Andreas Antonopoulos has some explaining to do

[jonald_fyookball]

I have been a big fan of Andreas he's been a great spokesman for Bitcoin.
And he seemed to be most passionate about helping the world's
unbanked...empowering them...getting them sound money, etc.

So, now we have the core developers promoting a new
economic policy for Bitcoin which is essentially based
on Bitcoin being a settlement layer.  The most vocal
proponents of Core's roadmap embrace their economics
and say "well, Bitcoin can't be all things to all people.
Bitcoin was never supposed to be coffee money.
You should do things like off-chain, on the LN."

(Which btw was never an economic policy of
Gavin or Satoshi, but that's another story).

So what does this mean for the world's unbanked?

Best case scenario, in the future there will
be zero friction and fees will still be relatively cheap.
But so far, the reality today is that core's
economic policy has caused a substantial
increase in fees and slower confirmations.

In the future, if transactions are forced
off the main chain, it will quite likely
become more expensive to use Bitcoin
due to LN solutions charging fees as well
as increased fees for settlement.

The unbanked have limited cash flow,
and less ability to wait for 'settlement',
and if there are AML/KYC hurdles to
register with a LN provider/hub, then
that is additional friction.

Meanwhile, LN isn't here yet and may not be for
at least a year or more.

The big question is why hasn't
Mr. Antonopoulos said anything
about this?

there's only a few possibilities:

A) the core roadmap will still support cheap micropayments  (explain why)
B) the roadmap won't do so, but its ok (explain why)
C) the roadmap won't do so, and its not ok
D) say nothing and remain neutral.
 
So, Andreas seems to be choosing D and while
that might be acceptable for some people
in Bitcoin, it seems too timid for
someone who previously championed the unbanked.

I say, speak your mind!

Andreas, we've always admired you for having courage and speaking
your mind. I know you are trying to remain neutral and diplomatic,
but you can't remain silent about this point... and to do so
makes you just look like a politician towing the line.

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[Killerpotleaf]

https://twitter.com/aantonop/status/681967343107465216

what happen to you Andreas? did they chip you?

[Dorky]

Let me speak what I know.

Bitcoin is the Mark of the Beast.
Bitcoin is the Phoenix currency that The Economist magazine mentioned will emerge by 2018.
Bitcoin is by the state, for the state.
Most cryptocurrencies (Ethereum, Ripple, etc) we have today are the products of the state, that either serve to steal (deceive us to depart from our money into some pump & dump scheme) or to lay the necessary foundation/structure for a full-fledged Bitcoin future.

Why do you think Bitcoin can be so extremely successful within a short 8 years?
Why do you think there are so many people so selflessly (that's not human nature) promote Bitcoin and others?
Why do you think non-profit organizations, education institutions, investment funds are so willing to participate in the cryptocurrency researches, funding, and investments?
Why do you think equipments (miners) and exchanges (Mt. Gox) were so readily made in place to facilitate adoption, while Bitcoin at that time was still unproven?
Do you know it takes super huge amount of efforts and resources to do a global awareness program on Bitcoin all-year round?
Where do you think they get the money for such promotional work?
If Bitcoin was developed by me (just a genius crypto-scientist), do you think someone, or some group would go mad about my work and promote it like a manic for 8 years non-stop in a row?
If so, then why are we not seeing global awareness work on promoting "free energy", or at least works that reduces energy consumption while increasing productivity (like proven gas vapor technology vs fuel injection, that increases mileage by over 10x)?
Isn't "free energy" equally as important (if not more) in a time of global warming (it's a fake, but that's not the point)?

If Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were developed by us the average Joe bloated-pack, it would die out within its first year.
If Bitcoin was developed by an average Joe bloated-pack, others would not promote it for us.
Instead they would steal our open source code, modify it a bit, and then market it as their own better version of it, with an entirely different brand name.
They wouldn't care less about going all the way out in promoting your Bitcoin, as if your stuff is so damn great, even if it is.
Andreas Antonopoulos gives a very clear roadmap of Bitcoin to be what the Powers That Be desired.
If it will be a settlement layer, then so it will be.

