I have a doubt about Bitcoin

[Cookdata]

Since the day the bitcoin network went live, every update to the network has originated from Bitcoin improvement proposals (BIPs). These suggestions are made by the members of the bitcoin community, and before they can be implemented, they must be reviewed. If the community approves, a testnet will be run, and if it is successful, a date will be set for the update on the main network. You can see the series of physical algorithms before a single line of code is been changed in the bitcoin protocol. These changes must be made in order for bitcoin to operate more effectively and with more throughput without sacrificing its security or privacy.

Don't worry about supply and the rest, bitcoin is for everyone, not even satoshi will wake up one day and will want to change its supply, it is now people's(the community in this case) digital currency that most developers have to agree on and they can't just choose to destroy what they have built for years with some unnecessary changes.

[GeorgeJohn]

Bitcoin is a digital currency which is decentralized, and any one who is emphasizing on the changes of cryptocurrency just trying to make it's on emphasis. Because the only measure that can make Bitcoin to change is when it's not been valuable in the world or in the cryptosphere. It's not today that some people have been doubting about cryptocurrency of been diminished on earth but till date it's still in existence.

[MarjorieZimmermanGinger]

There seem to be too much development taking place on bitcoin. Changes always being proposed. How are we ever going to be able to trust that bitcoin will never change if people are always trying to propose changes to it and get it implemented.

I don't think you understand the point of development either, if the reasons you put forward are because changes can cause nightmares for bitcoin or its users.
Concept development is carried out if it is needed, based on several aspects of the review.

Ideas and ideas are also not immediately accepted so quickly, for the proposed development to the next stage, there is an approval mechanism for the development, through a review aspect that involves many people and understands according to expertise in their respective fields.

#1: that kind of ruins the idea that bitcoin is going to be the same today as it was yesterday and tomorrow. today they might be proposing a change to some fee mechanism. tomorrow it might be changing the max supply.

Bitcoin will never be the same today as tomorrow, that's the style. Since no one can control bitcoin completely, I think this is good for bitcoin's survival, Ideally bitcoin is developed if the previous influence is no longer appropriate, refer to some aspects of the review

[larry_vw_1955]

I don't think you understand the point of development either, if the reasons you put forward are because changes can cause nightmares for bitcoin or its users.
Concept development is carried out if it is needed, based on several aspects of the review.

Bitcoin is supposed to be a way to send electronic cash. It shouldn't need too many lines of code to do that. That's why i had asked if you could program something like that with say 1000 lines of code and be done with it forever. KISS principle at work. The more complicated you make something, the harder it is to understand and manage. I think for most people, sending money from point A to point B is all they need in Bitcoin. That's what it was meant for anyway. But if you try and add on alot of extra things, I don't see the point. Might as well make a new cryptocurrency from the ground up to do that.

[franky1]

There's also a perfectly justified reason why this code works the way it does, which was to avoid a hardfork.  It was actually considered a rather elegant solution by most in the community.  

funny part is there was contention and a hardfork. yep bitcoin cash split from bitcoin due to the event..

it really is funny how Doomad cannot even use data to prove there was no hard fork. and yet there are soo many topics, blockdata, graphs showing the thresholds of the flags that caused the activations. the websites and users talking about the NYA signees, and even code that showed how blocks not flagging for segwit got rejected from core and become their own fork by users that did not run cores upgraded software. which become the fork known as bitcoin cash
(doomad has been linked all this stuff numerous times. and for a while admits to it and settles down admitting he got debunked, for a few months... before getting sudden amnesia and forgetting all the proof/data and the series of events again)

im not endorsing bitcoin cash. im just highlighting the actual events and data that show that the event was contentious hard fork event, that did cause a split
the very fact that bitcoin cash exists. that the altcoin is actually in reality a thing that people can find. is proof enough even if you cant read code. but if you want to read code or blockchain data. that too exists (though doomad will deny it in his ignorant ways as always)

heck even gmax chimed in on the event about how core forgot to set certain things in their upgraded software to ensure the segwit activation( the contentious mandatory split) should actually be coded properly to ensure that after the split there would be no funny business of the non segwit flaggers trying to connect to the network.
he mentioned due to the lack of segwit ready nodes, the decision was made to not stop older node software from connecting. .. as his excuse for why old nodes(not flagging segwit) were using up connection slots of segwit nodes..

