Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[solex]

this should work. nice and simple and pleases Chinese miners w/o giving miners in general any votes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39ziy6/eli5_what_will_happen_if_there_is_a_hard_fork/cs7xe9o



If 75% of hashing power is producing up-version blocks

AND after some brave miner decides to actually produce a >1MB block.

8MB max block size (chinese miners were unhappy with 20 for not-entirely-clear reasons)
Earliest fork date 11 Jan 2016 (miners and others want sooner rather than later)
Activation when 750 of last 1,000 blocks are up-version (version 0x20000004 to be compatible with sipa's new versioning bits scheme)
2 week 'grace period' after 75% threshold reached before first >1MB block allowed to be mined
8MB cap doubles every two years (so 16MB in 2018, etc: unless there is a soft fork before then because 16MB is too much)

Not sure why limiting the date is necessary. I feel like we should be able to pull this off sooner, especially if we are backed into a corner by some kind of big rally.

i agree but miners need time to switch over and indicate so with the versioning.

Sure. But doesn't the 2 week grace period after 75% imply enough time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuHfVn_cfHU

Gavin's solution is very good, and the 2-week grace period a smart move. The reason for this is that it gets the most people on-board with the >1MB change in a controlled manner. It is axiomatic that 100% of miners cannot be in the first 75% to upgrade even if they all wanted to. The 2-week period focuses minds on a known deadline and will likely see a "hockey-stick" uptick in the adoption curve. I would expect 85-90% mining power behind the change before the first >1MB block is mined. If 90% was the original target then Bitcoin's ecosystem growth, supported by the majority, could be stymied by a mere 11% of hold-out miners. The grace period also allows for non-mining nodes to upgrade who are not paying close attention to the whole process.

I like Jeff's BIP 100 with the miner voting, but not sure about the 90% he mentions because of the concern above.
Also, I really don't like a fixed date for everyone to upgrade (although this is far better than no change planned at all). Not using block versioning to change the 1MB means applying a sub-standard software solution for politically correct reasons, i.e. just so people can say "Aha, the users control Bitcoin and are telling the miners what to do." We already know the user consensus on a dozen btc and reddit polls, ecosystem business feedback, and now at least 50% of mining power opinion. So the change should be done as safely as possible. Gavin is perusing this path.

Probably the biggest reason that Core Dev is prepared to let the 1MB limit be constantly hit is that they think they can manage the situation. Perhaps they need to look up the word "hubris" in the dictionary.

A big bazooka in Core Dev's (fairly small) armory needed to "manage" a blocks-limit-full situation is prior roll-out of a change to purge unconfirmed tx from node mempools. This would in theory blunt some of the nasty effects in Mike's Crash Landing scenario.

So, no surprise that a pull request exists to do this:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/6281

Restrict the maximum memory pool size to avoid potential DoS issues.
The mechanism is simply to recursively remove the transactions which have the lowest priority until the memory pool is below the maximum size.

(my emphasis)
Hmm, DoS issues like ordinary users legitimately trying to use Bitcoin after tx are backing up when free block-space has vanished?

However, what appears to be a bed of roses rapidly turns into a bed of thorns...

@sipa ah so if a wallet transaction is evicted from the mempool the conflict tracking stuff will all break? that's nasty
the rabbit's hole of things to fix gets ever deeper

Their bazooka has a barrel bent into a U-shape.

Another big concern about mempool limiting is the implications for IBLT, which is Bitcoin's best hope for challenging the likes of Visa and MC in the medium, not long-term.
Randomly ejecting unconfirmed tx, or allowing a user-configurable max-mempool-size, creates non-uniform mempools. This seriously degrades the potential for IBLT, especially when miners want to clear most of the unconfirmed tx, to maximize revenue when the block reward is lower.

[1714204820]

1714204820

[1714204820]

1714204820

[Adrian-x]

In general, we should not be afraid of cartels

That's only true in the sense that cartels are naturally unstable unless and until they get support from governments in the form of externalizing the cost of enforcement.

I'm not sure cartels is really the right analogy here.

A cartel in the traditional sense is a small number of large entities banding together to force everyone to follow their decisions.

