Core and spam debate - easy explanation

[PepeLapiu2]

Economic majority decides about things.

That is only partially true. Claiming that the economic majority decides would be claiming Bitcoin is basically a POS like ETH, and not really POW.

During the block war it was postulated that the nodes are too important to keep Bitcoin decentralised, and that big blocks would compromise the nodes. The nodes won the block war when big miners and big corporate Bitcoiners as well as big ASIC makers wanted big blocks, and they rejected Segwit as a compromise.  


And it is not on BIP-110 side. If if would be, then regular transactions would replace all of the spammy ones, and the spam would be sitting unconfirmed for months or years.

Soft-forks can be activated properly, if you have hashrate majority on your side.[

That is the wrong way of looking at it. If that were true, Bitcoin would be owned and controlled by a handful of pools. If that were true, Bitcoin is cooked and I might as well dump my bags.

If not, then by being in a minority, you will land on a minority chain, if your client would reject blocks produced by unupgraded nodes. That's why reaching for example 90% hashrate support is important. Currently, it is set to 55% for BIP-110, but in practice, it is now below 1%, and it will probably stay there.

What you are talking about only applies to the miner activated option. The user activated option activated with or without the miner signalling in late August.

Back in September I publicly offered to enter into a wager with anyone who was claiming that Bitcoin Core v30 was going to result in a massive node crash / network outage. Nary a Knotzi took me up on it, to my great chagrin.

You are an idiot. I don't know anyone on either side who believed core 30 would result in any nodes crashing. That's why nobody took you up on your offer. And most of us on the anti-spam side are not willing to gamble our coin.

Today I'm making a similar, but better, offer to BIP-110 supporters. I propose we enter into a trustless fork futures contract. I'll take the side that will make the deposited BTC only spendable if BIP-110 fails, you take the side that's only spendable upon success.

Just like your previous bet, this bet is stupid. Nobody is going to take you up on it.

So far, people are not taking that bet, which means, that economic majority is not on BIP-110 side. Which means, that there is no whale, willing to put 1 BTC in such contract.

It's that kind of stupid logic that leads you to get on the pro-spam side?

But ultimately, if BIP110 wins or not is just noise. I'm on the good side, the side that protects Bitcoin as money. While you are on the bad side, the side that opens the door to spam.

Talk it up all you want that BIP110 is not going to work. It's a stupid claim. Even if BIP110 doesn't win the first time, it will win the second time or the third time, or the fourth. We are going to keep going until we save Bitcoin.

All the while you try to open the door to more spam.

I'm on the good side, the monetary side. You are on the spam side. You lose in August or you lose later on. I don't care either way.

[DaveF]

......Minimum 1 BTC wager to make it worth my time. Come take my coins and show us your conviction! Who will have the guts to put their money where their mouth is?

So far, people are not taking that bet, which means, that economic majority is not on BIP-110 side. Which means, that there is no whale, willing to put 1 BTC in such contract. That says something about BIP-110 support.
[/quote]

Yeah, that like luke they have lost all their coins or in general have no money.

But, if they really were serious about it knots would have code that auto activated hard fork off at a certain block height.

We know they don't have the guts to do it since they know that it's a minority of people and just about no miners / pools that support it. If they did have the guts to fork off it would at lest show conviction.

Kind of like back in the day with BCH or ETC they at least had the guts to say "nope, don't like what you are doing we're out" The lukecoin people really don't have that in them.

-Dave

[PepeLapiu2]

That's the ideal situation, and the pro-filters' debate is by imposing filters, then "maybe", dick pics and fart sounds lovers will move to those blockchains. BUT there's definitely a debate that they won't because despite the limits in OP_RETURN, there are developers who will find ways to embed arbitrary data in the blockchain.

BitcoinStamps is one of those "protocols".

That's all defeatist cope. It's the equivalent of saying you door lock and window bars on the first for don't work because an intruder broke in through the second floor window.

Yes, fighting spam is a game of cat and mouse. But guess what? A barn with cats has fewer mice than a barn without cats.

But your cope mechanism is that since the cats won't ever get all the mice and some of them might escape, we might as well kill the cats. This is a ridiculous idea.

Yeah, that like luke they have lost all their coins or in general have no money.
But, if they really were serious about it knots would have code that auto activated hard fork off at a certain block height.

Such a stupid claim. When we use filters, we were told filters don't work, do it at the consensus level. And when we do it at the consensus level, we are now told hard fork it? You are just grasping at straws to keep enbracong spam on Bitcoin.

Kind of like back in the day with BCH or ETC they at least had the guts to say "nope, don't like what you are doing we're out" The lukecoin people really don't have that in them.

