Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[uki]

looks like someone doesn't like what they read in the FOMC minutes.  not that it mattered anyways as it was already in the cards.  all news is bad news.

FOMC (BS) minutes shortly: we further kick the can. Meaning gold down, stocks up. Ad nauseam.

[1714796207]

1714796207

[1714796207]

1714796207

[brg444]

that's not at all what is happening.  BTC deposited on an exchange are parked in an address owned by the exchange.  all the trading is just on its own internal DB.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the exchange, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

BTC "locked" into a sidechain also do not ever leave the blockchain.

SC's present its own form of problematic deposit; the spvp.  talk about friction; it will be necessary to have at minimum a 2d proof of locktime, probably more.  and then in the federated server model according to Adam himself, a necessary bounty to prevent cheating by the centralized owners.

...

it is all pie in the sky and glosses over the potential for losing coins while stuck on the SC in case of an attack.  these SC's will be attacked as they will be insecure by virtue of the fact they won't have 100% MM.  and there is just no guarantee of one getting his coins back on the MC in that event as their simplistic SC sandbox in the Bitcoin Park diagram is suggesting.  those miners who were once MM'ing to protect the SC can turn around and perform a 51% attack on the SC and refuse to mine the "proof of lock" thus disabling a return of those BTC all the while going short on the SC at an exchange. the slideshow presents as if nothing can go wrong.

There will be different security models for different use cases. Are there potential security threats? Of course, I think we've all come to an agreemeent that there are no such thing as a risk free extension of Bitcoin. Luckily there's a whole team of very smart people working to understand how these can be best mitigated.

That said, your premise : "the next logical extension ... that sidechains make no sense", makes no sense and does not apply to the currently debated blockchain without bitcoin meme.

[hdbuck]

this is great.  you gotta listen to this.  smart ppl are going to rule the world:

Engineers vs. Thugs: the Power of Bitcoin, Cryptography & Tech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KybZAEm0stY&feature=youtu.be

could be a tarp tho. cryptography yes why not, but it's not bitcoin and its "mainstream" usage that will rpevent abuses and inequalities all over again.

[cypherdoc]

Hmm,

http://www.techmeme.com/150408/p20#a150408p20

[brg444]

Hmm,

http://www.techmeme.com/150408/p20#a150408p20

Wouldn't surprise me if they end up acquiring BitPay

[thezerg]

now that the concept of the Bitcoin unit being inextricably linked to the blockchain is finally being better understood, the next logical extension of that concept is that sidechains make no sense.  for all of the reasons i, and Adrian, have been arguing for months on end late last year.

No, its a well known logic axiom that the positive does not imply the contrapositive.

In other words, yes, the blockchain needs the bitcoin token.  But that does not imply that Bitcoin needs the blockchain.  Ok, ok, Bitcoin obviously needs the Bitcoin Blockchain to exist as it contains the history of the token's value appreciation and forms the foundation of its awesome features.  So what we are really asking is "does Bitcoin need to use the blockchain exclusively?"

Well can Bitcoins be traded off chain?  Of course.  Judging by exchange volumes it seems that most transfers (trades) already occur off chain.

that's not at all what is happening.  BTC deposited on an exchange are parked in an address owned by the exchange.  all the trading is just on its own internal DB.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the exchange, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

BTC never leaves the blockchain with sidechains either.  But the value does.  Its kind of like paper gold.  The gold never leaves the vault but the value is traded on exchanges.  Without dwelling on what the word "trade" means, what I'm trying to say that if someone gives someone else a Casascius coin, trades on an exchange, transfers in a sidechain etc I think that its fair to consider that transfer of value facilitated by the digital token but not using the blockchain.  Your opinion of how we should define the words may differ but what I'm talking about in this post is are these kinds of transfer.

A sidechain is just a decentralized way to make off-chain transfers.  Judging by what's going on on exchanges, if sidechains work they'll be popular even if their sole use is to decentralize some of the currently-existing centralized solutions (changetip?).

