Peter R's talk at Coinbase -- yes they will 51% attack the minority chain!

[Lauda]

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you.  I'm not 100% convinced they should be doing that. 

If you were a true, and rational Bitcoiner, you would be 100% convinced that they should not be trying to do that.

Their (Coinbase,Bitpay) intention is to prevent a confusing network split, and they may be right that  this will be good for Bitcoin in the short term, but philosophically it kind of makes more sense to
just let the market decide.

They aren't helping at all.

but most people here wanted bigger blocks for the longest time.  sorry but we cant wait for LN -- we're getting killed by ethereum right now.  BTC marketshare below 70%. scary.

The primary, if not the only reason for which that is happening is the BTU hard fork fear mongering. Remember, ETF was declined and the price was back up above $1200 in a few days. This started as soon as the hard fork drama spread.

[jonald_fyookball]

HF fear is part of it for sure.  its obviously related to the scaling issue and loss of utility. 3tps btc won't cut it.  maybe you disagree. i dont care. have a good weekend

[Carlton Banks]

but most people here wanted bigger blocks for the longest time.

What does that matter when most Bitcoiners (who aren't here) chose against it. They've done that 3 times now, haven't they jonald

[mindrust]

(If nothing else we'll learn a lot from the experience, a $20Billion lesson.. better be good)

there is no $16B-$20B dollars!

thats the speculative bubble number based on a few thousand coins being stired around in exchanges to have a $1000 'price' and the multiplying it by 16m

there are not 16-20 billion actual dollars sitting in bank accounts.
i can make an altcoin tomorrow with 5,000,000,000,000 premined coins. get just 1 coin onto an exchange and sell it to myself for $1.. and instantly have a $5trillion market cap.

so stop talking about the speculative bubble number.. its meaningless. all the holders of the 16m coins of bitcoin are not promised or guaranteed $1000 if they all cashed out today. its not a 'valuation' .. its a bubble number of multiplication

But dude, that's how they calculate a company's value in the stock market. So it should be same for bitcoin either. You can make an altcoin and buy it yourself and stuff but no exchange will list your coin in the first place and it won't be on coinmarketcap.com. And if you somehow manage to make it to be used by several people, your shitcoin will lose value in a flash.

[dinofelis]

but most people here wanted bigger blocks for the longest time.

What does that matter when most Bitcoiners (who aren't here) chose against it. They've done that 3 times now, haven't they jonald

Bitcoin is (for the moment still) immutable.  Nothing changes fundamentally.  Some technical quirks nobody cared about did.  This is why EVERY attempt at significant change, fails.  Not only block size (since it mattered to miners).  Also segwit.  Also nimble wimble.  Immutability by disagreement over change.

Change can only happen in a centralized system with strong leadership ; and even then, if it is contentious, it forks, look at ETH/ETC.  Ethereum is strongly centralized and Vitalik has the leadership like Satoshi had in bitcoin.

Bitcoin can't change any more.  Until it is (again) fully centralized, not under Satoshi this time, but under the Chinese miner cartel (and their government).  Then it will be able to change again.

[iamnotback]

Bitcoin can't change any more.

The PoW hash will change if the mining cartel doesn't abort their attack.

[dinofelis]

Bitcoin can't change any more.

The PoW hash will change if the mining cartel doesn't abort their attack.

Another alt coin ?

I would agree with you, but there's still 16% of bitcoin market cap dominance to be lost before that can happen...

We'll see.  It would be fun, but I think that the change of the PoW is going to be such a huge cluster fuck, that bitcoin will be negligible quantity afterwards.  Somewhere between ZCASH and PIVX or so.

Bitcoin is only a brand name.  If ever it loses its number 1 place, it is nothing any more.

[iamnotback]

Bitcoin can't change any more.

The PoW hash will change if the mining cartel doesn't abort their attack.

Another alt coin ?

What altcoin. All the big money will stay on the small block fork with the new PoW hash, because BU is technologically incompetent and the Bitcoin whales are in MPeX's WoT. MPeX probably controls a million BTC himself. Plus his bankster friends.

