Electrum Developer Thomas Voegtlin: Bitcoin Unlimited Is Not a Good Idea

[OmegaStarScream]

“I don’t think [Bitcoin Unlimited] is a good idea,” Voegtlin said during the interview. “It’s really a big change; it’s a change in the structure of power in Bitcoin. It’s a very risky hard fork.” He went on to suggest that since the recent AsicBoost scandal, “a lot of people have changed their mind on this” and no longer support Bitcoin Unlimited.

The interview can be found here: https://epicenter.tv/episode/179/
The article: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/electrum-developer-thomas-voegtlin-bitcoin-unlimited-not-good-idea/

[amacar2]

Bitcoin unlimited = Hardfork
Hardfork is quite risky if there is so much debate between community like we have right now.

Community is divided between two distinct solution BU and Segwit, so hard fork may quickly lead to loads of attack on both chains which doesn't give good impression among bitcoin holders who don't know much about technological side of bitcoin and about all this forks.

It is not a good time to split the bitcoin network, so BU is not a good solution.

[franky1]

change in the structure of power?
i guess he doesnt understand diverse decentralised peer network
lol

sorry but many independent implementations are ok with it. and if core pulled their thumb out of their behinds they too can run on the same level playing field with many other implementations

its what bitcoin is , a  diverse decentralised peer network.

however segwit is the creation of a TIER network (upstream filter nodes).
here if you cant read the guide maybe a picture from the guide will help

If you still don’t wish to upgrade, it is possible to use a newer Bitcoin Core release as a filter for older Bitcoin Core releases.
In this configuration, you set your current Bitcoin Core node (which we’ll call the “older node”) to connect exclusively to a node running Bitcoin Core 0.13.1 or later (which we’ll call the “newer node”). The newer node is connected to the Bitcoin P2P network as usual.

secondly hardfork does not automatically = altcoin creation..
hardfork is an umbrella term just like soft fork.. where many possibilities belw each can occur.
just mentioning softs best case scenario and hards worse case scenario is not being informative, its creating a false narative.


thirdly even 'going soft' not only could create altcoins. but if you run scenarios using soft segwit. it does not fulfil ANY promises. and the expectations are not much better, even if it reached 100% utility

take the capacity "promise"..
to get 2.1mb blocks requires everyone not only running segwit but also moving their funds to segwit keys. emphasis on the second part. and guess what that 2.1mb is.. yep 7tx/s..
we wont get 100% moving over to segwit keys so just like the expectation of 7tx/s in 2009-2017.. we still will not get 7tx/s if segwit activates.

nor will quadratics be 'fixed' due to spammers who love to quadratic spam will still quadratic spam after segwit is activated simply by not moving funds to segwit keys.

same goes for malleability. oh and malleability 'fix' which meant to fix the trust of unconfirmed tx's not getting messed around with. yet the "promise to fix" the unconfirmed tx messing with, became a broken promise because now we have RBF, CPFP, and CSV which all means you still cant trust unconfirms. along with ofcourse those that wont move to segwit keys because they prefer to contin malleating tx's

in short
its all empty temporary gestures wasting time upto 2019 for things the community will not really get massive utility of.


lastly
if segwit not showing positive chance by august. and thus becomes UASF (real un buzzword translated to hardfork) we should use that oppertunity to do a proper 1 merkle segwit + dynamic blocks plus other features peer network consensus. not wast august 2017-late 2018 pushing the half baked soft and empty gesture that is the current 2 merkle segwit

[davis196]

“I don’t think [Bitcoin Unlimited] is a good idea,” Voegtlin said during the interview. “It’s really a big change; it’s a change in the structure of power in Bitcoin. It’s a very risky hard fork.” He went on to suggest that since the recent AsicBoost scandal, “a lot of people have changed their mind on this” and no longer support Bitcoin Unlimited.

The interview can be found here: https://epicenter.tv/episode/179/
The article: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/electrum-developer-thomas-voegtlin-bitcoin-unlimited-not-good-idea/

Why is he so afraid of a hard fork?
I don`t think that a hard fork is such a disaster.It`s just like democracy.People vote with their money for the better option and move on.

[tunctioncloud]

The question should not be asked. If an hardfork proposition, once known from everyone does not catch many positive feelings toward it in a short timespan, it is a bad idea and should be avoided, whatever is its content.

[AngryDwarf]

Hard forks allow for cleaner code fixes than soft fork kludges.

