Banks have bought the Core Team

[jonald_fyookball]

What has double spend got to do with accepting "first receive?"

Miners should be accepting all legal tx and reject all illegal tx.

how would you as an outsider know what order a pool recieved a tx
how would you know in a double spend whats a legal transaction and whats an illegal transaction to add to the block.

in the end there are more ways to play the system then there are to adhere to the system you think should be adhered to so the end result is even if they did adhere to the system you would have no clue it was happening

I meant first one in miner's mempool deemed legal and the 2nd one (possible double spend) deemed illegal. I wasn't talking whether it is legal or illegal from the recipient's point of view.

That's usually what they do I think.  So whats the prob?

OK, just thinking of the top of my head.

Scumbag buys a coffee with BTC and then proceed to double spend. The first tx is then broadcasted to all nodes. At this point what exactly in detailed logical process do the nodes do according to the codes?

You are asking about double spend protection for unconfirmed transactions.

My understanding is that not all nodes deal with transactions the same way, and there is no way to force them to.  Probably most or many nodes would not allow the second transaction if it contained insufficient inputs after the first was processed, but that also depends on if the transaction was accepted, which in turn may depend on the fee used.   To be on the safe side, the node could reject the transaction if it appears it could be a double spend.  As to which versions of Bitcoin actually do this, I do not know.

If a double spend attacker wanted to get really fancy, he could broadcast a prior coffee tx to another node a few seconds before (send to himeself) , buy the coffee, walk out, and hope the coffee shop node doesnt even see it.  It is possible for the coffee shop node to query other node's mempool to mitigate against this, but I think the bottom line is that in real world, fraud would be rare for small transactions, just like you wouldn't run out of the coffee shop with your drink and not pay... or write a bad check, right? 

[1714079290]

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[1714079290]

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[1714079290]

1714079290

[digaran]

You know what this is all about? it's all about the competition in mining, imagine big pools if stop mining for 1 second they could easily fall behind and lose 12.5+ fees in bitcoin which would be something around $16000.

All this hard fork and soft fork will cause miners orphan, rejected unsuccessful blocks and that's something no one wants.

Reason why people say 95% consensus is to minimize the loss as much as possible for all miners.

Someone tell me if SW doesn't have a solution to minimize that drama?

[cryptoanarchist]

I think the banks buying Core was not only entirely expected, but its good for Bitcoin in the long run. We need multiple competing development teams and clients to make bitcoin truly decentralized. In this aspect, bitcoin can move out ahead of other coins in a really meaningful way (not just by network effect).

Yes, I think Satoshi made a fundamental error by giving the "keys to the kingdom" to only one team, Core.  He should have created 20 different copies on github, and handed them out to 20 different and competing teams.  He was of course the centralized force at the start, but that was inevitable.  Him leaving was most probably done to avoid the continuation of this centralization, but by having one Pope, (Gavin at the time), the central authority remained.  If there would have been 20 different Sultans, that would have been much more decentraized.  But, as you say, I think this is the fight that bitcoin is now fighting.  The funny thing is that it needed centralization of the miners, to have enough muscle to attack the centralization of the protocol in Core's hands.

I agreed with everything until you said centralization of miners. I've been around long enough to know that mining has never been more decentralized than it is now. How many pools were there in 2012? Like 3?

[Hydrogen]

I agreed with everything until you said centralization of miners. I've been around long enough to know that mining has never been more decentralized than it is now. How many pools were there in 2012? Like 3?

If a single entity like Bitcoin Unlimited controls 50% of miners & seeks to gain majority control to fork and kill bitcoin core.

That's not decentralization.

Its the opposite.

[jonald_fyookball]

I agreed with everything until you said centralization of miners. I've been around long enough to know that mining has never been more decentralized than it is now. How many pools were there in 2012? Like 3?

If a single entity like Bitcoin Unlimited controls 50% of miners & seeks to gain majority control to fork and kill bitcoin core.

That's not decentralization.

Its the opposite.

Bitcoin Unlimited is not an entity.  It's an implementation.   It doesn't control miners.  Miners freely choose to run it.