he mentions how those not voting for a forced upgrade by not adapting their node. should be the ones that adapt their node to jump off the network.(facepalm at the illogic of that) so that they would not use up segwit nodes connection slots by trying to connect to them

yet reality is anyone wanting to upgrade the network by forced mandate via an upgraded/adapted node software should be the ones that ensure their adapted upgrade software while coding the upgrade, is adapted enough to not cause trouble for those that have not adapted their node

EG if your going to do an upgrade that causes a split . then ensure the upgrade is done in a way that doesnt cause a contention, rather than trying to get people with older nodes to change their node even though their node is already compiled into binary thus not really able to be edited after the fact
because an upgrade requires new software. its upto the new software to do the security and utility changes to avoid contention.

[DooMAD]

Bitcoin is supposed to be a way to send electronic cash. It shouldn't need too many lines of code to do that. That's why i had asked if you could program something like that with say 1000 lines of code and be done with it forever. KISS principle at work. The more complicated you make something, the harder it is to understand and manage. I think for most people, sending money from point A to point B is all they need in Bitcoin. That's what it was meant for anyway. But if you try and add on alot of extra things, I don't see the point. Might as well make a new cryptocurrency from the ground up to do that.

Bitcoin effectively lives or dies based on its network effects.  The more people who use it, the more utility it has.  We can't just cater to the whims of people who want something simple.  It needs to have universal appeal.  What you want may not be what others want.

Also, it's not worth replying to franky1 directly, because they're an unhinged lunatic attempting to rewrite history (and I suspect they just enjoy the attention, even when it's negative).  If you look it up, you'll see that BCH was a planned fork.  They announced in advance that they would launch their network on a set date and then did it.  This was unavoidable because the two camps had incompatible ideas about how to move forwards.  A split was the only way to break the impasse, as neither side would back down.  To this day, I'm convinced franky1 still doesn't know what a flag is because the nonsense they write makes no rational sense.  Mindless technobabble written by a narcissistic headcase.

[tygeade]

There seem to be too much development taking place on bitcoin. Changes always being proposed. How are we ever going to be able to trust that bitcoin will never change if people are always trying to propose changes to it and get it implemented

what kinds of challenges are you referring to here, because i see nothing changing about bitcoin we all have known, it's never centralized, and if what you're talking about is on the Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) then you might be getting it all wrong, because if you build a house, you will always want to decorate and beautify it from time to time, such as painting, cleaning and protecting it against Intruders with maximum security. etc. same is applicable here, if am right about what you meant.

The idea of bitcoin's blockchain being decentralized is not even about money, it's about exactly what you say; having a consensus by all the users. What people do not understand is that US government could print 1 trillion dollars and buy bitcoin with it, making it super high, and then sell it ALL at the same time on 100 different exchanges and crash it to near zero. They can "manipulate" the price, that doesn't make it centralized, that's just market speculation and that's fine.

Decentralization is literally the consensus where we all decide what to do and we never have to worry about what's going to happen to the integrity of the blockchain itself and trust it forever.

[DooMAD]

Decentralization is literally the consensus where we all decide what to do and we never have to worry about what's going to happen to the integrity of the blockchain itself and trust it forever.

In essence, although I wouldn't personally have worded it in quite that way with regards to "trust". 

I'd simply phrase it so that, at all times, you are in direct control over which blockchain(s) you wish to follow.

Trust isn't required.  You will always be matched with other users enforcing the same consensus rules your chosen client enforces and you will continue building a blockchain together.  Everyone has exactly as much control as they need to enforce their own will without denying others the control to do the same. 

If at any point you no longer wish to abide by the consensus rules, you can form a new chain, although you do generally sacrifice network effects in order to do that.  Everyone is free to do what they want.

It's a great system.  It technically has the potential to yield total, unbridled chaos and hundreds of chain splits, yet the lure of network effects and utility by having people on the same chain means that everyone is incentivised to find common ground and move forward together.

