Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[tvbcof]

Now, if Monero or pretty much any total shitcoin was a sidechain and I could have the proper level of confidence that I could, autonomously, shift my holdings back to BTC, I'd be all over it.  If XMR is as great for privacy as iCEBREAKER claims (again and again and again), fantastic!  I'd happily use it whenever I have that need.

...
But I don't see why we need Blockstream to do that. Afaics, any altcoin could offer the feature where its coin supply is the number of BTC on specified reserve on the Bitcoin blockchain (using the methods devised by Blockstream).

Where I see something like Blockstream being of enduring value is that I'm not going to be checking every line of code of every (of the many) sidechains I want to peg.  The stamp of approval from some organization I trust is what I would be using to make a judgement.

Of course in the early stages there is a lot of fairly intricate work to get the crypto and certain aspects of the security developed.

I focus on the makeup of the Blockstream group significantly for these reasons.  Indeed, it is because sipa and Maxwell in particular are involved in Bitcoin core that I retain the position that I do.  I would probably have sold a lot more (or tried to) at the $1000 mark if Gavin was the main guy actually doing things.  Ironically it looks like Maxwell might have done me a dis-service by lending Bitcoin credibility at a time when I should have been bailing.

[1713470801]

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[Zangelbert Bingledack]

do you care to explain how it's centralized again.

if the idea you have is correct then it needs to spread, it wont spread if it cant be understood.

can you ELI5.

Because the center (the group acting in lock step) has the power to include or not include transactions (and set transaction fees).

That alone is already centralization.

And worse is that power (lack of autonomy of the ends of the network) can be monopolized, e.g. State regulation of mining, Larry Summer's 21 Inc economics that mine for free for the cartel, Sybil attack on pools, economies-of-scale (and fiat subsidy via the usury backstop) with ASICs, electricity costs charged to the society, Transactions Withholding Attack, etc, etc, etc. Do I need to enumerate every monopolization vector in detail again (each was already debated upthread)?

I feel the force of the argument, but I think it only applies to the ledger-updating protocol, not the ledger itself. From an investment perspective, the ledger is what matters. The ledger is where the most economically important network effects are.

Even if TPTB can centralize and control the protocol, they can't stop the users of the ledger (BTC holders) from switching to a different ledger-updating protocol. Thus the store of value is maintained, and the network effect of what is now called "the Bitcoin ledger" is maintained. Now they could cut it off in its infancy, push another ledger to compete with it, etc., and that would be damaging, but you'd still have that core group of people who are aligned with the principles Bitcoin was intended to uphold, ready to carry on with that ledger.

[cypherdoc]

You missed the point. Monero's "innovation" was the decision to add a single mixing routing "at the protocol level" which is only one method to create agreement between entities on how to mix coins. Bitcoin users can make the exact same decisions among themselves, mixing does not have to be specified at the protocol level.

The value add here is weak, it will not be enough to make the global bitcoin ecosystem of users switch.

XMR uses well-known, mathematically proven ring signatures and stealth addresses in an extremely clever scheme which provides emergent new functionality, much like Satoshi's ingenious arrangement of PoW, HashCash, etc.

Did you miss crypto gurus like gmaxwell and theymos stating it provides genuine innovation (no scare quotes needed)?

Did you miss the fact Monero's Cryptonote protocol is unique in providing near-ZKP levels of unlinkability and untracability?  Try reading the whitepaper (it's not very long): https://www.cryptonote.org/whitepaper.pdf

If you mix off-chain, you are merely obfuscating and therefore Doing It Wrong.

XMR isn't here to "make the global bitcoin ecosystem of users switch."

XMR is a complement, not competition, for BTC.  One provides transparency, the other opacity.  Salt & Pepper.   

I read the whitepaper before. I never said it was not a clever scheme, it is.

What I said is it is possible to layer similar schemes on top of Bitcoin. For an example just look at the reusable payment codes justusranvier posted here a bit ago. That alone gets you a long way towards the anonymity of Monero, and more and more methods will continue to be developed on top of Bitcoin over time, achieving whatever level of anonymity desired.

So again, the differentiating factor for Monero is simply the decision to implement a single scheme at the protocol level, but there is no requirement to implement a scheme in that manner, there are other options to achieve the same thing in Bitcoin. No those options are not fully developed nor widespread today, but they will be.

In fact, implementing a single fixed scheme may turn out to be limiting over time

don't expect someone who has lost the faith like iCELatte, by shorting BTC and going long XMR, to understand that which makes his investment decisions lose money.

he doesn't understand why protocols like IPv4 and TCP/IP still form the basis of the internet despite better alternatives having been invented.  it's called inertia and network effect.  or as you say, alternatively building better systems or layers on top of those protocols instead which add flexibility.  hell, i'm not even a tech guy like him and i understand these things.

[rocks]

XMR is a complement, not competition, for BTC.  One provides transparency, the other opacity.  Salt & Pepper.  

If it is competition at least there's a remote chance for xmr, otherwise it is doomed -- people that need it will not hold the units; they will make use and those units will be exchanged for btc units ASAP in the other end.

It might survive as a sidechain though.

Where is the evidence for these naked assertions?  (Visible) market volume vs emission indicates most XMR miners are accumulating.

