SegWit losing Bitcoin Unlimited winning -> Moon soon

[iamnotback]

Edit: @aklan made me aware of a Bitcoin Unlimited white paper, which I am reading now and will respond soon.

The math in Bitcoin Unlimited is incorrect:

Edit: I think I already see the math error in @Peter R's thesis, but wait let me study carefully to the end of the paper. The big hint is his cost of block space goes to 0 when debasement rate (misnomer when called "inflation rate") goes to 0. It is because his math is not properly relativistic (which is surprising given he claims he is a physicist).

I saw that math problem within 1 minute. My followup was delayed because I was having a private chat with someone.

The problem I see with @Peter R's thesis is his equation for the miner's revenue is not relativistic. He talks about that equation at the 6:30min point in a video.

Compare his equation with my math explanation, and you see that Peter's conceptualization employs the average orphan rate for everyone when everyone chooses the same propagation time. The average orphan rate reflects the systemic waste of hashrate due to conflicts over which block to build the next block on. But the key point is that this waste is shared by all miners, so it isn't a cost because the difficulty readjusts commensurately, i.e. the overall profit in the system is determined by the difficulty relative to total block rewards. Peter's conceptual mistake is that it is the relative advantages that miners have over each other that determines relative profitability and this is why the cost of block space doesn't go to 0 when debasement rate goes to 0.

You see PoW is an entirely relative ecosystem and if a 51% attacker wants, he can set the profitability as high as the market will bear, because he can orphan all blocks that aren't his. And even a 33% selfish mining attacker can orphan all blocks that are not his more than 33% of the time (which is why selfish mining is a profitable strategy).

So the problem with Peter's conceptualization is it is the relative profitability between miners that matters. He tried to frame his math in terms of some absolute, which is why he math is broken which should have been obvious to him when the cost of disk space went to 0 with 0 debasement (which it doesn't in a correct model that understands that the cost of block space is only relativistic in terms of relative profitability of miners).

So that is why my math conceptualization is the correct one. And that is why there is a Tragedy-of-the-Commons and no fee market without a block size limit.

I have PM'ed @Peter R. He will remember me, @AnonyMint, as we had debates and discussions on these forums as far back as 2013.

Raiden ~= LN, but it can actually be implemented because ethereum doesn't have to worry that in few years+ miners will need the fees to be able to provide security. Bitcoin will never have LN because miners want the fees.

What is the official ETA on Raiden? And separately the realistic ETA?

Hasn't the logic on LN been that the miners will see the light that they need to allow LN so they get the fees from the higher valued txns without destroying the growth from the lower valued txns, but you are I guess arguing a Tragedy-of-the-Commons wherein the miners can't think long-term and want to extract maximum value from the existing supply of transaction demand. Hasn't that been what all the wrangling behind the scenes between Core and Chinese cartel has been about? But if they can get a 51% cartel (and keep it hidden with a Sybil attack), then they might be able to align their priorities more long-term? But is it inherently impossible to have a long-term focus because the battle for who has 51% is open to all possible competitors so there might always be someone else willing to borrow more money and make more political handshakes. So I think I am seeing your point. Hmmm. The Scalepocalypse clusterfuck is even worse than I predicted it would be back when I first predicted the transaction fees and blocksize scalepocalypse back in 2013.

[1714646519]

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[iamnotback]

Here is another way to realize how ridiculous @Peter R's (Bitcoin Unlimited's) thesis is.

Let's assume every miner had the same hashrate and the same propagation delay, i.e. perfect equality, and so the equilibrium block size was established at rate at which the waste costs of orphans for the entire system was balanced with what the market was willing to pay for transaction fees. But every miner would have an incentive to have a higher share of the hashrate and a faster than average propagation delay, because those who did would win a disproportionate share of the rewards (if you don't understand why then you need to study the original selfish mining paper and the followup on optimal mining strategies).

So the natural market outcome is that miners would sign their blocks with a public key representing their reputation to not send invalid blocks. So then miners (pools) would be economically incentivized to trust each other and send only the signed block headers so they can begin mining on the new blocks as fast as possible with only constant factors of propagation (independent of block size). Of course they can still propagate the block data for verification but propagation delay no longer matters. Miners who didn't participate would be less profitable and lose share of hashrate over time. So then you end up with no free market limit on block size, i.e. no fee market. Once again a power vacuum ensues and there must be winner-take-all power-law aggregation of economies-of-scale. This is why Satoshi's PoW is flawed as a decentralization paradigm.

Q.E.D.

It doesn't matter whether you choose SegWit/Core or Bitcoin Unlimited, both are centralized control paradigms. But Bitcoin Unlimited means massive chaos and market confusion (thus probably a cratering price which destroys many miners) until the power structure takes form that takes control over the chaos (which will then be no better than Core because again a monopoly over block size and extracting maximum transaction fees the market will bear). At least with Core, we already have the banksters in control and leading us over the cliff. Continuity is what the miners need right now, until someone invents a real solution. So the miners will reject Bitcoin Unlimited unless they want to shoot themselves in the foot with chaos and cratering price. I think the market will quickly rally behind the most continuous path and reject the copycoin, same as it did for Ethereum Classic. If you don't actually bring a solution for anyone, then don't go fucking up the market and creating needless chaos, because the market will reject it.