I think that there are very limited uses for a blockchain without an independently valued token (i.e. not a fiat representation token).  I have discussed some in this thread.  But in the ultimate egg-on-face for all the naysayers, I think we'll discover countless uses for a digital value token (aka bitcoin) and our ability to deploy crypto-currencies into these applications will actually be hindered by the inconvenience of the blockchain.  Sidechains (if they end up viable) are an attempt to reduce this inconvenience by opening up development of the blockchain, but keeping the token.

SC's present its own form of problematic deposit; the spvp.  talk about friction; it will be necessary to have at minimum a 2d proof of locktime, probably more.  and then in the federated server model according to Adam himself, a necessary bounty to prevent cheating by the centralized owners.

i was highly disappointed by this simplistic presentation yesterday which didn't get any traction on Reddit whatsover, btw:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Tc_fhTPqbdlvApnWQWsgzG1U6NwN9lgkQsTdm5O-9iA/edit?pli=1#slide=id.g6eb72e55c_0103

it is all pie in the sky and glosses over the potential for losing coins while stuck on the SC in case of an attack.  these SC's will be attacked as they will be insecure by virtue of the fact they won't have 100% MM.  and there is just no guarantee of one getting his coins back on the MC in that event as their simplistic SC sandbox in the Bitcoin Park diagram is suggesting.  those miners who were once MM'ing to protect the SC can turn around and perform a 51% attack on the SC and refuse to mine the "proof of lock" thus disabling a return of those BTC all the while going short on the SC at an exchange. the slideshow presents as if nothing can go wrong.

Yes.  I'm not so worried about the friction since most people will get their SC coins using a decentralized p2p exchange system with atomic cross chain exchange.  This is easy once 2 digital assets are being traded (scBTC and BTC) where one of them was explicitly coded with this kind of transfer in mind.  Arbiters will be the only people moving them the slow way.

But aspects around prematurely unlocking the SC's backing bitcoin on the BTC blockchain have always been fuzzy.  I have essentially trusted the Blockstream guys to deliver (or not) since I'm much too busy to do an in-depth analysis just for my own edification.  But given that many months have passed since the white paper, the "or not" option is looking more and more likely.

However, as functional pressure builds and altcoins continue to see low valuations, I think people will start seeing the value in "curated transfer" sidechains.  A competitor to MaidSafe for example would instantly gain greater credibility (than MaidSafe) if it booted its blockchain with 1000 storecoins by parking 1000 bitcoins with a well known independent auditor.  Nobody will ever trust a for profit company to not inflate its token supply.

[Odalv]

that's not at all what is happening.  BTC deposited on an exchange are parked in an address owned by the exchange.  all the trading is just on its own internal DB.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the exchange, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

BTC deposited on an sidechain are parked in an address owned by the sidechain, all the trading is just on its own public side-blockchain.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the sidechain, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

[cypherdoc]

that's not at all what is happening.  BTC deposited on an exchange are parked in an address owned by the exchange.  all the trading is just on its own internal DB.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the exchange, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

BTC deposited on an sidechain are parked in an address owned by the sidechain, all the trading is just on its own public side-blockchain.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the sidechain, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

You're neglecting the friction I mentioned above. Also, when mtgox blows up, "someone" has  those coin. When a SC blows,  those coins will be gone.

Let me also introduce  another concept that represents my assessment of what will occur. Miners will not support SC's because ultimately SC's will be an unknown risk to their business model. They won't support that uncertainty. That's just my opinion.

[Erdogan]

Hmm, I wonder if Russia is still pissed about that whole "pulling-the-oil-market-support-rug" thing that the US did as retaliation for Ukraine? Lol

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/report-russia-hacked-white-house-213155901.html

How certain can  they be that it's indeed "the Ruskies"?

The "news" is released just to cover over the fact that the USG is behind most of the hacking. The law is for you and me, not for them.

[brg444]

that's not at all what is happening.  BTC deposited on an exchange are parked in an address owned by the exchange.  all the trading is just on its own internal DB.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the exchange, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

BTC deposited on an sidechain are parked in an address owned by the sidechain, all the trading is just on its own public side-blockchain.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the sidechain, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

You're neglecting the friction I mentioned above. Also, when mtgox blows up, "someone" has  those coin. When a SC blows,  those coins will be gone.

