SegWit (26.8%) vs Bitcoin Unlimited (32.2%)

[franky1]

No - it's not your fault.  We've been told right before the start: It just cannot scale - and we tired anyway:

http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09963.html

Someone got it.

However, between "cannot scale" because of technological limitations, and "cannot scale" because frozen into the protocol for ever, there's still some room

Bitcoin is frozen in far before the technological (and moving) limits are reached.

imagine if: activition 1996 said
"we cannot scale passed 2d shoot-em-ups' on a nintendo and Call of duty:MW because 56k internet and 4gb hard drives. we should never make call of dutyMW, never work on growing gaming passed nintendoNES and instead build plastic figurines that dont require electronics so the kids have something to play with that has no limitations."

[RealBitcoin]

Its pretty logical:

Blockstream offers very limited space for miners, but unlimited for 2nd layer = Blockstream Unlimited 2ndLayer Coins


Good for Miners ?  - No, only good for 2nd layer projects. Penalty for miners. Not economically balanced!



Bitcoin Unlimited offers both - just no limits = real disruption bitcoin   <-  I want rather that

Miners might be more happy with that open competition vs 2nd layer scaling. Better eco balanced.

Well you dont want to give too much power to miners otherwise they will act like a pseudo government.

Of course I dont know how good the 2nd layer will be and how decentralized.

It seems to me that neither Segwit nor BU is good.

That is why they have only 25% approval.

[franky1]

Either back of the fag packet calculations gives a good idea of a 2 month migration cost being added to the chain, assuming everybody voluntarily moves over. So we do not get that promised transaction rate increase for a very long time in practice.

yep

but thats 2 months at best assumming ALL tx's were segwit migrators. remember usual tx flow of people paying people and spam fill blocks too. so imagine it like many months of mempool crashing and fee war price increases with still no guarantee's

other proposals of just blocksize increases (real blocksize increases) either dynamic or spoonfed fixed amount, dont rely on moving funds to cause it. so those options dont cause months of mempool bloating.

[franky1]

That is why they have only 25% approval.

1. in segwits case . BLOCKSTREAM GAVE only pools the vote. so dont blame pools for it

2. in any vote.(for any change to rules, consensus, network protocol) without nodes being ready, pools wont do anything due to orphan risk and network safety and other things.
so whether nodes get an official vote or not, smart pools would hold off voting for anything unless they see a good node count to cope with the network change

[dinofelis]

imagine if: activition 1996 said
"we cannot scale passed 2d shoot-em-ups' on a nintendo and Call of duty:MW because 56k internet and 4gb hard drives. we should never make call of dutyMW, never work on growing gaming passed nintendoNES and instead build plastic figurines that dont require electronics so the kids have something to play with that has no limitations."

You have a misunderstanding about the notion "scale".   You confuse it with "is currently not within reach of technology".
In any case, bitcoin cannot scale, because it limited itself, independent of the scaling problem of single block chain technology.

The scaling problem a block chain faces, is that for "n" participants, over time T, it needs to store/process/.... ~n^2 T data.
If we presume that transactions per entity rise with the number of potential partners they have on the network and that ALL nodes need to process ALL transactions of ALL participants over ALL of history.   This runs into technical limits at a certain point.  

But bitcoin put itself a much, much more severe and hard limit: 3 transactions per second.  Making transactions themselves an expensive resource.

[franky1]

imagine if: activition 1996 said
"we cannot scale passed 2d shoot-em-ups' on a nintendo and Call of duty:MW because 56k internet and 4gb hard drives. we should never make call of dutyMW, never work on growing gaming passed nintendoNES and instead build plastic figurines that dont require electronics so the kids have something to play with that has no limitations."

You have a misunderstanding about the notion "scale".   You confuse it with "is currently not within reach of technology".
In any case, bitcoin cannot scale, because it limited itself, independent of the scaling problem of single block chain technology.

The scaling problem a block chain faces, is that for "n" participants, over time T, it needs to store/process/.... ~n^2 T data.
If we presume that transactions per entity rise with the number of potential partners they have on the network and that ALL nodes need to process ALL transactions of ALL participants over ALL of history.   This runs into technical limits at a certain point.  

