalid.

You're wasting your time responding to a troll and a ZEIT bagholder IMO.

[dinofelis]

They said exactly that of the ETC/ETH case.  No miner did so.  Because he's not crazy.  He wants to maximize his profits, and not waste his hash rate on an attack while his buddies take profit.   If he uses his hash rate, he wants profit from it.  If he uses his hash rate on the minority chain, that is to earn minority chain coins that are worth more on the market per "unit of hash rate" than in the majority chain where the difficulty is higher, and hence the reward for hash rate is lower.
As he doesn't know what way the MARKET will go, there's no reason to destroy minority coins that may be easily mined, and maybe worth a lot on the market.  

ETH & ETC did not have segwit & LN to content with.

That has nothing to do with it.  Segwit is a SOFT fork.  So this doesn't apply.  We're talking about a hard fork (BU).  A hard fork can be pulled off from the moment you have 5-10% or more miner support, and will give rise to two coins if you have less than 90%-95% of miner support.  If you are lower than 5-10%, your chain will not live ; if you are higher than 90-95% your new altcoin will replace the previous coin.

With a soft fork, there are no two coins.  So the ETC/ETH situation doesn't apply to the Segwit situation.  We are only talking about the BU situation.

The reason is that you mentioned that BU is waiting to have "51% of miner support".  But for a hard fork, "51% of miner support" has no meaning.  It is "more than 10% of miner support" and "more than 90% of miner support" that are the meaningful numbers for a hard fork.  51% has no specific meaning.  Less than 10%, you can't pull it off.  More than 90%, you will keep one coin (the altcoin).  In between, you will create 2 coins, the old one, and the new altcoin, and both will live.  During their life, market forces will determine the respective market caps, and HENCE the miner ratio.  Like ETC/ETH.  

Whether the BTC Unlimited Guys would actually do it , who knows.

Again, BU will NOT HAPPEN, simply because if it were, it would have happened already.  With 25% of miner support, the hard fork is viable.  

And segwit will not happen either.

Nothing will happen.  Bitcoin will remain stuck where it is.  

[dinofelis]

I did not say that it is equal to a 51% attack in all ways. Whilst what you say is true, a 51% fork is also an attack. Anything which causes a blockchain split, especially one that is this severe, should be seen and treated as an attack.

I really don't see why a hard fork is an attack.  It is a divergence in the protocols.  With a hard fork, untenable tensions of disagreement, which don't allow a consensus of second order (that is, a *protocol consensus*, not a block chain consensus within a given protocol), are relieved.  The market cap splits according to how "people vote with their money".  No-one actually loses money, because you are double coin holder at the fork.   And now, two coins exist, with different protocols, each according to their communities.  

There's nothing wrong with hard forking, and the "drama" of ethereum has shown us how well this turned out to be.  There was an unreconcilable tension in ethereum: should one stay with the original axioms of "code is law" and "unstoppable contract" which were the value proposition of ethereum, or should one, in "unforseen circumstances, when many rich people were going to lose money, accommodate the rules" ?  The split was very healthy.  We have the original, unstoppable, code-is-law ethereum (ETC), and we have the "we accommodate the big investors if something totally unexpected happens because this was just a beta-test" ethereum ETH.  Visibly, the market (made by the same rich people) voted for being flexible enough to get one's DAO funds back, and a small minority stuck with unstoppable contracts where code is law.

I think the bitcoin tension is sufficiently high to have a hard fork too, and have an original bitcoin with 1 MB blocks, and another altcoin-bitcoin that accommodates more transactions.  But bitcoin deriving most of its value from "being the first" and no other value proposition that is not filled in by an altcoin, this will probably not happen, because the "forkers" would totally lose their "first mover" value proposition, which is the sole thing bitcoin has going for it (but is important), and just be holders of just another crypto alt coin.

So, until bitcoin has lost its first mover value, this will not happen.  