[goldrushed2]

De-centralised from that aspect is not the biggest issue then. Its how things are moved forward that matters. Issue I have with btc is the central log explorer and lack of privacy. Yet no coin hacking can ever be returned - yet anyone can view all transactions. Including organisations with the power to ban btc.
What would have been perfect is something which cant ever be stolen in addition to network immutability. And something that can not be tracked or traced by bad actors. I love btc dont get me wrong - but its been over ten years now.

[tjtonmoy]

Man even the nature itself, is not stable. It wants changes, it wants to evolve. The whole universe is the same too. This world was created with big bang, and from that time look where we are now. We can also predict how the future will be. It will not be the same as today or tomorrow. Aren't we accepting that future? Then what's the problem to accept BTC's changes.

[larry_vw_1955]

Bitcoin effectively lives or dies based on its network effects.  The more people who use it, the more utility it has.  We can't just cater to the whims of people who want something simple.  It needs to have universal appeal.  What you want may not be what others want.

I know but that doesn't mean bitcoin is above criticism though. As far as its software architecture and such.

Also, it's not worth replying to franky1 directly, because they're an unhinged lunatic attempting to rewrite history (and I suspect they just enjoy the attention, even when it's negative).  

That's a pretty strange thing to say given how interesting and enlightening his posts have been on this thread. But no one took the time to try and argue against some of his points for example this posting: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5409550.msg60797480#msg60797480

If you look it up, you'll see that BCH was a planned fork.  They announced in advance that they would launch their network on a set date and then did it.  This was unavoidable because the two camps had incompatible ideas about how to move forwards.  A split was the only way to break the impasse, as neither side would back down.  

No need to look it up. That's a part of bitcoin history everyone should know about that fork.

To this day, I'm convinced franky1 still doesn't know what a flag is because the nonsense they write makes no rational sense.  Mindless technobabble written by a narcissistic headcase.

Well I've appreciated his detailed input in this thread.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Larry, prepare for his 50 sweet merits to arrive now. You're one of the minimum users who appreciates his point of view.

I know but that doesn't mean bitcoin is above criticism though.

If you don't have anything to say, you don't have anything to criticize. And by watching the conversation, you don't like SegWit because it made things work more complicated for you. Propose me, then, an improvement similar to BIP141, that is backwards-compatible with nodes that won't upgrade.

But no one took the time to try and argue against some of his points for example this posting

Because we've already done it. Like a thousand times. DooMAD even more than me. In fact, we even created a thread dedicated to that psycho, because it was unbelievably annoying to derail and pollute every thread that had to do with scaling, SegWit and Lightning.

No need to look it up. That's a part of bitcoin history everyone should know about that fork.

That's not the point; obviously everyone knows what's Bitcoin Cash. The point is: If your perspective doesn't come along with others, you don't whine every day on Internet boards, trying to change their mind, just as franky does for the past 5 years. You make that change yourself, and try to make an impact. That's the magical part of consensus: We don't have to make changes democratically; minorities, just as majorities, can fork off the network and start a brand new currency.

[DooMAD]

Bitcoin effectively lives or dies based on its network effects.  The more people who use it, the more utility it has.  We can't just cater to the whims of people who want something simple.  It needs to have universal appeal.  What you want may not be what others want.

I know but that doesn't mean bitcoin is above criticism though. As far as its software architecture and such.

True, but there is such a thing as constructive criticism.  If you had a specific example of something you believe could be done more efficiently or tidily, then consider raising it and seeing what the response is.  Generalisations and casual observations aren't going to yield much in the way of progress.  It wouldn't be responsible for devs to start cutting out swathes of code just because someone held the opinion there might be too much of it.

Besides that, I'm fairly confident that the developers themselves could work things out between them if one was having difficulty reading another's code.  As long as it's not impeding their work, then I'm not unduly concerned if some people think the code is a little scruffy in places.

[larry_vw_1955]

Generalisations and casual observations aren't going to yield much in the way of progress. 