...If we fork, BTC tanks, and their profits go down the hole for some time until confidence is restored.

A doubling of coin supply, going from 21 up to 42 would at least solve that Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from Douglas Adams novel.
Coinfidence would never ever return. Limited supply beeing a foundation of everything.
Forking or 42 are just the wrong answer.

[Killerpotleaf]

Here is another way to realize how ridiculous @Peter R's (Bitcoin Unlimited's) thesis is.

Let's assume every miner had the same hashrate and the same propagation delay, i.e. perfect equality, and so the equilibrium block size was established at rate at which the waste costs of orphans for the entire system was balanced with what the market was willing to pay for transaction fees. But every miner would have an incentive to have a higher share of the hashrate and a faster than average propagation delay, because those who did would win a disproportionate share of the rewards (if you don't understand why then you need to study the original selfish mining paper and the followup on optimal mining strategies).

So the natural market outcome is that miners would sign their blocks with a public key representing their reputation to not send invalid blocks. So then miners (pools) would being to trust each other and send only the signed block headers so they can begin mining on the new blocks as fast as possible with only constant factors of propagation (independent of block size). Miners who didn't participate would be less profitable and lose share of hashrate over time. So then you end up with no free market limit on block size, i.e. no fee market.

Q.E.D.

its reassuring knowing all these crackpot theories of DOOM will be put to the test.

[iamnotback]

Bitcoin Unlimited is doomed now that I've shown it is based on faulty math. This is fundamental and the entire concept of unlimited block size is flawed. Once the market digests my revelation

This is an illusion.  Markets don't digest mathematical revelations.

Let's put that to a test right now. I am going to refute you and let's see if the market is paying attention, because miners damn well better be paying attention.

Perhaps you haven't noticed that before I made my shocking math post, the Bitcoin price was declining, since I made my post then the BTC price has risen 5% and miner support for BU has declined. I think the market is paying attention and that is why I am following up with more explanation (when I should be sleeping instead because it is 2:30am where I am and I am on medications).

I think that the problem with the analysis is that you don't know the elasticity of the demand for transactions.  The mathematics makes the assumption of fees independent of the pressure on the fee market.  But the game is much more complicated than that: you have miners that set their own secret limits on the blocs on which they will build, and the blocs they will try to orphan, while they have their own other secret limits on the blocs they will make themselves.

One thing is very clear, and that all those strategies were already in play. What unlimited block sizes bring that is new is they hand another club membership tool for the large pools and mining farms to use against those who don't adhere to their cartel.

In your math, you presume that network transaction time is important, but for the moment, this is not the case.

But it is instantly the case when the block size is unlimited and transaction fees can be as small as any level of spam one wants to incentivize (or even miners paying themselves the transaction fees so they can spam the other miners will huge block sizes with the disproportionate profits going to those with more hashrate, faster propagation, and secret signing agreement cartels).

The battle will be a complex dynamics of secret orphaning sizes and own sizes.   There's a contradictory force: own advantage, which is to MAKE bigger blocs, and collective advantage, which is to make smaller blocs, and trying to guess how big is the chance that by you orphaning a big bloc, you are in fact making an orphaned bloc yourself on top of it, or you will inspire others to join you.

Incorrect. I refer you to the research on optimal mining strategies. You are behind the curve of the current knowledge of the experts in the field.

[miscreanity]

I agree that the BU FAQ is incorrect - there always has been a fee market and always will be a fee market, no matter how slack it may be at any given point. The only time it is readily apparent is when there is extreme stress on the system.

The point being that yes the risk of another miner winning the block increases, but the miner's income commensurately (proportionally) also increases, so statistically the miner loses nothing by creating a larger block and thus is leaving tranactions fees on the table for some other miner to take if the miner doesn't make a larger block. However presuming some transactions pay less per byte than others (and higher valued transactions can afford to pay more per byte), the economic converse effect occurs wherein the miner has the incentive to make the smallest block possible or below the size where propagation latency is linearly proportional to block size (i.e. the latency that is a constant factor independent of data transferred), which is again not a free market limit on block size and not a fee market. So the same Tragedy-of-the-Commons occurs that has always been argued as the problem with unlimited block size, in that the power vacuum must be filled by a collusion of miners which pool their (at least 33% of the systemic) hashrate and selfish mine against the rest of the network enforcing a block size which maximizing their profit which is basically the highest level of fees x volume the market will bear. I had even argued (I claim successfully) against @ArticMine that Monero's algorithmically adjusting block size suffers from a similar Tragedy-of-the-Commons outcome (ultimately due to the power-law centralization of mining economies-of-scale). No matter how you slice and dice it, Satoshi's PoW will become centralized so choose your poison how you want to get there, Bitcoin Core (aka Blockstream) funded by banksters or Bitcoin Unlimited (with insufficient developer resources) lead by technical incompetents such as Roger Ver. This is why I designed (a yet unpublished) solution for blockchain consensus which is not PoW and not PoW (something totally new, which I am working on now).

