Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[tvbcof]

Does Mike Hearn really control Bitcoin?
...

I can only speak to my observations, but it really does seem to me that at this point Mike Hearn controls Gavin Andresen as effectively as a hand inserted into a sock controls a puppet.  This was not always the case, but it seems (to me) that within the last year or so it has become very hard to not notice.

Now controlling Mr. Andresen is not equivalent to controlling Bitcoin (thank God!) and the frustration of this seems to be showing on Mr. Hearn, but it is a relatively potent tool.  And 'if all one has is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail' as they say.

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[TPTB_need_war]

tvbcof, I liked your upthread point that Bitcoin is really about who has the power to do shit.

Pegged side chains are apparently coming without any changes to Core source.

As for larger blocks, apparently no one has enough power to make this happen. MPEX will make it a war of attrition until pegged side chains arrive.

After that GavinCoin can be launched as a pegged side chain (which MPEX can't attack due to the peg) and the market can vote.

So why is Cypherdoc wasting our time?

[Adrian-x]

Cypherdoc I have a better suggestion. How about we observe what happens? And you shut up.

I doubt your arguments have been informational enough to impact any of the key actors in this process.

I don't think Cypherdoc the guy with the microphone and an auditorium full of devotees, I think the people you want to shut up are the minority being paid $21M to spread there version of Bitcoin.
I'd condone your approach if you asked them to shut up.  

[TPTB_need_war]

Cypherdoc I have a better suggestion. How about we observe what happens? And you shut up.

I doubt your arguments have been informational enough to impact any of the key actors in this process.

I don't think Cypherdoc the guy with the microphone and an auditorium full of devotees, I think the people you want to shut up are the minority being paid $21M to spread there version of Bitcoin.
I'd condone your approach if you asked them to shut up.  

Why should we stop pegged side chains (and can we)? What is the problem with them? Refer to my prior post for my logic.

Anything that pegged side chains have the power to do, can be done even without Blockstream. The beans have been spilled.

[Adrian-x]

Cypherdoc I have a better suggestion. How about we observe what happens? And you shut up.

I doubt your arguments have been informational enough to impact any of the key actors in this process.

I don't think Cypherdoc the guy with the microphone and an auditorium full of devotees, I think the people you want to shut up are the minority being paid $21M to spread there version of Bitcoin.
I'd condone your approach if you asked them to shut up.  

Why should we stop pegged side chains (and can we)? What is the problem with them? Refer to my prior post for my logic.

Anything that pegged side chains have the power to do, can be done even without Blockstream. The beans have been spilled.

I see only positive outcomes should Sidechains be limited in functionality released as Sidecains Elements.  To answer your question you have 250 pages of reading to do to catch up,- hint scroll back to the date the sidechain paper was released it will give you a good start date. (on the up side the content is a lot more focused and coherent than the constant word flow you project in here at the moment ;-)

[cypherdoc]

even under the "benevolent dictator" scenario, that principal core dev would not control Bitcoin and it would not be decentralized.

the decentralization comes from all the full nodes, miners, and user base which is spread round the world with the economic majority calling the shots of which the "benevolent dictator" must listen and respond to otherwise someone just creates a hard fork to which the economic majority will migrate to all possible b/c of open source and Satoshi's original design.

which is why we need to stick to Satoshi's original vision and reject bastardizations of it like SC's.

Did Satoshi's vision include kludging around the problem that the 'correct' chain may not be the longest one and it might be necessary to feed auxiliary data to SPV clients such that they could make choose the appropriate choice (since, of course, the user is incapable of doing so on his own?)

Just curious because your 'benevolent dictator' seems to see it as a distinct enough possibility to publicly muse about.

I would suggest that once such a solution was in place, it would be an extra tool in the taint-coin toolbox even if abstract layer economic methods themselves failed to do the job.  The economic-only methods themselves might fail if Bitcoin cannot be bloated sufficiently so it would be good to have a back-up I suppose.

depending on what majority % XT decides to turn on the large block setting, i don't think the bolded part will happen.  if enough of the economic majority switched to XT the others would have to follow. 

[cypherdoc]

would the brainless stop perseverating over MPEX?

anyone who tries to manipulate the mkts like they're threatening to do will get creamed.

[jmw74]

I don't get all this hand-wringing about hard forks.

Everyone is paranoid that their fork won't be popular (whether among end-users or miners).