But specific examples can lead to general observations and conclusions about bitcoin and its development model. For example it seems like people have been proposing something called stealth addresses to try and make bitcoin be more anonymous. But bitcoin was not designed from the very beginning to be anonymous.  Trying to layer these type of features on top of bitcoin just seems like a poorly planned thing. Why not design things from the very beginning with all the features you're going to want/have? A properly done programming project does things that way by using a master specification and then bases everything on that master blueprint.

Would an architect try and redesign  a scyscraper after it had already been built? of course not.

Besides that, I'm fairly confident that the developers themselves could work things out between them if one was having difficulty reading another's code.  As long as it's not impeding their work, then I'm not unduly concerned if some people think the code is a little scruffy in places.

maybe they could maybe not. we don't know how complex bitcoin code will become and so we can't really know how difficult it might become to maintain in the future.

[DooMAD]

Would an architect try and redesign  a scyscraper after it had already been built? of course not.

That's a false equivalence, though.  First and foremost, code is clearly more flexible than steel, concrete, glass and whatever else they construct skyscrapers out of these days.  And secondly, no one is suggesting completely rebuilding Bitcoin from the ground up.  The closer analogy would be a refurbishment, which happens all the time in all manner of buildings.

Arguing in favour of ossified code is always going to be a losing battle.  Particularly in an open-source environment where such things are uncontrollable.   

[TheNineClub]

As technology changes, so should BTC, there is nothing wrong with that. I would say thinking that BTC was made perfect from the start is false and anything can be improved on. Sure, forcefull changes just for the sake of changing something, are not good, but implementing new concepts and ideas should be welcomed.

[franky1]

Larry, prepare for his 50 sweet merits to arrive now. You're one of the minimum users who appreciates his point of view.

aww blackhat still cares about merit and thinks its important. i give away merit to even gmax, oeleo,doomad, your other chums and as satire,
.. oh wait. yea i sent over 250 to gmax, over 130 to doomad.. over 100 to oeleo
..and oops 0 to blackhatcoiner.. aww now i see why blackhatcoiner is upset..

so its not about ass kissing. (unlike your desires for merit)
merit is meaningless.
but i now see why you are jealous of why other people that are not you get given 50merit..

and its pure comedy that you think its something to use as bribery..
well to you you use it as bribery. and a way to give your friends a hug for defending you even when you are wrong

but in your mind people only give merit as payment of loyalty, kiss ass, or bribe them into following your small minded idea.. sorry thats not how everyone works.. but it seems its your experience so its how you see the world

and as for people that share minds
its actually about a dozen that sheep follow echo chamber your mindset, to such a degree its like a scripted song you all sing..

however there are THOUSANDS of people that have independent minds on this forum..
there are thousands that want whats best for bitcoin.

its not a competition.. i dont like ass kissers or copy/paste scripters.. i prefer to see people think for themselves.

yep thousands of user wanting bitcoin scaling not bitcoin offramps.. but they are not sharing my mindset because i am not shoving song sheets down their throat they all want BITCOIN SCALING for their own reasons.

but it is now obvious by your admission you want followers that sing your little choirs  nursery rhyme songs of lullabies..

I know but that doesn't mean bitcoin is above criticism though.

If you don't have anything to say, you don't have anything to criticize. And by watching the conversation, you don't like SegWit because it made things work more complicated for you. Propose me, then, an improvement similar to BIP141, that is backwards-compatible with nodes that won't upgrade.

compared to wallets/software apps.. running a bitcoin full node is about fully validating and archiving all block data.
as thats the very point of a full node. its the needed security to protect the network!


for something to be backward compatible it requires being able to be fully validating and archiving for older(backward) nodes..
segwit doesnt do this for older nodes..

the trick segwit activated nodes done was to strip the witness data away, to pass to older nodes thus oldernodes were not archiving all data
thus segwit is not campitable with blockchain full data for older nodes..
  - thus older nodes are not part of the initial block download available nodes..
  -the problem is that if nodes do not have full block data and are distributing stripped data. this can cause big issues for the network. if there was a network of stripped data.
the next trick was to treat older nodes as incompatible.
EG segwit nodes wont relay segwit unconfirmed transactions or request block data from an older node.
thus not compatible.