Why would the mutually-reinforcing perfect complement to BTC be "doomed?"  Let's wait until sidechains exist before drawing conclusions.

Another part of XMR's attraction is its property of being a hedge against BTC implemented with a completely different dev team, codebase, and PoW.

If forced to choose between them, I'd rather hold perfectly fungible XMR than possibly tainted, potentially white/black/red/grey-listed BTC.

majamalu's point is that for money, there can only be one dominate ledger. He is saying that for Monero to succeed, Monero has to become that ledger over Bitcoin, and there will not be 2 separate ledgers side by side.  

Commerce requires a single ledger in order for two entities to interact, and this is why we have always ended up with a single global unit of money that everyone uses. That unit was gold where national currencies were valued by how much gold backed their issuance. This switched over night at Brenton woods when the world agreed to switch the backing unit from Gold to FRNs, and today currencies now require FRNs in the form of treasuries to back them.

If crypto currencies succeed, there will be one successful one. That is why majamalu says Monero needs to be in competition with Bitcoin to succeed. It's either or, not side by side.

[justusranvier]

What I said is it is possible to layer similar schemes on top of Bitcoin.

I'm not sure if it's true that Bitcoin can be as private as Monero or not, but I hope to find out.

One of the things we want to do with the Open Bitcoin Privacy Project ratings is generalize the measurement criteria until it's possible to make cross-currency privacy comparisons. That's tentatively planned for 2016.

At some point it should be possible to start to meaningfully compare Monero wallets with various Bitcoin wallets.

Note that just proving the cryptographic properties of ring signatures isn't enough, because some other part of the system might leak information or be susceptible to privacy-reducing user error. You have to evaluate the entire stack.

[cypherdoc]

XMR is a complement, not competition, for BTC.  One provides transparency, the other opacity.  Salt & Pepper.  

If it is competition at least there's a remote chance for xmr, otherwise it is doomed -- people that need it will not hold the units; they will make use and those units will be exchanged for btc units ASAP in the other end.

It might survive as a sidechain though.

Where is the evidence for these naked assertions?  (Visible) market volume vs emission indicates most XMR miners are accumulating.

Why would the mutually-reinforcing perfect complement to BTC be "doomed?"  Let's wait until sidechains exist before drawing conclusions.

Another part of XMR's attraction is its property of being a hedge against BTC implemented with a completely different dev team, codebase, and PoW.

If forced to choose between them, I'd rather hold perfectly fungible XMR than possibly tainted, potentially white/black/red/grey-listed BTC.

majamalu's point is that for money, there can only be one dominate ledger. He is saying that for Monero to succeed, Monero has to become that ledger over Bitcoin, and there will not be 2 separate ledgers side by side.  

Commerce requires a single ledger in order for two entities to interact, and this is why we have always ended up with a single global unit of money that everyone uses. That unit was gold where national currencies were valued by how much gold backed their issuance. This switched over night at Brenton woods when the world agreed to switch the backing unit from Gold to FRNs, and today currencies now require FRNs in the form of treasuries to back them.

If crypto currencies succeed, there will be one successful one. That is why majamalu says Monero needs to be in competition with Bitcoin to succeed. It's either or, not side by side.

precisely.  and this is why either Bitcoin's zeroes or Moons. 

and the way the markets are aligning right now, and with stocks & bonds beginning to roll imo, the markets may be preparing for Bitcoin to ascend the throne, ie, Moon.

in my mind, Bitcoin is at red arrow.  after 2.5 yrs of decline:

[_mr_e]

What I said is it is possible to layer similar schemes on top of Bitcoin.

I'm not sure if it's true that Bitcoin can be as private as Monero or not, but I hope to find out.

One of the things we want to do with the Open Bitcoin Privacy Project ratings is generalize the measurement criteria until it's possible to make cross-currency privacy comparisons. That's tentatively planned for 2016.

At some point it should be possible to start to meaningfully compare Monero wallets with various Bitcoin wallets.

Note that just proving the cryptographic properties of ring signatures isn't enough, because some other part of the system might leak information or be susceptible to privacy-reducing user error. You have to evaluate the entire stack.

As I already said the supernetwork WILL make Bitcoin more private then monero. I urge you to take a look at teleport/telepathy features.

[cypherdoc]

i've said this for years.  so all you boomer-fucks (my colleagues like tvbcof) who think you're going to impose your will, retirement benefits, and debts onto the young of this country got a nasty surprise awaiting you:

http://www.coindesk.com/nyse-chairman-millennials-trust-bitcoin-more-than-fiat/

your only salvation will be to buy Bitcoin to, at minimum, act as a hedge against fiat implosion.  but if you actually want to make money thru the transition, you will buy moar.

[dEBRUYNE]

The imposible monero>btc seems more plausible as time goes on

nope.  with Monero wallowing at near all-time lows relative to BTC and way down at #13 in the cryptocurrency mkts, it's no wonder iCELatte and his buddies have decided to come into this thread and try to take advantage of the 20MB controversy.  it's a shameless move yet quite expected from these altscam guys.  too bad it's not going to work:

-

I have been reading this thread since early 2013, it is one of the little gems this forum has left. I respect your thoughts and what you have contributed. Until now I have refrained from commenting on/about anything monero in the little posts i make here, since there's an altsection for that.

