Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

i think Adam's goals are laudable, ie, wanting to expand the universe of assets traded for Bitcoin.

The problem I've always seen with the "gold 2.0" viewpoint is that it relies on a bad understanding of history and a worse understanding of economics.

Some people think that gold is an example of a free-market store of value that was not also a medium of exchange, but it's not true.

During the era where gold was held as a reserve asset and people started exchanging gold-backed notes instead of the gold itself, the sole reason that arrangement worked is because central banks hoarded gold, and their activities were subsidized by the taxing capability of the state.

The idea that it's possible to separate a store of value from its medium of exchange function is an illusion that can only be propped up with a substantial expenditure of institutional violence.

The last thing I want to see is Bitcoin turned into a system that can only survive under those conditions.

If that's Blockstream's plan...

If I'm reading you correctly, then I agree. It's ludicrous to think you can separate a BTC unit from its blockchain and think it can maintain its value as "fuel" for other asset trading. The blockchain by itself cannot act as "backing" for those units.

[1714211796]

1714211796

[1714211796]

1714211796

[1714211796]

1714211796

[1714211796]

1714211796

[1714211796]

1714211796

[1714211796]

1714211796

[cypherdoc]

Extraordinary. $0.03 per GB.  There will be no blockchain storage problems:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/seagate-offers-low-cost-8tb-hard-drives/

[justusranvier]

If I'm reading you correctly, then I agree. It's ludicrous to think you can separate a BTC unit from its blockchain and think it can maintain its value as "fuel" for other asset trading. The blockchain by itself cannot act as "backing" for those units.

The best way to summarize what I am saying is: if we want Bitcoin to function as a store of value, then we have to use it as a medium of exchange.

[brg444]

i think Adam's goals are laudable, ie, wanting to expand the universe of assets traded for Bitcoin.

The problem I've always seen with the "gold 2.0" viewpoint is that it relies on a bad understanding of history and a worse understanding of economics.

Some people think that gold is an example of a free-market store of value that was not also a medium of exchange, but it's not true.

During the era where gold was held as a reserve asset and people started exchanging gold-backed notes instead of the gold itself, the sole reason that arrangement worked is because central banks hoarded gold, and their activities were subsidized by the taxing capability of the state.

The idea that it's possible to separate a store of value from its medium of exchange function is an illusion that can only be propped up with a substantial expenditure of institutional violence.

The last thing I want to see is Bitcoin turned into a system that can only survive under those conditions.

If that's Blockstream's plan...

I don't get how this is somehow not a problem replicated but solved by sidechains.

Why did gold-backed notes appear in the first place? Was it not because of market demand for a more liquid, transactional medium of exchange? Of course this was playing into the hands of banks but gold was not rid of its medium of exchange function so much as people found its natural properties in that regard to be inconvenient and cumbersome.

I see the same thing happening now. Replace papernotes with sidechains and central bank for the Bitcoin protocol.

In certain ways Bitcoin will function very well as a medium of exchange but the nature of its protocol also results some shortcomings with respect to its utility functions and flexibility as an asset class.

What better, more natural, way to address this than sidechains? Unlike the gold/papernotes parallel there is considerably smaller counterparty risk; the "backing" mechanism is enforced on the protocol level. 

Institutional violence is replaced by maths.

[adaseb]

Most likely why the gold has rallied alot in the past few hours is because its the end of the year. Some corps need to clear out their holdings.

[Odalv]

Extraordinary. $0.03 per GB.  There will be no blockchain storage problems:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/seagate-offers-low-cost-8tb-hard-drives/

100,000 users =  32 GB

7,000,000,000 user = 2,000,000 GB every year  =>  2,000,000 * $0.03 = $60k /year

[cypherdoc]

i think Adam's goals are laudable, ie, wanting to expand the universe of assets traded for Bitcoin.

The problem I've always seen with the "gold 2.0" viewpoint is that it relies on a bad understanding of history and a worse understanding of economics.

Some people think that gold is an example of a free-market store of value that was not also a medium of exchange, but it's not true.

