Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[tvbcof]

...
You fixed it until it broke, just like 20MB blocks would have done to BTC if Evil Blockstream Conspirator Peter Todd hadn't checked Gavin's shitmath and noticed the correct most optimistic answer was actually 8MB.

I don't believe it was Todd himself who bothered to check the 'chief scientist's arithmetic.  But anyway, what's the big deal with a 100% error (give or take) on something as minor and trivial as the blocksize which obviously nobody cares about?  It's just a monetary solution which some people might dump their PM stash to go all in on.

[iCEBREAKER]

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?

When money is forced to compete, Thiers' law takes effect.

"in the absence of effective legal tender laws, Gresham's Law works in reverse. If given the choice of what money to accept, people will transact with money they believe to be of highest long-term value. However, if not given the choice, and required to accept all money, good and bad, they will tend to keep the money of greater perceived value in their possession, and pass on the bad money to someone else. In short, in the absence of legal tender laws, the seller will not accept anything but money of certain value (good money), while the existence of legal tender laws will cause the buyer to offer only money with the lowest commodity value (bad money) as the creditor must accept such money at face value."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law#Reverse_of_Gresham.27s_Law_.28Thiers.27_Law.29

Your response doesn't even mention XMR!  

I asked for hard empirical on-point evidence, not general navel-gazing hypothetical analysis of angels on pinheads.

There exists plenty of evidence people will hold XMR; where is the evidence supporting your assertion they will not?

Don't make me google "evidence vs analysis" for you...  

[majamalu]

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?

When money is forced to compete, Thiers' law takes effect.

"in the absence of effective legal tender laws, Gresham's Law works in reverse. If given the choice of what money to accept, people will transact with money they believe to be of highest long-term value. However, if not given the choice, and required to accept all money, good and bad, they will tend to keep the money of greater perceived value in their possession, and pass on the bad money to someone else. In short, in the absence of legal tender laws, the seller will not accept anything but money of certain value (good money), while the existence of legal tender laws will cause the buyer to offer only money with the lowest commodity value (bad money) as the creditor must accept such money at face value."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law#Reverse_of_Gresham.27s_Law_.28Thiers.27_Law.29

Your response doesn't even mention XMR!  

I asked for hard empirical on-point evidence, not general navel-gazing hypothetical analysis of angels on pinheads.

There exists plenty of evidence people will hold XMR; where is the evidence supporting your assertion they will not?

Don't make me google "evidence vs analysis" for you...  

Better pay attention to those angels from the realm of theory; they can save you a lot of pain.

If you want "hard empirical on-point evidence" in cryptoland, I'm afraid you will have to wait.

[TPTB_need_war]

How do you create a network topology that is decentralized at any scale?

With a design that enables the ends of the network to be autonomous (e.g. the internet), i.e. the End-to-End principle. Ideally the power (autonomy) of the ends over the center (or the group) should get stronger the more it is Sybil attacked (i.e. the attack doesn't exist).

Abstractly not erroneously redefining decentralization to be centralization-by-free-will-but-no-other-choice (aka "one for all, and all for one" collectivism) as Bitcoin did:

Marching in lockstep doesn't mean centralized (of course; that's the whole idea of Bitcoin in a way).

Anyone guessed my paradigm shift yet?

The goal is clear enough, and laudable.  It is the path to that goal that remains occluded.

Appreciated.

It is time to either move forward, quit, or shut up (or both).

[TPTB_need_war]

fiat 2.0, SDR's come on.

Hehe. Bitcoin is centralized, you are only obfuscating to yourself if you claim that it isn't.

The centralization was put in the wrong place in Bitcoin's design. Move it, then the decentralization can control the centralization.

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)?

The only retort is that the society will rebel against any monopoly, which is complete nonsense because we have innumerable examples in history and society never does. At least two others made a similar comment upthread.