Anyways, how does BU 'having' more than 50% any different than Core having more than 50% (which it currently does)?

[dinofelis]

I think the banks buying Core was not only entirely expected, but its good for Bitcoin in the long run. We need multiple competing development teams and clients to make bitcoin truly decentralized. In this aspect, bitcoin can move out ahead of other coins in a really meaningful way (not just by network effect).

Yes, I think Satoshi made a fundamental error by giving the "keys to the kingdom" to only one team, Core.  He should have created 20 different copies on github, and handed them out to 20 different and competing teams.  He was of course the centralized force at the start, but that was inevitable.  Him leaving was most probably done to avoid the continuation of this centralization, but by having one Pope, (Gavin at the time), the central authority remained.  If there would have been 20 different Sultans, that would have been much more decentraized.  But, as you say, I think this is the fight that bitcoin is now fighting.  The funny thing is that it needed centralization of the miners, to have enough muscle to attack the centralization of the protocol in Core's hands.

I agreed with everything until you said centralization of miners. I've been around long enough to know that mining has never been more decentralized than it is now. How many pools were there in 2012? Like 3?

I don't know how many.  Point is, that since there were asics and pools, mining is centralized in a few deciding entities that have at their disposal the majority of hash rate.  As long as this number is more than 3, you could, strictly speaking, say that there is enough decentralization, and enough multiple points of failure, but in practice, that isn't true, because with a handful of actors, it is never possible to be sure that they don't collude over something, or are at the mercy of, say, a government that has "propositions they cannot refuse".

The question is, right now: how many independent, non-culluding deciding entities have 51% of the hash rate at their disposal ?  Officially, it are 5 pools, but one says that they are in the hands of 1 or 2 people.

Note that a centralized system like that can very well continue to function correctly for a long time.

[dinofelis]

I agreed with everything until you said centralization of miners. I've been around long enough to know that mining has never been more decentralized than it is now. How many pools were there in 2012? Like 3?

If a single entity like Bitcoin Unlimited controls 50% of miners & seeks to gain majority control to fork and kill bitcoin core.

That's not decentralization.

Its the opposite.

Bitcoin Unlimited is not an entity.  It's an implementation.   It doesn't control miners.  Miners freely choose to run it.

Anyways, how does BU 'having' more than 50% any different than Core having more than 50% (which it currently does)?

I wanted to say exactly that.  The principal problem bitcoin is facing, is that there has been, until recently, only one single "reference implementation", by a single team.  That is total centralisation in my book.  This is as if there were only one single web browser in the world: they would define what http and html is, and could change it at a whim.   

The problem with the single core team is that there was a confusion between the software and the protocol, as there was only one dominant software implementation: all changes to the software, that changed the protocol, were automatically implemented by most actors.

[franky1]

I agreed with everything until you said centralization of miners. I've been around long enough to know that mining has never been more decentralized than it is now. How many pools were there in 2012? Like 3?

If a single entity like Bitcoin Unlimited controls 50% of miners & seeks to gain majority control to fork and kill bitcoin core.

That's not decentralization.

Its the opposite.

Bitcoin Unlimited is not an entity.  It's an implementation.   It doesn't control miners.  Miners freely choose to run it.

Anyways, how does BU 'having' more than 50% any different than Core having more than 50% (which it currently does)?

to add to this point

bitcoinEC
bitcoin classic
bitcoin xt
plus other implementations(some bitcoin core with dynamics but showing core in user agent to hide from DDoS attacks)

would all happily accept blocks should pools create native blocks that are simply over 1mb

[gmaxwell]

only one single "reference implementation", by a single team.  That is total centralisation in my book.

Bitcoin is developed by dozens and dozens of people (something like over 400 total contributors to the Core project overall). It is a bit open source collaboration of many independent parties. Not a single team.

Bitcoin's creator was vigorously opposed to multiple implementations for sound technical reasons,  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195.msg1611#msg1611

Satoshi understood the dynamics, and so do most competent potential contributors-- which is why they choose to collaborate with the Bitcoin project rather than go off and create something that will almost certainly be incompatible.

