Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

I don't get all this hand-wringing about hard forks.

Everyone is paranoid that their fork won't be popular (whether among end-users or miners).

They seem to forget that on a world scale, nobody gives a crap about bitcoin still. Whether your fork occupies 0.0004% or 0.00004% of the world money supply is a rather minor distinction.

Look at it another way, would it be that horrible if your fork of bitcoin was "only" as popular as bitcoin was in 2011? That didn't stop anyone in 2011. And your fork would be way easier to use than bitcoin was then.

Put yet another way, I'd rather bitcoin be "right" than "popular". Whichever fork is what I want, that's what I'm going to use. If I wanted a "popular" currency and payment system, the dollar and Visa would be obvious choices, but that's not what any of us want.

and therein lies the answer of which fork will be most popular and will win at the end of the day.  hint:  look at the polls.

in other words, devs can dev all they want but they won't if they aren't being funded.

[cypherdoc]

brutal anti-silverbox move:

[rocks]

marcus of augustus stooping to new lows:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39bwwn/arguments_in_the_bitcoin_block_size_debate_an/cs2f6fm

talking about bitcoin-killing extensions, game overs, and ELE "extinction level events"  

Is it FUD if the dangers are real, clear and present?

Forewarned is forearmed. Anybody who wants to run on the XT fork deserves to know the dangers they are getting themselves into. Attempting to censor me through intimidation is not going to work.

MoA, I've appreciated your past comments here, but think you are wrong on the XT fork paranoia . These replies to you over in Reddit explain why the fork is fine and how you can verify it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/394fn1/mike_hearn_in_about_1_week_bitcoin_xt_will/cs0fvmd

[cypherdoc]

marcus of augustus stooping to new lows:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39bwwn/arguments_in_the_bitcoin_block_size_debate_an/cs2f6fm

talking about bitcoin-killing extensions, game overs, and ELE "extinction level events"  

Is it FUD if the dangers are real, clear and present?

Forewarned is forearmed. Anybody who wants to run on the XT fork deserves to know the dangers they are getting themselves into. Attempting to censor me through intimidation is not going to work.

MoA, I've appreciated your past comments here, but think you are wrong on the XT fork paranoia . These replies to you over in Reddit explain why the fork is fine and how you can verify it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/394fn1/mike_hearn_in_about_1_week_bitcoin_xt_will/cs0fvmd

this is really funny since i immediately suggested this to MofA weeks ago when he protested when XT got announced.  and i am not a coder.  i can go back and get the quote if anyone doubts me:

Hearns:
You can easily use "diff -ur" to see the differences, or use the git command line (eg "git diff 0.10.2A..upstream/master"), or just look at the commits as they are all rebased onto the top of the upstream branch.

[jmw74]

I don't get all this hand-wringing about hard forks.

Everyone is paranoid that their fork won't be popular (whether among end-users or miners).

They seem to forget that on a world scale, nobody gives a crap about bitcoin still. Whether your fork occupies 0.0004% or 0.00004% of the world money supply is a rather minor distinction.

Look at it another way, would it be that horrible if your fork of bitcoin was "only" as popular as bitcoin was in 2011? That didn't stop anyone in 2011. And your fork would be way easier to use than bitcoin was then.

Put yet another way, I'd rather bitcoin be "right" than "popular". Whichever fork is what I want, that's what I'm going to use. If I wanted a "popular" currency and payment system, the dollar and Visa would be obvious choices, but that's not what any of us want.

and therein lies the answer of which fork will be most popular and will win at the end of the day.  hint:  look at the polls.

in other words, devs can dev all they want but they won't if they aren't being funded.

You just did it again!

If popularity means winning, then we might as well all go home. I hate to break it to you, but bitcoin is terribly, terribly unpopular. At best, 0.01% of the world has used it.

The whole reason we're still here is that we want tools that work for us, and if the whole world decides to join us, great! If not, it'll go on just fine as a niche product.

I personally think bitcoin can be a much better-known niche product than it is today, but it will always be niche. And not just due to limitations on bandwidth. Consensus takes time. If you're willing to trust a 3rd party (no consensus needed!), they can run circles around bitcoin. They don't yet, but they could.

Bitcoin will become the pressure relief valve. If banks and governments don't give us a fair deal, we use bitcoin instead.  Bitcoin will never be the default though, it will always be the censorship-resistance tool.

[cypherdoc]

i really like these guys.  doing actual analysis and simulations.  bottom line:  we don't have much time:

https://tradeblock.com/blog/bitcoin-network-capacity-analysis-part-4-simulating-practical-capacity

[cypherdoc]

https://www.coinprices.io/articles/the-hard-fork-no-need-to-worry-bitcoin-upgrades-harness-free-market-consensus

[rocks]

https://www.coinprices.io/articles/the-hard-fork-no-need-to-worry-bitcoin-upgrades-harness-free-market-consensus

Bitcoin is the first "voluntary consensus" system I think we've seen. Other systems may be centrally decided or democratically decided, but in all cases once a decision is made you have to follow it. For example we have:

• The FED - Small group of people make all decisions. No one else has any influence over said decisions. Once a decision is made, everyone is forced to follow the FED's decisions or go to jail.
• Democracy - Large scale popularity vote, everyone gets to include their voice (in theory, we all know there are problems in today's "democracy"). Decisions (in theory) follow the opinion of the majority. Once a decision is made, everyone is forced to follow the decision or go to jail.

