Fuck: SegWit, LN, Blockstream, Core, Adam Back, and GMazwell

[jonald_fyookball]

How much more transparent can you get than publishing everything as open source?

https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning

I am interested to know their general business plan and how it relates to scaling Bitcoin.

Aren't they planning to turn Bitcoin into some payment layer?

LN is a secondary network which would then "settle" back to the main Bitcoin network,
so if widely used, would make the main network a "settlement" network.

the core/blockstream guys like Greg and Pieter say that they want full blocks and
substantial fees on the main network... ostensibly for security reasons (because
miners won't get as much block rewards in the future) and decentralization reasons
(because node costs are rising)  and other good sounding reasons... but when you look
into those reasons, they don't always make sense.  (been argue/debated to death)
What is the real reason they want it?  And how are they
going to recoup the 70M in VC?  
  
I just find it doubtful that their support of smaller blocks has nothing to do with their business plans,
and if I am wrong, why don't they just come out and explain their plans, because
it would help Bitcoin and it would help their company.

[franky1]

Aren't they planning to turn Bitcoin into some payment layer?

they are planning on making bitcoin the prunned database of LTXO
(locked transaction outputs)

where LN and altcoins(sidechains) are the payment layer.

How much more transparent can you get than publishing everything as open source?

https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning

I am interested to know their general business plan and how it relates to scaling Bitcoin.

Well, I can't speak for Blockstream, but I don't think they are in the business of scaling bitcoin at all, necessarily.  Their business seems to be producing side-chain-based solutions for specific use-cases - like Liquid for example.

sidechains=altcoins. nothing more needs to be said.

[Adrian-x]

Just a reminder. SegWit is a transaction limit proposal, and if activated it will be much harder to increase transaction capacity on chain knowing that post SegWit increases comes with 4X the block weight. 


here are the economic policies being pushed by incumbent developers - they unanimously support limiting bitcoin transaction:

“There is a consistent fee backlog, which is the required criteria for stability.“

“we - as a community - should indeed let a fee market develop, and rather sooner than later”

“Slow confirmation, high fees will be the norm in any safe outcome.”

“Reasonable block sizes currently range from ~550k to 1 MB"

“…higher fees may be just what is needed…”

“A mounting fee pressure, resulting in a true fee market where transactions compete to get into blocks, results in urgency to develop decentralized off-chain solutions.”

[traincarswreck]

Just a reminder. SegWit is a transaction limit proposal, and if activated it will be much harder to increase transaction capacity on chain knowing that post SegWit increases comes with 4X the block weight. 


here are the economic policies being pushed by incumbent developers - they unanimously support limiting bitcoin transaction:

“There is a consistent fee backlog, which is the required criteria for stability.“

“we - as a community - should indeed let a fee market develop, and rather sooner than later”

“Slow confirmation, high fees will be the norm in any safe outcome.”

“Reasonable block sizes currently range from ~550k to 1 MB"

“…higher fees may be just what is needed…”

“A mounting fee pressure, resulting in a true fee market where transactions compete to get into blocks, results in urgency to develop decentralized off-chain solutions.”

Its weird how all of the intelligent active devs and educated persons have the same opinion that BU is bad and a limit on the block size is important.

[iCEBREAKER]

Just a reminder. SegWit is a transaction limit proposal, and if activated it will be much harder to increase transaction capacity on chain knowing that post SegWit increases comes with 4X the block weight. 

No, that's wrong.

By fixing tx malleability, segwit enables payment channels like Lightning Network, which may support unlimited numbers of instantly confirmed on-chain transactions.

[jonald_fyookball]

Just a reminder. SegWit is a transaction limit proposal, and if activated it will be much harder to increase transaction capacity on chain knowing that post SegWit increases comes with 4X the block weight.  

I would like to understand more about this.  I know that there is a transaction piece and a witness piece, but why can't they simply both be increased
in a linear fashion in the future?  

here are the economic policies being pushed by incumbent developers - they unanimously support limiting bitcoin transaction:

“There is a consistent fee backlog, which is the required criteria for stability.“

“we - as a community - should indeed let a fee market develop, and rather sooner than later”

“Slow confirmation, high fees will be the norm in any safe outcome.”

“Reasonable block sizes currently range from ~550k to 1 MB"

“…higher fees may be just what is needed…”

“A mounting fee pressure, resulting in a true fee market where transactions compete to get into blocks, results in urgency to develop decentralized off-chain solutions.”

ahh the old bandwagon... a tried and true propaganda technique.  works every time.  i mean, they can't all be wrong can they?