[anonymoustroll420]

https://twitter.com/aantonop/status/681967343107465216

what happen to you Andreas? did they chip you?

Because back then segwit did not include a capacity increase. Now it does. Segwit also allows for extension blocks which can be activated with a softfork, so the limit can be increased in a safer way than doing a hard fork, when needed in the future. when Weak blocks/IBLT are developed,  increasing the limit will be much safer, as these will reduce the resources required to run a node.

The core plan for scalability is as follows:

Short term: Segwit, which makes the Bitcoin protocol extensible, allowing for better sidechains and better lightning network plus fixes malleability and allows for other extensions to the protocol in the future. It also includes a small capacity increase, this was added to buy us some time until LN leaves it's current alpha stages.

Medium term: Lightning network, which will allow txes under 0.042BTC to be transacted off-chain instantly with very very low fees. They can still be transacted on chain if wanted however. Currently microtransactions are not possible, LN fixes that. LN is also optional, you do not need to use it.

Long term:

1. IBLT/weak blocks will decrease bandwidth and RAM requirements for nodes, making increasing the limit safer. Extension blocks can be used to increase the limit.

2. Sidechains. A sidechain of MimbleWimble will allow Bitcoin to scale to visa levels. The entire blockchain of MimbleWimble never grows bigger than 1MB. Additionally MimbleWimble has the best privacy features of any cryptocurrency in existence.

Only increasing the blocksize limit is not a long-term solution to scalability. Currently a node requires at least 300GB bandwith/mo. Doubling the blocksize icnrease this by more than double. Over time, running a node will become so difficult that there will only be a few nodes, leading to centralization. SPV wallets have no privacy at all, all your transactions are known to the node. Those few nodes could be forced to censor transactions, spy on users or even be shut down. Additionally the largest blocksize the current code can support is 72MB, not nearly enough for visa scale.

[Killerpotleaf]

https://twitter.com/aantonop/status/681967343107465216

what happen to you Andreas? did they chip you?

Because back then segwit did not include a capacity increase. Now it does. Segwit also allows for extension blocks which can be activated with a softfork, so the limit can be increased in a safer way than doing a hard fork, when needed in the future. when Weak blocks/IBLT are developed,  increasing the limit will be much safer, as these will reduce the resources required to run a half dead-node.

ftfy

Hmmm that sounds interesting.

[franky1]

2. Sidechains. A sidechain of MimbleWimble will allow Bitocin to scale to visa levels. The entire blockchain of MimbleWimble never grows bigger than 1MB. Additionally MimbleWimble has the best privacy features of any cryptocurrency in existence.

sidechains= altcoin

sidechains allows "cryptocurrenty"/blockchain tech to expand to visa.. not "bitcoin".

its much like starting a bank. one bank branch says it cant cope with all its customers. so instead of expanding the bank branch with more customer counter desks  they open a new bank branch with a different name down the road.
where people can move funds back and forth between branches.

but later hope everyone never returns to the original bank branch because the new branch is more efficient.

WAKE UP to the reality of the meaning of sidechains/offchain

[andrew24p]

I have been a big fan of Andreas he's been a great spokesman for Bitcoin.
And he seemed to be most passionate about helping the world's
unbanked...empowering them...getting them sound money, etc.

So, now we have the core developers promoting a new
economic policy for Bitcoin which is essentially based
on Bitcoin being a settlement layer.  The most vocal
proponents of Core's roadmap embrace their economics
and say "well, Bitcoin can't be all things to all people.
Bitcoin was never supposed to be coffee money.
You should do things like off-chain, on the LN."

(Which btw was never an economic policy of
Gavin or Satoshi, but that's another story).

So what does this mean for the world's unbanked?