To the originators of this awful troll thread:  What banks?  If you can't name them you're fking full of shit.

It's so absurd we went _YEARS_ with the whole fking bitcoin industry barely spending a cent to support development,  and then when a couple developers founded a generic blockchain services company and choose to fund just one and a half full time headcount to contribute to the Bitcoin project the shills rain down about bank take over-- never mind that our company isn't even funded by banks.

I think it's no coincidence that the leaked hacking team newsletter was warning governments that blockstream might fund privacy technology for Bitcoin and then later all these absurd attacks started when I published the confidential transactions design and implementation.

Welcome to being pawns of state actor driven social manipulation teams, all of you.

[cryptoanarchist]

only one single "reference implementation", by a single team.  That is total centralisation in my book.

Bitcoin is developed by dozens and dozens of people (something like over 400 total contributors to the Core project overall). It is a bit open source collaboration of many independent parties. Not a single team.

Yeah, out of those 400 contributors, how many can actually add a commit?

To the originators of this awful troll thread:  What banks?  If you can't name them you're fking full of shit.]To the originators of this awful troll thread:  What banks?  If you can't name them you're fking full of shit.

I guess one could argue that technically AXA group isn't a bank, but I think OP is just using 'banks' as a catchall for the elites that run everything. Certainly doesn't help that the CEO of AXA also happens to be the chairman of BILDERBERG.

Y'know Greg, your rudeness doesn't help your cause. It doesn't look good when the lead dev uses profanity like he's from a trailer park. Try toning down the F-bombs a little, ok?

[franky1]

"couple developers founded a generic blockchain services company and choose to fund just one and a half full time headcount to contribute"

lets see who is in the blockstream team and also have bitcoin github commits.
1. Gmax
2. PWuille
3. LDash
4. Matt corallo
5. JTimon
6. MFriedenbach
theres more i just cant be assed to go full hog to disprove gmax


but only 1 and a half people get $70m... DANNNGG
is that $45m for Gmax and $25m for im guessing PWuille

no wonder why (in gmax's own non verbatim words) matt corrallo walked away from blockstream to work for chaincode..
...but still has a blockstream namebadge

P.S how can you have half a fulltimer??

[dinofelis]

only one single "reference implementation", by a single team.  That is total centralisation in my book.

Bitcoin is developed by dozens and dozens of people (something like over 400 total contributors to the Core project overall). It is a bit open source collaboration of many independent parties. Not a single team.

They are obviously not independent, and competing, right ?  You can say that there are dozens of colluding entities, not antagonist competing entities, what decentralization is about.  OPEC can also say that they have dozens and dozens of different oil wells.  Does that mean they are not a cartel and are a competing open market ?

Bitcoin's creator was vigorously opposed to multiple implementations for sound technical reasons,  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195.msg1611#msg1611

Satoshi understood the dynamics, and so do most competent potential contributors-- which is why they choose to collaborate with the Bitcoin project rather than go off and create something that will almost certainly be incompatible.

This is also why I said that he made a fundamental mistake, and, no, Satoshi didn't understand, or if he did, he took an opposite public position, to what decentralization and immutability resulting from antagonist consensus, was about.  He didn't realize, or fooled other people in thinking he didn't realize, that "consensus" in matters of money is of a totally different nature than consensus in any other collaborative open source community system.

The reason is that contrary to any community system, a monetary system is about antagonism of all entities, not about collaboration.  A monetary system is about wanting to cheat the system and not being able to, wanting to scam the counter party and not being able to.  Indeed, in a monetary system, we all want to have a lot of money, and all want others to want a lot of money, and a monetary system is such that we are *forced* to diminish our own holdings if we want to pay someone, even though we don't really want to.  It is the fundamental desire to be able to create money at will, but not to want others to create money at will.   Money is fundamentally an antagonist game.

That is totally different with, say, the development of an e-mail system, or web page browsing software, where there's no antagonism at the basis.  Me wanting to send e-mail to you, has no necessity of antagonism, and we can perfectly collaborate over that.