[RaXmOuSe]

core-fans seems to have no problems with high fees, why?

[Adrian-x]

Just a reminder. SegWit is a transaction limit proposal, and if activated it will be much harder to increase transaction capacity on chain knowing that post SegWit increases comes with 4X the block weight.  

No, that's wrong.

By fixing tx malleability, segwit enables payment channels like Lightning Network, which may support unlimited numbers of instantly confirmed on-chain transactions.

iCEBREAKER Fixing malleability is like fixing your cat.

It's the owner that gets to define the problem and it's the cat that gets fixed. (The cat works just fine with it's manhood intact)

Malleable transaction haven't stopped Bitcoin from working. In fact malleable transactions prevent types of applications that move fee paying transactions off the Bitcoin network and onto other networks like the Lightning Network - resulting in less fees to pay for bitcoin security

Let me explain - Malleability is a behavior that encourages network participants using the network in other ways to have functions other than money confirm on the blockchain. Its functions should be defined and agreed before it's classified as something needing a fix, it's not a bug it's not harmed bitcoin, if anything it's been a scapegoat used to arguer fraud and that bitcoin is not broken and works for everyone, fix this and we fix fraud (NOT).

Bitcoin Transaction Malleability puts individual users who want to be their own bank on the same playing field as multinational corporations who want to use bitcoin to build a private banking layer on top of bitcoin, why remove it?

Just a reminder. SegWit is a transaction limit proposal, and if activated it will be much harder to increase transaction capacity on chain knowing that post SegWit increases comes with 4X the block weight.  

I would like to understand more about this.  I know that there is a transaction piece and a witness piece, but why can't they simply both be increased
in a linear fashion in the future?  

If we activate segwit we get a marginal increase in transaction limit, (the number of transactions obfuscated so you can't do the math but maybe it's a 70% increase) and we move from a 1MB block limit to a 4MB block weight. where a simple 4MB limit would give us a 300% increase in transaction volume.

In the future if we what to increase the transaction limit once segwit is active lets say a 4MB block limit, we would get a 16MB block weight.

So if we compare apples with apples the transaction limit with transaction limits, we get a much higher transaction limit if we move to a 4MB block size than we do if we move to a 4MB block weight. the difference is more profound when you think that moving to an 8MB block limit is equivalent to a 8MB block weight.

with segwit it gets harder and harder to increase the transaction limit

[Killerpotleaf]

core-fans seems to have no problems with high fees, why?

they trust core

[Adrian-x]

core-fans seems to have no problems with high fees, why?

they trust core

trust no one, we are talking about controlling money. Bitcoin has incentives, if anything trust the incentives, (i quoited the economic policy of the most influential Core Developers) miners do not have an incentive to limit transaction volume, nether do the users, core developers who are building layer 2 networks - actually do have a reason to limit bitcoin growth).

And beware the boogeyman centralization buzzwords with no science - Until someone can prove how moving from 300,000 transactions a day to 5,000,000 transactions a day over the coming years results in me having to upgrade my entry level internet and my PC at home they are just bluffing. When they say removing the transaction limit results in a data center controlled by government or some other centralized entity, they need to show the math and projected costs. 

[traincarswreck]

core-fans seems to have no problems with high fees, why?

Because high fees don't take away the value of bitcoin as a digital gold.  And raising bitcoin's transaction per 2nd won't increase its value (just look at all the other amazing examples).

[jonald_fyookball]

with segwit it gets harder and harder to increase the transaction limit

this is eye opening.  and here i was thinking its a poison pill only because its really complicated and can't be undone.

wtf

[traincarswreck]

And beware the boogeyman centralization buzzwords with no science - Until someone can prove how moving from 300,000 transactions a day to 5,000,000 transactions a day over the coming years results in me having to upgrade my entry level internet and my PC at home they are just bluffing. When they say removing the transaction limit results in a data center controlled by government or some other centralized entity, they need to show the math and projected costs. 

No that isn't how science works.  If you want to change the status quo YOU need to provide the science.  That's how science works.

[jbreher]

Seems better than the dictatorship you have been advocating for:

Proposals are made, debated, and then resolved (voted on) and the Proposer and BU officers have the power to force this process to occur in a timely fashion.