But what you're doing now is playing the exact same card that all the bitcoin sceptics are pulling to illegitimatize btc, which imo is a weak one. Bitcoin provided a mental exercise when it appeared on the scene. You've been able to make it to the other side and are one of the most forward thinking guys ion this subject(esp if compared to the rest of the world). There are a lot of viable arguments against alts or monero but the stance you've been taking is of the same sturdiness of the bitcoin-'haters' and have resulted in fallacies based on price.

Maybe that is because of the monero-proponents here who sort of force you into this position. But don't become like the btc-haters who arn't willing to at least try out other perspectives on the matter. You resorted into the same kind of tactics as the old status quo you once battled.

You've been getting a lot of shit here lately in all the debates. And although you are used to getting shit about these topics it almost seems that lately you're losing it a little. Call me a troll/newb/insignifact whatever. The paragraph i started with was genuine.

i appreciate the feedback.  i've already taken these types of thoughts into consideration.

thezerg once accused me of being a dinorsaur with regards to innovation in Bitcoin, which you kinda are above.  i don't think that's true.  this whole debate is consistent with my long held belief that all innovation should occur on the mainchain.  if Bitcoin fails to do that as an open source project similar to linux, which was supposedly the great promise it made imo, then the whole concept of cryptocurrencies has failed and we'll just go back to fiat for the next hundred years.  this whole movement of Gavin to go to XT, if necessary, is innovation on the mainchain as i see it.  he's simply going to upgrade the software to accept bigger blocks.  and that's a good thing.  if anything, the dinosaurs and fear mongerers are the one's wanting to keep Bitcoin artificially restrained.  enough about that.

as far as Monero is concerned, it is a completely new altcoin with a different signature scheme.  to be honest, it is so far off my radar and so insignificant of an alt that i hadn't paid much attention to it.  i still don't really care to understand how it works b/c i don't think it will go anywhere.  could be wrong.  i've always said i'd welcome more privacy in Bitcoin and it's possible Monero does that.  i know there was a big technical issue months back but can't remember what it was.  maybe someone could clarify.  but that's beside the point.  it is NOT innovating on top of Bitcoin which i quite frankly see as a problem for it.  it is not leveraging upon the huge network effect already achieved by Bitcoin.  does that necessarily mean it will fail?  no.  but i think we get one chance with this b/c the implications are so huge.  if Bitcoin fails, they all fail.  if it's not improved upon or upgraded, it will fail.  if we all don't stick together as a group, it will fail.  if that means the economic majority has to fork off and shed the likes of the Blockstream cabal, we have a chance.  the more i think about it, the better i like the idea of getting rid of gmax and luke.  i think they're toxic.  yeah, gmax is a brilliant cryptographer but he can't be trusted with the keys or to run a company.  he's a KNOWN Bitcoin bear and posts an XMR donation address.  that's his prerogative but i think a core dev should be all out pushing and working on Bitcoin like Gavin does to advance the project forward.  shedding those guys would be a good thing.

everything i say is said in the context of the broader markets.  we're probably heading into the next recession and in that environment i believer altcoins will be slaughtered.  if Bitcoin can hang on, or even thrive, as a safe haven alternative, a major shift in finance may be upon us.  Bitcoin has already survived an unbelievable 6 yrs and next yr we will halve.  the way all the charts have lined up, it's just a matter of time before we start the next advance to end Bitcoin's longest Bear.  this hasn't even been the greatest Bear, imo, which was from 32 to 1.98 in 2011.  that is a great sign.  i've always said that the majority of ppl investing in cryptocurrencies will lose money.  this is definitely playing out and includes Bitcoiners who bought high.  it also includes full node operators and miners, btw, and accounts for the decrease in their numbers too.  but that will easily reverse with new adoption and the next price rise.

Bitcoin is like threading a needle; it needs to stay private enough to prevent all out war with TPTB.  so far so good.  is Monero in that category?  i doubt it but i'm not saying it won't possibly find a niche with the iCELatte's of the world.  oh, btw, it took me a while to figure out what his agenda was with him coming in here and pretending to be all concerned about Bitcoin when his real agenda was to diss it and pump Monero.  even smooth, who offers up decent stuff, was confusing me a while back before i found out he was a Monero core dev.  i couldn't figure out why when i got skeptical about altcoins he'd always quickly negate anything i had to say on that.  also when we got to talking about the 49%-51% attacks against Bitcoin he was posting highly frequently against Bitcoin.  that's ok, he's smart and is entitled to his opinion.  but it was never clear until someone mentioned his Monero connection what was happening.  i like to focus on what ppl's motivations are, that should be clear.  i won't let that cloud my judgment however.  i really think Bitcoin is on the right path, even if it has to fork to XT.  to me, that would just mean a much easier path forward with a new group of devs.  then the market can be free of financial conflicts of interest from the likes of Blockstream.  i've heard enough complaints about how big players like Nasdaq won't entrust large amounts of money to a monetary system controlled by an unknown, anarchistic leaning group of new leaders.  i wouldn't either if i didn't fully understand the system.  that's why i would be willing to migrate to XT if need be.  how would it be for Gavin to initiate growth to 20x at least for Bitcoin?  not bad at all i'd say.  we will overcome the technical constraints, if there really are some.  the financial incentives to find a solution will be so great at that point that full node growth is bound to happen, bandwidth providers will be happy to accept more traffic and will be financially incentivized to find solutions, and Wall St will then jump in with both feet.  and if we need to, we'll just pair the block size back temporarily until a real solution is found.  Monero can't even be a part of all that b/c the big players won't be allowed to play.

we will thread the needle b/c we can guide it to be so.