During the era where gold was held as a reserve asset and people started exchanging gold-backed notes instead of the gold itself, the sole reason that arrangement worked is because central banks hoarded gold, and their activities were subsidized by the taxing capability of the state.

The idea that it's possible to separate a store of value from its medium of exchange function is an illusion that can only be propped up with a substantial expenditure of institutional violence.

The last thing I want to see is Bitcoin turned into a system that can only survive under those conditions.

If that's Blockstream's plan...

I don't get how this is somehow not a problem replicated but solved by sidechains.

Why did gold-backed notes appear in the first place? Was it not because of market demand for a more liquid, transactional medium of exchange? Of course this was playing into the hands of banks but gold was not rid of its medium of exchange function so much as people found its natural properties in that regard to be inconvenient and cumbersome.

I see the same thing happening now. Replace papernotes with sidechains and central bank for the Bitcoin protocol.

In certain ways Bitcoin will function very well as a medium of exchange but the nature of its protocol also results some shortcomings with respect to its utility functions and flexibility as an asset class.

What better, more natural, way to address this than sidechains? Unlike the gold/papernotes parallel there is considerably smaller counterparty risk; the "backing" mechanism is enforced on the protocol level.  

Institutional violence is replaced by maths.

Blockstreams goals are not confined to the money function of facilitating "medium of exchange" and "unit of account" as you describe here and as we agreed would be ideal for SC's way back in October, ie , utility chains for faster tx and anon.  their stated goal is to facilitate a trading platform whereby SC's would be used to trade all manner of speculative assets such as stocks, bonds, insurance and smart contracts.  this confuses and distracts from the money function and SOV that got us here and which i suggest is Bitcoins greatest calling.

the other problem i see is that the ideal money functions that would be desirable and achievable CAN be accomplished on MC.  probably not changing the 10 min block time though (many  think that is a necessary interval for decentralized propagation).  but certainly anon and increased block size for scaling.  i don't think that risk (hard fork) is as large or gruesome as some suggest.  the community has learned to communicate better and can pre-announce any major hard fork updates well in advance to minimize that outcome.  but it takes a will and discipline to make it happen along with a setting aside of for-profit aspirations in the name of advancing an open source project.

[cypherdoc]

Extraordinary. $0.03 per GB.  There will be no blockchain storage problems:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/seagate-offers-low-cost-8tb-hard-drives/

100,000 users =  32 GB

7,000,000,000 user = 2,000,000 GB every year  =>  2,000,000 * $0.03 = $60k /year

i know you're better than that with extrapolations.  i've seen much higher estimates of userbase; like 2M?  anyways, by the time we get to 7B users, storage space is likely to be $0.00003/GB or $60/yr

[adam3us]

If nothing else for those who view bitcoin as gold2.0 (and I do myself)

What exactly do you mean by "gold2.0"

If by that you're talking about some kind of rarely-moving thing that acts as a store of value without being a medium of exchange, then what you want is impossible and trying to make it happen will destroy Bitcoin.

Yeah no axe to grind, or hidden motive, I just mean a better gold because its electronically transferable, instantly assayable, harder to seize.  There was a famous economist who commented that bitcoin in his view ought to longer term start to track gold price because they fulfil potentially similar functions, and bitcoin is better in multiple areas.

I was inferring from cypherdocs earlier rejection of change (to eg support more tx/sec or other features that an extension mechanism would allow) that he prefers even the hoarding/large investor with few transactions type of bitcoin use over actual trade.

Thats also why I forwarded the link to David Krawisz's article as he argues that it is investors that drive network effect, and trade is following; rather than value driven by trade.

Another alternative future is where an altcoin grows due to offering easier extensibility than bitcoin.  That maybe moderately unlikely given bitcoins network effect and huge lead, but its perhaps a risk.  I think those are the main things to consider in a tradeoff analysis.

Adam

ps I edited the subject field.  Actually I am not sure why this is in the "gold up" thread.

[JorgeStolfi]

100,000 users =  32 GB

i've seen much higher estimates of userbase; like 2M? 

