Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Bagatell]

Funniest story in the press at the moment 

US pissed at the Brits for joining the Chinese-led Asian development bank.

now Australia France and Germany Also join in on the joke.

That Dollar is starting to smell a little Whiffy   

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31921011

Rats and a sinking ship.

[1713570938]

1713570938

[tyrexs]

gold stable in this week, maybe can up and bitcoin ready to drop i guess

[NewLiberty]

when you say "just sit back with their cold storage coins and see which fork wins out", you're essentially saying the forks are close in properties (or at least difficult to choose between).

No I'm kind of saying the opposite. If they are not close in properties then one will quickly win out, and I think we all agree that is not a problem at all. It isn't a problem for passive participants, nor active ones.

The minority of cases where the choice is more difficult, you basically have two choices. One is to pick one or the other (including status quo) essentially by fiat, or recognize that these decisions are difficult and let a market sort it out. I argue it is more important to do that now, when Bitcoin is tiny, rather than suffer long term from having made the wrong choice earlier when the costs of change were relatively insignificant.

I don't think we disagree that stability is important, I just think that stability at the multi-trillion dollar cap scale is better served by letting things sort out robustly and dynamically at the billion dollar scale, even if that introduces more risk short term (indeed that risk is what allows it to happen).

Take this whole block size thing. It's pretty clear no consensus will ever be reached. Doing nothing is an arbitrary decision. Making a change to 20 MB or 20 MB + {some growth rate} is also arbitrary. We're not going to "figure this out." I say let the market play out with the toy system we have today and whichever system thrives will be far stronger at the trillion dollar scale.
...

I have a different opinion on this.  I think we can and will "figure this out", once a commitment is made to doing just that.  This is my fundamental disagreement with Gavin's proposal.  It not only makes no attempt to figure it out, it takes away the impetus to do so for 20 years, when we have had Bitcoin for only a third of that time.  This is what makes it such a jaw-droppingly misguided proposal unworthy of someone in his position.

Instead we are expected to undertake new risks without even the promise of the improvements needed to resolve the issue in either a long term manner (using a measured rate based on block-size need) or a permanent manner (removal of the limit based on it no longer being necessary). 

[smooth]

when you say "just sit back with their cold storage coins and see which fork wins out", you're essentially saying the forks are close in properties (or at least difficult to choose between).

No I'm kind of saying the opposite. If they are not close in properties then one will quickly win out, and I think we all agree that is not a problem at all. It isn't a problem for passive participants, nor active ones.

The minority of cases where the choice is more difficult, you basically have two choices. One is to pick one or the other (including status quo) essentially by fiat, or recognize that these decisions are difficult and let a market sort it out. I argue it is more important to do that now, when Bitcoin is tiny, rather than suffer long term from having made the wrong choice earlier when the costs of change were relatively insignificant.

I don't think we disagree that stability is important, I just think that stability at the multi-trillion dollar cap scale is better served by letting things sort out robustly and dynamically at the billion dollar scale, even if that introduces more risk short term (indeed that risk is what allows it to happen).

Take this whole block size thing. It's pretty clear no consensus will ever be reached. Doing nothing is an arbitrary decision. Making a change to 20 MB or 20 MB + {some growth rate} is also arbitrary. We're not going to "figure this out." I say let the market play out with the toy system we have today and whichever system thrives will be far stronger at the trillion dollar scale.
...

I have a different opinion on this.  I think we can and will "figure this out", once a commitment is made to doing just that.  This is my fundamental disagreement with Gavin's proposal.  It not only makes no attempt to figure it out, it takes away the impetus to do so for 20 years, when we have had Bitcoin for only a third of that time.  This is what makes it such a jaw-droppingly misguided proposal unworthy of someone in his position.

Instead we are expected to undertake new risks without even the promise of the improvements needed to resolve the issue in either a long term manner (using a measured rate based on block-size need) or a permanent manner (removal of the limit based on it no longer being necessary). 

Fair point. It may be that an effort at a better developed proposal would pay off in terms of consensus to implement it. I'm not sure about that given the conflicting and increasingly entrenched interests, but it's possible for sure.

[mrhelpful]

does anyone know where to buy the legit physical gold with the serial # etc.

or you guys just go to the bank and ask you`d like to convert this from your dollars and they give you a brick?

[cypherdoc]

JR,

what's up with Odom leaving Monetas?

[explorer]

does anyone know where to buy the legit physical gold with the serial # etc.

or you guys just go to the bank and ask you`d like to convert this from your dollars and they give you a brick?

I guess it depends where you are and how much you want to buy.  I go to the local precious metals dealer, or mail order from major dealers such as SGB or Border Gold.  I would never ever deal with a bank.  YMMV

[justusranvier]

JR,

what's up with Odom leaving Monetas?