[Wowcoin]

https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

Hey all, I used to come here every day, but am recently too busy:
69,000 (69K) Unconfirmed Transactions!   ....WTF...  (Edit 71K++ WTF+++)  ... now ~69,057 after new block

Hey guys, how's it going!


How does Bitcoin keep functioning, into the future, if ~70,000 transactions can cause an ongoing drama?
What is the solution and how soon can we get things right?

yes why there's many pending transaction like my withdraw in free faucet its almost five days until now its unconfirmed i also email local wallet asking why still receiving my withdraw and not added to my balance. But sad to say local wallet reply to me that in their site have no problem its the blockchain. Hope they have solution on it.

[Wind_FURY]

So many arguments and talk but no action from the people that matter. Why? Because the price is still high. If the price was dumped back to $100, we will see the mining pools scramble to the best scaling solution. What they think it will be we do not know.

On another topic of the miners deciding to activate Segwit or not, is it not the mining pools have control for this and not the miners? The miners only buy their equipment and point their hashing power to a mining pool. 

[pooya87]

So many arguments and talk but no action from the people that matter. Why? Because the price is still high. If the price was dumped back to $100, we will see the mining pools scramble to the best scaling solution. What they think it will be we do not know.

On another topic of the miners deciding to activate Segwit or not, is it not the mining pools have control for this and not the miners? The miners only buy their equipment and point their hashing power to a mining pool. 

if the price were to drop that low, miners would stop mining and switched to mining something else that is profitable, because they only care about making profit.

and anyone who doesn't like what their pool are doing can simply switch to another pool. there are multiple pools out there and i don't know any of them that are enforcing anything. not yet anyways.

[Sundark]

So many arguments and talk but no action from the people that matter. Why? Because the price is still high. If the price was dumped back to $100, we will see the mining pools scramble to the best scaling solution. What they think it will be we do not know.

On another topic of the miners deciding to activate Segwit or not, is it not the mining pools have control for this and not the miners? The miners only buy their equipment and point their hashing power to a mining pool. 

If by "people who matter" you are referring to bitcoin Core Developers then know that they can't do shit to force any changes on bitcoin protocol.
If the price crashed to sub $100 level I think it would be too late to help bitcoin as many holders and investors would leave.
Miners can join any mining pool they want to, some mining pool are supporting SegWit some prefer Bitcoin Unlimited.

[mrcash02]

So many arguments and talk but no action from the people that matter. Why? Because the price is still high. If the price was dumped back to $100, we will see the mining pools scramble to the best scaling solution. What they think it will be we do not know.

On another topic of the miners deciding to activate Segwit or not, is it not the mining pools have control for this and not the miners? The miners only buy their equipment and point their hashing power to a mining pool. 

95% of the community must agree about something to implement, looks this is impossible. There is a risk to have ''two Bitcoins'' as there isn't consensus. The only thing I know is that this situation is very bad. I have one transaction pending since last week and it doesn't end...

[jonald_fyookball]

I think the bitcoin tension is sufficiently high to have a hard fork too, and have an original bitcoin with 1 MB blocks, and another altcoin-bitcoin that accommodates more transactions.  But bitcoin deriving most of its value from "being the first" and no other value proposition that is not filled in by an altcoin, this will probably not happen, because the "forkers" would totally lose their "first mover" value proposition, which is the sole thing bitcoin has going for it (but is important), and just be holders of just another crypto alt coin.

So, until bitcoin has lost its first mover value, this will not happen.  

I think it depends on whether ordinary users (non mining nodes), investors, merchants, etc... accept the forked coin.  
Miners do not have ALL the power.  If the other market participants reject the coin on the longest chain, it will have no value.

So lets say BU creates a hard fork with 51% of the mining power and starts mining a coin with 2mb blocks, there's now 2 coins.  
But if merchants and investors reject the 2mb coins, its a useless alt coin.  

On the other hand, merchants could choose to accept the longest chain and 'bitcoin 1mb' becomes a worthless alt coin...