Let me also introduce  another concept that represents my assessment of what will occur. Miners will not support SC's because ultimately SC's will be an unknown risk to their business model. They won't support that uncertainty. That's just my opinion.

Every indication point to miners having already welcomes the concept and the potential additional revenue streams.

As for Mt. Gox we have no indication that "someone" has those coins. What if they were not properly stored and their private key lost? SC's being open source code I'd like to think it is much less likely for them to "blow up".

There's no point arguing about security models until a clear, detailed proof-of-concept is unveiled.

[Odalv]

that's not at all what is happening.  BTC deposited on an exchange are parked in an address owned by the exchange.  all the trading is just on its own internal DB.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the exchange, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

BTC deposited on an sidechain are parked in an address owned by the sidechain, all the trading is just on its own public side-blockchain.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the sidechain, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

You're neglecting the friction I mentioned above. Also, when mtgox blows up, "someone" has  those coin. When a SC blows,  those coins will be gone.

Let me also introduce  another concept that represents my assessment of what will occur. Miners will not support SC's because ultimately SC's will be an unknown risk to their business model. They won't support that uncertainty. That's just my opinion.

You can withdraw from mtGox only if Karpeles allow it. You can withdraw from SC if you can create proof that you own pKey in SC.  It is human's will vs proof of math.

SC does not need a lot of miners. SC can timestamp transactions(whole side-blockchain) in bitcoin blockchain. (Same as CP does)

[Shatoshi]

Hmm, I wonder if Russia is still pissed about that whole "pulling-the-oil-market-support-rug" thing that the US did as retaliation for Ukraine? Lol

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/report-russia-hacked-white-house-213155901.html

Did Putin REALLY think he was entitled to blackmail all of Europe and not suffer any repercussions? 

Oh he did.

...

Yes, Russia is butthurt.

[smooth]

In other words, yes, the blockchain needs the bitcoin token.  But that does not imply that Bitcoin needs the blockchain.  Ok, ok, Bitcoin obviously needs the Bitcoin Blockchain to exist as it contains the history of the token's value appreciation and forms the foundation of its awesome features.  So what we are really asking is "does Bitcoin need to use the blockchain exclusively?"

I think you were right the first time. Bitcoin the currency does not need the blockchain. It it is possible that the blockchain serves as a bootstrap platform for Bitcoin, which then over time evolves into a paper asset, the blockchain is viewed as unimportant legacy and eventually dropped. Likely? Not necessarily, but it is possible.

[Adrian-x]

BTC "locked" into a sidechain also do not ever leave the blockchain.

What's important is where the value stored on the blockchain goes, sure the private keys controlling the Bitcoin locked in the Bitcoin blockchain secure the same percentage of the Bitcoin blockchain, but the value leaves the blockchain and moves into the sidechain, Bitcoin will be diminished.

Value is a key element in the incentive structure that makes Bitcoin. Erode it enough and the consequences could be bad.

[cypherdoc]

that's not at all what is happening.  BTC deposited on an exchange are parked in an address owned by the exchange.  all the trading is just on its own internal DB.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the exchange, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

BTC "locked" into a sidechain also do not ever leave the blockchain.

no, they're being passed thru the peg to a new blockchain, the SC, which is less secure and thus fundamentally different than the MC.

SC's present its own form of problematic deposit; the spvp.  talk about friction; it will be necessary to have at minimum a 2d proof of locktime, probably more.  and then in the federated server model according to Adam himself, a necessary bounty to prevent cheating by the centralized owners.

...

it is all pie in the sky and glosses over the potential for losing coins while stuck on the SC in case of an attack.  these SC's will be attacked as they will be insecure by virtue of the fact they won't have 100% MM.  and there is just no guarantee of one getting his coins back on the MC in that event as their simplistic SC sandbox in the Bitcoin Park diagram is suggesting.  those miners who were once MM'ing to protect the SC can turn around and perform a 51% attack on the SC and refuse to mine the "proof of lock" thus disabling a return of those BTC all the while going short on the SC at an exchange. the slideshow presents as if nothing can go wrong.