I have to make a small remark here. I am guessing you assume that most XMR proponents are fully into it and don't hold any BTC. This is a wrong assumption, most of the XMR proponents also hold a significant stash of BTC (or atleast in propertion (e.g. most people are like 5-20% XMR / remainder BTC)). I have to agree though that some of the statements might look as if they are fully into XMR, but believe me, in fact most of them are not and also want BTC to succeed.

Furthermore, I personally think a sustained BTC bearmarket will also hurt XMR, because confidence remains low in the cryptocurrency atmosphere. Just look at what alts did in the November 2013 bubble, it can be concluded that a thriving BTC market will also help any notable alts.

[cypherdoc]

The imposible monero>btc seems more plausible as time goes on

nope.  with Monero wallowing at near all-time lows relative to BTC and way down at #13 in the cryptocurrency mkts, it's no wonder iCELatte and his buddies have decided to come into this thread and try to take advantage of the 20MB controversy.  it's a shameless move yet quite expected from these altscam guys.  too bad it's not going to work:

-

I have been reading this thread since early 2013, it is one of the little gems this forum has left. I respect your thoughts and what you have contributed. Until now I have refrained from commenting on/about anything monero in the little posts i make here, since there's an altsection for that.

But what you're doing now is playing the exact same card that all the bitcoin sceptics are pulling to illegitimatize btc, which imo is a weak one. Bitcoin provided a mental exercise when it appeared on the scene. You've been able to make it to the other side and are one of the most forward thinking guys ion this subject(esp if compared to the rest of the world). There are a lot of viable arguments against alts or monero but the stance you've been taking is of the same sturdiness of the bitcoin-'haters' and have resulted in fallacies based on price.

Maybe that is because of the monero-proponents here who sort of force you into this position. But don't become like the btc-haters who arn't willing to at least try out other perspectives on the matter. You resorted into the same kind of tactics as the old status quo you once battled.

You've been getting a lot of shit here lately in all the debates. And although you are used to getting shit about these topics it almost seems that lately you're losing it a little. Call me a troll/newb/insignifact whatever. The paragraph i started with was genuine.

i appreciate the feedback.  i've already taken these types of thoughts into consideration.

thezerg once accused me of being a dinorsaur with regards to innovation in Bitcoin, which you kinda are above.  i don't think that's true.  this whole debate is consistent with my long held belief that all innovation should occur on the mainchain.  if Bitcoin fails to do that as an open source project similar to linux, which was supposedly the great promise it made imo, then the whole concept of cryptocurrencies has failed and we'll just go back to fiat for the next hundred years.  this whole movement of Gavin to go to XT, if necessary, is innovation on the mainchain as i see it.  he's simply going to upgrade the software to accept bigger blocks.  and that's a good thing.  if anything, the dinosaurs and fear mongerers are the one's wanting to keep Bitcoin artificially restrained.  enough about that.

as far as Monero is concerned, it is a completely new altcoin with a different signature scheme.  to be honest, it is so far off my radar and so insignificant of an alt that i hadn't paid much attention to it.  i still don't really care to understand how it works b/c i don't think it will go anywhere.  could be wrong.  i've always said i'd welcome more privacy in Bitcoin and it's possible Monero does that.  i know there was a big technical issue months back but can't remember what it was.  maybe someone could clarify.  but that's beside the point.  it is NOT innovating on top of Bitcoin which i quite frankly see as a problem for it.  it is not leveraging upon the huge network effect already achieved by Bitcoin.  does that necessarily mean it will fail?  no.  but i think we get one chance with this b/c the implications are so huge.  if Bitcoin fails, they all fail.  if it's not improved upon or upgraded, it will fail.  if we all don't stick together as a group, it will fail.  if that means the economic majority has to fork off and shed the likes of the Blockstream cabal, we have a chance.  the more i think about it, the better i like the idea of getting rid of gmax and luke.  i think they're toxic.  yeah, gmax is a brilliant cryptographer but he can't be trusted with the keys or to run a company.  he's a KNOWN Bitcoin bear and posts an XMR donation address.  that's his prerogative but i think a core dev should be all out pushing and working on Bitcoin like Gavin does to advance the project forward.  shedding those guys would be a good thing.

everything i say is said in the context of the broader markets.  we're probably heading into the next recession and in that environment i believer altcoins will be slaughtered.  if Bitcoin can hang on, or even thrive, as a safe haven alternative, a major shift in finance may be upon us.  Bitcoin has already survived an unbelievable 6 yrs and next yr we will halve.  the way all the charts have lined up, it's just a matter of time before we start the next advance to end Bitcoin's longest Bear.  this hasn't even been the greatest Bear, imo, which was from 32 to 1.98 in 2011.  that is a great sign.  i've always said that the majority of ppl investing in cryptocurrencies will lose money.  this is definitely playing out and includes Bitcoiners who bought high.  it also includes full node operators and miners, btw, and accounts for the decrease in their numbers too.  but that will easily reverse with new adoption and the next price rise.