But bitcoin put itself a much, much more severe and hard limit: 3 transactions per second.  Making transactions themselves an expensive resource.

you were not understanding my sarcasm to bring up the point

the punchline being someone from nintendo being the activision insider saying to activision not to expand passed nintendo limits. because X,Y,Z reasons.

also the technical limits of 1996 are not the technical limits of 2016
so stating activision should not progressively grow into 3D gaming and then as years go on increase to HD 3d gaming.. and instead only ever stick to nintendo rules of 2d...

is stupid.


ofcourse logic dictates dont make call of duty:MD in 1997..
but bringing the logic to bitcoin.. "gigabytes by midnight cant happen"

but..
PROGRESSIVE, dynamic, NATURAL GROWTH. where NODES define the parameters of what they can cope with. (even BU know this and know/use consensus) will allow growth and scaling.

all you need to do is ignore the fake doomsdays of "gigabytes by midnight" and replace that scripted mindset with "natural growth over time (months, years, decades)

then you see the difference.

in short we WILL NOT suddenly get 1billion people over night. so ignore the "overnight capability" doomsday.. as the fake reason to halt real scaling

imagine if everyone ignored the "gigabytes per midnight"
we could have been at 2mb REAL blocksize in 2015(nodes can cope with)
we could have been aiming for 4mb REAL blocksize in 2017(nodes can cope with)
and then by 2019ish 8mb (nodes can cope with*)

*telecommunications company have a 5 year plan they are in the middle of. (landline: fibre optic, mobile: 5G) so by 2019 things will be different then now
*hardware capability, moves on too.. (raspberry pi min specs of RPi1 vs RPi3 have scaled 20-60 fold for bitcoin capability)
*people on average upgrade hardware between 1year-4 years average

we should not halt natural scaling onchain just to FORCE users offchain. there can be a symbiotic relationship where LN is voluntary side service. and not an essential only utility to spend.

the fee war is not due to natural scaling not coping but due to DEV decision to halt and delay scaling to push LN to become 'essential'

[dinofelis]

ofcourse logic dictates dont make call of duty:MD in 1997..
but bringing the logic to bitcoin.. "gigabytes by midnight cant happen"

but..
PROGRESSIVE, dynamic, NATURAL GROWTH. where NODES define the parameters of what they can cope with. (even BU know this and know/use consensus) will allow growth and scaling.

all you need to do is ignore the fake doomsdays of "gigabytes by midnight" and replace that scripted mindset with "natural growth over time (months, years, decades)

then you see the difference.

in short we WILL NOT suddenly get 1billion people over night. so ignore the "overnight capability" doomsday.. as the fake reason to halt real scaling

Look, I think that BU is not a bad solution (I don't know exactly how the consensus mechanism works, I've read there are big fuck ups there, but this can be solved).  Monero is a crypto that has such a dynamic block size adaptation.  So this kind of technology not only exists, it is active and it works.

But my point is that BU, or any other solution (like Segwit), WILL NOT BE ADOPTED by consensus.  Not because it is bad, but because of the immutability dynamics.  I'm not saying that this is "good".  I think that it *will be like that*, because some people involved will always find their profit from NOT changing the block size, and because different groups will see their advantage in different ways of solving this problem.  And for exactly the same reason that me wanting to reverse my transaction to you, and you wanting to reverse your transaction to me, none of us can, and the block chain is immutable because of that, there will never be a consensus on changing the finite block size.  The imaginable bitcoin that would have BU included would probably work better, but it will not happen, because that is not the real bitcoin, and the transition to BU will be against the advantages of enough people to avoid it.

[hv_]

Its pretty logical:

Blockstream offers very limited space for miners, but unlimited for 2nd layer = Blockstream Unlimited 2ndLayer Coins


Good for Miners ?  - No, only good for 2nd layer projects. Penalty for miners. Not economically balanced!



Bitcoin Unlimited offers both - just no limits = real disruption bitcoin   <-  I want rather that

Miners might be more happy with that open competition vs 2nd layer scaling. Better eco balanced.

Well you dont want to give too much power to miners otherwise they will act like a pseudo government.

Of course I dont know how good the 2nd layer will be and how decentralized.

It seems to me that neither Segwit nor BU is good.

That is why they have only 25% approval.

we cannot 'give'. they take because they can due to their role and investment. you would do the same in their place.

[dinofelis]

the fee war is not due to natural scaling not coping but due to DEV decision to halt and delay scaling to push LN to become 'essential'

No, the fee war is a symptom of immutability dynamics.  When an economic parameter is established (number of bitcoins, block reward, block time of 10 minutes, block size....), any way of trying to modify it will give rise to non-consensus, meaning, disputes over ways to do so.  It will look as if the antagonists in the dispute are "holding back progress", but the disputes themselves ARE the trustless distributed consensus mechanism at work, that makes it IMPOSSIBLE to change the parameter.