There will be different security models for different use cases. Are there potential security threats? Of course, I think we've all come to an agreemeent that there are no such thing as a risk free extension of Bitcoin. Luckily there's a whole team of very smart people working to understand how these can be best mitigated.

That said, your premise : "the next logical extension ... that sidechains make no sense", makes no sense and does not apply to the currently debated blockchain without bitcoin meme.

it does make sense.  just not to you b/c of your mental framework of how you look at it.  those who have promoted SC's, while using your argument of "never leaving the MC" for marketing, have also simultaneously complained about how what they can do with Bitcoin is being constrained by the MC.  thus, they want to "move BTC with its value" over to an unconstrained SC, and reanimate them to scBTC, via the passthrough peg.  thus, the concept is no different than what the blockchain w/o BTC proponents are arguing which is somehow that the MC can function w/o the currency units. 

one of Bitcoin's main strengths is forcing current players to play according to the rules as they are which is the MC working in concert with BTC as a self contained financial system.  this focuses all development onto the MC to maximize innovation and returns to miners and participants in the long run which is needed b/c of the transition to a tx fee economy.  anything that allows innovation to happen off the MC risks devaluing the entire Bitcoin economy.  the whitepaper already said that current Bitcoiners could be forced to migrate to a SC if it takes over which would be a disaster, imo.

i'd also argue that Bitcoin is in a perfect Nash Equilibrium at the current time.  i think we've also all agreed that SC's will be disruptive to the mining equilibrium.  anything that disrupts that equilibrium will either be ignored or attacked, imo.  hence, i doubt that SC's will get a majority of miners to MM.  i'd welcome the evidence you say that shows otherwise.

[cypherdoc]

that's not at all what is happening.  BTC deposited on an exchange are parked in an address owned by the exchange.  all the trading is just on its own internal DB.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the exchange, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

BTC deposited on an sidechain are parked in an address owned by the sidechain, all the trading is just on its own public side-blockchain.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the sidechain, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

You're neglecting the friction I mentioned above. Also, when mtgox blows up, "someone" has  those coin. When a SC blows,  those coins will be gone.

Let me also introduce  another concept that represents my assessment of what will occur. Miners will not support SC's because ultimately SC's will be an unknown risk to their business model. They won't support that uncertainty. That's just my opinion.

You can withdraw from mtGox only if Karpeles allow it. You can withdraw from SC if you can create proof that you own pKey in SC.  It is human's will vs proof of math.

SC does not need a lot of miners. SC can timestamp transactions(whole side-blockchain) in bitcoin blockchain. (Same as CP does)

SC's require ideally 100% of current Bitcoin miners to MM to equal the security of the MC itself.  anything less represents a security vulnerability.  SC's are also based on POW (at least the spvp model is which is what i'm talking about)

the "proof of lock" needed to exit the SC requires that it be mined and presented back to the spvp.  if the SC is being 51% attacked, then this won't happen and your scBTC will be stuck on the SC and therefore your locked up BTC on the MC will never be unlocked.

[Adrian-x]

now that the concept of the Bitcoin unit being inextricably linked to the blockchain is finally being better understood, the next logical extension of that concept is that sidechains make no sense.  for all of the reasons i, and Adrian, have been arguing for months on end late last year.

No, its a well known logic axiom that the positive does not imply the contrapositive.

In other words, yes, the blockchain needs the bitcoin token.  But that does not imply that Bitcoin needs the blockchain.  Ok, ok, Bitcoin obviously needs the Bitcoin Blockchain to exist as it contains the history of the token's value appreciation and forms the foundation of its awesome features.  So what we are really asking is "does Bitcoin need to use the blockchain exclusively?"

Well can Bitcoins be traded off chain?  Of course.  Judging by exchange volumes it seems that most transfers (trades) already occur off chain.

A sidechain is just a decentralized way to make off-chain transfers.  Judging by what's going on on exchanges, if sidechains work they'll be popular even if their sole use is to decentralize some of the currently-existing centralized solutions (changetip?).