But in monetary affairs, if I pay you, I have lost my holdings, and you have them now, and if I had my say, I would like to be able to spend them again, and if you had your say, you would like to have obtained my holdings without having to deliver goods and/or services for it, but both of us are FORCED to act this way, because the monetary system is such that we cannot get it our way.

As such, a monetary system has to be fundamentally immutable for its subscribers, because anyone that can modify its functioning, or its history (both are intimately related) can (and most probably will) bend the rules in his material advantage.  

As to why both the rules (the protocol) as the data (history) have to be immutable is obvious: the data only give rights and limits through the rules, and these enforced rights and limits is what the monetary system is all about.  

And now, Satoshi invented, but publicly seemed not to realize, the immutability mechanism of decentralization: sufficient non-colluding antagonists that are not able to agree over anything else, than the existing consensus (including the rules).  In other words, all players/antagonists in the system would like to bend the rules and history into THEIR advantage, and NOT to the advantage of their adversaries (the other members of the system), so as to get a maximum of material advantage out of it.  But as such, if they are sufficiently diverse and disagreeing, they cannot settle over any change, and as such, immutability results, as it is the only thing they, de facto, agree over, because they did so when joining.

A single team providing the software, however, is of course way too powerful, and  much too colluding amongst their community members, for this mechanism to work, but there is now, finally, some counter action from other members/antagonists in the eco system, to turn bitcoin in a truly immutable system (protocol included of course).

Satoshi's public stance on "modifying the protocol later" make me think that 1) he didn't get a clue about immutability dynamics or 2) he did, and was being extremely deceptive about it.

There's a fundamental difference between the immutability of the protocol and history on one hand, and the software implementations of that protocol on the other hand.

[jonald_fyookball]

only one single "reference implementation", by a single team.  That is total centralisation in my book.

Bitcoin is developed by dozens and dozens of people (something like over 400 total contributors to the Core project overall). It is a bit open source collaboration of many independent parties. Not a single team.

Bitcoin's creator was vigorously opposed to multiple implementations for sound technical reasons,  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195.msg1611#msg1611

Satoshi understood the dynamics, and so do most competent potential contributors-- which is why they choose to collaborate with the Bitcoin project rather than go off and create something that will almost certainly be incompatible.

To the originators of this awful troll thread:  What banks?  If you can't name them you're fking full of shit.

It's so absurd we went _YEARS_ with the whole fking bitcoin industry barely spending a cent to support development,  and then when a couple developers founded a generic blockchain services company and choose to fund just one and a half full time headcount to contribute to the Bitcoin project the shills rain down about bank take over-- never mind that our company isn't even funded by banks.

I think it's no coincidence that the leaked hacking team newsletter was warning governments that blockstream might fund privacy technology for Bitcoin and then later all these absurd attacks started when I published the confidential transactions design and implementation.

Welcome to being pawns of state actor driven social manipulation teams, all of you.

Greg, can we discuss this?  The last time I tried to engage in a dialogue with you, all I got was accusations of harassment and some ominous warnings.

Let me ask some polite questions here:

1. Why do you only talk about centralization threats via node cost increases and never (at least that I've seen) discuss the possible centralization that comes from forcing users off the main chain via high fees.  This moving of users from 'Layer 1' to 'Layer 2' is the obvious outcome of transforming the peer to peer electronic cash system envisioned by Satoshi into a 'Bitcoin-as-a-Settlement-Network'. 

Will you even confirm or deny that you want Bitcoin to be a settlement network?  You should at least be able to answer this simple question.

2. Why do you still refuse to give the community the blocksize increase we've been asking for, for years?  Please, no political answers of "but Segwit IS an increase".  The miners are rejecting this.  50%+ of hashpower today is signaling for big blocks.   Why can't you accept the 2mb+segwit proposal?  Are we still stuck on the "HF are bad" narrative?

You accuse everyone of being manipulated pawns when we don't embrace the core roadmap, but what is so bad about 2mb or a well coordinated HF?  Can you admit that a large section of community (including prominent developers) feels the arguments against these things are unconvincing?