[AngryDwarf]

No, the fee war is a symptom of immutability dynamics.  When an economic parameter is established (number of bitcoins, block reward, block time of 10 minutes, block size....), any way of trying to modify it will give rise to non-consensus, meaning, disputes over ways to do so.  It will look as if the antagonists in the dispute are "holding back progress", but the disputes themselves ARE the trustless distributed consensus mechanism at work, that makes it IMPOSSIBLE to change the parameter.

I disagree with IMPOSSIBLE. I think the situation makes it difficult, and so potentially highly unlikely that protocol change can be implemented. That is not the same as impossible.

[dinofelis]

No, the fee war is a symptom of immutability dynamics.  When an economic parameter is established (number of bitcoins, block reward, block time of 10 minutes, block size....), any way of trying to modify it will give rise to non-consensus, meaning, disputes over ways to do so.  It will look as if the antagonists in the dispute are "holding back progress", but the disputes themselves ARE the trustless distributed consensus mechanism at work, that makes it IMPOSSIBLE to change the parameter.

I disagree with IMPOSSIBLE. I think the situation makes it difficult, and so potentially highly unlikely that protocol change can be implemented. That is not the same as impossible.

Well, in the same way that it is not impossible that one decides to postpone the next halving, or to have blocks every 2 minutes.
BTW, that would be a much smarter solution: decreasing the block times.  10 minutes is awfully long.  Many newer coins have times of 1 or 2 minutes.  (note that this increases the amount of bitcoin in the end too if the block rewards remain...)

It becomes *more and more* difficult as fees rise and this parameter plays a bigger and bigger role in miner revenue.  It was 10 times easier to solve that issue one year ago than now.  Because the financial implications become more and more important every day.

[AngryDwarf]

I disagree with IMPOSSIBLE. I think the situation makes it difficult, and so potentially highly unlikely that protocol change can be implemented. That is not the same as impossible.

Well, in the same way that it is not impossible that one decides to postpone the next halving, or to have blocks every 2 minutes.
BTW, that would be a much smarter solution: decreasing the block times.  10 minutes is awfully long.  Many newer coins have times of 1 or 2 minutes.  (note that this increases the amount of bitcoin in the end too if the block rewards remain...)

Yes, any one of these parameters could be changed with consensus. Block times are less important than ensuring that transactions eventually get confirmed. The zero confirmation economic risk has shifted from the disadvantaged malicious double spend propagation attempt, to one of not getting confirmed at all due to full block capacity and forgetful mempools, or selective transaction node relay.

It becomes *more and more* difficult as fees rise and this parameter plays a bigger and bigger role in miner revenue.  It was 10 times easier to solve that issue one year ago than now.  Because the financial implications become more and more important every day.

Most miners are not short sighted evil entities. They would rather process more transactions with lower fees as this increases the utility value of what they are mining.

Transaction capacity and confirmation time effects are part of the liquidity value of bitcoin.

[Searing]

I disagree with IMPOSSIBLE. I think the situation makes it difficult, and so potentially highly unlikely that protocol change can be implemented. That is not the same as impossible.

Well, in the same way that it is not impossible that one decides to postpone the next halving, or to have blocks every 2 minutes.
BTW, that would be a much smarter solution: decreasing the block times.  10 minutes is awfully long.  Many newer coins have times of 1 or 2 minutes.  (note that this increases the amount of bitcoin in the end too if the block rewards remain...)

Yes, any one of these parameters could be changed with consensus. Block times are less important than ensuring that transactions eventually get confirmed. The zero confirmation economic risk has shifted from the disadvantaged malicious double spend propagation attempt, to one of not getting confirmed at all due to full block capacity and forgetful mempools, or selective transaction node relay.

It becomes *more and more* difficult as fees rise and this parameter plays a bigger and bigger role in miner revenue.  It was 10 times easier to solve that issue one year ago than now.  Because the financial implications become more and more important every day.

Most miners are not short sighted evil entities. They would rather process more transactions with lower fees as this increases the utility value of what they are mining.

Transaction capacity and confirmation time effects are part of the liquidity value of bitcoin.

the problem is bitcoin core and BU and other folks with block chain solutions are digging their heels in less about the actual block size fix..but it is about POWER who controls
bitcoin..most if not all the developers of ANY camp are bitcoin whales....they have cashed out much/or could if things get ugly...so it is all about ego and power now or
they would imho have comprised like they said on the seg witness first then the hard fork later...they caved and punted (bitcoin core)

so money/ego/power that always works out well right?