Bitcoin is like threading a needle; it needs to stay private enough to prevent all out war with TPTB.  so far so good.  is Monero in that category?  i doubt it but i'm not saying it won't possibly find a niche with the iCELatte's of the world.  oh, btw, it took me a while to figure out what his agenda was with him coming in here and pretending to be all concerned about Bitcoin when his real agenda was to diss it and pump Monero.  even smooth, who offers up decent stuff, was confusing me a while back before i found out he was a Monero core dev.  i couldn't figure out why when i got skeptical about altcoins he'd always quickly negate anything i had to say on that.  also when we got to talking about the 49%-51% attacks against Bitcoin he was posting highly frequently against Bitcoin.  that's ok, he's smart and is entitled to his opinion.  but it was never clear until someone mentioned his Monero connection what was happening.  i like to focus on what ppl's motivations are, that should be clear.  i won't let that cloud my judgment however.  i really think Bitcoin is on the right path, even if it has to fork to XT.  to me, that would just mean a much easier path forward with a new group of devs.  then the market can be free of financial conflicts of interest from the likes of Blockstream.  i've heard enough complaints about how big players like Nasdaq won't entrust large amounts of money to a monetary system controlled by an unknown, anarchistic leaning group of new leaders.  i wouldn't either if i didn't fully understand the system.  that's why i would be willing to migrate to XT if need be.  how would it be for Gavin to initiate growth to 20x at least for Bitcoin?  not bad at all i'd say.  we will overcome the technical constraints, if there really are some.  the financial incentives to find a solution will be so great at that point that full node growth is bound to happen, bandwidth providers will be happy to accept more traffic and will be financially incentivized to find solutions, and Wall St will then jump in with both feet.  and if we need to, we'll just pair the block size back temporarily until a real solution is found.  Monero can't even be a part of all that b/c the big players won't be allowed to play.

we will thread the needle b/c we can guide it to be so.

I have to make a small remark here. I am guessing you assume that most XMR proponents are fully into it and don't hold any BTC. This is a wrong assumption, most of the XMR proponents also hold a significant stash of BTC (or atleast in propertion (e.g. most people are like 5-20% XMR / remainder BTC)). I have to agree though that some of the statements might look as if they are fully into XMR, but believe me, in fact most of them are not and also want BTC to succeed.

not sure how you "know" that.  certainly that's not true for iCELatte.  just look at his handle.  maybe you're inferring they're using XMR as a hedge.  i guess that's ok if you don't believe what rocks and i are saying above about a single currency winning in the long run.

Furthermore, I personally think a sustained BTC bearmarket will also hurt XMR, because confidence remains low in the cryptocurrency atmosphere. Just look at what alts did in the November 2013 bubble, it can be concluded that a thriving BTC market will also help any notable alts.

just b/c they all thrived together then doesn't mean they'll do the same as 2013.  in fact, a strong argument could be made that any launch in Bitcoin could spell doom for altscams that wither as a result.  in fact, the voracity with which Monero and other altcoin proponents attack this thread and me is evidence that they think the same thing.  they want Bitcoin to fail.  in their minds, Bitcoin must fail for them to succeed.  i'd throw gmax into that group too.

[Natalia_AnatolioPAMM]

sometimes, you just have to focus on the obvious:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246607

good point

[Wandererfromthenorth]

Looks like Gavin's plan to get the miners to join his coup d'état is not going so great

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114481/chinese-exchanges-reject-gavin-andresens-20-mb-block-size-increase

[Adrian-x]

this lady is highly unlikely to be making a mistake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ6WR2R1MnM&feature=youtu.be

Will be amazing if she is right, maybe she just hopes she is as it definitely makes a good speech.  To say with that certainty that blockchain transactions will be part of all public financing and as ground breaking as the internet is quite a statement if we consider just how much trade is done by the markets every day.

Blythe worked for JP Morgan and the banksters. I'm sure she wishes it would be so, since they plan to track and control us with public ledgers which are only decentralized in name but actually monopolized.

That's why we need SC's once we are dependent on "public ledgers which are only decentralized in name but actually monopolized"  (I.e. something not Bitcoin that has  grater value) we will want to use them.

Creating value on a SC and not using the 2wP but using the other ledger is a way to create value off Bitcoin that is not represented in the blockchain it has the same effect as monetary inflation and is plausibly denied as the unit is pegged.

The problem here is because of the peg you risk nothing if you fail to create value - you 2wP back. TPTB can keep trying until they succeed, you can't defend against a odds like that.

[dEBRUYNE]

The imposible monero>btc seems more plausible as time goes on

nope.  with Monero wallowing at near all-time lows relative to BTC and way down at #13 in the cryptocurrency mkts, it's no wonder iCELatte and his buddies have decided to come into this thread and try to take advantage of the 20MB controversy.  it's a shameless move yet quite expected from these altscam guys.  too bad it's not going to work:

-

I have been reading this thread since early 2013, it is one of the little gems this forum has left. I respect your thoughts and what you have contributed. Until now I have refrained from commenting on/about anything monero in the little posts i make here, since there's an altsection for that.