3. You called for a 'fee market', you got it.  Are you happy with the high fees and network congestion?   Are you aware of the significant decline in Bitcoin marketcap dominance, or that companies like Dell and Fiverr no longer accept Bitcoin?  In other words, do you still think your economic policies are good?   These are serious questions.
 
Can you understand why some people have rational, logical reasons to believe that you actually WANT to either cripple Bitcoin or radically change it?

I would love to believe you are not a bad actor and that your "generic blockchain services company" is benign. 
 
You say Core is not controlled by banks... you say your motives are pure...

...but are you willing to actually compromise instead of dictating your roadmap?

We will see.  Actions speak louder than words.

[dinofelis]

I think it's no coincidence that the leaked hacking team newsletter was warning governments that blockstream might fund privacy technology for Bitcoin and then later all these absurd attacks started when I published the confidential transactions design and implementation.

This is a pretty ridiculous accusation, isn't it ?  Monero is already a private crypto currency, and ZCASH an optional private crypto currency.  So the tech is out, up and running since 3 years now.  Hell, even DASH has some privacy elements to it (somewhat doubtful, I agree). 

BTW, I consider the open ledger of bitcoin one of its biggest failures and dangers, but bitcoin is bitcoin now, and will, if it becomes sufficiently decentralized, never change fundamentally.

[dinofelis]

only one single "reference implementation", by a single team.  That is total centralisation in my book.

Bitcoin is developed by dozens and dozens of people (something like over 400 total contributors to the Core project overall). It is a bit open source collaboration of many independent parties. Not a single team.

Bitcoin's creator was vigorously opposed to multiple implementations for sound technical reasons,  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195.msg1611#msg1611

Satoshi understood the dynamics, and so do most competent potential contributors-- which is why they choose to collaborate with the Bitcoin project rather than go off and create something that will almost certainly be incompatible.

To the originators of this awful troll thread:  What banks?  If you can't name them you're fking full of shit.

It's so absurd we went _YEARS_ with the whole fking bitcoin industry barely spending a cent to support development,  and then when a couple developers founded a generic blockchain services company and choose to fund just one and a half full time headcount to contribute to the Bitcoin project the shills rain down about bank take over-- never mind that our company isn't even funded by banks.

I think it's no coincidence that the leaked hacking team newsletter was warning governments that blockstream might fund privacy technology for Bitcoin and then later all these absurd attacks started when I published the confidential transactions design and implementation.

Welcome to being pawns of state actor driven social manipulation teams, all of you.

Greg, can we discuss this?  The last time I tried to engage in a dialogue with you, all I got was accusations of harassment and some ominous warnings.

Let me ask some polite questions here:

1. Why do you only talk about centralization threats via node cost increases and never (at least that I've seen) discuss the possible centralization that comes from forcing users off the main chain via high fees.  This moving of users from 'Layer 1' to 'Layer 2' is the obvious outcome of transforming the peer to peer electronic cash system envisioned by Satoshi into a 'Bitcoin-as-a-Settlement-Network'. 

Will you even confirm or deny that you want Bitcoin to be a settlement network?  You should at least be able to answer this simple question.

2. Why do you still refuse to give the community the blocksize increase we've been asking for, for years?  Please, no political answers of "but Segwit IS an increase".  The miners are rejecting this.  50%+ of hashpower today is signaling for big blocks.   Why can't you accept the 2mb+segwit proposal?  Are we still stuck on the "HF are bad" narrative?

You accuse everyone of being manipulated pawns when we don't embrace the core roadmap, but what is so bad about 2mb or a well coordinated HF?  Can you admit that a large section of community (including prominent developers) feels the arguments against these things are unconvincing?

3. You called for a 'fee market', you got it.  Are you happy with the high fees and network congestion?   Are you aware of the significant decline in Bitcoin marketcap dominance, or that companies like Dell and Fiverr no longer accept Bitcoin?  In other words, do you still think your economic policies are good?   These are serious questions.
 
Can you understand why some people have rational, logical reasons to believe that you actually WANT to either cripple Bitcoin or radically change it?

I would love to believe you are not a bad actor and that your "generic blockchain services company" is benign. 
 