[franky1]

its only hard to get consensus if people do not learn consensus (such as those not understanding BU or segwit)

those WITH NODES should spend more time learning consensus. rather than reading sci-fi scripted doomsday rhetoric

politics of doomsday "gigabytes by midnight" "call anything not blockstream a alt" are the time wasting crew causing delay in REAL LEARNING

yes its hard to wake the sheep up and get them motivated to learn how bitcoin actually works to then make the informed decisions.
but we are not talking about millions of users. but just 6000ish people who run nodes(a few people run many nodes) need to learn how bitcoin
really works to make them decisions.(pools are amongst them 6000)

its not impossible. but just harder due to politics. not 'immutable dynamics'

[Darkbot]

its only hard to get consensus if people do not learn consensus (such as those not understanding BU or segwit)

those WITH NODES should spend more time learning consensus. rather than reading sci-fi scripted doomsday rhetoric

politics of doomsday "gigabytes by midnight" "call anything not blockstream a alt" are the time wasting crew causing delay in REAL LEARNING

yes its hard to wake the sheep up and get them motivated to learn how bitcoin actually works to then make the informed decisions.
but we are not talking about millions of users. but just 6000ish people who run nodes(a few people run many nodes) need to learn how bitcoin
really works to make them decisions.(pools are amongst them 6000)

its not impossible. but just harder due to politics. not 'immutable dynamics'

Franky1; the legendary troll spewing out his daily FUD again.

[dinofelis]

Yes, any one of these parameters could be changed with consensus.

My point is exactly that they can't, as long as we have a distributed, trustless system.  It can only happen, if there is sufficient centralization.  

Would you accept that suddenly, the block reward jumps to 500 coins because this suits miners ?  Do you really think this is possible by consensus ?

Most miners are not short sighted evil entities. They would rather process more transactions with lower fees as this increases the utility value of what they are mining.

Of course they are "evil entities" like all of us.  All entities in a trustless system are to be considered as evil entities.  Otherwise, if they are to be trusted, the system is not trustless.

The point is, however, that there are *different ways* to increase the number of transactions, and that there will not be an agreement on which way, because that will influence the gains and the losses of some.  One will not come to an agreement, even if an agreement is beneficial.   There is no way to come to a consensus, as there will always be a sizeable fraction that doesn't want it that way but the other way.

You see it with segwit vs BU.  

[dinofelis]

but just harder due to politics. not 'immutable dynamics'

The politics IS part of the immutable dynamics.

[dinofelis]

Transaction capacity and confirmation time effects are part of the liquidity value of bitcoin.

People don't really care.  Most of the market cap comes from exchange IOU.  Not from transactions on the block chain.  And big players will always find an agreement with miners to get their essential transactions through.

You don't really see the power that miners get when normal transactions become impossible, do you.  Exchanges will of course "buy" (with fiat ?) room with big mining pools.  Big financial players will buy room on the chain.  To make it impossible for mere mortals to transact without them.  Most of bitcoin will become bitcoin IOU.  This is also what states like: no more anarchic bitcoining, but bitcoining through institutional players.  And miners are king, because they sell their precious space to the highest bidder in contracts ; not with fees. 

[AngryDwarf]

its only hard to get consensus if people do not learn consensus (such as those not understanding BU or segwit)

those WITH NODES should spend more time learning consensus. rather than reading sci-fi scripted doomsday rhetoric

politics of doomsday "gigabytes by midnight" "call anything not blockstream a alt" are the time wasting crew causing delay in REAL LEARNING

yes its hard to wake the sheep up and get them motivated to learn how bitcoin actually works to then make the informed decisions.
but we are not talking about millions of users. but just 6000ish people who run nodes(a few people run many nodes) need to learn how bitcoin
really works to make them decisions.(pools are amongst them 6000)

its not impossible. but just harder due to politics. not 'immutable dynamics'

Franky1; the legendary troll spewing out his daily FUD again.

Would you like to make a reasoned argument against this FUD so that I can expand my knowledge, reassess my own misunderstandings, and then I can factor it in to my decision making process.

[AngryDwarf]

Transaction capacity and confirmation time effects are part of the liquidity value of bitcoin.

People don't really care.  Most of the market cap comes from exchange IOU.  Not from transactions on the block chain.  And big players will always find an agreement with miners to get their essential transactions through.

You don't really see the power that miners get when normal transactions become impossible, do you.  Exchanges will of course "buy" (with fiat ?) room with big mining pools.  Big financial players will buy room on the chain.  To make it impossible for mere mortals to transact without them.  Most of bitcoin will become bitcoin IOU.  This is also what states like: no more anarchic bitcoining, but bitcoining through institutional players.  And miners are king, because they sell their precious space to the highest bidder in contracts ; not with fees. 

Looks like this could very well be the end game for bitcoin.