I only know one side of the story right now, so I can't really say.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

My "economic majority" phrasing becomes a little confusing here because we must continually ask, "A majority among whom?" A large enough minority with enough difference of opinion from the majority will break away and become the economic majority of a community of people who agree with their values. There are still reasons why each little economic community with varying beliefs about ideal money will not necessarily fork off: size is an advantage, voice can still work if the minority makes convincing arguments, etc.

Here is where I personally think this runs into problems. Again I'll use the gold default as a historical example. Here after FDR defaulted it was perfectly possible for a minority of people to refuse the new fiat system and still transact with each other using the old system (physical gold). The problem was the minority of people (gold bugs) was too small to be effective, they were marginalized and the majority of the world moved on without them.

I don't think the "community of people who agree with their values" will necessarily be large enough, if history is any guide (which I believe it is).

It wasn't possible for the minority to transact in gold, because of the government ban on gold possession from 1933 through 1974. Especially by 1975 it was far more cumbersome to transact in gold than to use the established banking and new credit card system.

In the historical case, once again, the "exit" dynamic was very seriously hindered. In Bitcoin it isn't.

The easier and more common it is to change bitcointhis community's economic majority ledger, the easier it is for a demographically elected government (or any gov) to co-opt bitcointhis community's economic majority ledger.

Here's the semantic issue rearing its head. If you change it to my phrasing it sounds incorrect, doesn't it? The economic majority of the people in Bitcoin now prefer the system as it is, without government modification. The government can fork it however it wants, and it may get the majority of US citizens to go along with it, but this economic majority (most current bitcoiners) will go on using Bitcoin Classic. The dark markets will go on using Bitcoin Classic. Everyone who wants to offshore their wealth will go on using Bitcoin Classic. Hard money folks who understand Bitcoin will go on using Bitcoin Classic.

This thread started with a statement that making bitcoin easy to fork often will be a good thing. My argument is be careful what you wish for because it there are powerful forces which will try to change it into something against it's founding principles.

Forking Bitcoin Classic is not changing Bitcoin Classic. It is making a competing system with, in this case, neutered features. Why would those who are interested in Bitcoin precisely for the features the government doesn't like be willing to jump ship to the government-approved version?

This is why I stated I prefer that bitcoin remains a rules based system as much as possible outside of the influence of man. The more we enable forking to be common, the more that breaks down and the easier it become for governments to push regulation/etc in.

Bitcoin is a consensus-based system where the consensus is about a set of rules. It is not fundamentally a rules-based or math-based system. It is whatever this economic majority agrees on. No one is bound to use Bitcoin Classic over a fork, and vice versa. It's impossible for it to be unforkable without being closed source and centralized.

Also, it's not that forking should be common, it's that it should be easy to do. Just because it's easy to fork it doesn't imply it will happen often. Network effects, among other things, prevent forking over smaller issues.

In summary, I still see absolutely no danger or concern. So far I think it's entirely a case of confusing terminology and the counterintuitive aspects of fully forkable systems.

[Erdogan]

If a fork is considerably different from classic bitcoin, it will probably fail because it is not better money, but worse.

If a fork is almost exactly like bitcoin, it will also fail, this is demonstrated by the natural forks of the blockchain that comes into being because two new blocks are found simultaneusly.

Conclusion: The danger of forks is small.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

that strategy of buying both chains means they will lose money at some level when the dominant chain eventually wins.

I don't see any real issue of new investors "buying both chains" during a fork, because it should be pretty much over in minutes in the on-exchange arbitrage situation I described above. It would only affect those people who happened to make the decision to start investing in Bitcoin during those few minutes and couldn't wait.

Now in the unlikely future event of a real schism with two persistent forks, it doesn't affect current investors. They can sit tight and whatever happens their money is safe. For new investors of course they have to make a choice (or hedge between them), but that is natural given there was a real schism in the economic majority, which suggests there were good reasons for it. I don't think hardly anyone is going to invest in a smallblock fork versus a reasonably larger block fork, for example. If we assume a major schism where investors support both, which seems very unlikely, then there was probably a good reason for it.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

If a fork is considerably different from classic bitcoin, it will probably fail because it is not better money, but worse.

If a fork is almost exactly like bitcoin, it will also fail, this is demonstrated by the natural forks of the blockchain that comes into being because two new blocks are found simultaneusly.

Conclusion: The danger of forks is small.

Yes, too different in features and Bitcoin enthusiasts will avoid it because they like Bitcoin's features; too similar and the fragmentation isn't worth it (more accurately, selling BTC Classic for BTC New is not a good investment, since everyone will agree the fragmentation isn't worth it, so the opposite happens, the speedy make money from the few fools, and holders remain even and safely oblivious).