Apples to oranges. BCH was a loosening of the rules so a hard fork was absolutely required. BIP110 is a tightening of the rules so a soft fork is all we need. No need to use an atomic bomb to swat flies

Fighting spam and rejecting core 30 spamware is the right thing to do. Everyone on both sides knows there is a non-zero chance that BIP110 could fail this time around.

If so, no big deal, we just trow. The dice again, and again until we save Bitcoin. It's not an if, it's a when.

[ABCbits]

- Fallacy #2: There will be a separate coin created, such as a Lukecoin. How ridiculous! It's a sorft fork, like the Segwit and Taproot Softworks. No new coin will be created.

The BIP also make certain TX invalid. So if there are miner/mining pool who mine a block which include such invalid TX, network/blockchain split will happen and "new/separate" coin is created.

Currently, over 40% of the blocks are pure spam. Clearly, that is too much.

Relevant xkcd comic.


Source: https://xkcd.com/285/

But ultimately, if BIP110 wins or not is just noise. I'm on the good side, the side that protects Bitcoin as money. While you are on the bad side, the side that opens the door to spam.

Where should i be if i hate non-monetary TX, but also think BIP 110 approach too extreme?

[PepeLapiu2]

and
The BIP also make certain TX invalid. So if there are miner/mining pool who mine a block which include such invalid TX, network/blockchain split will happen and "new/separate" coin is created.

That is a lie and you know it. It's a soft fork just like the Segwit upgrade soft fork and the Taproot upgrade soft fork. Albeit this sort fork is more contentious. But it still remains a soft fork. Yes, all the BIP110 blocks will be valid on the incumbent chain, and some incumbent blocks will be invalid on the BIP110 chain. But no hard fork needs to occur.

There is however a possibility that it could turn into a hard fork, should both sides not give up. But I think it's a very unlikely scenario.

Currently, over 40% of the blocks are pure spam. Clearly, that is too much.

Relevant xkcd comic.

I'm on my spare phone. Will supply the citation when I return to my main phone. In the mean time you only need to look at mempool.space to see it's pretty obvious. Here is just the last block that came out:

https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000017b635aeb838ccfec6c08fbd0314eeab18faf484d5de8

A rough estimate tells you 60-70% of that block is op_return garbage. Just yesterday I could see entire blocks filled with garbage spam.

Where should i be if i hate non-monetary TX, but also think BIP 110 approach too extreme?

You need to listen to this:
https://youtu.be/JPE7X_q3A7A

And you need to define what part of BIP110 goes too far in your book.

BIP110 makes large op_return invalid at the consensus level for a year only.
And BIP110 makes op_if in Taproot invalid for a year only while grandfathering existing ones.

If BIP110 breaks anything other than spam, we will have a year to fix it and decide on what to do next.

This is extremely sensitive. Imagine if Taproot had done the same, we could have fixed the exploits in Taproot much more easily, instead of being in the mess we are in now

[NotATether]

This summaries everything I believe.

Quick upload the image to the blockchain.


-Dave

That being said, I haven't seen any headlines recently about people uploading lots of bloat to the blockchain.

Taproot assets like Ordinals are falling off in terms of popularity.

Are people really doing this so much anymore? It may not be as big of a problem as it once was anymore.

Maybe we could just leave the status quo the way the current implementations are doing and change nothing.

And Bitcoin would still be fine.

[DaveF]

This summaries everything I believe.

Quick upload the image to the blockchain.


-Dave

That being said, I haven't seen any headlines recently about people uploading lots of bloat to the blockchain.

Taproot assets like Ordinals are falling off in terms of popularity.

Are people really doing this so much anymore? It may not be as big of a problem as it once was anymore.

Maybe we could just leave the status quo the way the current implementations are doing and change nothing.

And Bitcoin would still be fine.

Yes it would be finw, but luke is buthurt that all his coins got stolen because of his poor opsec.
And that every time he tried to censor things he got caught and called out on it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2pfgjg/exposed_lukejr_plans_on_forcing_blacklists_on_all/

He also has no issues attacking and destroying coins he does not like:   https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56675.0

But he has his cult of followers who don't understand how BTC works.

Also, like most cult members they have no money or power and just want to follow the cult leader who tells them they will have it if they follow him.

Reminds me of a few years ago of all the BSV people here who are now just about all gone.

Personally at this point since even with the AI madness driving up storage getting enough surplus storage to run a node for years is still just about free in most places. Even now even in countries like Venezuela and Haiti that are having massive financial issues at the moment surplus 2TB spinning drives are free ewaste most of the time.

I would like to see BTC go for 8Mb or 16Mb blocks just so we could get to watch luke and his followers heads explode, as an added bonus cheaper TXs for the rest of us.