They seem to forget that on a world scale, nobody gives a crap about bitcoin still. Whether your fork occupies 0.0004% or 0.00004% of the world money supply is a rather minor distinction.

Look at it another way, would it be that horrible if your fork of bitcoin was "only" as popular as bitcoin was in 2011? That didn't stop anyone in 2011. And your fork would be way easier to use than bitcoin was then.

Put yet another way, I'd rather bitcoin be "right" than "popular". Whichever fork is what I want, that's what I'm going to use. If I wanted a "popular" currency and payment system, the dollar and Visa would be obvious choices, but that's not what any of us want.

[cypherdoc]

I don't get all this hand-wringing about hard forks.

Everyone is paranoid that their fork won't be popular (whether among end-users or miners).

They seem to forget that on a world scale, nobody gives a crap about bitcoin still. Whether your fork occupies 0.0004% or 0.00004% of the world money supply is a rather minor distinction.

Look at it another way, would it be that horrible if your fork of bitcoin was "only" as popular as bitcoin was in 2011? That didn't stop anyone in 2011. And your fork would be way easier to use than bitcoin was then.

Put yet another way, I'd rather bitcoin be "right" than "popular". Whichever fork is what I want, that's what I'm going to use. If I wanted a "popular" currency and payment system, the dollar and Visa would be obvious choices, but that's not what any of us want.

and therein lies the answer of which fork will be most popular and will win at the end of the day.  hint:  look at the polls.

in other words, devs can dev all they want but they won't if they aren't being funded.

[cypherdoc]

brutal anti-silverbox move:

[rocks]

marcus of augustus stooping to new lows:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39bwwn/arguments_in_the_bitcoin_block_size_debate_an/cs2f6fm

talking about bitcoin-killing extensions, game overs, and ELE "extinction level events"  

Is it FUD if the dangers are real, clear and present?

Forewarned is forearmed. Anybody who wants to run on the XT fork deserves to know the dangers they are getting themselves into. Attempting to censor me through intimidation is not going to work.

MoA, I've appreciated your past comments here, but think you are wrong on the XT fork paranoia . These replies to you over in Reddit explain why the fork is fine and how you can verify it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/394fn1/mike_hearn_in_about_1_week_bitcoin_xt_will/cs0fvmd

[cypherdoc]

marcus of augustus stooping to new lows:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39bwwn/arguments_in_the_bitcoin_block_size_debate_an/cs2f6fm

talking about bitcoin-killing extensions, game overs, and ELE "extinction level events"  

Is it FUD if the dangers are real, clear and present?

Forewarned is forearmed. Anybody who wants to run on the XT fork deserves to know the dangers they are getting themselves into. Attempting to censor me through intimidation is not going to work.

MoA, I've appreciated your past comments here, but think you are wrong on the XT fork paranoia . These replies to you over in Reddit explain why the fork is fine and how you can verify it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/394fn1/mike_hearn_in_about_1_week_bitcoin_xt_will/cs0fvmd

this is really funny since i immediately suggested this to MofA weeks ago when he protested when XT got announced.  and i am not a coder.  i can go back and get the quote if anyone doubts me:

Hearns:
You can easily use "diff -ur" to see the differences, or use the git command line (eg "git diff 0.10.2A..upstream/master"), or just look at the commits as they are all rebased onto the top of the upstream branch.

[jmw74]

I don't get all this hand-wringing about hard forks.

Everyone is paranoid that their fork won't be popular (whether among end-users or miners).

They seem to forget that on a world scale, nobody gives a crap about bitcoin still. Whether your fork occupies 0.0004% or 0.00004% of the world money supply is a rather minor distinction.

Look at it another way, would it be that horrible if your fork of bitcoin was "only" as popular as bitcoin was in 2011? That didn't stop anyone in 2011. And your fork would be way easier to use than bitcoin was then.

Put yet another way, I'd rather bitcoin be "right" than "popular". Whichever fork is what I want, that's what I'm going to use. If I wanted a "popular" currency and payment system, the dollar and Visa would be obvious choices, but that's not what any of us want.

and therein lies the answer of which fork will be most popular and will win at the end of the day.  hint:  look at the polls.

in other words, devs can dev all they want but they won't if they aren't being funded.

You just did it again!

If popularity means winning, then we might as well all go home. I hate to break it to you, but bitcoin is terribly, terribly unpopular. At best, 0.01% of the world has used it.