Best case scenario, in the future there will
be zero friction and fees will still be relatively cheap.
But so far, the reality today is that core's
economic policy has caused a substantial
increase in fees and slower confirmations.

In the future, if transactions are forced
off the main chain, it will quite likely
become more expensive to use Bitcoin
due to LN solutions charging fees as well
as increased fees for settlement.

The unbanked have limited cash flow,
and less ability to wait for 'settlement',
and if there are AML/KYC hurdles to
register with a LN provider/hub, then
that is additional friction.

Meanwhile, LN isn't here yet and may not be for
at least a year or more.

The big question is why hasn't
Mr. Antonopoulos said anything
about this?

there's only a few possibilities:

A) the core roadmap will still support cheap micropayments  (explain why)
B) the roadmap won't do so, but its ok (explain why)
C) the roadmap won't do so, and its not ok
D) say nothing and remain neutral.
 
So, Andreas seems to be choosing D and while
that might be acceptable for some people
in Bitcoin, it seems too timid for
someone who previously championed the unbanked.

I say, speak your mind!

Andreas, we've always admired you for having courage and speaking
your mind. I know you are trying to remain neutral and diplomatic,
but you can't remain silent about this point... and to do so
makes you just look like a politician towing the line.

Even the unbanked can use it as a settlement layer, nothing is stopping them from doing so. The morte people on lightning networks the less load in the actual protocol but segwit doubles or triples capacity, so I dont see a problem. The only reason you dont want to pass segwit is because it gives up your leverage on getting a hard fork done. Well you might as well fork because core is never going to do it.

[franky1]

Well you might as well fork because core is never going to do it.

cores the only one with the Fork threats

What you are describing is what I and others call a bilaterial hardfork-- where both sides reject the other.

I tried to convince the authors of BIP101 to make their proposal bilateral by requiring the sign bit be set in the version in their blocks (existing nodes require it to be unset). Sadly, the proposals authors were aggressively against this.

The ethereum hardfork was bilateral, probably the only thing they did right--

PoW algo threats

Bip148 mandatory activation fork threat

all the deadlines. all the REKT campaigns..

meanwhile all the other non-core implementations just plod along without making threats and leave it for users to choose openly as they please.

oh and i do laugh.
when a core dev pretends to be independent. yet then screams they refuse and are afraid to do the reviewing of other implementations..
then goes out and screams other implementations are not independently reviewed.

thats like not paying child support then screaming out that its a travesty that children are not supported by deadbeat dads

[zimmah]

So, now we have the core developers promoting a new
economic policy for Bitcoin which is essentially based
on Bitcoin being a settlement layer.  The most vocal
proponents of Core's roadmap embrace their economics
and say "well, Bitcoin can't be all things to all people.
Bitcoin was never supposed to be coffee money.
You should do things like off-chain, on the LN."

(Which btw was never an economic policy of
Gavin or Satoshi, but that's another story).

Bingo!

Core is trying to drastically change bitcoin into something else, and are trying to take control over the project.    

And yet many people accuse BU for trying to take control, even though BU just wants to keep bitcoin the way it always was.

I also think Andeas should speak up against Core but he seems to lack the balls to do so.

[wck]

I'm really struggling to understand how this LN would benefit Bitcoin.   I can see how it benefits some parties but it just doesn't seem to make sense for the small guy trying to use Bitcoin.

My gut feeling is SegWit is being pushed hard and it is more of a play to make it easier to change Bitcoin than anything else.   In generally I think the fact that Bitcoin is hard to change is what it saving it now.  It gives more time for learning and understanding.   

If SegWit is the way to go, then it needs to have a much wider acceptance than what currently exists.   It seems the BU really just buys time.   Maybe that is what is needed.   

[Dorky]

Do not worry. Whatever Bitcoin will turn into will still enrich the Bitcoin holders fabulously.
Currency? Payment/settlement layer? Commodity? No problem.