The ironic thing is, the UASF force currently have to use their own implementation of a bitcoin node:

https://github.com/UASF/bitcoin

[BillyBobZorton]

Bitcoin Unlimited is a dead meme, it has failed. Only paid shills keep shilling it. Buggy Unlimited's Emergent Consensus is technical nonsense. We'll get segwit in Bitcoin one way or another, meanwhile Litecoin is about to go to mars as it eats Bitcoin's lunch demonstrating the efficiency and functionality of segwit and full working lightning networks. ATH is incoming, but a couple miners with interests (ASICBOOST) will not make it happen in BTC.

[franky1]

Bitcoin Unlimited is a dead meme, it has failed. Only paid shills keep shilling it. Buggy Unlimited's Emergent Consensus is technical nonsense. We'll get segwit in Bitcoin one way or another, meanwhile Litecoin is about to go to mars as it eats Bitcoin's lunch demonstrating the efficiency and functionality of segwit and full working lightning networks. ATH is incoming, but a couple miners with interests (ASICBOOST) will not make it happen in BTC.

lol the only bug of BU was the one that was part of core 0.12 and only fixed in core 0.13.
yet BU fixed it before core devs publicly shouted out exactly how to attack nodes that didnt upgrade

but anyway dynamics and a 1merkle segwit (which MANY independent implementations) can run with is something that core really should have as their august 2017 backup plan

then atleast the community can be united.

[Nagadota]

secondly hardfork does not automatically = altcoin creation..
hardfork is an umbrella term just like soft fork.. where many possibilities belw each can occur.
just mentioning softs best case scenario and hards worse case scenario is not being informative, its creating a false narative.

In this practical application of a hard fork it would.

I wouldn't really call it an "altcoin" but it's basically a different coin, in the same way that ETC and ETH are separate coins.  It was my understanding that in a hard fork without a very, very high consensus (which Bitcoin won't achieve, it's most likely that BU will have less than 80% miner support and possibly only slightly over 50%), a split would occur and that would cause uncertainty.

If you can explain to me in reasonable terms why that wouldn't be the case, I'm definitely listening.  But from anything that I know so far I don't see it happening, especially when hard forks aren't backwards compatible.

[AngryDwarf]

Since old nodes are clueless about segwit and are filtered manipulated data, it is about as backward compatible as a Peel P50.

[dinofelis]

Bitcoin unlimited = Hardfork
Hardfork is quite risky if there is so much debate between community like we have right now.

The point is however, that *undoing* a hard fork, is a soft fork, and undoing a soft fork, is a hard fork.

So while it may *seem* that a soft fork is "softer", in fact, going back is harder. 

Community is divided between two distinct solution BU and Segwit

Not really.  The community is divided between:

1) bitcoin as it is (immutability)

2) modifications, such as:
a) BU, XT, .... who undo the limit of 1 MB that Satoshi introduced as an anti-spam measure
b) segwit

[OmegaStarScream]

The point is however, that *undoing* a hard fork, is a soft fork, and undoing a soft fork, is a hard fork.

So while it may *seem* that a soft fork is "softer", in fact, going back is harder. 

Community is divided between two distinct solution BU and Segwit

Not really.  The community is divided between:

1) bitcoin as it is (immutability)

2) modifications, such as:
a) BU, XT, .... who undo the limit of 1 MB that Satoshi introduced as an anti-spam measure
b) segwit

A fork (Soft/hard) should happen no matter how long It takes, I never meet anyone who agrees that bitcoin should stay as it is right now. If bitcoin stays as it is then there will be a problem in the future and It's only going to make people stay away from it.

[franky1]

I wouldn't really call it an "altcoin" but it's basically a different coin, in the same way that ETC and ETH are separate coins.  It was my understanding that in a hard fork without a very, very high consensus (which Bitcoin won't achieve, it's most likely that BU will have less than 80% miner support and possibly only slightly over 50%), a split would occur and that would cause uncertainty.

If you can explain to me in reasonable terms why that wouldn't be the case, I'm definitely listening.  But from anything that I know so far I don't see it happening, especially when hard forks aren't backwards compatible.

ok 2013
there was an issue with blocks getting over 500kb
are there now 2 bitcoins?? nope

[Xester]

“I don’t think [Bitcoin Unlimited] is a good idea,” Voegtlin said during the interview. “It’s really a big change; it’s a change in the structure of power in Bitcoin. It’s a very risky hard fork.” He went on to suggest that since the recent AsicBoost scandal, “a lot of people have changed their mind on this” and no longer support Bitcoin Unlimited.

The interview can be found here: https://epicenter.tv/episode/179/
The article: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/electrum-developer-thomas-voegtlin-bitcoin-unlimited-not-good-idea/

I would like to agree with what the Electrum Developer Thomas Voegtlin said that bitcoin unlimited is not a good idea since if we really look at the hardfork it has many bugs and it not feasible for bitcoin at this moment. But later in time if bitcoin is ready for a hardfork then maybe that will be the time that bitcoin unlimited will come into the picture.