I have given my support to spreading Bitcoin knowing with complete certainty (based on my detailed posts about human nature, Logic of Collective Action, and historical evidence) that it will end up being used by the State to oppress us (and cypherdoc's Africans too), because it also has seepage and helps to grow the capital base (network effects) for crypto-currency, which can aid the process of making an ideal crypto-currency.

cypherdoc is so excited to enslave the world in a fully tracked money that never existed before in history. Cash was always anonymous. He is ostensibly oblivious to the blood that is going to be on his hands. He is excited about what in effect will a euthanization of the world in the NWO global Technocracy where everything will be controlled and tracked by the State.

[shmadz]

fiat 2.0, SDR's come on.

Hehe. Bitcoin is centralized, you are only obfuscating to yourself if you claim that it isn't.

The centralization was put in the wrong place in Bitcoin's design. Move it, then the decentralization can control the centralization.

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. 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)?

The only retort is that the society will rebel against any monopoly, which is complete nonsense because we have innumerable examples in history and society never does. At least two others made a similar comment upthread.

I have given my support to spreading Bitcoin knowing with complete certainty (based on my detailed posts about human nature, Logic of Collective Action, and historical evidence) that it will end up being used by the State to oppress us (and cypherdoc's Africans too), because it also has seepage and helps to grow the capital base (network effects) for crypto-currency, which can aid the process of making an ideal crypto-currency.

cypherdoc is so excited to enslave the world in a fully tracked money that never existed before in history. Cash was always anonymous. He is ostensibly oblivious to the blood that is going to be on his hands. He is excited about what in effect will a euthanization of the world in the NWO global Technocracy where everything will be controlled and tracked by the State.

Ok, seepage, yes I get that, and yes, it's nice to have bitcoin as a reserve currency against which all other digital currencies are priced. Alt coins that have true innovation or advantage should appreciate in value vs bitcoin over time.

  I would very much like it if you could come up with a superior alternative, but your hints and allegations of a "better way" have a decidedly hollow ring to them.

Time to put up or shut up dude, seriously, crackpot schemes like 21 can raise more than a hundred million, and your idea can't raise ten grand?

Best of luck, I hope you save us all with your super crypto and I hope you monetize your way to a private island and a personal yacht, but please do it soon, we're running out of time here.

[TPTB_need_war]

I don't agree with your apathy on whether cryptographers who invent anything that truly threatens TPTB will be made into examples.

Smooth I also don't think it is viable to murder dozens of open source programmers because it would be difficult to obscure on that scale and thus the hacker community would likely rise up and retaliate (and win!). But in terms of stopping an immediate threat or making an example out of a serious threat which can be done in an obfuscated manner so as to not wake up the entire community, I think it is a realistic consideration. Perhaps avoiding outcomes below is contingent on carefully accessing the situation the potential victim has placed himself into. For example, attack the Russian oligarchs and you will be overtly assassinated. Attack the CIA or NSA and they will weigh the cost of murdering versus the risk of waking up the sheeople.

Yeah its posible that one or two people could be taken out in a "suspicious" manner. So as I said earlier, open the project. Get others to participate (even if that includes giving up some measure of your anonymity to do it, and I think it does). Otherwise, as long as you remain critical to the effort, you are betting solely on your ability to actually remain anonymous for your safety. That is difficult and may even be impossible. It certainly didn't work out too well for Ross.

For all we know satoshi's identity is well known to the NSA, etc. (I consider that quite likely). Likewise the developers of cryptonote are probably identifiable by the NSA too. But what difference does either really make at this point? The code is out there. Interest has been established, so the projects will continue.

Agreed all.

Opening a project too soon or launching with a non-anonymous dev has trade-offs:

* loosing first mover advantage
* regulatory threats against an ICO
* no ICO then no $ to pay for development
* no money to pay for development to race ahead, then another effort can leech and create an ICO to steal the work
* radical design by consensus is sub-optimal. Refinement by consensus is optimal.

I don't know how high to weigh your argument that an anonymous launch will cause other developers and investors to be disinterested. I find that hard to believe. An anonymous launch with all the correct attributes is not different than one with a named dev, because by your own logic, the coin should be judged on its open source merits if it is to be truly decentralized. The main killer of an altcoin is a huge premine that doesn't allow the coin to be fairly distributed or any scheme which allows a disproportionate amount of the coins to be controlled by one person or group. Ideally some percent (in the typical power law distribution) of the coins should be distributed to the users of the currency (who don't just HODL and never sell for fiat).

