Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[TPTB_need_war]

An education about reality for Cypherdoc and his Kafkaesque "saving the Afrikaans" kleptocratic plutocracy.

Over the past year or two, I had been able to order imported vitamins of all types from olx.ph. The sellers didn't need a business license, didn't pay any taxes, thus low overhead and reasonable prices (about 2X what I'd pay online in the USA). They would order these in bulk from the USA and ship via filoutlet.com to Manila. You'd send them a money transfer or bank deposit, then they'd ship to you. An ideal market for Bitcoin right? Read on...

Suddenly olx.ph merged with both ayosdito.ph and sulit.ph, leaving only buyandsell.ph and ebay.ph remaining. Well ebay still allows vitamins apparently but takes a 10% cut. But all the other sites apparently no longer allow human vitamin listings, ostensibly because the BFAD (Bureau of Food and Drugs) has cracked down. Yet you can still buy vitamins on ebay.ph, Lazada.com.ph, and one other site. Lazada is only allowing sellers who have registered with the government and thus pay taxes, as well as taking their own cut of the sale.

So the problem is that for any site to do what used to be available is going to require anonymity for the site (not for the resellers because the government would never try to go after 100s of small resellers). But how to make a site anonymous? Tor hidden servers are apparently compromised. And besides no one in the Philippines is going to install Tor just to shop online.

The slow creep into the NWO is underway. You'd have to be blind to not see.

[TPTB_need_war]

There is one fly in the ointment of curing the altcoin disease with pegged side coins.

Users will use a side chain for features they like, but there is 0 direct incentive for them to use a side chain to get a higher ROI on their investment.

Thus those who want to maximize ROI of some new feature such as for example on chain anonymity (off chain anonymity is untenable), will prefer to buy the altcoin version of the feature assuming that altcoin has a superior adoption curve to Bitcoin (remember smaller things grow faster on percentage basis).

And especially if that altcoin has an ecosystem that refuses to accept BTC directly because it is recognized that Bitcoin is a NWO paradigm wherein the future is Coinbase, Circle, Paypal, Facebook, etc will move their zombie masses onto a pegged side chain they control with a centralized ledger, with full compliance government KYC required on all transactions. The masses don't care. They already completed the KYC requirement when they joined those sites.

It will come down to a war over anonymity. Bitcoin gets the non-anonymous world. Another altcoin will vie for the anonymous world if it is done correctly. The key will be driving anonymous usage and thus adoption.

One could argue that an anonymous side chain would suffice for users of anonymity, but this depends on the usage of anonymity. If all you are doing is storing value, then you plan to cash out via BTC, then that isn't going to drive much adoption as evident for Moanero.

But if you've got an ecosystem for anonymity that has investors and operators who refuse to accept BTC then such an ecosystem can outpace Bitcoin's percentage growth and thus ROI for investors.

Why would investors and operators of an anonymity ecosystem refuse to accept BTC? Because they'd be shooting their own foot in terms of their investment in the altcoin with a higher growth rate. They'd be siphoning off their own network effects and diluting them into the larger monolith of BTC chains. It is a simple economic calculation. One can assume that anonymous operators will be intelligent, otherwise they wouldn't be interested in anonymity.

[iCEBREAKER]

Disregard Frap.doc's FUD.  Acquire primary sources:

https://github.com/ElementsProject/elements

https://people.xiph.org/~greg/blockstream.gmaxwell.elements.talk.060815.pdf

https://youtu.be/9pyVvq-vrrM   SF Bitcoin Devs: Bringing New Elements to Bitcoin with Sidechains (Greg Maxwell)

https://people.xiph.org/~greg/confidential_values.txt

[TPTB_need_war]

https://people.xiph.org/~greg/confidential_values.txt

I remember watching Adam Back's talk about this concept when he was in Israel at a meeting I think sponsored by Meni Rosenfeld.

In any case, the concept is sort of inane. Who ever receives a payment can trace all the way back through the chain of payment history of obscured amounts. So afaics the anonymity breaks down over time to eventually 0. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

Also in the linked text from Maxell, he claims that ring sigs need a forever expanding high bloated unscalable block chain. I have solved that problem.

The main problem side chains has introduced for me, is they can steal my technology and put it in a side chain. So I will just have to put it in a side chain first and make sure I am siphoning value from BTC in a way that can't technologically be improved upon. I know how to do this because it was already necessary in my design.

So everything is falling right into place for me. Monero has eventually been co-opted by side chains (unfortunately).