...or they could choose to accept both.

The first mover advantage (status quo) is still real because its easier for non mining nodes to 'do nothing'
and keep using what they've been using (core)...but it is not everything.  

[dinofelis]

I think the bitcoin tension is sufficiently high to have a hard fork too, and have an original bitcoin with 1 MB blocks, and another altcoin-bitcoin that accommodates more transactions.  But bitcoin deriving most of its value from "being the first" and no other value proposition that is not filled in by an altcoin, this will probably not happen, because the "forkers" would totally lose their "first mover" value proposition, which is the sole thing bitcoin has going for it (but is important), and just be holders of just another crypto alt coin.

So, until bitcoin has lost its first mover value, this will not happen.  

I think it depends on whether ordinary users (non mining nodes), investors, merchants, etc... accept the forked coin.  
Miners do not have ALL the power.  If the other market participants reject the coin on the longest chain, it will have no value.

So lets say BU creates a hard fork with 51% of the mining power and starts mining a coin with 2mb blocks, there's now 2 coins.  
But if merchants and investors reject the 2mb coins, its a useless alt coin.  

On the other hand, merchants could choose to accept the longest chain and 'bitcoin 1mb' becomes a worthless alt coin...

...or they could choose to accept both.

This.

The first mover advantage (status quo) is still real because its easier for non mining nodes to 'do nothing'
and keep using what they've been using (core)...but it is not everything.  

That is why the only possible consensus is status quo.  And this is exactly the "immutability dynamics" that bitcoin invented.  Once the rules are laid down, it is essentially impossible to change them.  They can only be changed if they are an insignificant technical detail that the "lead devs" sneak in without a big fuzz.  But that window of opportunity is closed now for higher transaction rates, like bigger blocks.  As there are *different alternatives* out there with incompatible solutions kicking the can forward, none of them can reach consensus.   If the tension becomes too high, there should come a hard fork, but the fear of losing the "first mover" status is so big, that nobody will dare doing this.  My opinion.  So this is why bitcoin will remain what it is, until it becomes sufficiently centralized that a small cartel has all deciding power (usually with a soft fork, not to give options to the users) ; or until its first mover status is sufficiently eroded that it is just a coin amongst others, at which point a hard fork is not  a problem any more.

[jonald_fyookball]

   Once the rules are laid down, it is essentially impossible to change them. 

This is exactly why I think the blocksize should not be part of the consensus rules (and why BU's emergent consensus is far better than central planning and the problems that come with that)

[dinofelis]

This is exactly why I think the blocksize should not be part of the consensus rules (and why BU's emergent consensus is far better than central planning and the problems that come with that)

The point is that "immutability dynamics" is such that *everything* is part of the consensus rules. Especially now, that the block size became a scarcity parameter, and hence that "room on the blocks" is now a commodity that is sold against money (fees, and probably later, contractually provided room between institutional players and miners).  In other words, the block size is now a parameter determining scarcity *on the same level* as the 21 million coins are.  It is NOT a technical parameter any more.

What is still a technical parameter, is the silly little-endian convention in bitcoin, and even that has never been "fixed".

But block chain room is now a commodity of which the "production rate" is determined by the block size, in the same way as bitcoins are an assset of which the "production rate" is also determined by the economic consensus rules.  A new commodity emerged: scarce block chain room.  It is something that is commercialized now.    It is not unthinkable that this commodity, "block chain room" becomes much more valuable than the coins themselves.  Actually, it is one of the things that bitcoin has been "proud of": its strongly protected chain.  Maybe in the future, transactions will be worth much, much more than bitcoins, of which most of them cannot move.  At that point, the 21 million coins will become a technical parameter nobody cares about, and what really matters is "block chain room".  We will maybe discover that what is really the value of bitcoin, is its chain, and not its coins.  Maybe you pay miners in fiat just to buy some room on a block.  And the coins don't matter.  Who knows.