But in Bitcoin, any miner not in the cartel could choose to issue larger blocks and capture the fees. That is how Bitcoin's open nature works. The only way a cartel could succeed here is if 51% of the hash rate pooled together and agreed to build a longest chain ignoring large blocks. But I would call this at 51% attack, not a cartel.

there is no reason to be part of the 51% cartel in this eg. one of the miners will stop cooperating because it leaves money on the table and whoever breaks rank can profit by pretending to support it and earn more fees by processing bigger blocks giving the 51% advantage to the network.

[rocks]

Probably the biggest reason that Core Dev is prepared to let the 1MB limit be constantly hit is that they think they can manage the situation. Perhaps they need to look up the word "hubris" in the dictionary.

I think they want to make sure a hard fork is already needed around the same time they are ready to launch Blockstream's LN and SC changes. This would make it easier to push the changes through. i.e. "OK, transactions recently hit the 8MB limit and we need to increase the limit today, here are some additional updates to include in the fork".

If there is no pressing need for another hard fork (because the blocksize issue was already dealt with), then the entire discussion is focused on if people want to make a drastic change, and there is no rush to do so. Combining the two might accelerate the process.

For a VC backed firm, that has limited time to demonstrate adoption or revenue, running into a wall where it takes 2 years just to convince the Bitcoin ecosystem to change for you, can be a killer.

[rocks]

In general, we should not be afraid of cartels

That's only true in the sense that cartels are naturally unstable unless and until they get support from governments in the form of externalizing the cost of enforcement.

I'm not sure cartels is really the right analogy here.

A cartel in the traditional sense is a small number of large entities banding together to force everyone to follow their decisions.

But in Bitcoin, any miner not in the cartel could choose to issue larger blocks and capture the fees. That is how Bitcoin's open nature works. The only way a cartel could succeed here is if 51% of the hash rate pooled together and agreed to build a longest chain ignoring large blocks. But I would call this at 51% attack, not a cartel.

there is no reason to be part of the 51% cartel in this eg. one of the miners will stop cooperating because it leaves money on the table and whoever breaks rank can profit by pretending to support it and earn more fees by processing bigger blocks giving the 51% advantage to the network.

Exactly, it is why the argument that a cartel might form to limit the blocksize and ignore the protocol limit, is unlikely to succeed.

BTW, does anyone know what the status of IBLT is? This one change (which doesn't require a fork) would do a lot for the network.

[solex]

BTW, does anyone know what the status of IBLT is? This one change (which doesn't require a fork) would do a lot for the network.

Gavin has been seriously distracted from this  , just as the SC guys have been seriously distracted from their own work, by their blowback on the 1MB.

Yeah, you may well be right about SC/LN timing, I am still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, FWIW (at least until Wladimir breaks ranks).

[rocks]

Yeah, you may well be right about SC/LN timing, I am still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, FWIW (at least until Wladimir breaks ranks).

That is why I think a permanent solution to the blocksize limit today is better than a limit increase that leaves the issue to be addressed later. Even with the 20MB change, we will have to implement another hard fork in 3-5 years. It is better to take care of the issue once and for all, and have future hard fork decisions be limited to a single proposed change.

The voting proposal is one form of a permanent solution, Gavin's doubling every 2 years is another, creating a floating limit that resets every x blocks to the average of recent blocks plus overhead is a third. Any of these three work fine and have their own pros and cons.

[cypherdoc]

Bad ass analysis:

https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-5-stress-test-analysis

[cypherdoc]

this should work. nice and simple and pleases Chinese miners w/o giving miners in general any votes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39ziy6/eli5_what_will_happen_if_there_is_a_hard_fork/cs7xe9o



If 75% of hashing power is producing up-version blocks

AND after some brave miner decides to actually produce a >1MB block.