[TPTB_need_war]

In any case, the concept is sort of inane. Who ever receives a payment can trace all the way back through the chain of payment history of obscured amounts. So afaics the anonymity breaks down over time to eventually 0. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

I think I conflated with the "respendable commited-tx". The homomorphic encryption was 5 slides above that. So perhaps the HE does not have the flaw I assumed. So it hides payment amounts but doesn't mix outputs from numerous entities. You'd still need CoinJoin for that, which is unscalable. And if you add on-chain ring sigs, then you don't need the HE. Also I don't understand how hiding the amount helps when the amount needs to be same for all those who are mixing in CoinJoin  (otherwise analysis of permutations between input and output amounts can decrease the anonymity set).

So far this looks like another one of those half-baked Gregory Maxwell ideas.  I await clarification.

Links:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=509674.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=305791.0

[iCEBREAKER]

So much for the Gavinistas' so-called consensus:

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114505/web-wallet-providers-divided-over-andresens-20-mb-block-size-increase-proposal

with Coinkite and GreenAddress opposing the idea, an industry consensus remains out of reach.

[Mixles]

https://people.xiph.org/~greg/confidential_values.txt

I remember watching Adam Back's talk about this concept when he was in Israel at a meeting I think sponsored by Meni Rosenfeld.

Request for comments

http://voxelsoft.com/dev/sumcoin.pdf

[sickpig]

https://people.xiph.org/~greg/confidential_values.txt

I remember watching Adam Back's talk about this concept when he was in Israel at a meeting I think sponsored by Meni Rosenfeld.

Request for comments

http://voxelsoft.com/dev/sumcoin.pdf

you sure were very quick to include Blockstream's Elements and Confidential txs in your work.
(sorry no time to read the paper right now)

[iCEBREAKER]

https://people.xiph.org/~greg/confidential_values.txt

I remember watching Adam Back's talk about this concept when he was in Israel at a meeting I think sponsored by Meni Rosenfeld.

Request for comments

http://voxelsoft.com/dev/sumcoin.pdf

CT and Anon MiniChain in one coin?  Impressive tech and elegant implementation!  Do want.  

Any thoughts on which PoW is a good fit?  My favorite ATM is BBR's Wild Keccak (http://boolberry.com/files/Block_Chain_Based_Proof_of_Work.pdf).

I see Coloured Coins aren't compatible.  If implemented independently, are there more trade-offs with other trendy functions like CIYAM's AT, OP_RETURN, or CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY?  What about proof of stake?

If the Monero folk decide to put Sumcoin under their hood, would you help the core devs with integration?

[cypherdoc]

I really think Bitcoin should stick to the business of money not the business of business. Blockstream is turning Bitcoin into a vehicle for speculation via SC's.

Its sad to see iCELatte and marcus et al cheering the above sidecoin as a competitor to Bitcoin. It just shows how much misunderstanding there is about Bitcoin as Money which is its original goal.

[cypherdoc]

Truthcoin is on its way too. Do we really want to see them leech value out of the MC?

[iCEBREAKER]

I really think Bitcoin should stick to the business of money not the business of business. Blockstream is turning Bitcoin into a vehicle for speculation via SC's.

Its sad to see iCELatte and marcus et al cheering the above sidecoin as a competitor to Bitcoin. It just shows how much misunderstanding there is about Bitcoin as Money which is its original goal.

Bitcoin is by design a settlement system.  And like it or not, sidechains are happening.

The more subordinate sidechains BTC provides settlement between, the more utility (and thus value) it accrues.

GavinCoin is turning Bitcoin into a vehicle for speculation via Frappuccinos and LightHouse:

marcus_of_augustus

Hearn has vested interests in these business models that rely on bigger blocks:

Lighthouse's 'crowdfunding' is more like tribe-funding because the size of the crowd is limited by the blocksize https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lighthouse-discuss/J2MHPw5kUBU

BitcoinJ will be better able to compete with the federated server models of Electrum and libbitcoin (currently it is getting smoked) so he becomes more relevant again.

Yep, it is safe to say that Hearn is conflicted when it comes to blocksize debate. He might become irrelevant if this doesn't happen now and other business models take over.

[sidhujag]

https://www.braintreepayments.com/features/paypal

Anyone know anything bout em? I was in new York and saw their building. Apparently accepting Bitcoin.

[cypherdoc]

i would like to propose a compromise.

let the Blockstream folks insert their SPV proof into source while simultaneously eliminating the block size limit accordiing to Satoshi's original vision. then we can see which Ferrari will go faster.

the network effect of sound money vs that of SC's (speculation). it would be a fantastic test of the market.