as for the post-confirm segwit transactions in blocks. older nodes cannot validate all the currently activated rules, thus not compatible.
blindly accepting a segwit transaction as valid. is not good security.
relying on another node to do the validation and then trusting that the transaction must be good because someone else done the validation. is not good security.

thus segwit was not backward compatible because it made older nodes not compatible to continue to do their job, (be full validation nodes)

try to read the details of it.. even gmax, lukeJR admit to it when they say people need to run a segwit node and then have their old node 'downstream'/bridged' if they want to be a full validator(at segwit node/upstream level) whilst also prefering to run an old node for reasons someone might have wanted to at the time(incase there was a bug in segwit code)

stop with the deception blackhatcoiner, stop learning things through your buddy group narrative and instead read code and do research of actual source data.
yep even the core devs admit to the trick games played

oh and one other things. until they amassed enough segwit nodes around enough merchant and mining pool nodes to do the stripping and bypassing tricks. core learned (yep via my rants) that they could not release a segwit transaction because segwit to a network of nodes not segwit ready to strip/bypass data.. AKA too many older nodes at the heart of the network topology. would see segwit transactions as anyone-can-spend. which can cause alot of issues if they released the wallet feature of segwit too early. which is why they didnt release the ability to make segwit transactions until 2018

they new their games to push segwit too early were controversial and they had to play many games to get it going. where they had to play the dominos in a certain order. which meant there were many many many risks and problems that could and did happen in 2017-8

it was not soft by any means

But no one took the time to try and argue against some of his points for example this posting

Because we've already done it. Like a thousand times. DooMAD even more than me. In fact, we even created a thread dedicated to that psycho, because it was unbelievably annoying to derail and pollute every thread that had to do with scaling, SegWit and Lightning.

someone that pretends to want freedom of speach and openness. wanted to create a tpic and try to force me to only talk in that topic where he could just delete the whole topic
yea you are a nasty person
many topics were about BITCOIN scaling. and you lot chimed in and derailed it to say bitcoin was unfit to scale and then you lot advertised your other network..
.. completely off topic derailments by you.
yes you hate it how i out your failed networks by pointing out the flaws. and yes when you advertise services and features that can mess with people you cry more. i get it you hate me for outting your agenda.. but the real bitcoiners need to know the risks and not just your uptopian dreams

..
and it is funny how there are THOUSANDS of topics of many different users that want to talk about scaling BITCOIN where their opening topics are about wanting more utility ON THE BITCOIN NETWORK yet there are only a dozen or so LN dedicated topics with the same usual dozen people ass kissing each other about how they love LN. but need to recruit more people over to that network to get rid of the liquidity issues and bottlenecks you lot have..

and yes them same dozen love to chime in and defend and back up each other like a sheep echo chamber of misguided and misunderstood rhetoric where you want to ignore the thousands of people that want bitcoin scaling. and pretend "its just franky".. to then derail the topics of bitcoin scaling to advertise an entirely new network that uses units of measure that are 11decimals deep... which bitcoin does not use nor understand..
yep LN is not bitcoin. no bitcoins ever leave the bitcoin network.. LN is not a bitcoin feature. people need to convert bitcoin to a pegged balance of msat where they play around and onion route msat amounts..
LN is not bitcoin and not a solution for bitcoin. its an altnet. pure and simple. an altnet that likes to brand steal just to try to recruit people into using the altnet instead of bitcoin
(a solution to bitcoin scaling is not to tell people to move away from using bitcoin)


goodluck with your little echo chamber protect a human buddy system.. with your rhetoric crap that you want to say bitcoin is not fit for normal use, unless its used in the maner you want...
but i would rather concentrate on bitcoin and actually not be blind to risks and trickery.
i dont try to lull people to sleep to ignore risks. and just dream utopian dreams

id rather people know what to watch out for and be critical of your games and be risk aware and help secure against attacks. rather then dream that everything is fine while allowing certain people to do things that can harm/affect others

No need to look it up. That's a part of bitcoin history everyone should know about that fork.