[dinofelis]

A fork (Soft/hard) should happen no matter how long It takes, I never meet anyone who agrees that bitcoin should stay as it is right now. If bitcoin stays as it is then there will be a problem in the future and It's only going to make people stay away from it.

My idea is that a crypto currency's protocol should remain as it was the day that it got started - I'm even convinced that a sufficiently decentralized crypto currency CANNOT change its protocol.  If it can change, it means that there is a form of leadership, and hence, is not a decentralized system.  If it can change, it is not permissionless, as we have seen with ethereum, and there is a "board of central bank governors" that proposes and decides, can censor, can print extra money, can modify the rules to suit them.

You are right of course that a given protocol, if it turns out to contain problematic features, will make people go away from it, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  Crypto currencies come and go, and each of them has a certain life time during which it has some importance in the market.  Bitcoin has the huge first mover advantage, which will take a long time before it erodes sufficiently away, but I wonder whether it will change. If it does, it means it is centralized.

[Lauda]

Hard forks allow for cleaner code fixes than soft fork kludges.

This is a common misconpcetion and lie spread by BTU fanatics. SWSF vs. SWHF is a very trivial different and SWHF does not fix any kind of "soft fork kludges" (as they don't exist in this context).

The ironic thing is, the UASF force currently have to use their own implementation of a bitcoin node:

https://github.com/UASF/bitcoin

The only ironic thing here is that the UASF implementation is already much more advanced than BU is. BU is based on outdated Bitcoin Core code (0.12.x).

A fork (Soft/hard) should happen no matter how long It takes, I never meet anyone who agrees that bitcoin should stay as it is right now. If bitcoin stays as it is then there will be a problem in the future and It's only going to make people stay away from it.

Of course you're going to meet those. There are some genuine people that have actual reasons for their stance, then there are those that are paid by various agencies to shill this belief (see my next remark).

My idea is that a crypto currency's protocol should remain as it was the day that it got started - I'm even convinced that a sufficiently decentralized crypto currency CANNOT change its protocol.  If it can change, it means that there is a form of leadership, and hence, is not a decentralized system.  If it can change, it is not permissionless, as we have seen with ethereum, and there is a "board of central bank governors" that proposes and decides, can censor, can print extra money, can modify the rules to suit them.

In other words, your idea is complete bullshit and has nothing to do with how actual cryptocurrencies work in practice (maybe you need to read a whitepaper or two). Then again, you're being paid for this kind of nonsense so it doesn't come as a surprise.

[Mr]

Everyone knows that. Even those Chinese lunatics know that BU will only destroy the whole system. But sadly, they still ignore it and try to activate it as soon as they can. They always want to control Bitcoin

[staff_1307]

Basically, Bitcoin Unlimited is of the opinion that the size of the blocks should not be related to the consensus of the Bitcoin network. The money supply, transaction history and protection against double costs and fakes are what are important properties of stable money. The size of the same block is not that, according to Unlimited.

[franky1]

Hard forks allow for cleaner code fixes than soft fork kludges.

This is a common misconpcetion and lie spread by BTU fanatics. SWSF vs. SWHF is a very trivial different and SWHF does not fix any kind of "soft fork kludges" (as they don't exist in this context).

try reading code and documentation

in a segwit HF there wont be any "upstream filter" tier network.
the blocks will just be blocks that everyone recieves.
EG just a upto 4mb block.
not
a 1mb block inside a upto 4mb block that gets stripped to 1mb.

everyone will get the upto 4mb block.
segwit done as a hardfork where everyone is part of the same level playing field peer network.. non of this soft fork tier network crap

[Lauda]

in a segwit HF there wont be any "upstream filter" tier network.
the blocks will just be blocks that everyone recieves.
EG just a upto 4mb block.
not
a 1mb block inside a upto 4mb block that gets stripped to 1mb.

everyone will get the upto 4mb block.
segwit done as a hardfork where everyone is part of the same level playing field peer network.. non of this soft fork tier network crap

This is an outright lie and is far away from reality. Segwit without the base-to-weight ration is not the same proposal that we have today. Such a hard fork can't be called Segwit. The differences between SWSF and SWHF are as follows:
1) Activation (standard hard vs. soft fork).
2) Backwards compatibility (in the case of SWHF, people that do not update are cut off from the network).
In other words, SWHF does not imply a 4 MB block size limit (as opposed to the SWSF 1 MB base && 4 MB weight). It retains the same 1-to-4 ratio that the soft fork variant has.