But what you're doing now is playing the exact same card that all the bitcoin sceptics are pulling to illegitimatize btc, which imo is a weak one. Bitcoin provided a mental exercise when it appeared on the scene. You've been able to make it to the other side and are one of the most forward thinking guys ion this subject(esp if compared to the rest of the world). There are a lot of viable arguments against alts or monero but the stance you've been taking is of the same sturdiness of the bitcoin-'haters' and have resulted in fallacies based on price.

Maybe that is because of the monero-proponents here who sort of force you into this position. But don't become like the btc-haters who arn't willing to at least try out other perspectives on the matter. You resorted into the same kind of tactics as the old status quo you once battled.

You've been getting a lot of shit here lately in all the debates. And although you are used to getting shit about these topics it almost seems that lately you're losing it a little. Call me a troll/newb/insignifact whatever. The paragraph i started with was genuine.

i appreciate the feedback.  i've already taken these types of thoughts into consideration.

thezerg once accused me of being a dinorsaur with regards to innovation in Bitcoin, which you kinda are above.  i don't think that's true.  this whole debate is consistent with my long held belief that all innovation should occur on the mainchain.  if Bitcoin fails to do that as an open source project similar to linux, which was supposedly the great promise it made imo, then the whole concept of cryptocurrencies has failed and we'll just go back to fiat for the next hundred years.  this whole movement of Gavin to go to XT, if necessary, is innovation on the mainchain as i see it.  he's simply going to upgrade the software to accept bigger blocks.  and that's a good thing.  if anything, the dinosaurs and fear mongerers are the one's wanting to keep Bitcoin artificially restrained.  enough about that.

as far as Monero is concerned, it is a completely new altcoin with a different signature scheme.  to be honest, it is so far off my radar and so insignificant of an alt that i hadn't paid much attention to it.  i still don't really care to understand how it works b/c i don't think it will go anywhere.  could be wrong.  i've always said i'd welcome more privacy in Bitcoin and it's possible Monero does that.  i know there was a big technical issue months back but can't remember what it was.  maybe someone could clarify.  but that's beside the point.  it is NOT innovating on top of Bitcoin which i quite frankly see as a problem for it.  it is not leveraging upon the huge network effect already achieved by Bitcoin.  does that necessarily mean it will fail?  no.  but i think we get one chance with this b/c the implications are so huge.  if Bitcoin fails, they all fail.  if it's not improved upon or upgraded, it will fail.  if we all don't stick together as a group, it will fail.  if that means the economic majority has to fork off and shed the likes of the Blockstream cabal, we have a chance.  the more i think about it, the better i like the idea of getting rid of gmax and luke.  i think they're toxic.  yeah, gmax is a brilliant cryptographer but he can't be trusted with the keys or to run a company.  he's a KNOWN Bitcoin bear and posts an XMR donation address.  that's his prerogative but i think a core dev should be all out pushing and working on Bitcoin like Gavin does to advance the project forward.  shedding those guys would be a good thing.

everything i say is said in the context of the broader markets.  we're probably heading into the next recession and in that environment i believer altcoins will be slaughtered.  if Bitcoin can hang on, or even thrive, as a safe haven alternative, a major shift in finance may be upon us.  Bitcoin has already survived an unbelievable 6 yrs and next yr we will halve.  the way all the charts have lined up, it's just a matter of time before we start the next advance to end Bitcoin's longest Bear.  this hasn't even been the greatest Bear, imo, which was from 32 to 1.98 in 2011.  that is a great sign.  i've always said that the majority of ppl investing in cryptocurrencies will lose money.  this is definitely playing out and includes Bitcoiners who bought high.  it also includes full node operators and miners, btw, and accounts for the decrease in their numbers too.  but that will easily reverse with new adoption and the next price rise.

Bitcoin is like threading a needle; it needs to stay private enough to prevent all out war with TPTB.  so far so good.  is Monero in that category?  i doubt it but i'm not saying it won't possibly find a niche with the iCELatte's of the world.  oh, btw, it took me a while to figure out what his agenda was with him coming in here and pretending to be all concerned about Bitcoin when his real agenda was to diss it and pump Monero.  even smooth, who offers up decent stuff, was confusing me a while back before i found out he was a Monero core dev.  i couldn't figure out why when i got skeptical about altcoins he'd always quickly negate anything i had to say on that.  also when we got to talking about the 49%-51% attacks against Bitcoin he was posting highly frequently against Bitcoin.  that's ok, he's smart and is entitled to his opinion.  but it was never clear until someone mentioned his Monero connection what was happening.  i like to focus on what ppl's motivations are, that should be clear.  i won't let that cloud my judgment however.  i really think Bitcoin is on the right path, even if it has to fork to XT.  to me, that would just mean a much easier path forward with a new group of devs.  then the market can be free of financial conflicts of interest from the likes of Blockstream.  i've heard enough complaints about how big players like Nasdaq won't entrust large amounts of money to a monetary system controlled by an unknown, anarchistic leaning group of new leaders.  i wouldn't either if i didn't fully understand the system.  that's why i would be willing to migrate to XT if need be.  how would it be for Gavin to initiate growth to 20x at least for Bitcoin?  not bad at all i'd say.  we will overcome the technical constraints, if there really are some.  the financial incentives to find a solution will be so great at that point that full node growth is bound to happen, bandwidth providers will be happy to accept more traffic and will be financially incentivized to find solutions, and Wall St will then jump in with both feet.  and if we need to, we'll just pair the block size back temporarily until a real solution is found.  Monero can't even be a part of all that b/c the big players won't be allowed to play.

we will thread the needle b/c we can guide it to be so.