You say Core is not controlled by banks... you say your motives are pure...

...but are you willing to actually compromise instead of dictating your roadmap?

We will see.  Actions speak louder than words.

I will of course not answer in Greg's place  but the very fact that you go with your wish list to Santa Claus, isn't that the very proof that bitcoin's protocol is centralized with core ?  Core is free to impose whatever it wants ; the fact that the bitcoin "community" seems to accept that (until recently) is the centralization.  If anything, instead of sending your wish list to the central authority, one could make just an alternative, no ?  Ah yes, that one exists: classic, BU, XT ... but it doesn't work out either. 

So there are only two possible conclusions at this point:

1) Core is still the central authority of bitcoin, and all change to bitcoin has to be asked Core, and approved by Core

OR:

2) Bitcoin finally got decentralized and hence immutable, and nobody, including core, will change anything fundamental to bitcoin.  So no bigger blocks, no Segwit, no any other features.

(I am thinking that 2), finally, got in place)

[franky1]

Bitcoin is developed by dozens and dozens of people (something like over 400 total contributors to the Core project overall). It is a bit open source collaboration of many independent parties. Not a single team.

debunked by gmax thinking anything not core is not bitcoin.

so all of the dozens of implementations that are actually running and have been running on bitcoins mainnet with active code and wallets in gmax's eye are not bitcoin.. thats a centralist mindset in my eye.

P.S it was Gmax and icebreaker that started the drama with the REKT campaigns.

how can gmax say its al independent and then REKT anyone that actually goes independent.
and dont get me started on the many closed door 100 only special invites to roundtable meetings

gmax is just angry that even with all the effort of using the anyonecanspend backdoor to avoid a node community vote and using the two merkle header backdoor that he now realises is not as backward compatible with asics.. so now needing to threaten to kill off pools too and push through the half baked code...

gmax refuses to listen to the community for a proper version release that has all communities needs met and can unite around. and instead wants to complain about why his half baked code is meeting such resistance.

yep he bypassed node consensus. and willing to keep the drama alive until 2019 by employing samson mow to keep the half baked version pressure cooking until late 2018, without checking or caring if its missing any ingredients that would actually be happily accepted when served

[The One]

only one single "reference implementation", by a single team.  That is total centralisation in my book.

Bitcoin is developed by dozens and dozens of people (something like over 400 total contributors to the Core project overall). It is a bit open source collaboration of many independent parties. Not a single team.

Bitcoin's creator was vigorously opposed to multiple implementations for sound technical reasons,  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195.msg1611#msg1611

Satoshi understood the dynamics, and so do most competent potential contributors-- which is why they choose to collaborate with the Bitcoin project rather than go off and create something that will almost certainly be incompatible.

To the originators of this awful troll thread:  What banks?  If you can't name them you're fking full of shit.

It's so absurd we went _YEARS_ with the whole fking bitcoin industry barely spending a cent to support development,  and then when a couple developers founded a generic blockchain services company and choose to fund just one and a half full time headcount to contribute to the Bitcoin project the shills rain down about bank take over-- never mind that our company isn't even funded by banks.

I think it's no coincidence that the leaked hacking team newsletter was warning governments that blockstream might fund privacy technology for Bitcoin and then later all these absurd attacks started when I published the confidential transactions design and implementation.

Welcome to being pawns of state actor driven social manipulation teams, all of you.

Wrong quantifier.

[The One]

"couple developers founded a generic blockchain services company and choose to fund just one and a half full time headcount to contribute"

lets see who is in the blockstream team and also have bitcoin github commits.
1. Gmax
2. PWuille
3. LDash
4. Matt corallo
5. JTimon
6. MFriedenbach
theres more i just cant be assed to go full hog to disprove gmax


but only 1 and a half people get $70m... DANNNGG
is that $45m for Gmax and $25m for im guessing PWuille

no wonder why (in gmax's own non verbatim words) matt corrallo walked away from blockstream to work for chaincode..
...but still has a blockstream namebadge

P.S how can you have half a fulltimer??