-Dave

[PepeLapiu2]

Yes it would be finw, (blah-blah-bla)

Your perpetual personal attacks and ad hominens are getting annoying. You are showing your cards. Of course you have to do this because you have no left to stand on on the technical side of things.

Reminds me of a few years ago of all the BSV people here who are now just about all gone.

Yeah, you mean those stupid BSVers who were claiming nodes don't matter? You mean the very same BSVers who blew up their op_return filter and ended up swamped with child porn on chain? Those BSVers?7

Personally at this point since even with the AI madness driving up storage getting enough surplus storage to run a node for years is still just about free in most places. Even now even in countries like Venezuela and Haiti that are having massive financial issues at the moment surplus 2TB spinning drives are free ewaste most of the time.

You are clearly talking out of your ass. I moved from Canada to El Salvador where a doctor makes under $1,500 per month and a single 1TB external HDD cost me $100. That is a considerable amount of money when you consider the minimum wage here is under $100 per week. And don't try to order a drive from Amazon as shipping fees will cost at least $250.

I would like to see BTC go for 8Mb or 16Mb blocks

Spoken like a true BSVer!
But be warned, if you want bigger blocks, you will have to hard fork like B-cash did. Good luck with that!

[ertil]

Claiming that the economic majority decides would be claiming Bitcoin is basically a POS like ETH, and not really POW.

Miners confirm things decided by the economic majority. Users can make a lot of transactions, and decide, where coins should go, but miners have to confirm it. Otherwise, only unconfirmed transactions will fly, just like in the Lightning Network.

So, you need both: economic majority, and miners. And BIP-110 is supported by none.

The user activated option activated with or without the miner signalling in late August.

If only users will activate it, without being supported by miners, then hashrate majority can attack your coin, just like it is in all other altcoins. And then, it is a question, if it will be worth attacking, when the price per LukeCoin would drop, just like it is not worth attacking BCH or BSV, and just ignoring it is a better option.

That's why nobody took you up on your offer.

I am not Jameson Lopp, it is only a quote. I am not that rich to put 1 BTC. But it would be interesting to see some smaller contracts between users, for example for 0.01 BTC. Or: to check it in some signet with 1 sBTC.

this bet is stupid

Why? If you believe, that BIP-110 will activate, then why don't you put your coins on that?

Or, if you think, that it is measured in a wrong way, then why don't you suggest a better Script?

auto activated hard fork off at a certain block height

There is not that huge difference between user activated soft-fork, without any support from miners, and between a hard-fork. In both cases, you land on a minority chain, that can be easily attacked.

And then, if you don't change the difficulty, and produce for example one block of your chain, while everyone else produces 100 blocks with the old rules, then you have a chain with one or two blocks per day, instead of one block per 10 minutes.

BCH was a loosening of the rules so a hard fork was absolutely required.

They could have bigger blocks, while keeping things backward-compatible. Then, 1 BCH would be worth as much as 1 BTC. But they didn't want to pick that route.

BIP110 is a tightening of the rules so a soft fork is all we need.

No fork is needed to process less data. You can just ignore it.

The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale.  That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server.  The design supports letting users just be users.  The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be.  Those few nodes will be big server farms.  The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate.

So, if you don't have enough resources to handle the whole Bitcoin traffic, then just don't. Process a subset of it. And it will work as well.

By the way: you never know, how many things are stored or not by other nodes. Some of them may declare, that they have everything, but won't provide some transactions, when you ask them. Or: they can store more things, than you assume. Because you never know, what code is running on another computer.

[PepeLapiu2]

That being said, I haven't seen any headlines recently about people uploading lots of bloat to the blockchain.
Taproot assets like Ordinals are falling off in terms of popularity.

You need to pull your head out of the sand. Here is the last block that just got confirmed with about 90% of spam in it (op_return and inscriptions):

https://mempool.space/block/00000000000000000001a1abf65fede5e9b8b4cbcb4c3054d89c8fc27479d1be

Maybe we could just leave the status quo the way the current implementations are doing and change nothing.

I'd be up for that, but only if we go back to before spamware core 30. But core is too willing to turn Bitcoin into a spam shitcoin.

[Dogedegen]

Yes, fighting spam is a game of cat and mouse. But guess what? A barn with cats has fewer mice than a barn without cats.

Or it is just a barn that is filled with lots of cats and mice?  

Apples to oranges. BCH was a loosening of the rules so a hard fork was absolutely required. BIP110 is a tightening of the rules so a soft fork is all we need. No need to use an atomic bomb to swat flies

From what I can see, BIP110 has a zero percent chance of passing. You can make as many posts about it as you like but that won't change anything. If you have any money and you really believe in this then go ahead and open prediction market bets on it. That would help others see that you are more serious about this, but without putting down money on it I don't think that many will consider the belief serious.