I have to make a small remark here. I am guessing you assume that most XMR proponents are fully into it and don't hold any BTC. This is a wrong assumption, most of the XMR proponents also hold a significant stash of BTC (or atleast in propertion (e.g. most people are like 5-20% XMR / remainder BTC)). I have to agree though that some of the statements might look as if they are fully into XMR, but believe me, in fact most of them are not and also want BTC to succeed.

not sure how you "know" that.  certainly that's not true for iCELatte.  just look at his handle.  maybe you're inferring they're using XMR as a hedge.  i guess that's ok if you don't believe what rocks and i are saying above about a single currency winning in the long run.

Furthermore, I personally think a sustained BTC bearmarket will also hurt XMR, because confidence remains low in the cryptocurrency atmosphere. Just look at what alts did in the November 2013 bubble, it can be concluded that a thriving BTC market will also help any notable alts.

just b/c they all thrived together then doesn't mean they'll do the same as 2013.  in fact, a strong argument could be made that any launch in Bitcoin could spell doom for altscams that wither as a result.  in fact, the voracity with which Monero and other altcoin proponents attack this thread and me is evidence that they think the same thing.  they want Bitcoin to fail.  in their minds, Bitcoin must fail for them to succeed.  i'd throw gmax into that group too.

[1] Most of them stated it in one of the XMR topics. Regarding iCEBREAKER  I don't know, but you can't base an assumption for the whole userbase on just one guy in my opinion. Wouldn't someone hedge with the perception of one currency succeeding? If they believe XMR can complement BTC in someway, or take some share of a niche market, they wouldn't convert their BTC in order to hedge.

[2] I have to agree on the former that past performance isn't really a great indicator of future performance, so I am revising my previous statement.  But I would like to hear which strong argument could be made that any launch in Bitcoin could spell doom for altcoins. Furthermore, I don't think XMR proponents are really attacking this thread (maybe iCEBREAKER, but like I said before, don't create a certain view based on one person). Like I said before, most of them want Bitcoin to succeed as well and are only giving examples of how certain things are done otherwise in Monero.

[Adrian-x]

Looks like Gavin's plan to get the miners to join his coup d'état is not going so great, lol

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114481/chinese-exchanges-reject-gavin-andresens-20-mb-block-size-increase

* edit you should say exchanges miners are not as powerful as you fear.  

I think they are overestimating there power. here is a quote from someone who once controlled almost 50% of the Bitcoin hash rate.
As for China I think they are net sellers, and they want to offshore profit, i suspect a lot of volume is also hot air, look at the number of nodes in China and you get a feel for how well Bitcoin has penetrated there.

If the whole of Chinese didn't fork  (all 91 nodes) I think it would have little impact.

A common misunderstanding:  Miners actually have zero influence over hardforking.  If a hard fork is going to happen, it doesn't matter if 99% of miners decide not to follow it.  If all of the major Bitcoin businesses, payment processors, and exchanges move to Bitcoin (New) and the miners all stay on Bitcoin (Old), it doesn't matter, forks do NOT require mining consensus unless the fork requires one, such as the "Block Version 1" -> "Block Version 2" fork, where the network switched to enforcing version 2 blocks after 95% of the last 1000(?) blocks were V2.

Code:

                       Bitcoin Fork A (95% of miners, 5% of businesses)
                      /
Prefork Bitcoin -----
                      \
                       Bitcoin Fork B (5% of miners, 95% of businesses)

Guess which one is going to retain any value?  Especially post-fork when the miners realize they can't exchange their BTC for goods or cash because no exchanges will accept BTC-A coins.

I believe we absolutely need to remove the 1MB block limit.  I'm not opposed to the jump from 1MB to 20MB, as I think it will have very minimal impact what the new limit is for quite some time.  I'm not sure if this jump to 20MB also implements the original proposal for automatically increasing the limit annually.  I do have objections to that one as I think Gavin's original proposed annual increase was FAR too aggressive and optimistic regarding throughput and bandwidth quotas for huge portions of the world.

What I think probably won't matter much though.  With a March 2016 prospective date, I'm not so sure the pool will even still be around by the time it's time to choose a side, given how much noise is being made by regulatory bodies who have absolutely no clue what to do with Bitcoin but sure as hell want to regulate it anyways.

[cypherdoc]

Looks like Gavin's plan to get the miners to join his coup d'état is not going so great, lol

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114481/chinese-exchanges-reject-gavin-andresens-20-mb-block-size-increase

* edit you should say exchanges miners are not as powerful as you fear.  