8MB max block size (chinese miners were unhappy with 20 for not-entirely-clear reasons)
Earliest fork date 11 Jan 2016 (miners and others want sooner rather than later)
Activation when 750 of last 1,000 blocks are up-version (version 0x20000004 to be compatible with sipa's new versioning bits scheme)
2 week 'grace period' after 75% threshold reached before first >1MB block allowed to be mined
8MB cap doubles every two years (so 16MB in 2018, etc: unless there is a soft fork before then because 16MB is too much)

Not sure why limiting the date is necessary. I feel like we should be able to pull this off sooner, especially if we are backed into a corner by some kind of big rally.

i agree but miners need time to switch over and indicate so with the versioning.

Sure. But doesn't the 2 week grace period after 75% imply enough time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuHfVn_cfHU

Gavin's solution is very good, and the 2-week grace period a smart move. The reason for this is that it gets the most people on-board with the >1MB change in a controlled manner. It is axiomatic that 100% of miners cannot be in the first 75% to upgrade even if they all wanted to. The 2-week period focuses minds on a known deadline and will likely see a "hockey-stick" uptick in the adoption curve. I would expect 85-90% mining power behind the change before the first >1MB block is mined. If 90% was the original target then Bitcoin's ecosystem growth, supported by the majority, could be stymied by a mere 11% of hold-out miners. The grace period also allows for non-mining nodes to upgrade who are not paying close attention to the whole process.

I like Jeff's BIP 100 with the miner voting, but not sure about the 90% he mentions because of the concern above.
Also, I really don't like a fixed date for everyone to upgrade (although this is far better than no change planned at all). Not using block versioning to change the 1MB means applying a sub-standard software solution for politically correct reasons, i.e. just so people can say "Aha, the users control Bitcoin and are telling the miners what to do." We already know the user consensus on a dozen btc and reddit polls, ecosystem business feedback, and now at least 50% of mining power opinion. So the change should be done as safely as possible. Gavin is perusing this path.

Probably the biggest reason that Core Dev is prepared to let the 1MB limit be constantly hit is that they think they can manage the situation. Perhaps they need to look up the word "hubris" in the dictionary.

A big bazooka in Core Dev's (fairly small) armory needed to "manage" a blocks-limit-full situation is prior roll-out of a change to purge unconfirmed tx from node mempools. This would in theory blunt some of the nasty effects in Mike's Crash Landing scenario.

So, no surprise that a pull request exists to do this:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/6281

Restrict the maximum memory pool size to avoid potential DoS issues.
The mechanism is simply to recursively remove the transactions which have the lowest priority until the memory pool is below the maximum size.

(my emphasis)
Hmm, DoS issues like ordinary users legitimately trying to use Bitcoin after tx are backing up when free block-space has vanished?

However, what appears to be a bed of roses rapidly turns into a bed of thorns...

@sipa ah so if a wallet transaction is evicted from the mempool the conflict tracking stuff will all break? that's nasty
the rabbit's hole of things to fix gets ever deeper

Their bazooka has a barrel bent into a U-shape.

Another big concern about mempool limiting is the implications for IBLT, which is Bitcoin's best hope for challenging the likes of Visa and MC in the medium, not long-term.
Randomly ejecting unconfirmed tx, or allowing a user-configurable max-mempool-size, creates non-uniform mempools. This seriously degrades the potential for IBLT, especially when miners want to clear most of the unconfirmed tx, to maximize revenue when the block reward is lower.

The is no mempool limit right?

[cypherdoc]

Probably the biggest reason that Core Dev is prepared to let the 1MB limit be constantly hit is that they think they can manage the situation. Perhaps they need to look up the word "hubris" in the dictionary.

I think they want to make sure a hard fork is already needed around the same time they are ready to launch Blockstream's LN and SC changes. This would make it easier to push the changes through. i.e. "OK, transactions recently hit the 8MB limit and we need to increase the limit today, here are some additional updates to include in the fork".

If there is no pressing need for another hard fork (because the blocksize issue was already dealt with), then the entire discussion is focused on if people want to make a drastic change, and there is no rush to do so. Combining the two might accelerate the process.

For a VC backed firm, that has limited time to demonstrate adoption or revenue, running into a wall where it takes 2 years just to convince the Bitcoin ecosystem to change for you, can be a killer.

They forget that people will remember this incident and that there will be pay back time when they want to change the protocol for their own reasons. Not too smart.