According to this site, by 2014-09-10 there were less than 650'000 addresses in the blockchain with 0.1 BTC or more:

BTC balance          ! Num.addresses ! % of addresses !        Tot BTC ! % of all BTC
---------------------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-------------
0 - 0.001            |    44,917,388 |          96.47 |        288.600 |          .  
0.001 - 0.01         |       468,390 |           1.01 |      1,815.552 |         0.01
0.01 - 0.1           |       545,136 |           1.17 |     16,415.880 |         0.12
---------------------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-------------
SUBTOTAL             |    45,930,914 |          98.65 |     18,520.032 |         0.13
---------------------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-------------
0.1 - 1              |       300,665 |           0.65 |    104,450.810 |         0.79
1 - 10               |       214,170 |           0.46 |    605,575.673 |         4.57
---------------------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-------------
SUBTOTAL             |       514,835 |           1.11 |    710,026.483 |         5.36
---------------------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-------------
10 - 100             |        99,925 |           0.21 |  3,557,378.156 |        26.85
100 - 1,000          |        13,813 |           0.03 |  3,145,684.530 |        23.75
---------------------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-------------
SUBTOTAL             |       113,738 |           0.24 |  6,703,062.686 |        50.60
---------------------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-------------
1,000 - 10,000       |         1,445 |            .   |  3,210,486.390 |        24.23
10,000 - 100,000     |            95 |            .   |  2,178,395.722 |        16.44
100,000 - 21,000,000 |             3 |            .   |    426,872.355 |         3.22
---------------------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-------------
SUBTOTAL             |         1,543 |            .   |  5,815,754.467 |        43.89
---------------------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-------------
TOTAL                |    46,561,030 |         100.00 | 13,247,363.668 |        99.98
---------------------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-------------

Addresses are not persons, of course; but I believe that this number is a plausible upper bound for the number of "bitcoiners" (excluding people who just tried it but did not "adopt" or invest in it).

(A pity that the list is not upto-date.  It seems to be recomputed only every 40'000 blocks; so the next one should be at block 360'000, and we are now at 336'707.)

[cypherdoc]

I was inferring from cypherdocs earlier rejection of change (to eg support more tx/sec or other features that an extension mechanism would allow) that he prefers even the hoarding/large investor with few transactions type of bitcoin use over actual trade.

Thats also why I forwarded the link to David Krawisz's article as he argues that it is investors that drive network effect, and trade is following; rather than value driven by trade.

Another alternative future is where an altcoin grows due to offering easier extensibility than bitcoin.  That maybe moderately unlikely given bitcoins network effect and huge lead, but its perhaps a risk.  I think those are the main things to consider in a tradeoff analysis.

Adam, you've been selectively reading my posts

in no way do i want to prevent innovation esp in the area of more tx's, anonymity, or anything related to better performance.  i merely want them to occur on MC so as not to disrupt mining incentives unpredictably and to avoid what i believe are dubious economic assumptions that could hurt Bitcoin overall. and so as not to disadvantage those of us who invested with those assumptions in mind.

Greg's post over on Reddit, i thought, was highly illuminating.  he believes with the 2wp that volatility from trading will be reduced.  nothing is further from the truth b/c there will be trading on exchanges in fiat terms.  you may argue that arbitrage will take care of that but i don't think so as the scBTC market will be extremely thin and subject to manipulation with unlimited amounts of fiat (by a bank) along with the time delay of at least 2d (which is an eternity in Bitcoin world).

there is also no evidence that any of the altcoins are gaining on Bitcoin.  i just put up a graph of Litecoin and Mastercoin yesterday that show they are dying compared to Bitcoin.  

as for Daniel's video, you're late, as i already posted about their podcast and commented on it 5d ago here:  
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68655.msg9945975#msg9945975

[cypherdoc]

I was inferring from cypherdocs earlier rejection of change (to eg support more tx/sec or other features that an extension mechanism would allow) that he prefers even the hoarding/large investor with few transactions type of bitcoin use over actual trade.

i've NEVER said i prefer the hodler.  i've only ever objected to criticisms of the hodler.  that's b/c they are really savers.  and b/c i am one.