The whole reason we're still here is that we want tools that work for us, and if the whole world decides to join us, great! If not, it'll go on just fine as a niche product.

I personally think bitcoin can be a much better-known niche product than it is today, but it will always be niche. And not just due to limitations on bandwidth. Consensus takes time. If you're willing to trust a 3rd party (no consensus needed!), they can run circles around bitcoin. They don't yet, but they could.

Bitcoin will become the pressure relief valve. If banks and governments don't give us a fair deal, we use bitcoin instead.  Bitcoin will never be the default though, it will always be the censorship-resistance tool.

[cypherdoc]

i really like these guys.  doing actual analysis and simulations.  bottom line:  we don't have much time:

https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-4-simulating-practical-capacity

[cypherdoc]

https://www.coinprices.io/articles/the-hard-fork-no-need-to-worry-bitcoin-upgrades-harness-free-market-consensus

[rocks]

https://www.coinprices.io/articles/the-hard-fork-no-need-to-worry-bitcoin-upgrades-harness-free-market-consensus

Bitcoin is the first "voluntary consensus" system I think we've seen. Other systems may be centrally decided or democratically decided, but in all cases once a decision is made you have to follow it. For example we have:

• The FED - Small group of people make all decisions. No one else has any influence over said decisions. Once a decision is made, everyone is forced to follow the FED's decisions or go to jail.
• Democracy - Large scale popularity vote, everyone gets to include their voice (in theory, we all know there are problems in today's "democracy"). Decisions (in theory) follow the opinion of the majority. Once a decision is made, everyone is forced to follow the decision or go to jail.

In both cases, once a decision is made you have to follow it or go to jail.

Then enter bitcoin. Everyone gets to choose which system or path to participate on. There is some form of centralized decision (the devs) but people are free to ignore them. Decisions also come down to a large scale popularity vote of sorts and most will follow the economic majority.

However there is no requirement to follow either the devs or the economic majority. Any group of people can tell the rest to f'off and follow their own path. They will be isolated and excluded from the majority, but they are not stopped and if later proved right the majority might just come back to join them.

This is unique as far as I can see, I am looking forward to seeing how the 20MB fork plays out largely as the first real test of how well "voluntary consensus" works in practice.

200 years ago the very idea of trying democracy was considered a "grand experiment" (one that many predicted would fail). I think a key failing of democracy however is it is still binding. Today "voluntary consensus" is the grand experiment.

[molecular]

Bitcoin is the first "voluntary consensus" system I think we've seen. Other systems may be centrally decided or democratically decided, but in all cases once a decision is made you have to follow it. For example we have:

• The FED - Small group of people make all decisions. No one else has any influence over said decisions. Once a decision is made, everyone is forced to follow the FED's decisions or go to jail.
• Democracy - Large scale popularity vote, everyone gets to include their voice (in theory, we all know there are problems in today's "democracy"). Decisions (in theory) follow the opinion of the majority. Once a decision is made, everyone is forced to follow the decision or go to jail.

In both cases, once a decision is made you have to follow it or go to jail.

Yeah, it sucks. Can't just leave and go somewhere else.

If I could "fork earth", I probably would.

Anyone coming along?

[jmw74]

This is unique as far as I can see, I am looking forward to seeing how the 20MB fork plays out largely as the first real test of how well "voluntary consensus" works in practice.

200 years ago the very idea of trying democracy was considered a "grand experiment" (one that many predicted would fail). Today "voluntary consensus" is the grand experiment.

I'm sure that like most experiments, the very first time it is attempted it will be a total mess and many people will run around proclaiming that it can never work.

Choosing new names for at least one of the forks is going to be messy. How about a BIP that deterministically chooses names based on the first block on each side of the fork?

[sidhujag]

bitshares claims 100k TPS with ease.. very likely 1000k that is possible with todays avg personal computer:

https://bitshares.org/blog/2015/06/08/measuring-performance/

reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3929x3/bitshares_now_handles_more_tps_than_visa_and/

[molecular]

bitshares claims 100k TPS with ease.. very likely 1000k that is possible with todays avg personal computer:

https://bitshares.org/blog/2015/06/08/measuring-performance/

I don't read that as them "claiming 100k TPS". They identified serially having to write utxo set as the bottleneck and they estimated a high-end server could do 100k TPS on that problem.