BU's altcoin will be sold off and the Chinese mining cartel will then own a shitcoin.

MPeX is capable of this. He couldn't win against Ethereum, because he didn't have the whales of Ethereum on his side. He does have the whales of Bitcoin on his side.

We'll see.  It would be fun, but I think that the change of the PoW is going to be such a huge cluster fuck, that bitcoin will be negligible quantity afterwards.  Somewhere between ZCASH and PIVX or so.

Bitcoin is only a brand name.  If ever it loses its number 1 place, it is nothing any more.

Money talks. The whales will decide. The miners don't have liquid assets, they have only debt and sunk costs, thus the mining cartel are just slaves to the whales.

[jonald_fyookball]

Bitcoin can't change any more.

The PoW hash will change if the mining cartel doesn't abort their attack.

Another alt coin ?

What altcoin. All the big money will stay on the small block fork with the new PoW hash, because BU is technologically incompetent and the Bitcoin whales are in MPeX's WoT. MPeX probably controls a million BTC himself. Plus his bankster friends.

BU's altcoin will be sold off and the Chinese mining cartel will then own a shitcoin.

MPeX is capable of this. He couldn't win against Ethereum, because he didn't have the whales of Ethereum on his side. He does have the whales of Bitcoin on his side.

We'll see.  It would be fun, but I think that the change of the PoW is going to be such a huge cluster fuck, that bitcoin will be negligible quantity afterwards.  Somewhere between ZCASH and PIVX or so.

Bitcoin is only a brand name.  If ever it loses its number 1 place, it is nothing any more.

Money talks. The whales will decide. The miners don't have liquid assets, they have only debt and sunk costs, thus the mining cartel are just slaves to the whales.

If its called "Bitcoin" and it looks walks smells and scales like Satoshi's Bitcoin, and still has the dominant network effect, it will remain king of the hill imo

[Peter R]

Do we want a split or do we not want a split?  In the discussions I've had with Coinbase, Bitpay and with BU members that are in close contact with nearly all of the world's mining power, it seems that no one wants a split.  So I suspect there will be no split. 

If a minority wants to start a little-bitty blockchain based on the Bitcoin ledger, then change the PoW.  I'm sure you'll be left alone. 

[chixka000]

I haven't reallly fully understood what is this all about. But according to my knowledge this could be a good side right?  because  if this happen it could really improve the transaction process for good

[Peter R]

I haven't reallly fully understood what is this all about. But according to my knowledge this could be a good side right?  because  if this happen it could really improve the transaction process for good

Definitely. By increasing the block size limit, wait times will be reduced back to historical norms (~10 min) and transaction fees will fall back to a penny or so.  If you're interested, here is the talk I gave to Coinbase and Bitpay.  And here is a description of what we're doing with Bitcoin Unlimited. 

[dinofelis]

Definitely. By increasing the block size limit, wait times will be reduced back to historical norms (~10 min) and transaction fees will fall back to a penny or so. 

And why would miners appreciate transaction fees falling back to a penny ?
What silly miner is going to truly allow increase in block size if he can keep his peers at 1 MB and hence keep the fee market under pressure ?

What idiot miner is REALLY going to fork to kill the goose with the golden eggs ?

[Holliday]

Do we want a split or do we not want a split?  In the discussions I've had with Coinbase, Bitpay and with BU members that are in close contact with nearly all of the world's mining power, it seems that no one wants a split.  So I suspect there will be no split. 

If a minority wants to start a little-bitty blockchain based on the Bitcoin ledger, then change the PoW.  I'm sure you'll be left alone. 

If any of the "big block" solutions had the support of the economic majority, they would have forked ages ago without a second thought.

Pretending that only a minority favors a "small block" solution does you no credit. If it were true, you would fork this instant, and that's obvious.

The only metric that shows more than a smidgen of support for BU is pool operator signalling. Mining pools have long been a thorn in Bitcoin's side and I suspect a renewed effort to bring decentralization back to mining in the near future.

[anonymoustroll420]

The only metric that shows more than a smidgen of support for BU is pool operator signalling.