In UK it's part-timer.

[The One]

only one single "reference implementation", by a single team.  That is total centralisation in my book.

Bitcoin is developed by dozens and dozens of people (something like over 400 total contributors to the Core project overall). It is a bit open source collaboration of many independent parties. Not a single team.

Bitcoin's creator was vigorously opposed to multiple implementations for sound technical reasons,  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195.msg1611#msg1611

Satoshi understood the dynamics, and so do most competent potential contributors-- which is why they choose to collaborate with the Bitcoin project rather than go off and create something that will almost certainly be incompatible.

To the originators of this awful troll thread:  What banks?  If you can't name them you're fking full of shit.

It's so absurd we went _YEARS_ with the whole fking bitcoin industry barely spending a cent to support development,  and then when a couple developers founded a generic blockchain services company and choose to fund just one and a half full time headcount to contribute to the Bitcoin project the shills rain down about bank take over-- never mind that our company isn't even funded by banks.

I think it's no coincidence that the leaked hacking team newsletter was warning governments that blockstream might fund privacy technology for Bitcoin and then later all these absurd attacks started when I published the confidential transactions design and implementation.

Welcome to being pawns of state actor driven social manipulation teams, all of you.

Greg, can we discuss this?  The last time I tried to engage in a dialogue with you, all I got was accusations of harassment and some ominous warnings.

Let me ask some polite questions here:

1. Why do you only talk about centralization threats via node cost increases and never (at least that I've seen) discuss the possible centralization that comes from forcing users off the main chain via high fees.  This moving of users from 'Layer 1' to 'Layer 2' is the obvious outcome of transforming the peer to peer electronic cash system envisioned by Satoshi into a 'Bitcoin-as-a-Settlement-Network'. 

Will you even confirm or deny that you want Bitcoin to be a settlement network?  You should at least be able to answer this simple question.

2. Why do you still refuse to give the community the blocksize increase we've been asking for, for years?  Please, no political answers of "but Segwit IS an increase".  The miners are rejecting this.  50%+ of hashpower today is signaling for big blocks.   Why can't you accept the 2mb+segwit proposal?  Are we still stuck on the "HF are bad" narrative?

You accuse everyone of being manipulated pawns when we don't embrace the core roadmap, but what is so bad about 2mb or a well coordinated HF?  Can you admit that a large section of community (including prominent developers) feels the arguments against these things are unconvincing?

3. You called for a 'fee market', you got it.  Are you happy with the high fees and network congestion?   Are you aware of the significant decline in Bitcoin marketcap dominance, or that companies like Dell and Fiverr no longer accept Bitcoin?  In other words, do you still think your economic policies are good?   These are serious questions.
 
Can you understand why some people have rational, logical reasons to believe that you actually WANT to either cripple Bitcoin or radically change it?

I would love to believe you are not a bad actor and that your "generic blockchain services company" is benign. 
 
You say Core is not controlled by banks... you say your motives are pure...

...but are you willing to actually compromise instead of dictating your roadmap?

We will see.  Actions speak louder than words.

Most important of all, the simplest solution one at a time is better and easier to implement. I.E 2MB block. Analyse block creation and propagation using time. Check for stability. 6 months later 3 or 4 MB block. Analyse block creation and propagation using time. Check for stability.

The roadmap isn't working, self-evidence by the division of two main developers, Core and BU, and miners in 2 main camps.

Fee market is rubbish and needs to be scrap.

[The One]

I think it's no coincidence that the leaked hacking team newsletter was warning governments that blockstream might fund privacy technology for Bitcoin and then later all these absurd attacks started when I published the confidential transactions design and implementation.

This is a pretty ridiculous accusation, isn't it ?  Monero is already a private crypto currency, and ZCASH an optional private crypto currency.  So the tech is out, up and running since 3 years now.  Hell, even DASH has some privacy elements to it (somewhat doubtful, I agree). 

BTW, I consider the open ledger of bitcoin one of its biggest failures and dangers, but bitcoin is bitcoin now, and will, if it becomes sufficiently decentralized, never change fundamentally.

Privacy from whom?