[iCEBREAKER]

There exists plenty of evidence people will hold XMR; where is the evidence supporting your assertion they will not?

Don't make me google "evidence vs analysis" for you...  

Better pay attention to those angels from the realm of theory; they can save you a lot of pain.

If you want "hard empirical on-point evidence", I'm afraid you will have to wait.

We already have 1 year of data in the form of volume/price on XMR emission (IE supply) vs demand.

It indicates XMR is not economical to mine (or short) because most miners are mining with the intention of holding, not dumping.

What are you waiting for?  In any case, enjoy your ethereal analysis paralysis while we in the real world get things done and make stuff happen.

[TPTB_need_war]

allegations of a "better way" have a decidedly hollow ring to them.

Of course when details have been purposely withheld. I tried to give enough of a taste so I could judge the rationality of the community. This was an important marketing test for me to do, which impacts my decision process. I also tried to be vague enough that I could retain plausibly deniability.

To assert that most everything being done in Bitcoin is unnecessary is going to have a hollow ring to it, absent any details. I will just add that Bitcoin is trying to do too much. Too much power was given to the mining. This appears to have been designed with forethought. There was this elaborate strawman built about the tech envy of the formerly unresolved Byzantine General's problem (which I assert Bitcoin does not solve in the context of being resistant to monopolization).

[TPTB_need_war]

An observation about the blockchain, that I have not seen commented elsewhere.

You are getting too close to my idea.

That is good. If someone launches, it will not be certain it is me.

P.S. I planted this epiphany in your subconscious. Just as smooth planted the End-to-End principle in my subconscious when he told me a pigeon could carry a Monero transaction to the network.

[majamalu]

There exists plenty of evidence people will hold XMR; where is the evidence supporting your assertion they will not?

Don't make me google "evidence vs analysis" for you...  

Better pay attention to those angels from the realm of theory; they can save you a lot of pain.

If you want "hard empirical on-point evidence", I'm afraid you will have to wait.

We already have 1 year of data in the form of volume/price on XMR emission (IE supply) vs demand.

It indicates XMR is not economical to mine (or short) because most miners are mining with the intention of holding, not dumping.

What are you waiting for?  In any case, enjoy your ethereal analysis paralysis while we in the real world get things done and make stuff happen.

God bless my analysis paralysis; if it were not for it, I would have fallen into the altcoin trap many times in the past.

[TPTB_need_war]

That and ordering.

I did expect smooth would identify the key word.

[TPTB_need_war]

again as long as mining remains decentralized (and if it isn't then all bets are off)

That was my point.

[iCEBREAKER]

God bless my analysis paralysis; if it were not for it, I would have fallen into the altcoin buttcoin trap many times in the past.

Right, you and the other buttcoiners should never risk anything on crazy new ideas like e-cash.  Better to wait until something has already been proven successful than befriend an emerging trend.   

When your analyzer thingy can't (even after a great first year) tell the difference between generic altcoins and the Bitcoin-type Holy Grail breakthrough of Monero, it's time to replace the batteries and update the firmware.

Wading back on topic, here's this:


^^Needs moar Monero!

[TPTB_need_war]

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.

Bitcoin can never scale as the internet did because it violates the two key scaling principles of the internet, End-to-end and Principle of Least Power. They might be able to scale it as they did Facebook to most people on earth, but it will never scale to most economic activity on earth (and note the distinction). The only way they win with Bitcoin (i.e. for it to encompass most economic activity) is by oppressing the economic freedom that will drive most of the future economic activity.

Bitcoin is a (planted) ruse to entice people to agree to give up the anonymity of cash. It is leverage against governments and financial institutions that resist takeover by the NWO.

[TPTB_need_war]

...while the technology for genuine orthogonal scaling is developed.