There is no free market limit on block size and no fee market, yet miners will enforce the highest level of fees x volume the market will bear? Unless my interpretation of what you stated is mistaken, this appears to be a contradiction.

Miners are the fee market makers, but they are beholden to market forces external to Bitcoin. The free market still determines the limits one way or another, directly or indirectly.

Finally: yes, centralization is still inevitable with either BC or BU.

Let's put that to a test right now. I am going to refute you and let's see if the market is paying attention, because miners damn well better be paying attention.

Perhaps you haven't noticed that before I made my shocking math post, the Bitcoin price was declining, since I made my post then the BTC price has risen 5% and miner support for BU has declined. I think the market is paying attention and that is why I am following up with more explanation (when I should be sleeping instead because it is 2:30am where I am and I am on medications).

Bitcoin had a high-volume low on the 18th and broke up through an hourly downtrend on low volume over 9 hours ago. It broke up through a second downtrend only a few hours later, again on low volume. I bought at $988 based on the charts, before reading your BU critique. It was time.

Additionally, the markets have risen at times when both BC and BU were gaining. They've likewise fallen in a similar manner. While your analysis is important, I am far more inclined to think that forces external to Bitcoin have a much greater weight on price than the BC/BU issue.

As for the BC/BU debate generally... due to centralization, I expect Bitcoin to rapidly become a beast of coercion and control instead of the territory of freedom that held for several years. Regardless of technical merit on either side, the actions of "core" have been beyond reprehensible. A doctor with the greatest ability and skill eventually amounts to nothing if his bedside manner is derogatory and dismissive. The core team chose to stand on a platform of abuse and control and that has resulted in market forces ultimately resisting the proposed solution.

From what I see the price is headed higher despite the division, not because one side or the other is gaining. For every person engaged in the debate, there may be a hundred using the system that remain unaware.

[iamnotback]

There is no free market limit on block size and no fee market, yet miners will enforce the highest level of fees x volume the market will bear? Unless my interpretation of what you stated is mistaken, this appears to be a contradiction.

Miners are the fee market makers, but they are beholden to market forces external to Bitcoin. The free market still determines the limits one way or another, directly or indirectly.

Finally: yes, centralization is still inevitable with either BC or BU.

Well yes there is a natural Invisible Hand outcome (if natural is what you mean by free market), but the fee market will be centrally controlled by a cartel extracting the maximum the market will bear instead of a competitive, decentralized market where demand curve meets supply curve (see @Peter R's video for an excellent visual explanation), thus not a free market in that sense of my interpretation of the meaning of the term free market. But that can't be avoided with Satoshi's PoW design no matter which direction we choose (centralization it is an insoluble attribute of Satoshi's PoW concept because of optimal mining strategies give disproportionate rewards greater than their percentage share to those who have greater share of hashrate and/or faster propagation). The reason everyone is fighting is because PoW has no decentralization future (no matter what we do and it can't be fixed, not even with SegWit). We'll need to find something else other than PoW before we all lose our idealism, but (D)PoS and Byzantine agreement (e.g. Tendermint, Casper, etc) are also centralization. So nobody has a solution to offer (I am not going to promote my work here right now).

So we are in agreement on the outcome, just a different interpretations of the definitions of terms.

Let's put that to a test right now. I am going to refute you and let's see if the market is paying attention, because miners damn well better be paying attention.

Perhaps you haven't noticed that before I made my shocking math post, the Bitcoin price was declining, since I made my post then the BTC price has risen 5% and miner support for BU has declined. I think the market is paying attention and that is why I am following up with more explanation (when I should be sleeping instead because it is 2:30am where I am and I am on medications).

Bitcoin had a high-volume low on the 18th and broke up through an hourly downtrend on low volume over 9 hours ago. It broke up through a second downtrend only a few hours later, again on low volume. I bought at $988 based on the charts, before reading your BU critique. It was time.

Just because it was time for someone to write the posts I did, doesn't mean that my posts didn't help convince a lot of people who were scared and read this Speculation forum. Others have been writing similar points, but afaik (?) not directly refuting the math of @Peter R and BU's white paper.

I agree it was naturally time and also naturally time for someone like me to be motivated to take their head out of the programming cave sand and say, "hey n00bs, enough is enough on these incorrect technology arguments from Roger Ver, here are the bottomline facts". I mean really Tone Vays is not the best technically qualified person to be matched up against Roger Ver in a debate, nor the best (most succinct, direct to the winning salient point, etc) debater.

Additionally, the markets have risen at times when both BC and BU were gaining. They've likewise fallen in a similar manner. While your analysis is important, I am far more inclined to think that forces external to Bitcoin have a much greater weight on price than the BC/BU issue.

I do seem to have an uncanny timing lately eh? (probably just blind luck or am I just by very naturally well in tune with the biorhythm of the community since I have 1% of all posts on these forums?)