After all, the electricity that is spend on bitcoin is essentially producing "block chain safety".  And not so much "tokens".  If this is the most valuable aspect of bitcoin, namely the "safe chain", then this is what will be sold most expensively: room on that safe chain.  And one will forget about the "application tokens, the gas" of it, namely the coins, of which there are plenty, but cannot move without spending a lot of value to get room on the chain.

[CyberKuro]

https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

Hey all, I used to come here every day, but am recently too busy:
69,000 (69K) Unconfirmed Transactions!   ....WTF...  (Edit 71K++ WTF+++)  ... now ~69,057 after new block

Hey guys, how's it going!
[img]http://images.memes.com/meme/tile/1208592[img]

How does Bitcoin keep functioning, into the future, if ~70,000 transactions can cause an ongoing drama?
What is the solution and how soon can we get things right?

It makes me wondering how it will be solved if there's no any solution accepted by majority.
Not only 69K, but it ever reach 80K, 90K, or even 100k when bitcoin price reach ATH.
Bitcoin will stuck on this level until the problems could solved.

[Wind_FURY]

So many arguments and talk but no action from the people that matter. Why? Because the price is still high. If the price was dumped back to $100, we will see the mining pools scramble to the best scaling solution. What they think it will be we do not know.

On another topic of the miners deciding to activate Segwit or not, is it not the mining pools have control for this and not the miners? The miners only buy their equipment and point their hashing power to a mining pool. 

if the price were to drop that low, miners would stop mining and switched to mining something else that is profitable, because they only care about making profit.

No. If some miners would stop mining because there is no profit, a more efficient miner who is willing to take the losses will be happy to take its place.

and anyone who doesn't like what their pool are doing can simply switch to another pool. there are multiple pools out there and i don't know any of them that are enforcing anything. not yet anyways.

Where have you been the past year. There are mining pools for Segwit and there are others for Bitcoin Unlimited. A small small portion is calling for Bitcoin Classic.

[Lauda]

I did not say that it is equal to a 51% attack in all ways. Whilst what you say is true, a 51% fork is also an attack. Anything which causes a blockchain split, especially one that is this severe, should be seen and treated as an attack.

I really don't see why a hard fork is an attack.  It is a divergence in the protocols.  With a hard fork, untenable tensions of disagreement, which don't allow a consensus of second order (that is, a *protocol consensus*, not a block chain consensus within a given protocol), are relieved.  

I think you should reconsider your stance on this. This is a really vague definition of consensus. On the other side, I've seen people who claim that even if 99% of the network agrees on new rules in a hard fork, that it would still be an altcoin (which is an extremist and absurd stance).

The market cap splits according to how "people vote with their money".  No-one actually loses money, because you are double coin holder at the fork.   And now, two coins exist, with different protocols, each according to their communities.  

Depends on how you view the importance of the economy. Do you prioritize, i.e. value more a large capitalist or do you value a higher quantity of economically involved people? For example, Roger Ver probably has as much Bitcoin as several thousands other users.

There's nothing wrong with hard forking, and the "drama" of ethereum has shown us how well this turned out to be.  There was an unreconcilable tension in ethereum: should one stay with the original axioms of "code is law" and "unstoppable contract" which were the value proposition of ethereum, or should one, in "unforseen circumstances, when many rich people were going to lose money, accommodate the rules" ?  The split was very healthy.  We have the original, unstoppable, code-is-law ethereum (ETC), and we have the "we accommodate the big investors if something totally unexpected happens because this was just a beta-test" ethereum ETH.  Visibly, the market (made by the same rich people) voted for being flexible enough to get one's DAO funds back, and a small minority stuck with unstoppable contracts where code is law.

I disagree as using ETH/ETC as comparison that "things are fine" afterwards. The current ETH (altcoin with original name) is a "centralized Fed 2.0 coin." A HF like that in Bitcoin would definitely set us back for quite a while IMO. As you've mentioned yourself, what makes Bitcoin so strong is its decentralization and immutability.