[adam3us]

Instead of dismissing my arguments by framing them as having some sort of agenda, perhaps you'd care to address the myriad issues I, and others btw, have voiced in this thread.

actually I wasnt assuming you had an agenda, or at least I couldnt figure out what it might be.

My agenda is simple: bitcoin is awesome, and I want to defend and improve it.

I have a real concern about the philosophical direction you're trying to take Bitcoin in and the highly risky economic effects it may have.

I presume by philosophy you mean stasis vs change?  I read your view to be stasis.  Nothing about bitcoin must change ever (other than bug fixes).  Maybe thats over simplifying.  Or maybe your arguments are shifting or dancing around to prod people into extending the argument (sorry thats the impression you give at times).

The sequence I saw was people trying to pressure bitcoin core to make changes to support their various ideas and pet projects.  And bitcoin core not being able to accommodate them due to resources, and significantly risk.

My pet project that caused me to notice the risk of change clearly, was homomorphic encrypted values, which I thought were pretty cool as they completely hide transaction values and are still validatable.     https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=305791.0  (They do nothing about hiding which address is paying which, thats harder and takes zerocash which has to much novel crypto to deploy on main IMO).

And actually the earlier one was committed transactions which try to prevent transaction censorship even in the face of miners with dangerously high hashrate.  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=206303.15 (there's a so far unresolved problem with that, but if it could be made to work, thats pretty cool in my book also).

So I suppose one example for your philosophy question is would you be against the above two changes being in bitcoin?  One improves privacy and the other improves decentralisation properties.  I presume most people on bitcointalk like those properties.  How about cypherdoc?

Next realise there's basically zero chance of those going in, and I approve of that.  Its too risky, and what we need even more than cool features to improve bitcoin, is to not lose everyones bitcoins (including cypherdocs hoard, which I am very happy he has, good for him).  i dont but thats my fault for not installing the alpha client when Satoshi emailed me about it in Jan 2009.  I bought a few but I guess my buy in price average is close to current.  I still think bitcoin is the coolest thing and has awesome potential.

And another example is how do we do bitcoin protocol upgrades.  There are limitations to live upgrades, some things are not soft-forkable also.  We'd have lower risk if we could have a live beta.  That was the first proposed use for one-way pegs (precursor to GMaxwell et al two-way peg).  Presumably you'd think a one-way peg for the purposes of software upgrade could be good - lower risk of failure during bug fixes and software modularisation.

An example is its hard to fully fix malleability which causes problems in some scenarios.

Maybe also zerocash itself.  Kind of risky bleeding edge crypto, but really good privacy.  I would be against that going into main due to the novel crypto risk unless it was somehow constrained to those opting in to it.
But that kind of sucks, people who want it cant use it.  You and I and everyone is censoring their desired feature.  Thats not permissionless innovation.  But we are justified because of the risks in fact.  A securely firewallable extension mechanism enables permissionless innovation.  Otherwise you just see more feature coins.


I am not sure if you are aware sidechains are nearly possible with zero changes to bitcoin.  Its already programable via the script language.  It may even be doable with zero changes with some chained contorted big script to validate compact SPV proofs.

Anyway its not like blockstream even existed when a bunch of core devs got excited about the possibility of improving on the above situations with a generic extension mechanism so I encourage you to separate out arguments about risk or imagined intent of blockstream from concerns about the change.  eg pretend the change is just that group of developers, same people who've been coding bitcoin for years.  (Blockstream basically is that group of developers, but thats a separate discussion!)

Note also the 51% takes all coins risk depends on the peg script.  Its possible to limit that problem and place the risk on the people doing the arbitrage or transfers by forcing the person returning coins to put up a bounty in main-chain bitcoins equal to the exchange which they forfeit if their transfer is proven fraudulent by a chosen % of the sidechain.  There can also be caps and time-adaptive delays (longer for more bitcoin).  Its a programming language, the op_spv is just an opcode to simplify the coding of one part of it, validating the compact-proofs.