And a portion of the reason that is happening is because Roger Ver's pool.bitcoin.com is paying them 110% PPS. He originally wanted to pay them double (25BTC per block). So he is essentially buying their hashpower.

http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/11/06/roger-ver-considers-offering-double-block-rewards-bitcoin-miners/

[ANHEQIAO]

Changing the PoW would render all mining investments worthless. The nuclear option that would nuke Bitcoin.
There are not so many possibilities to render the first mover approach worthless. This is one of them.

[dinofelis]

Changing the PoW would render all mining investments worthless. The nuclear option that would nuke Bitcoin.
There are not so many possibilities to render the first mover approach worthless. This is one of them.

Not really.  You would make a tiny litecoin, forked off bitcoin.  Why not use the bigger litecoin that is a copy of bitcoin, but with:
1) 4 times faster block times (so 4 times more transactions possible)
2) another PoW algorithm (Scrypt) ; for the rest, LTC is bitcoin's code
3) already segwit ready to activate ?

Why is Core imitating litecoin after all these years ?

[Carlton Banks]

Why not use the bigger litecoin that is a copy of bitcoin

Because a PoW fork will take the real value with it

• users
• the Bitcoin economy
• the Bitcoin developers (i.e. the talent)

Litecoin does not, and cannot, get those attributes so easily. Bitcoin can (as it already has them all).

[classicsucks]

Bitcoin can't change any more.

The PoW hash will change if the mining cartel doesn't abort their attack.

Another alt coin ?

What altcoin. All the big money will stay on the small block fork with the new PoW hash, because BU is technologically incompetent and the Bitcoin whales are in MPeX's WoT. MPeX probably controls a million BTC himself. Plus his bankster friends.

BU's altcoin will be sold off and the Chinese mining cartel will then own a shitcoin.

MPeX is capable of this. He couldn't win against Ethereum, because he didn't have the whales of Ethereum on his side. He does have the whales of Bitcoin on his side.

We'll see.  It would be fun, but I think that the change of the PoW is going to be such a huge cluster fuck, that bitcoin will be negligible quantity afterwards.  Somewhere between ZCASH and PIVX or so.

Bitcoin is only a brand name.  If ever it loses its number 1 place, it is nothing any more.

Money talks. The whales will decide. The miners don't have liquid assets, they have only debt and sunk costs, thus the mining cartel are just slaves to the whales.

I can't even. This is more retarded than the UASF proposal. I'm shocked by the stupidity of anyone who believes changing the algo would work?  Do you have any idea how much money is invested in ASICs that hash SHA256?  Who is going to mine this shitcoin? Isn't it obvious that the core fanbois don't have majority hashpower? 

The real bitcoin would just keep merrily hashing along while these fools proclaimed their altcoin to be authentic, pissing into the wind.

[Peter R]

Do we want a split or do we not want a split?  In the discussions I've had with Coinbase, Bitpay and with BU members that are in close contact with nearly all of the world's mining power, it seems that no one wants a split.  So I suspect there will be no split.  

If a minority wants to start a little-bitty blockchain based on the Bitcoin ledger, then change the PoW.  I'm sure you'll be left alone.  

If any of the "big block" solutions had the support of the economic majority, they would have forked ages ago without a second thought.

Pretending that only a minority favors a "small block" solution does you no credit. If it were true, you would fork this instant, and that's obvious.

The only metric that shows more than a smidgen of support for BU is pool operator signalling. Mining pools have long been a thorn in Bitcoin's side and I suspect a renewed effort to bring decentralization back to mining in the near future.

The only way we'll get larger blocks is if a hash power super-majority supports larger blocks.  The only way a hash power super-majority will support larger blocks is if they believe that it is in their and Bitcoin's best interest.  Right now this is not the case.  We know this because when Bitcoin.com accidentally produced a 1.000023 MB block, it was orphaned.  

If you're point is that right now blocks larger than 1 MB would be orphaned, then yes I agree.  What we're doing with Bitcoin Unlimited is providing node operators the tools to allow them to accept larger blocks, providing miners the tools to produce larger blocks, and both groups the tools to signal their block size preference to the network. I believe soon the network will be upgraded accordingly.