In both cases, once a decision is made you have to follow it or go to jail.

Then enter bitcoin. Everyone gets to choose which system or path to participate on. There is some form of centralized decision (the devs) but people are free to ignore them. Decisions also come down to a large scale popularity vote of sorts and most will follow the economic majority.

However there is no requirement to follow either the devs or the economic majority. Any group of people can tell the rest to f'off and follow their own path. They will be isolated and excluded from the majority, but they are not stopped and if later proved right the majority might just come back to join them.

This is unique as far as I can see, I am looking forward to seeing how the 20MB fork plays out largely as the first real test of how well "voluntary consensus" works in practice.

200 years ago the very idea of trying democracy was considered a "grand experiment" (one that many predicted would fail). I think a key failing of democracy however is it is still binding. Today "voluntary consensus" is the grand experiment.

[molecular]

Bitcoin is the first "voluntary consensus" system I think we've seen. Other systems may be centrally decided or democratically decided, but in all cases once a decision is made you have to follow it. For example we have:

• The FED - Small group of people make all decisions. No one else has any influence over said decisions. Once a decision is made, everyone is forced to follow the FED's decisions or go to jail.
• Democracy - Large scale popularity vote, everyone gets to include their voice (in theory, we all know there are problems in today's "democracy"). Decisions (in theory) follow the opinion of the majority. Once a decision is made, everyone is forced to follow the decision or go to jail.

In both cases, once a decision is made you have to follow it or go to jail.

Yeah, it sucks. Can't just leave and go somewhere else.

If I could "fork earth", I probably would.

Anyone coming along?

[jmw74]

This is unique as far as I can see, I am looking forward to seeing how the 20MB fork plays out largely as the first real test of how well "voluntary consensus" works in practice.

200 years ago the very idea of trying democracy was considered a "grand experiment" (one that many predicted would fail). Today "voluntary consensus" is the grand experiment.

I'm sure that like most experiments, the very first time it is attempted it will be a total mess and many people will run around proclaiming that it can never work.

Choosing new names for at least one of the forks is going to be messy. How about a BIP that deterministically chooses names based on the first block on each side of the fork?

[sidhujag]

bitshares claims 100k TPS with ease.. very likely 1000k that is possible with todays avg personal computer:

https://bitshares.org/blog/2015/06/08/measuring-performance/

reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3929x3/bitshares_now_handles_more_tps_than_visa_and/

[molecular]

bitshares claims 100k TPS with ease.. very likely 1000k that is possible with todays avg personal computer:

https://bitshares.org/blog/2015/06/08/measuring-performance/

I don't read that as them "claiming 100k TPS". They identified serially having to write utxo set as the bottleneck and they estimated a high-end server could do 100k TPS on that problem.

[sidhujag]

bitshares claims 100k TPS with ease.. very likely 1000k that is possible with todays avg personal computer:

https://bitshares.org/blog/2015/06/08/measuring-performance/

I don't read that as them "claiming 100k TPS". They identified serially having to write utxo set as the bottleneck and they estimated a high-end server could do 100k TPS on that problem.

I did read it as 100k TPS.. actually 1M TPS is doable on high end servers (todays architecture) and 100k TPS easily on todays desktop computers.

"On a two year old 3.4 Ghz Intel i5 CPU this could be performed at over 180,000 operations per second. On newer hardware single threaded performance is 25% faster."

Seemed like a complete refactoring to make lean tx processing to achieve higher TPS effectively.

[Odalv]

bitshares claims 100k TPS with ease.. very likely 1000k that is possible with todays avg personal computer:

https://bitshares.org/blog/2015/06/08/measuring-performance/

reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3929x3/bitshares_now_handles_more_tps_than_visa_and/

lol, and after first second they will rest for 5 years ? :-)


1000k TPS is 86 400 000 000 transaction per day

[cypherdoc]

bitshares claims 100k TPS with ease.. very likely 1000k that is possible with todays avg personal computer:

https://bitshares.org/blog/2015/06/08/measuring-performance/

reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3929x3/bitshares_now_handles_more_tps_than_visa_and/

i haven't looked at Bitshares forever.  can you summarize what that has to do with the Bitcoin blockchain?

[sidhujag]

bitshares claims 100k TPS with ease.. very likely 1000k that is possible with todays avg personal computer:

https://bitshares.org/blog/2015/06/08/measuring-performance/

reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3929x3/bitshares_now_handles_more_tps_than_visa_and/

i haven't looked at Bitshares forever.  can you summarize what that has to do with the Bitcoin blockchain?