[cypherdoc]

I really think Bitcoin should stick to the business of money not the business of business. Blockstream is turning Bitcoin into a vehicle for speculation via SC's.

Its sad to see iCELatte and marcus et al cheering the above sidecoin as a competitor to Bitcoin. It just shows how much misunderstanding there is about Bitcoin as Money which is its original goal.

Bitcoin is by design a settlement system.  And like it or not, sidechains are happening.

The more subordinate sidechains BTC provides settlement between, the more utility (and thus value) it accrues.

GavinCoin is turning Bitcoin into a vehicle for speculation via Frappuccinos and LightHouse:

marcus_of_augustus

Hearn has vested interests in these business models that rely on bigger blocks:

Lighthouse's 'crowdfunding' is more like tribe-funding because the size of the crowd is limited by the blocksize https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lighthouse-discuss/J2MHPw5kUBU

BitcoinJ will be better able to compete with the federated server models of Electrum and libbitcoin (currently it is getting smoked) so he becomes more relevant again.

Yep, it is safe to say that Hearn is conflicted when it comes to blocksize debate. He might become irrelevant if this doesn't happen now and other business models take over.

let's be clear why they are "happening" just so you don't give everyone the impression that all of us have "accepted" something inevitable.

the initial implementation merely runs off federated servers and doesn't require a source code change like Gavin's block size increase.  thus, no concensus, or even a majority of us need to approve.  a federated server model is simply a simplistic proxy for SC's, which i'd argue really doesn't tell us much as compared to how a spv proof will perform on the MC.  it's an apples to oranges test and does not imply "victory" of the iCELatte's of the world.

[TPTB_need_war]

Cypherdoc's laser cataract surgery advertisement is showing up on every site I visit that has Google ads displayed (with a small thumbnail of his face). I had to delete the Google cookies to resolve the haunting. I suppose this was set when I visited his bio page. Lol.

Brave new world.

[justusranvier]

then we can see which Ferrari will go faster.

I don't think the proponents of sidechains, or of Lightning Network, will ever be in favor of unhindered competition between the approaches to see which one the market prefers.

Lightning Network in particular looks like it was tailor made to sell Bitcoin to banks.

It has the features they'd like, such as the moat of requiring large amounts of idle capital to start, and it allows deep-pocketed entities to earn passive income by virtue of having idle capital.

It reduces the number of players who can access the blockchain directly and connects them through a BGP-style routing network that would be amenible to US-style viral regulation enforcement (participants can only route payments through peers who agree to enforce extraterritorial laws, and who require all their peers to do the same). Think of that routing network as bringing Ripple-style centralized UNLs to Bitcoin.

So when I talk about selling Bitcoin to the banks I mean "sell" both in the sense of "convince them to adopt" and also "hand over the keys to".

Part of convincing the banks to adopt LN would be promising them that Bitcoin users won't have a choice in the matter - they'll have to use LN because the block size limit will stay in place (or be lowered!) and so they won't have an escape route.

[iCEBREAKER]

i would like to propose a compromise.

let the Blockstream folks insert their SPV proof into source while simultaneously eliminating the block size limit. then we can see which Ferrari will go faster.

the network effect of sound money vs that of SC's (speculation). it would be a fantastic test of the market.

No deal.  Sidechains are, as nullc and pwuille already patiently explained to you last night, "completely orthogonal to the blocksize debate."

Did you sleep well after getting spanked and pouting until downvoted?  

[cypherdoc]

let me also be clear on my stance.

i'm perfectly fine with Blockstream running federated pegs or server models.  they aren't requiring a change in the core code.  hence, they are perfectly free to run these centralized experiments.  but to extrapolate those proxy results and apply them to their ultimate goal of changing the core code (just like Gavin is proposing NOW) is much more of a challenge, not only technically but politically like we have with the block size debate.

i wish them best of luck on these experiments.  hopefully they can advance the space.  but the battle to change the code has only just begun.  those who have the purest of arguments and intentions hopefully will win out.

[cypherdoc]

i would like to propose a compromise.

let the Blockstream folks insert their SPV proof into source while simultaneously eliminating the block size limit. then we can see which Ferrari will go faster.

the network effect of sound money vs that of SC's (speculation). it would be a fantastic test of the market.

No deal.  Sidechains are, as nullc and pwuille already patiently explained to you last night, "completely orthogonal to the blocksize debate."

Did you sleep well after getting spanked and pouting until downvoted?  

what do you expect being in a Blockstream thread with all it's supporters cheerleading? 

why don't you answer the questions i posed since no one else seems to be able to?