That's not the point; obviously everyone knows what's Bitcoin Cash. The point is: If your perspective doesn't come along with others, you don't whine every day on Internet boards, trying to change their mind, just as franky does for the past 5 years. You make that change yourself, and try to make an impact. That's the magical part of consensus: We don't have to make changes democratically; minorities, just as majorities, can fork off the network and start a brand new currency.

consensus is not about using forks to turn people against each other if there is a disagreement

GET A DICTIONARY ATLEAST
consensus is about coming to an agreement.. where by rules change by agreement. not by sacrificing the objectors so that only the loyallists survive to fake a 100% approval

this means if core had a good idea under true consensus they would have to have got a majority acceptance naturally for an activation..
(they did not achieve even 50% before the mandatory mechanisms and NYA gameplay went into affect)
. if they did not get a natural majority. instead of mandating a split. they should have gone back to the drawing board and altered their proposition into something the community would accept. without any fake promises of 2x and then back out of the compromised but more acceptable proposal
.. now take your loyallist chummy, protect a person/hug a person hat off for this next part

dont reply like a loyalist to an agenda you have supported for the last few years
and for once think about the protocol protection

core have demonstrated they can change the network without majority requirement. using contentious splits rather then natural consensus agreement, thus they have bypassed consensus with that mandatory contention trick, causing them to be the defacto full node brand of central decision making ever since..

now learn about the difference between:
the byzantine generals problem satoshi found a solution to. (consensus via agreement of different implementations)
vs
core as the general/chief making the orders.(loyal following of one implementation)

and how the 2 vs statements are for vs against decentralisation


then realise now as a defacto controller via loyalist following a central point implementation
they have the tricks and mechanisms to do it again.

i hope you genuinely stepped outside your agenda mindset..
now imagine them doing it with a feature that breaks something YOU USE.
EG. we know you love LN. so what if core next decided that they wanted to remove the features LN needs to bridge to bitcoin.
EG we know you love mixers. so what if core next decided to change something that made mixers not work like(coinjoin) by removing a feature that allows multiple outputs(batching)

nope dont reply that they human devs will never do that to you because [insert human emotion adjectives of loyalty/trust].. instead imagine that they did mandate something that changed bitcoin without majority agreement (using contentious split.. )

how idol adoring and loyal would you remain then.
knowing they can do it without needing true majority

would you protect their whims to control/change the code they way they can without majority..
or would you then care that core are too much of a central point of failure

[Flexystar]

I have heard this somewhere, “Change can be scary, but you have to keep up the pace”. This applies to the modern bitcoin too. Worlds always changing the way we live, thrive, make changes to daily stuff and this is happening since many years.

On shorter note, bitcoin just began its journey in the world of chaos where it’s either getting accepted or dominated and the tug of war continues to diminish its importance. Developers know how they can tackle it, and simple explanation is by “changing” or by modifying it with better version. However all we can do is the way it’s getting transacted or used but parent chain remains as it is.

[taufik123]

Every technology will continue to develop and get better, but the core of the technology will certainly be the foundation. A simple example of smartphone technology used today. Telecommunications equipment continues to be developed from what was originally only able to make one-way voice calls, but now thanks to increasingly rapid technological developments we can make video calls from wherever you want. and the essence of all that is to connect with each other, establish a good 2-way communication.

It's the same as bitcoin technology which is currently being developed. Bitcoin technology certainly changes and becomes more sophisticated because some new programs are added, but still bitcoin will not change and the main bitcoin chain will not become another chain, bitcoin remains decentralized with limited supply and is not regulated by anyone. just think of some of the changes that exist only as accessories that complement and update the appearance, but the essence of it will not change.

[larry_vw_1955]

It's the same as bitcoin technology which is currently being developed. Bitcoin technology certainly changes and becomes more sophisticated because some new programs are added, but still bitcoin will not change and the main bitcoin chain will not become another chain, bitcoin remains decentralized with limited supply and is not regulated by anyone. just think of some of the changes that exist only as accessories that complement and update the appearance, but the essence of it will not change.

Like for example, silent payments. I saw something about that not too long ago but i didn't like the solution which requires scanning the blockchain for payments. seemed like it might take alot of time and be intensive procedure. but that's what happens when you try and introduce "hacks" to get new features that bitcoin didn't originally support or be built to do I guess. you can get hacks which are not really elegant and well yeah no one has to use that feature if they don't want to.