As for the BC/BU debate generally... due to centralization, I expect Bitcoin to rapidly become a beast of coercion and control instead of the territory of freedom that held for several years. Regardless of technical merit on either side, the actions of "core" have been beyond reprehensible. A doctor with the greatest ability and skill eventually amounts to nothing if his bedside manner is derogatory and dismissive. The core team chose to stand on a platform of abuse and control and that has resulted in market forces ultimately resisting the proposed solution.

From what I see the price is headed higher despite the division, not because one side or the other is gaining. For every person engaged in the debate, there may be a hundred using the system that remain unaware.

Core is simply a manifestation was has to happen in order to motivate what ever comes next.

I happen to believe a solution is coming, but you know I am very biased. I better put my head back in the sand and continue working on what I believe is that solution so it might be ready when it is really  absolutely needed.

We'll get 2 Mb soon and hopefully that will give us a little bit of time yet... hopefully creative destruction is underway...

And I agree we can move above $2000 with Core...

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

Bitcoin Unlimited is doomed now that I've shown it is based on faulty math. This is fundamental and the entire concept of unlimited block size is flawed. Once the market digests my revelation

This is an illusion.  Markets don't digest mathematical revelations.

Let's put that to a test right now. I am going to refute you and let's see if the market is paying attention, because miners damn well better be paying attention.

Perhaps you haven't noticed that before I made my shocking math post, the Bitcoin price was declining, since I made my post then the BTC price has risen 5% and miner support for BU has declined. I think the market is paying attention and that is why I am following up with more explanation (when I should be sleeping instead because it is 2:30am where I am and I am on medications).

I think you are letting your ego fool you into thinking correlation = cause and effect.

[iamnotback]

Bitcoin Unlimited is doomed now that I've shown it is based on faulty math. This is fundamental and the entire concept of unlimited block size is flawed. Once the market digests my revelation

This is an illusion.  Markets don't digest mathematical revelations.

Let's put that to a test right now. I am going to refute you and let's see if the market is paying attention, because miners damn well better be paying attention.

Perhaps you haven't noticed that before I made my shocking math post, the Bitcoin price was declining, since I made my post then the BTC price has risen 5% and miner support for BU has declined. I think the market is paying attention and that is why I am following up with more explanation (when I should be sleeping instead because it is 2:30am where I am and I am on medications).

I think you are letting your ego fool you into thinking correlation = cause and effect.

And your proof is? So your opinion is more correct than my opinion, except I have a correlation and you have only an opinion. Besides, didn't you read my reply to @miscreanity where I disavowed having any such power that you are insinuating that I claimed to have.

You don't consider that maybe I posit a different sort of power...

You *really* believe that ?

Is it just luck to often be in the right place at the opportune time?

[iamnotback]

@miscreanity, even if your $988 is violated and we move lower, it could still be an accurate channel if we view BTU+BTC as a combined price. We may end up getting BTU for free which we can trade for BTC. However, it appears BTU is not going to add the necessary replay attack prevention in order to get listed on the exchanges. BTU appears to understand that their coin will be sold off as an inferior altcoin if they add replay attack prevention. Seems like they are already admitting defeat and acting desperate maniacal now.

Although nobody likes the current problem with the 1MB blocks, an unlimited blocksize is not a viable technological solution. Sorry but incompetents aren't going to be trusted to lead Bitcoin. Roger Ver and Julian Wu are not competent enough to pull off what they attempted.

[iamnotback]

Here is another way to realize how ridiculous @Peter R's (Bitcoin Unlimited's) thesis is.

Let's assume every miner had the same hashrate and the same propagation delay, i.e. perfect equality, and so the equilibrium block size was established at rate at which the waste costs of orphans for the entire system was balanced with what the market was willing to pay for transaction fees. But every miner would have an incentive to have a higher share of the hashrate and a faster than average propagation delay, because those who did would win a disproportionate share of the rewards (if you don't understand why then you need to study the original selfish mining paper and the followup on optimal mining strategies).

So the natural market outcome is that miners would sign their blocks with a public key representing their reputation to not send invalid blocks. So then miners (pools) would be economically incentivized to trust each other and send only the signed block headers so they can begin mining on the new blocks as fast as possible with only constant factors of propagation (independent of block size). Of course they can still propagate the block data for verification but propagation delay no longer matters. Miners who didn't participate would be less profitable and lose share of hashrate over time. So then you end up with no free market limit on block size, i.e. no fee market. Once again a power vacuum ensues and there must be winner-take-all power-law aggregation of economies-of-scale. This is why Satoshi's PoW is flawed as a decentralization paradigm.

Q.E.D.

It doesn't matter whether you choose SegWit/Core or Bitcoin Unlimited, both are centralized control paradigms. But Bitcoin Unlimited means massive chaos and market confusion (thus probably a cratering price which destroys many miners) until the power structure takes form that takes control over the chaos (which will then be no better than Core because again a monopoly over block size and extracting maximum transaction fees the market will bear). At least with Core, we already have the banksters in control and leading us over the cliff. Continuity is what the miners need right now, until someone invents a real solution. So the miners will reject Bitcoin Unlimited unless they want to shoot themselves in the foot with chaos and cratering price. I think the market will quickly rally behind the most continuous path and reject the copycoin, same as it did for Ethereum Classic. If you don't actually bring a solution for anyone, then don't go fucking up the market and creating needless chaos, because the market will reject it.