Hopefully we got past the misinterpretation of Konrad Graf's article, to see that the discount is for time-preference only, and the security firewall will work fine against a malicious or dud sidechain; caveat emptor, and look at the credibility of people writing wallets, chains and cryptocurrency.

If you dont put your coins into a chain they are not at risk.  Why would you want to censor someones ability to have zerocash, homomorphic value, faster transactions, more TPS, native share/color support, snark contracts?  Wouldnt those be good things for bitcoin?  I personally thought it'd be pretty cool to see a new wave of bitcoin centric innovation.

Also I dont think even statis vs change captures the situation.  If you like stasis, keep your coins on bitcoin main; if others like cool features they can use them on chains that support them.  Why is this a conflict?

Adam

[JorgeStolfi]

I am trying to find a thread or forum with a currently active discussion of sidechains.  Is this thread the only one?

[brg444]

I am trying to find a thread or forum with a currently active discussion of sidechains.  Is this thread the only one?

go a couple pages back you'll find hundreds in a row

[adam3us]

I am trying to find a thread or forum with a currently active discussion of sidechains.  Is this thread the only one?

There was also https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=831527.0

This one is arguably in the wrong thread (speculation between gold & bitcoin?) but whatever.

Adam

[JorgeStolfi]

I am trying to find a thread or forum with a currently active discussion of sidechains.  Is this thread the only one?

go a couple pages back you'll find hundreds in a row

Thanks.  Indeed, I found a couple of threads with more pertinent titles, but they seem to be dead, nothing like this one.

Should this thread be split and moved to develpment perhaps?

[smooth]

Also I dont think even statis vs change captures the situation.  If you like stasis, keep your coins on bitcoin main; if others like cool features they can use them on chains that support them.  Why is this a conflict?

I think the conflict is that if one views bitcoin-plus-sidechains as being an economic system, then "just don't use it" is not a valid response to the concern that the system as a whole is being destabilized. Events in one part of the system may have consequences (including unforeseen consequences) in another part of the system.

As you say, it may be that side chains are implementable within the current bitcoin system without changes, in which case, this is inevitable. This is certainly true for some sort of bitcoin-backed-coin model that involves some sort of trusted intermediary/intermediaries (what the paper calls the federated model). Nothing prevents someone from making a bitcoin-backed-altcoin any more than a weed-backed-altcoin. Putting aside the rather large issue of backer trust, this is equivalent to a side chain.

[justusranvier]

Why did gold-backed notes appear in the first place? Was it not because of market demand for a more liquid, transactional medium of exchange? Of course this was playing into the hands of banks but gold was not rid of its medium of exchange function so much as people found its natural properties in that regard to be inconvenient and cumbersome.

I see the same thing happening now. Replace papernotes with sidechains and central bank for the Bitcoin protocol.

In certain ways Bitcoin will function very well as a medium of exchange but the nature of its protocol also results some shortcomings with respect to its utility functions and flexibility as an asset class.

Gold's liquidity as a MoE was limited by the fact that it had (a not inconsiderable amount of ) mass.

Bitcoin's liquidity as a MoE is limited, not by anything inherent to its capabilities, but due to the fact that its ability to process transactions is artificially constrained by a production quota.

This is not sustainable.

If that production quota is not removed, then Bitcoin will be replaced by another cryptocurrency that lacks such an artificial constraint.

The idea that you can keep the production quota in place and the market will tolerate transacting on sidechains while paying expensive the expensive settlement fees needed to keep Bitcoin around as a unit of account is a economic pipe dream.

If the Bitcoin's blockchain is forbidden from being used for transactions, then the market will replace both Bitcoin and any sidechains that depend on it for a less-restricted currency.

[justusranvier]

I am trying to find a thread or forum with a currently active discussion of sidechains.  Is this thread the only one?

go a couple pages back you'll find hundreds in a row

Thanks.  Indeed, I found a couple of threads with more pertinent titles, but they seem to be dead, nothing like this one.

Should this thread be split and moved to develpment perhaps?

The SnR of bitcointalk.org is so low these days that the only hope of finding useful conversations is in large, long-running threads like this one.

Spammers have completely taken over every other part of the forum.