Maybe bitcoin devs can read into the code to see what they did to perhaps increase efficiency in btc blockchain. Even though they are different codebases.

[GambitBTC]

I miss the old days...

[TPTB_need_war]

I don't get all this hand-wringing about hard forks.

Everyone is paranoid that their fork won't be popular (whether among end-users or miners).

The paranoia is because hard forks create two copies of the same BTC value. If both survive that is 100% debasement. Afaics, Blockstream's pegged side chains eliminate the need for hard forks and thus resolve this issue.

I don't get all this hand-wringing about hard forks.

Everyone is paranoid that their fork won't be popular (whether among end-users or miners).

They seem to forget that on a world scale, nobody gives a crap about bitcoin still. Whether your fork occupies 0.0004% or 0.00004% of the world money supply is a rather minor distinction.

Look at it another way, would it be that horrible if your fork of bitcoin was "only" as popular as bitcoin was in 2011? That didn't stop anyone in 2011. And your fork would be way easier to use than bitcoin was then.

Put yet another way, I'd rather bitcoin be "right" than "popular". Whichever fork is what I want, that's what I'm going to use. If I wanted a "popular" currency and payment system, the dollar and Visa would be obvious choices, but that's not what any of us want.

and therein lies the answer of which fork will be most popular and will win at the end of the day.  hint:  look at the polls.

That does not necessary follow. Paradigm shift technical changes can alter trends of adoption. Your poll asks for a larger block size. It does not ask which other chain attributes, whether it is a pegged side chain, and which block size people will choose. For example, let's assume GavinCoin (XT) sticks with 20MB blocks (or even 8MB) in a hard fork (i.e. not a pegged side chain) but doesn't have the necessary opcode to support pegged side chains (without federated servers), and Blockstream offers a pegged side chain with 4MB blocks and the necessary opcodes. The majority might choose the later, while MPEX et al short and sell their coins in the XT, while the XT supports can't retaliate by selling their BTC in the pegged competitor.

You incessantly make overly generalized, myopic assertions which do not consider all the details and ramifications.

It appears that when considering an issue, your state machine has only perhaps one or two variables in it.

would the brainless stop perseverating over MPEX?

anyone who tries to manipulate the mkts like they're threatening to do will get creamed.

You make an assumption that the market in question will be symmetric in quality, but above I have explained a scenario where there is an asymmetry and thus the free market may not be able to override MPEX's asymmetric advantage.

If XT will be reformulated as a pegged side chain, then MPEX's threats will be nullified. But in that case, there is no longer a hard fork for us to consider (at least not with the attribute of two competing copies of the same BTC value).

[TPTB_need_war]

Cypherdoc I have a better suggestion. How about we observe what happens? And you shut up.

I doubt your arguments have been informational enough to impact any of the key actors in this process.

I don't think Cypherdoc the guy with the microphone and an auditorium full of devotees, I think the people you want to shut up are the minority being paid $21M to spread there version of Bitcoin.
I'd condone your approach if you asked them to shut up.  

Why should we stop pegged side chains (and can we)? What is the problem with them? Refer to my prior post for my logic.

Anything that pegged side chains have the power to do, can be done even without Blockstream. The beans have been spilled.

I see only positive outcomes should Sidechains be limited in functionality released as Sidecains Elements.  To answer your question you have 250 pages of reading to do to catch up,- hint scroll back to the date the sidechain paper was released it will give you a good start date. (on the up side the content is a lot more focused and coherent than the constant word flow you project in here at the moment ;-)

Tl; dr?

You can't limit which experiments will be attempted on pegged side chains. Why do I need 250 pages of noise to tell me otherwise?

[TPTB_need_war]

bitshares claims 100k TPS with ease.. very likely 1000k that is possible with todays avg personal computer:

https://bitshares.org/blog/2015/06/08/measuring-performance/

I don't read that as them "claiming 100k TPS". They identified serially having to write utxo set as the bottleneck and they estimated a high-end server could do 100k TPS on that problem.

Bandwidth is the bottle neck to scaling block size decentralized on home connections.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability#Network

100,000 x 0.5 KB = 400 Mbps connection at least.

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/law-of-bandwidth/

a high-end user's connection speed grows by 50% per year

With internet connections in many countries still below 5 Mbps download (and consistent download rates are lower than that), that means 10 years or more to scale to that level. And to achieve micropayments a single order-of-magnitude increase over Visa scale is not likely sufficient. My guess would be 2 - 3 orders-of-magnitude within the first 10 years after launch.

Also bear in mind that perhaps 90% of the world doesn't yet use a credit card for internet purchases, so Visa scale 10 years from now is likely to be closer to 100,000 TPS.

Bottom line is crypto-currency can't scale by having every node see every transaction. Also it is an enormous unnecessary waste of internet bandwidth and there are many other reasons such a design is not desired.