I think they are overestimating there power. here is a quote from someone who once controlled almost 50% of the Bitcoin hash rate.
As for China I think they are net sellers, and they want to offshore profit, i suspect a lot of volume is also hot air, look at the number of nodes in China and you get a feel for how well Bitcoin has penetrated there.

If the whole of Chinese didn't fork  (all 91 nodes) I think it would have little impact.

A common misunderstanding:  Miners actually have zero influence over hardforking.  If a hard fork is going to happen, it doesn't matter if 99% of miners decide not to follow it.  If all of the major Bitcoin businesses, payment processors, and exchanges move to Bitcoin (New) and the miners all stay on Bitcoin (Old), it doesn't matter, forks do NOT require mining consensus unless the fork requires one, such as the "Block Version 1" -> "Block Version 2" fork, where the network switched to enforcing version 2 blocks after 95% of the last 1000(?) blocks were V2.

Code:

                       Bitcoin Fork A (95% of miners, 5% of businesses)
                      /
Prefork Bitcoin -----
                      \
                       Bitcoin Fork B (5% of miners, 95% of businesses)

Guess which one is going to retain any value?  Especially post-fork when the miners realize they can't exchange their BTC for goods or cash because no exchanges will accept BTC-A coins.

I believe we absolutely need to remove the 1MB block limit.  I'm not opposed to the jump from 1MB to 20MB, as I think it will have very minimal impact what the new limit is for quite some time.  I'm not sure if this jump to 20MB also implements the original proposal for automatically increasing the limit annually.  I do have objections to that one as I think Gavin's original proposed annual increase was FAR too aggressive and optimistic regarding throughput and bandwidth quotas for huge portions of the world.

What I think probably won't matter much though.  With a March 2016 prospective date, I'm not so sure the pool will even still be around by the time it's time to choose a side, given how much noise is being made by regulatory bodies who have absolutely no clue what to do with Bitcoin but sure as hell want to regulate it anyways.

And that's from good guy Eleuthria who  saved the network  twice more  than anyone, including guys like  gmax, with his pocketbook. Notably with the 0.8 fork and when he voluntarily backed his pool away from 51% control of the network. All miners would do well to follow his lead as he had unquestionably demonstrated only good things for Bitcoin.

On the Chinese mine objections. Let them cry. Bitcoin is a force for good so if they want to allow themselves to be forked off the network through their local bandwidth problems, so be it. I say do someing about it. It will give miners round the world a chance to level the passing field. And if Wall street really does  want to get into Bitcoin, this will give them a chance to build their own mines. That would be a good thing too so as to further decentralize the process. Personally I think the Chinese gvt will allow their miners to step it up to stay competitive. Bitcoin is their chance to challenge the dollar which is why they haven't crushed it yet.

[cypherdoc]

Looks like Gavin's plan to get the miners to join his coup d'état is not going so great, lol

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114481/chinese-exchanges-reject-gavin-andresens-20-mb-block-size-increase

LOL, this quote just cut the legs out from Blockstream's main objection to raising the block limit; that being the large block attack  on small miners supposedly facilitated by "superior"  bandwidth connections. Well, the largest miners in the world are telling us they have "inferior"  connections! Lol! What a bunch of amateurs.

“A very large block size would be problematic for miners because the network bandwidth between China, where the majority of mining is done, and rest of the world is heavily restricted. Important proposals like these need to factor in all of the nuances of the global landscape.”

[justusranvier]

As I already said

We'll find out in due course, once it's measured.

[thezerg]

Also since the Chinese were late entrants they got all excited about litecoin (or so I heard from a Chinese friend).  I'd imagine that there are quite a few litecoin bagholders there who would be happy to see bitcoin hobbled by limited transaction capacity.

In my opinion miners are pretty exchangeable.  It would be nice to have an overwhelming majority on the larger blocks but if not, oh well hash rate drops a bit.  I think it unlikely that there would be enough 1MB aligned hash power to BOTH continue the 1MB fork AND wreak havoc on the 20MB branch by 51%ing it with continuous 20MB spam blocks.  


The exchanges and payment processors are the most important players in this decision.

[rocks]

What I said is it is possible to layer similar schemes on top of Bitcoin.

I'm not sure if it's true that Bitcoin can be as private as Monero or not, but I hope to find out.

One of the things we want to do with the Open Bitcoin Privacy Project ratings is generalize the measurement criteria until it's possible to make cross-currency privacy comparisons. That's tentatively planned for 2016.

At some point it should be possible to start to meaningfully compare Monero wallets with various Bitcoin wallets.

Note that just proving the cryptographic properties of ring signatures isn't enough, because some other part of the system might leak information or be susceptible to privacy-reducing user error. You have to evaluate the entire stack.

Agree that the options known today may not make Bitcoin as private as Monero, but a) how private is good enough, it is quite possible some of the working proposals today may be good enough and b) there is a very long future for development here and the one thing I think we know for sure is there will be quite a bit of effort towards improving Bitcoin's privacy.

And for Monero, what happens if a flaw is found? Monero's implementation is fixed. That is a problem. If a flaw is found in a privacy scheme layered on top of Bitcoin then you can either fix it or switch to another without touching Bitcoin. I think there is an argument for keeping the base protocol as simple and straight forward as possible and layering other user defined schemes on top.