Why are you trying to give the power of bitcoin away to an obvious and admitted dictatorship? Or did you not read the articles you were signing up to?

Haha. Your very quote belies how badly you are capable of misinterpreting clear language.

[jbreher]

BU was built on this you liar:

There is no democratic way to kick something like this off so I am just going to be autocratic about it. I’m defining myself judge, jury and executioner (with the valuable input of those who have been interacting with me of course!) with the power to appoint the initial members. These initial members will then proceed to invite new members.

A direct quote from the self appointed president.

Firstly, the president was voted - not self-appointed. Secondly, his powers are limited and defined. And lastly, that is simply the forum post that kicked off the organization process - it is not an element of the bylaws.

[traincarswreck]

There is no democratic way to kick something like this off so I am just going to be autocratic about it. I’m defining myself judge, jury and executioner (with the valuable input of those who have been interacting with me of course!) with the power to appoint the initial members. These initial members will then proceed to invite new members.

Firstly, the president was voted - not self-appointed. Secondly, his powers are limited and defined. And lastly, that is simply the forum post that kicked off the organization process - it is not an element of the bylaws.

are you a member?

When the start of the hierarchy is started from self appointment the BU articles of federation serve only to usurp core and to give the president dictatorship over bitcoin.  For what I can tell there is no rule that the same person can't rule forever...?

All of the articles secure this, and I have shown it.

[Paashaas]

You guys ruined it all.  Bitcoin is now fucked and getting more fucked everyday.  I think the end in near.

Frustration leads to hate, which makes youre statement pathetic.

[Adrian-x]

BU is not bitcoin it's an open source software implementation of the bitcoin client. - Unlike linus torvald's Linux or mike hear's XT  it does not have a benevolent dictator, and unlike Core's crony consensus, BU has a mechanism by which controversial changes are presented evaluated and voted on.

Core may have a geographically decentralized developer base, but make no mistake it's only a few influential developers who get to decide what projects take priority, and no rational process to resolve conflicts, case in point BIP101 - which ironically lead to the discussion on how to better resolve conflicts that resulted in BU's Articles of Federation.

Ultimately users decide what bitcoin software they run. BU members want more diversity less centralized control, BU has one governing system for controversial changes to one implementation, Core has none. I hope to see more.

[Wind_FURY]

Frankie, that wasn't my understanding of how LN works (not saying i'm right .cause im just
learning how this is all supposed to work...) but the point is: if Alice already has a channel
with Bob , I dont need to open a channel with Bob myself cause i can just go through Alice.

What am I missing, or why are we not on the same page here?

Yes. That is why it is important to only open payment channels with people that you trust. You would not want to be the person connecting payments with a criminal or a terrorist. You do not want the FBI knocking on your door. Hehe.
 

Well, there's 2 possibilities that I can envision right now (there may be more)

#1:) You have big companies, lets say Blockstream, that provides a 'blockstream' channel... so if I want to send a payment to Bob, and we both have a channel with Blockstream, we could do it through them.

#2:) You have some kind of smart wallet that automatically accepts third party requests on your behalf , and it handles all the details so you do not have to trust them, and if one of those third parties happens to be an unscrupulous character, well you can certain easily claim plausible deniability just as if some anonmymous person was downloading a torrent...all the wallet sees is an IP address.  Obviously we want to stay private, get more privacy, not less.

EDIT:  If we cannot describe exactly how scenario #2 is going to be implemented (and we can't describe another scenario), then the alternative is that you are going to be using a big company (like Blockstream) cough paypal2.0 cough and relying on them to transact.  so.... i am wondering how deeply people who are really excited about LN have thought this through and would like to hear others' thoughts.

I like your thinking about scenario #2. A 3rd party service or a "smart wallet" is a more convenient way for ordinary users to have an extra layer that does not directly connect anyone with questionable users of the system.

I know there is fear among the big blockers about it becoming like Paypal 2.0, but what if the system is a level playing field and an open one? I am sure Blockstream does not have a monopoly in setting up a payment hub service.

[franky1]

I like your thinking about scenario #2. A 3rd party service or a "smart wallet" is a more convenient way for ordinary users to have an extra layer that does not directly connect anyone with questionable users of the system.

I know there is fear among the big blockers about it becoming like Paypal 2.0, but what if the system is a level playing field and an open one? I am sure Blockstream does not have a monopoly in setting up a payment hub service.

LN DNS SEED.. look into it