Everyone on both sides knows there is a non-zero chance that BIP110 could fail this time around.

It is funny because I just saw this after writing that it has a zero chance of passing.

Where should i be if i hate non-monetary TX, but also think BIP 110 approach too extreme?

Some wisdom of age or experience that does not come to everyone is that one has to learn to accept the things that we can't change, that is the optimal solution to any problem of this kind. While you and I may not like non-monetary TXs, or in your case you may even hate them, it may not be something that can be solved. From what I have been reading on this topic, it seems that the problem is basically not solvable without extreme limitations and centralization of Bitcoin. Even then someone sufficiently motivated could find ways to pretend that their transactions are monetary when they are not representing real transactions.

[PepeLapiu2]

Here is what you need to understand: illicit and illegal contiguous files will eventually get posted on the Bitcoin chain in op_return. It's not a question of 'if", but a question of "when". And here are the different contingencies more likely to do this:

- A degenerate who doesn't want the legal/moral/social risk of keeping the illicit materia on their own machine and decides to dump the risk on the 90,000 nodes.

- A state or bank level attacker determined to stop/slow/reverse Bitcoin adoption and decrease the amount of nodes to make Bitcoin more centralized than it already is.

- A shitcoiner who wants to promote his own shitcoin by attacking Bitcoin with child porn and other illicit files.

- A large trader with a big put position who hopes the price will dump after a ton of illicit material gets on chain.

- Even someone on my side who wants to give use all a "told you so" giant foam finger.

It's not a question of if, but a when. Illicit illegal and disgusting material will get in op_return at some point.

Now, maybe BIP110 fails to activate in August, or maybe it activated and fails. But even if it does fail, it just allows us to come back and keep trying again and again until we get what we want: a monetary Bitcoin, not generic file sharing Bitcoin.

And when the disgusting material gets on chain, and it will, we will be able to bring out BIP110 v2.0 and gain a lot more support.

Your stupid bets be damned.

Some wisdom of age or experience that does not come to everyone is that one has to learn to accept the things that we can't change

This is the fallacy we have been told by coretards: that we can't do anything about spam, so we might as well blow wide open the spam filters and make room for more spam. The fact is, core doesn't even acknowledge that spam exists. They most often refer to spam as "users who need to use arbitrary data" or "new use cases we have today". They are trying to simultaneously tell you that spam is not spam, and that there is nothing we can do about it.

There is plenty we can do about spam. We can implement more filters, we can activate BIP110, and The Cat, and the BIP I am working on. And there are other ways too. Let's remember what Satoshi said when confronted with the idea of Lady Gaga videos on chain:

That's one of the reasons for transaction fees.  There are other things we can do if necessary.

But you appear to disagree with Satoshi and you think nothing can be done?

[DaveF]

You are clearly talking out of your ass. I moved from Canada to El Salvador where a doctor makes under $1,500 per month and a single 1TB external HDD cost me $100. That is a considerable amount of money when you consider the minimum wage here is under $100 per week. And don't try to order a drive from Amazon as shipping fees will cost at least $250.

Actually I'm not. One of my personal (not "real job" related) customers has been doing business in the The ABC Islands—Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao for 35+ years.

He does regular charity shipments of surplus / retired IT gear to Venezuela, since it's right there. They have more or less flat out told him they don't want anything older then 7th or 8th gen for intel stuff. No SSDs smaller then 128GB and no spinning drives smaller then 4TB. They have massive amounts of this older stuff that nobody wants.

Can't speak to the Amazon / online / retail markets in general there, or where you are, but for a poorer country they are picky about their free tech.

Going massively OT here, but as a guess, since they were and are really tight with China, I could see China just dumping their older tech there too.

-Dave

[PepeLapiu2]

One of my personal (not "real job" related) customers has been doing business in the The ABC Islands—Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao for 35+ years.

He does regular charity shipments of surplus / retired IT gear to Venezuela, since it's right there. They have more or less flat out told him they don't want anything older then 7th or 8th gen for intel stuff. No SSDs smaller then 128GB and no spinning drives smaller then 4TB. They have massive amounts of this older stuff that nobody wants.
Can't speak to the Amazon / online / retail markets in general there, or where you are, but for a poorer country they are picky about their free tech.
Going massively OT here, but as a guess, since they were and are really tight with China, I could see China just dumping their older tech there too.
-Dave

Your sample is not representative of the world at large. Over 90% of the world population makes less than $10/day. It's not reasonable to think "hard drives are just cheap and it's okay to fill the chain with illicit illegal and disgusting material". It's not, clearly.

I'm okay with upgrading to a larger drive to make room for Bitcoin. Not okay to shell out more $$ to host the world's most idiotic and disgusting files.