[cypherdoc]

BTW, does anyone know what the status of IBLT is? This one change (which doesn't require a fork) would do a lot for the network.

Gavin has been seriously distracted from this  , just as the SC guys have been seriously distracted from their own work, by their blowback on the 1MB.

Yeah, you may well be right about SC/LN timing, I am still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, FWIW (at least until Wladimir breaks ranks).

From the recent language I've read from Wlad, this doesn't sound too likely.

[tvbcof]

...
In short he is either knowingly acting as a gatekeeper, senile, or just not that smart. I would bet on the first conclusion.

I'll agree with your bet.  Classic controlled opposition.  

No, I think both of you conspiracy theorists are smarter than Chomsky. Chomsky is a slave of the establishment and both of you conspiracy theorists are free hero members of the society.
If you brake your leg or your neck, you should consult a quack instead of a university trained doctor of the establishment.

Some 'trained' doctor told my mom not very long ago that she should take some medication for cholesterol.  When she asked about the reports of liver damage, the guy said "Oh, we can do liver transplants now."

From my research into vaccines I am sure that 90% of 'trained' doctors have very little knowledge of how the various parts of our immune systems interact and how the ecology of diseases themselves actually work.  They are trained to 'know' what the pharmaceutical industry wants them to know and nothing more though some of them will, thankfully, not stop there.

So, no, I won't go to a quack.  I'll evaluate the situation myself and decide who is most appropriate to help me out then I'll evaluate what they tell me and double-check that it is not self-serving bullshit.  I am sure that almost no medical doctors are deliberately evil.  Just that they are humans like everyone else.  You probably have to be in the upper 10% in terms of native intelligence to obtain a doctorate (medical or otherwise) but that is certainly not sufficient to be immune against intellectual laziness and various socio-economic pressures.

[Peter R]

Speaking of O(n²) scaling:



I took some creative liberties 

[cypherdoc]

Oleganza arguing with me that Bitcoin has already achieved gold status and can do so w/o more scaling.  c'mon, i don't even argue that.  i say it is in the process of doing so:

https://twitter.com/oleganza/status/611298778667220992

[justusranvier]

Oleganza arguing with me that Bitcoin has already achieved gold status and can do so w/o more scaling.  c'mon, i don't even argue that.  i say it is in the process of doing so:

https://twitter.com/oleganza/status/611298778667220992

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3a0qfn/another_reason_why_we_need_to_raise_the_blocksize/cs8rqjn

[rocks]

Oleganza arguing with me that Bitcoin has already achieved gold status and can do so w/o more scaling.  c'mon, i don't even argue that.  i say it is in the process of doing so:

https://twitter.com/oleganza/status/611298778667220992

The reason the Gold bug's dream is never realized, despite the fact that all of the monetary abuses they predicted came true, is simply because gold is not directly used in day to day transactions. If something is not used in day to day transactions, it is not viewed as money.

CBs have gotten away with their abuses simply because they outlawed real money alternatives to fiat for long enough that the public lost memory of the very existence of alternatives to CB money. Everyone sees the dollar/euro/pound/yen as money because they use them every day, so no one runs away from these mechanisms no matter how they are abused. What would they run to?

The only way to make something else be viewed as money, is if it is used as money in day to day transactions. Using something and knowing others will accept it a basic requirement here. Gold lost that usage which is why it has not come back.

This is what is so frustrating about those blocking the blocksize increase. If people can't use bitcoin directly, the entire project is doomed to a fate worse than gold.

[cypherdoc]

Oleganza arguing with me that Bitcoin has already achieved gold status and can do so w/o more scaling.  c'mon, i don't even argue that.  i say it is in the process of doing so:

https://twitter.com/oleganza/status/611298778667220992

The reason the Gold bug's dream is never realized, despite the fact that all of the monetary abuses they predicted came true, is simply because gold is not directly used in day to day transactions. If something is not used in day to day transactions, it is not viewed as money.

CBs have gotten away with their abuses simply because they outlawed real money alternatives to fiat for long enough that the public lost memory of the very existence of alternatives to CB money. Everyone sees the dollar/euro/pound/yen as money because they use them every day, so no one runs away from these mechanisms no matter how they are abused. What would they run to?