I think that there are very limited uses for a blockchain without an independently valued token (i.e. not a fiat representation token).  I have discussed some in this thread.  But in the ultimate egg-on-face for all the naysayers, I think we'll discover countless uses for a digital value token (aka bitcoin) and our ability to deploy crypto-currencies into these applications will actually be hindered by the inconvenience of the blockchain.  Sidechains (if they end up viable) are an attempt to reduce this inconvenience by opening up development of the blockchain, but keeping the token.

The Bitcoin token is a mental shortcut we use to manage the money is memory idea. What I'm saying is your Bitcoin private keys are the tools you use to control a percent of the Bitcoin blockchain. How many Bitcoin you own is common way of saying I manage X% of the value ledger (the total potential of Bitcoin blockchain) . Bitcoin wouldn't need bitcoin tokens, if there was another way to manage your % of the blockchain. And miners wouldn't need to mine bitcoin if they could mine direct control of a small % of the blockchain with every block reward.

You are making the mistake that the token has value, no the value of the token is that it represents the Bitcoin Blockchain, if you want Bitcoin to be the biggest value ledger you have to use it. Trusting your private keys to be managed by SPV proof in the Bitcoin protocol so you can move value over to another token, is abandoning Bitcoin, the risk this poses to Bitcoin is the economic majority may choose a sidechain over Bitcoin blockchai with different (improved by there reckoning) economic rules.

I for one would rather they had just one option and that is to transfer value using the Bitcoin blockchain.

[Erdogan]

An article about applepay, not specially interesting, but I noticed this:

Unlike the consumer electronics business where Apple regularly rolls out new computers or phones in dozens of countries at once, there is no such thing as a unified payments market.

Each country is inhabited by often warring banks, credit card associations, telecom operators and retailers, while payment preferences and regulatory regimes can vary widely.

"Every market will have different local players, different partnerships, different local standards, different economics, different levels of cooperation," said Morgan Stanley technology analyst Andrew Humphrey.


...while wondering, with a twinkle in my eye, who can change this?

The article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/08/us-apple-payments-international-idUSKBN0MZ18F20150408

[smooth]

that's not at all what is happening.  BTC deposited on an exchange are parked in an address owned by the exchange.  all the trading is just on its own internal DB.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the exchange, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

BTC deposited on an sidechain are parked in an address owned by the sidechain, all the trading is just on its own public side-blockchain.  when an owner wants to withdraw from the sidechain, it simply draws from the pooled address and sends back to the owner's personal address.  none of the BTC has EVER left the blockchain.

You're neglecting the friction I mentioned above. Also, when mtgox blows up, "someone" has  those coin. When a SC blows,  those coins will be gone.

Let me also introduce  another concept that represents my assessment of what will occur. Miners will not support SC's because ultimately SC's will be an unknown risk to their business model. They won't support that uncertainty. That's just my opinion.

You can withdraw from mtGox only if Karpeles allow it. You can withdraw from SC if you can create proof that you own pKey in SC.  It is human's will vs proof of math.

SC does not need a lot of miners. SC can timestamp transactions(whole side-blockchain) in bitcoin blockchain. (Same as CP does)

SC's require ideally 100% of current Bitcoin miners to MM to equal the security of the MC itself.  anything less represents a security vulnerability.  SC's are also based on POW (at least the spvp model is which is what i'm talking about)

I don't think the "security" is "equal" even with 100% merge mining. Yes the hash rate is equal which makes it equally secure against the specific case of a pure outside hash rate attack. But the fact remains that at any time those MC miners can decide to stop merged mining at little to no cost to themselves, making the merge mined coin insecure. If I'm an attacker the first thing I do is give a bribe to pools to stop their merged mining, and it won't take a lot because they're not making much/anything on the merge mining to begin with. Perhaps this can even be done in an anonymous trustless manner with some sort of smart contract (seems likely if scripts allow SPV proofs)

[justusranvier]

listen to this bullshit Karen Gifford of Ripple Labs spews forth to the Calif Assembly @14:00.
Chris Larson also says he doesn't believe we need a new currency:

https://clyp.it/zdpzphmd

Ripple is the enemy.

Does David Schwartz still hangs out on this forum?

The last time I talked to him was at the 2013 San Jose conference.

I wonder if he knew back then he was going to sell out.