I am very very sleepy (8am here haven't slept whole prior day and night), but I wrote this further explanation for someone who didn't understand what I wrote above:

You need to watch Peter R's video which I linked. The orphan rate is what % of the block solutions get thrown away because another block was found and formed a longer chain. I hope you understand orphans. So the % of orphans is the amount of wasted hashrate in the network. The hypothesis is that as we increase the block size to accomodate more transactions, then the orphan rate increases due to higher block propagation time across the network of nodes (and that time t is in the equation for the orphan rate). Thus we say there would be an equilibrium point at which the level of transaction fees the market would bear meets the cost in wasted hashrate. That is Peter R's (and Bitcoin Unlimited's) thesis (in their whitepaper). But I explain that thesis is incorrect, because it assumes that miners all have the same hashrate and propagation delays. Then factor in what I wrote after that, "optimal mining strategies give disproportionate rewards greater than their percentage share to those who have greater share of hashrate and/or faster propagation". Now re-read my explanations with that in mind and perhaps it will make more sense to you?

[miscreanity]

So we are in agreement on the outcome, just a different interpretations of the definitions of terms.

Yes, and the clarification was helpful.

Others have been writing similar points, but afaik (?) not directly refuting the math of @Peter R and BU's white paper.

Fair enough, solid point.

I do seem to have an uncanny timing lately eh? (probably just blind luck or am I just by very naturally well in tune with the biorhythm of the community since I have 1% of all posts on these forums?[/size])

Chalk it up to experience

[miscreanity]

@miscreanity, even if your $988 is violated and we move lower, it could still be an accurate channel if we view BTU+BTC as a combined price. We may end up getting BTU for free which we can trade for BTC. However, it appears BTU is not going to add the necessary replay attack prevention in order to get listed on the exchanges. BTU appears to understand that their coin will be sold off as an inferior altcoin if they add replay attack prevention. Seems like they are already admitting defeat and acting desperate maniacal now.

Although nobody likes the current problem with the 1MB blocks, an unlimited blocksize is not a viable technological solution. Sorry but incompetents aren't going to be trusted to lead Bitcoin. Roger Ver and Julian Wu are not competent enough to pull off what they attempted.

I'm looking at a range of $950-980 and anything consistently below that falls into very dangerous territory. I think a split would lead to a major shift into Ethereum with a period of decline and consolidation for Bitcoin.

Unlimited block size may not be a technological solution, but I think the end-game would be reasonably far off - at least a year or two. Personally I'd rather risk choosing the BU team since they can learn and add to the team, whereas core is so sclerotic that it would be game over immediately.

[jbreher]

However presuming some transactions pay less per byte than others (and higher valued transactions can afford to pay more per byte), the economic converse effect occurs wherein the miner has the incentive to make the smallest block possible or below the size where propagation latency is linearly proportional to block size (i.e. the latency that is a constant factor independent of data transferred), which is again not a free market limit on block size and not a fee market.

So if I understand you correctly, you assert that the fact that not everyone is willing to pay the same transaction fee rate in BTC/B, this is somehow demonstrative of a failure of free markets? Cause that's what it looks like you are claiming.

You seem to have successfully demonstrated the central argument that each miner is incentivized to include as many high-BTC/B transactions up to the point where transaction fee = marginal orphanage cost. So what is the problem? Why do you consider this as 'not free market'?

I see nothing in this that suggests BU is worse than core in this regard. Help me understand.

[iamnotback]

However presuming some transactions pay less per byte than others (and higher valued transactions can afford to pay more per byte), the economic converse effect occurs wherein the miner has the incentive to make the smallest block possible or below the size where propagation latency is linearly proportional to block size (i.e. the latency that is a constant factor independent of data transferred), which is again not a free market limit on block size and not a fee market.

So if I understand you correctly, you assert that the fact that not everyone is willing to pay the same transaction fee rate in BTC/B, this is somehow demonstrative of a failure of free markets? Cause that's what it looks like you are claiming.

You seem to have successfully demonstrated the central argument that each miner is incentivized to include as many high-BTC/B transactions up to the point where transaction fee = marginal orphanage cost. So what is the problem? Why do you consider this as 'not free market'?

I see nothing in this that suggests BU is worse than core in this regard. Help me understand.

You've entirely missed the point, which that so called equilibrium point doesn't exist as explained below...

Re: Do you think "iamnotback" really has the" Bitcoin killer"?

Simply ridiculous.  By the time his equilibrium is reached, nobody has a copy of the bloc chain any more except for the miners with their 100 GB/s links between them.  And they won't have any transactions to put in their blocs.

This is not a PoW system any more, but a Proof of network link.