The semi-veiled Blockstream infection (attempted takeover) of Bitcoin is so obvious. You don't even try to obscure it well.

And you still haven't refuted my assertion that pegged side chains break interoperability (and have to transfer back through the Bitcoin blockchain thus don't solve scaling if maximum network effects and interoperability is desired), thus can't scale and lose network effects. $21 million down a hole. Seems Adam's former company is a source of many of the key members of Blockstream and that former startup accomplished what? There might be a pattern of failure. This is often what happens when you put academics and inexperienced venture capital together (the seed capitalist made his fortune by creating an ISP in Canada and selling it back in the boom of the dot.com era).

Gregory is an extremely talented cryptographer (who several times has reused hash trees for compression) but who apparently often doesn't raise his scope of vision over the tree trunks to reason about the forest. CoinJoin? Heuristic spaghetti for Sybil attacks? (or maybe he was just trying to make the best out of the worst?)

[TPTB_need_war]

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

That articulation is incorrect and implies you don't have solid technological comprehension.

The generative difference with off-chain mixing is it doesn't scale because it is not autonomous and thus violates the End-to-end principle. There is no difference in the level of anonymity for any given anonymity set (all other factors equal which they may not be, such as IP address correlation in off-chain because the parties must coordinate).

All mix-nets are a form of "obfuscation". There is no such thing as 100% anonymity. It is always a measure of the anonymity set size. Obfuscation though is usually differentiated from anonymity sets such that obfuscation is a mixing of itself (e.g. a mangling of JavaScript code), whereas the latter is a mixing of numerous entities.

[iCEBREAKER]

I may have figured out why Doctor Frappe has recently been going off the rails in such an uncharacteristically frothy, grumpy, and ill-tempered manner.

The reason may be read in the implied lines between these two posts:

1. Bitcoin never goes below its previous all-time high after a big rally. ($266)

2. Bitcoin rallies every XXX days.

3. Bitcoin rallies whenever the 3D or 1W MACD turn green.

4. Bitcoin rallies when it's been stable for XXX days.

5. If you hold bitcoin for 2 years, it'll always be higher. (became false in April 2015)

You name it. Every pattern is broken. There are no more clever facts left. No more talking points. No more s-curves going vertical and no more quips. Now there is only reality. What reality? The reality that bitcoin is making good progress but there is lax demand. The road ahead may be much longer than any of us have imagined.

So it turns out:
-Gavin was planning to foist his and Hearns' XT altcoin on the community for one year plus and this was all planned for a long time. (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/37vg8y/is_the_blockstream_company_the_reason_why_4_core/crqbd78)
-Gavin is the only dev who supports this proposal (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/34y48z/mike_hearn_the_capacity_cliff_and_why_we_cant_use/cqz9xf3)
-Gavin caused attrition not only for the devteam but for all of the community
-He caused a lot of important people in the space to be upset and even some devs threaten to leave
-Gavin caused a decline in the price of Bitcoin which could possibly turn into panic selling (we don't know yet)
-Gavin caused a serious loss in investors confidence and thus harmed Bitcoin greatly
-He sends blackmail letters to the Bitcoin community "do how i say or else ..."
-He doesn't care for decentralisation
-He lies about many things
-He tried a power grab and sides with people who support blacklisting of coins
-He caused massive unease for everyone for prolonged time
-He has no idea what consensus is or disrespects it willfully
-A majority of the community thinks he is a CIA mole (he lost his marbles)
-He threatens to risk network consensus and thus the value of a lot of peoples' investement

There are certainly more things to list.

I think it's time to think about if he is really an asset for Bitcoin or more of a burden right now. I have a feeling Bitcoin could rebound +10% if he would resign and thus end this discussion and bring back some investors confidence again.

[TPTB_need_war]

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 must carve out a market that Bitcoin doesn't have or it is doomed. That is not necessary the same as competition. New markets means they are not competing. I hope the Monero folks aren't angered by this opinion. I do believe they think they can carve out a market in the anonymity space.

It might survive as a sidechain though.

I refuted pegged side chains and no one has retorted.

[Bassica]

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.