The only way to make something else be viewed as money, is if it is used as money in day to day transactions. Using something and knowing others will accept it a basic requirement here. Gold lost that usage which is why it has not come back.

This is what is so frustrating about those blocking the blocksize increase. If people can't use bitcoin directly, the entire project is doomed to a fate worse than gold.

right, i'm trying to point out to him that Bitcoin has a much higher bar to leap to become digital gold.  that's b/c it can't be coddled, displayed, shown off, polished, etc. Think back to that time when you first sent BTC to yourself, most likely.  the amazement when it appeared on the other device and then counting down confirmations.  now imagine the little African kid getting an unconfirmed tx that gets stuck from filled blocks.  he will drop Bitcoin right then and there and go back to going down holes for hunks of gold.  we should want all those kids and the entire mining industry to drop what their doing and convert to digital gold right now.  only then will Bitcoin be secure and decentralized.

who will resist gvt censorships more?  gmax or the little African?  gmax would rollover in an instant, i guarantee you that.  he would have to as CEO of Blockstream.  not only that, he doesn't have the strength of conviction to resist.  hell, i don't, living here in the US.

[justusranvier]

CBs have gotten away with their abuses simply because they outlawed real money alternatives to fiat for long enough that the public lost memory of the very existence of alternatives to CB money. Everyone sees the dollar/euro/pound/yen as money because they use them every day, so no one runs away from these mechanisms no matter how they are abused. What would they run to?

As long as central banks have existed their activities have been subsidized via (government-provided) monolopy and via taxation.

Almost from the moment people stopped using gold coins and switched to gold IOUs for their daily transactions, gold has been a government welfare program.

There's no such thing as a free market reserve currency. To obtain what the crypto goldbugs want they'll need national governments to take control of most of the Bitcoins in circulation and use their taxing capabilities to support the price.

[solex]

The is no mempool limit right?

Only by the addressable memory on each node, which varies. It would take a phenomenal number of unconfirmed tx to break nodes, but maybe enough of them would happen if wallets keep sending tx for thousands of frustrated BTC holders who are trying to get coins onto the exchanges as the price falls way below any TA support.

Oleganza arguing with me that Bitcoin has already achieved gold status and can do so w/o more scaling.  c'mon, i don't even argue that.  i say it is in the process of doing so:

https://twitter.com/oleganza/status/611298778667220992

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3a0qfn/another_reason_why_we_need_to_raise_the_blocksize/cs8rqjn

Oleganza is nuts if he thinks that $100 tx fees would ever be normal. How could Bitcoin keep any market share in that situation if another crypto-coin had 10x the volume and fees of about $1? How could Bitcoin keep any semblance of "digital gold" in that environment? (leaving aside the definition of it).

There is another reason why Bitcoin should not be allowed to hit a network-wide hard limit at any time, and ironically, for a trust-less system, it is trust in the system as a whole.
All users of Bitcoin have to trust that the trust-less network works and is viable. It has proved this over 6.5 years. That trust is hard-earned. Think about a relationship or a business partner, it takes years to earn trust, but that trust can be squandered over one serious event. If a partner cheats after years of loyalty, then how many years does it take to regain trust in that person again? Never?
Same with bitcoin, because: money.
A loss of trust just once is a scar for life.

[79b79aa8d5047da6d3XX]

Link to World Bank report on preparedness against cyberattacks targeting CBs and other financial institutions:

http://www.mediafire.com/view/vq30p298b8kwksm/Cyber_Security_Paper_May_2015.pdf

TL;DR: 1) not prepared 2) strengthening security will be difficult and costly; sr. management is clueless.

[If you don't trust the FTP service or my pdf, but need to read the report, you may go to
http://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2015/05/18/cyber-preparedness-seminar
and email the listed contact for a copy; it has not been posted yet].

[cypherdoc]

even guys like Michael Goldstein and Pierre Rochard from Nakamoto Institute don't seem to understand that Bitcoin has not gained the network effect yet to ascend to that of true Digital Gold.  they think we're done.  how disappointing.