That was an important insight. Thanks. And it is exacerbated by the fact that the network hashrate and propagation is not equally distributed, thus it gets much worse for everyone but the winner-take-all cartel, until the kill-the-network (shoot myself in the foot) "equilibrium" is never reached because with 51% they can set any fee the market will bear. And at 33% they are already selfish mining (possibly disguised as slower propagating large blocks) which means their cartel is gaining more than their proportional share of the rewards (because they waste less hashrate than the rest of the network because they see their block solutions instantly) thus 51% is inevitable as they plow greater profits into faster growing hashrate than the rest of the network (as well the rest of the network is incentivized to join the cartel and accept signed reputation on blocks to get instant propagation time for even large blocks).

Bottom line ultimate result is a winner-take-all monopoly on setting the transaction fees as high as the market will bear. The power vacuum will be filled by cartel, whether it is the bankster controlled Core or a new (Chinese controlled?) cartel run by Ver and Wu, same centralized stench either way. The difference is that we will have loads of chaos while Bitcoin Unlimited goes through that break-their-back phase of the non-cartel miners in order to consolidate 51% control.

At least SegWit can give us Lightning Networks which is good for hype about enabling instant transaction scaling. And Ethereum is about to beat Bitcoin to market with this scaling feature! While Rome burns on a stupid fight over which cartel will control Bitcoin. Bitcoin Unlimited has to keep all transactions on chain which means no instant transactions and as I pointed out before, Roger Ver has technological myopia about the security of 0-confirmation transactions.

Folks Satoshi's PoW is broken and it can't be fixed. You are hereby forewarned that something new will be required. But no one has yet shown what can scale up decentralized. None of the other altcoins shit does either, and I have analyzed it all in very great detail.

[iamnotback]

Unlimited block size may not be a technological solution, but I think the end-game would be reasonably far off - at least a year or two.

And chaos in the meantime possibly enabling Ethereum to take the #1 position and run far ahead with the ecosystem network effects. Bitcoin potentially killed once it loses is #1 position.

I've already hedged by trading some BTC to ETH as I wrote today.

Thus I expect the market to kill BTU when the opportunity presents itself. Because the competition from Ethereum by this summer is going to be forcing the Bitcoin camps to strangle each other and have a winner. I am hedging because it appears that many n00bs (even so many proclaimed experts who comment in these threads suck as @franky1) are technologically ignorant enough to believe that unlimited block size is good.

It doesn't mean I like Core's attitude, politics (see my prior fights with @gmaxwell for example), and their bankster funding, but I am just being pragmatic about the fact that there is no fix for Satoshi's PoW, and at least LN provides some hype about moving forward towards instant transaction scaling (although it must be through centralized hubs to actually work and even then it has many flaws).

Personally I'd rather risk choosing the BU team since they can learn and add to the team, whereas core is so sclerotic that it would be game over immediately.

But look how incompetent BU is! They totally mucked up the game theory and math on unlimited blocks. Roger Ver has been spreading incorrect technological argumentation about 0-confirmation security.

So I don't want them in charge. They will surely destroy Bitcoin because they are young, inexperienced, and incompetent. And they don't have the level of technological peer review and IQ that the collective 170+ developers on Core have.

And worst of all, they think they are so righteous yet blind to how their proposals are objectively worse (or they are deviously hiding what their true aims are). Given that Roger Ver is apparently now involved with the fraud model of DASH, it makes me ponder there is more going on than the eye can see.


Here we go:

Time to dump all the coins, too much uncertainty about the future of bitcoin, hostile takeovers, splits, change in PoW, value is going down, time to take profits and wait for some stability.

Although this wall of worry is a buying opportunity, because there must be a winner. But there is the possibility that ETH is the winner. Thus I am now hedging because too many Bitcoiners (especially too many talking heads) follow incompetents such as Ver and Wu.


Adding the following from an Altcoin Discussion thread, because I want to emphasize to Bitcoin maximalists that Bitcoin Unlimited is tarnishing BTC's flagship position:

Here are the differences:

Dash: scam. Instamined, claims to be anonymous but isn't, spends buckets of money on marketing instead of letting the code speak.

Eth: Started out good. It's a turing complete cryptocontract platform, which basically means anything you can build in code (including other cryptocurrencies) can be build on ethereum. The problem is that development is very centralized, they are being guided by huge organizations instead of grassroots users. Price will probably keep going up for a while but I would actually put money into ETC instead of ETH because it's far more decentralized (in terms of development and direction) which means it stands a chance of becoming very very big (compare the "Internet" to "Microsoft Network").

BTC is losing market share right now as people look towards altcoins, it's typical gartner hype cycle situation - the prices will go up, then the vast majority of them will go to 0, but some will survive the culling and prove to be useful for some of the things they are claiming right now. BTC has already proven itself (in this regard), so when all these altcoins start heading to the floor BTC will be a safehaven.

That's my opinion anyway.

Eth development is least centralized. Many node implementations exist in various languages with a steog foundation and vitalik driving development.

Btc has steongest brand recognition and market cap and very stable proce appreciation reative to other coins in past 2 years.

Dash has unique and valuable consensus and governance mechanism.

My 2 cents summary... (since I also had to make a decision on this today)

ETH also appears it will end up having the first secure instant off chain transactions system (although realistically via centralized hubs).