[sidhujag]

does anyone know where to buy the legit physical gold with the serial # etc.

or you guys just go to the bank and ask you`d like to convert this from your dollars and they give you a brick?

Im wirking on this site u can buy gold or silver http://cryptosmith.info

[smooth]

If a fork is almost exactly like bitcoin, it will also fail, this is demonstrated by the natural forks of the blockchain that comes into being because two new blocks are found simultaneusly.

Furthermore the 2000 or so artificial forks that have been created as (sometimes slightly modified) Bitcoin-clone altcoins. Total capitalization is at most 5% (I doubt that number), which makes the average capitalization of one of these forks 0.0025% or less.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

why the hell do we ever invite Chris Larson to Bitcoin conferences?:

http://coinfire.io/2015/03/16/ripple-ceo-says-bitcoin-as-currency-unneeded-to-california-assembly/

Ripple Labs is the worse kind of parasite, always sticking their nose into everything Bitcoin-related in an attempt to take advantage of (and amplify) misunderstandings. When they show up at Bitcoin conferences and especially government hearings with their schtick it's pretty offputting, makes me think of this clip

[smooth]

Now in the unlikely future event of a real schism with two persistent forks, it doesn't affect current investors. They can sit tight and whatever happens their money is safe. For new investors of course they have to make a choice (or hedge between them), but that is natural given there was a real schism in the economic majority, which suggests there were good reasons for it. I don't think hardly anyone is going to invest in a smallblock fork versus a reasonably larger block fork, for example. If we assume a major schism where investors support both, which seems very unlikely, then there was probably a good reason for it.

This is my argument about say increasing the block size. There seems to be deep division about whether this is a good idea or at least whether some of the specific proposals of how to do it are a good idea.

Maybe you are right and trading would resolve the issue quickly if people had to put their money where their mouth is rather than just make a lot of noise over it. But if not, then exchanges, wallets, payment processors, etc. could be set up to deal in hedged baskets which consist of one of each coin traded together. Those who did not want to bet on one or the other could just use the basket until the market sorted out the question one way or another.

In no way is this a suggestion to simply let the chain fork as much and as often as anyone wants without the necessary infrastructure in place at both the exchange and wallet level to deal with it in a non-disruptive manner.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Fair point. It may be that an effort at a better developed proposal would pay off in terms of consensus to implement it. I'm not sure about that given the conflicting and increasingly entrenched interests, but it's possible for sure.

My guess is once rubber hits road, when blocks are actually filling up and fees start to get bid up, it will be an easy choice. Same with full node incentives: once there start to be issues with large block propagation, miners will start to work out payment agreements with nodes, say, and it will all seem obvious in hindsight.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Now in the unlikely future event of a real schism with two persistent forks, it doesn't affect current investors. They can sit tight and whatever happens their money is safe. For new investors of course they have to make a choice (or hedge between them), but that is natural given there was a real schism in the economic majority, which suggests there were good reasons for it. I don't think hardly anyone is going to invest in a smallblock fork versus a reasonably larger block fork, for example. If we assume a major schism where investors support both, which seems very unlikely, then there was probably a good reason for it.

This is my argument about say increasing the block size. There seems to be deep division about whether this is a good  idea or at least whether some of the specific proposals of how to do it are a good idea.

Maybe you are right and trading would resolve the issue quickly if people had to put their money where their mouth is rather than just make a lot of noise over it. But if not, then exchanges, wallets, payment processors, etc. could be set up to deal in hedged baskets which consist of one of each coin traded together. Those who did not want to bet on one or the other could just use the basket until the market sorted out the question one way or another.

I no way is this a suggestion to simply let the chain fork as much and as often as anyone wants without the necessary infrastructure in place at both the exchange and wallet level to deal with it in a non-disruptive manner.

This suggests a kind of graduated strategy for forking. As opposed to the old strategy of...

1) Musing on fork possibilities
2) Debate of concrete proposals
3) Consensus

...there is a new more gradual strategy:

1) Musing on fork possibilities
2) Debate of concrete proposals
3) Rough consensus
4) Market arbitrage

The second strategy seems especially useful when getting full consensus is hard or is taking too long and time is of the essence. If blocks are filling up and transactions are getting delayed, some larger-capacity altcoin is leeching market share away by the day, and the media is having a field day, I imagine getting consensus to raise max_blocksize gets much easier. But in those cases where a straw poll isn't enough, putting it to a "market vote" is the final test.

It's only appropriate when every other means of assessing consensus leaves it indeterminate which proposal will win.

[conspirosphere.tk]

cool chart, from http://pricedingold.com:



(to me, it says to stay the course in btc)

[cypherdoc]

cool chart, from http://pricedingold.com:



(to me, it says to stay the course in btc)

Thank you.

And furthermore, coming from one of my long term nemeses!