BTC is failing into paralysis and self-destruction, which is tarnishing its former flagship image.

DASH is a fool's pyramid pump scheme.

Monero (XMR) doesn't have instant transaction scaling so I can't put it in the same league as the others. @AnonyMity (and privacy) is a feature every serious ecosystem can offer as an option so IMO it isn't sufficient as a sole selling point. Monero has a self-adjusting block size algorithm (but I've argued all PoW systems are subject to the same centralization effect as they scale regardless), but adoption is about scaling and ecosystem applications. Monero might be a good diversification, but speaking for myself as currently a risk adverse speculator, the chart isn't the same as BTC, ETH, and DASH so there might be something else going on there (although one could argue it is same or exaggerated first hump due to BTC millionaire @rpietila shilling it in 2014). Not sure. Ditto Byteball's chart doesn't give me enough confidence to bet big on it (and also know it has major technical flaws such as the transaction fee design and the witness replacement mechanism), although for speculators who want more risk they might consider it.

Thus I've diversified into ETH (with BTC that technically isn't even mine as it was given to me by my angel investor). Best of the worst. Except I do agree that Ethereum has more app-specific (aka smart contract) ecosystem development than any other.

Bitcoin:
is decentralized, it has a lot of adoption, it has a lot of users, a lot of usage, a lot of real world applications and a lot of services that you can pay for with bitcoin. the distribution is the best, there has never been any premine or any bullshit to get the coins, you could get them from day 1 if you wanted and there is still no restriction, you can buy or if you are willing you can invest and mine it.
the market is the biggest and that means speculation on it is a lot easier than any smaller markets.
there is real adoption where new people come and buy bitcoin because they either want an excellent investment or they want to use this cryptocurrency online as it is intended to (a peer to peer decentralized digital cash).
and a lot more.

Dash:
it has a decent amount of supply and that can help its inflation and finally the price. it is a pump coin and that is a good thing for making a big and quick profit.
it has a big premine. and many even call it a scam. it doesn't have a positive public face. there really isn't any real world usage for it.
in the anonymity department it is not really anonymous. and compared to other coins it has nothing to say compared to coins like Monero.
there is no adoption, only traders switching their money over to Dash and out of it after they are done.
it is a pump coin and that is bad because it kills the coin in the long term when it is pump and dumped.

ETH:
it had a good idea at first but it is implemented pretty badly.
the code is bad and has many bugs, many of which has already been found. some of them even exploited and one of them led to a hard fork and splitting of ETH/ETC and there will always be a possibility of the same exploits and other unknown bugs that can be devastating to anybody who has his money in this coin.
it has a big premine (in form of ICO).
there is no real world usage for it and the smart contract that they are so proud of is not really something special on this platform.
the supply is HUGE. it has one of the biggest number of coins available and with a simple supply and demand rule the price will always be under constant sell pressure.
there has not been a clear cap on the maximum number of coins available.
the last and the worst but not the least is the centralization. this coin is one of the coins that is completely centralized and everything from the price to the code and the future is being decided by those who control it and can easily be manipulated to their advantage.

I agree about Bitcoin except Bitcoin is putting that #1 position in great danger by mucking around with HFs such as the technologically myopic Bitcoin Unlimited.

I agree on Dash.

I agree the possibility of hacks in Ethereum is great, but I am not diversifying into it long-term. I'll be back out of it again when I see the next YUGE smart contract which a hacker can target. I think Ethereum's community will be much more diligent about not letting such a concentrated accumulation occur again at this nascent stage of the new pump that is just getting under way (as it passed its ATH recently).

The real world use is that is a massive experimentation platform for figuring out which applications of blockchains might be worthwhile. And a speculators ICO paradise. Massive amount of smart contract ICO app activity kicking in now. ETH is the next hot thing coming as Dash's pump gets nearer to its apex.

BTC is undergoing turbulence and I think ETH will step on accelerator for the next month or two at least, while BTC and BTU slug it out. ETH and ETC already had their war and Vitalik won.

[thejaytiesto]

Im also looking at how to profit from the BTC/Bucoin situation and I was considering ETH, but im not sure what % should I move on there.

Where are you holding your ETH? even if it's short term holding, I don't trust poloniex.

Also, you claimed Core will eventually win and BTC will see $2000 because BUcoin is fundamentally flawed and compared it to the ETH/ETC situation.

Seems clear there is a good chance to potentially double your BTC holdings for free (minus the % you move to ETH in case BTC actually becomes a mess... let's hope this does not happen)

My problem is: ETC never had any relevant amount of hashrate, BU has 40%+ already. Hashrate is supposed to follow price, but im worried it will be the opposite: people will get scared and move to BU if we see a bigger hashrate.

Then we also have Roger Ver loaded with up to 300,000+ BTC ready to dump to crash the BTC price and trigger fear and get people buying BUcoins in a DASH pump style (in fact he may crash DASH in the process, to make it look everyone is moving into BUcoin)

Interesting poker game.. if it wasn't for the fact that my entire fucking portfolio is on the line. And I can't move to FIAT because as soon as I move to FIAT i'll be raped by the taxman, that is if I don't get my bank account frozen if they see I dealt with crypto... ffs.

There's also the option to simply hold in USDT (Tether) but im not sure if you can hold this safely outside of poloniex.

Edit: bonus option... there's also the possibility that Jihan Wu backpeddles and doesn't hard fork. But I think his ego is too big and he will go to the end, assuming he isn't being paid to try to kill bitcoin that is.

[iamnotback]

...assuming he isn't being paid to try to kill bitcoin that is.

Much to contemplate...

Re: Crypto conspiracy ?

I don't think you need a conspiracy. Nature of man is to compete with the one who has the most.

Everyone is trying to discredit BTC and grab some of your BTC.

And now Bitcoiners are doing self-destructive HFs to divide-and-conquer themselves, forcing us to diversify into for example Ethereum and Dash which are allegedly both not aggregate markets.

So much for our idealism about changing the world, eh?  

Maybe it is healthy experimentation and competition, but adoption by 100s of millions (or billions!) of non-investor users of the Internet would be more comforting to me. Maybe we are still on the path headed there...

[Hyena]

@iamnotback

you write a lot of text and you fail to deliver your point. please go rant somewhere else or learn to explain your thoughts more briefly. yes, there are a lot of cool words in the English language and I'm sure you'd like to use all of them but if you want people to bother to read your texts then keep it short. I believe this is not a poetry subforum. I've seen your kind in the university, you have a lot to learn how communication works on the Internet. I'll bet you're not good with girls either.

I guess your fallacy lies in the fact that you assume everyone else is as egoistic as you are. You're probably also an atheist. Well, here's a big shocker for you --- people are not as egoistic as you think they are. Miners care about the future of Bitcoin and since they have invested a lot in mining equipment they will most likely defend their investment. If miners vote for bigger blocks then so be it, that's Nakamoto consensus and it's the Bitcoin I signed up for in 2011. If you don't like it GTFO and start your own shitcoin with a different ruleset.

[iamnotback]

you write a lot of text and you fail to deliver your point.

Only to those who lack the intellect/patience to comprehend/contemplate the point. I've had numerous smart people (very highly respected members of this forum but I won't name them) peer review this and tell me in private messages that @Peter R's thesis is flawed.

I've seen your kind in the university, you have a lot to learn how communication works on the Internet.

Sorry if math and blockchain game theory and economics can't be reduced to a sound bite. I think you'd prefer Twitter.

Miners care about the future of Bitcoin

Then they better not create a protocol with unlimited size blocks, because then they will end up fighting a war between themselves for winner-take-all. But you didn't understand my explanation of the game theory. And these BU miners apparently don't either. But actually I think they do understand and they must know that they do want a winner-take-all control. And so they are trying to take what they think they own from us the owners of the actual tokens (but then later it turns into a battle between themselves and that is one humorous irony of it).

Hey I also want a larger block size. It is ridiculous we are still stuck at 1 MB. There needs to be some reasonable balance between fees and block size. But unlimited (unbounded) size is a different thing entirely.

It is Roger Ver who doesn't understand technology and game theory issues as well as he thinks he does, who is messing everything up by going around putting incorrect lies into the minds of n00bs such as yourself.

I realize that Core is also probably doing something sneaky as well. And I realize that they put things in SegWit such as the ability to softfork version changes which can basically given them unlimited power in the future. I understand there is likely evil going on there. But as a holder of BTC tokens, I don't want chaos. I want continuity. And I also don't want people who propose broken ideas, to have the power to create chaos. If you want to challenge Core, you shouldn't be promulgating an incorrect white paper which was not peer reviewed.

since they have invested a lot in mining equipment they will most likely defend their investment

I empathize. The 1 MB block is holding back Bitcoin and thus harming miners' investment. I am not saying that I agree with the 1MB block. There is this battle between Core and miners for control apparently. If you wanted to upend Core, then you should have more competent people who would have advised you that unbounded block size doesn't have an equilibrium.

If miners vote for bigger blocks then so be it, that's Nakamoto consensus and it's the Bitcoin I signed up for in 2011. If you don't like it GTFO and start your own shitcoin with a different ruleset.

Fact is that if no one wants to buy tokens from their unbounded size blocks protocol, then they can burn their excess hashrate at a loss until they go bankrupt. That is the reality. Excess hashrate supply doesn't force demand for tokens. It is demand for tokens that determines the supply of hashrate. You've got that backwards.

The polls I've seen and the policy of the exchanges seems to show that your mining cartel buddies are going to lose. But we'll have to see how this plays out.

My popcorn is ready. I don't really have any vested interest in this fight (I had planned to ride BTC to $2000+ until this fight with BTU came on to the scene and forced me to look into this and diversify a bit). I am more of an observer, except that I wanted to set the record straight on whether unlimited size blocks are a solution (they are not).

Yes I am making a shitcoin where "miners" have no power at all to do shit like this. But that is not here nor there relevant right now.

[Killerpotleaf]

@iamnotback
what is the current max block size BU miners are willing to accept