Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[gmaxwell]

lots and lots of big words.  never any justification for preventing Bitcoin from fulfilling it's original vision:

Your selective quoting ignores how this was a response to a 'how could this possibly work at all'.  I've used the same kind of response to "omg flooding network! how could that possibly work! it's completely non-scalable!" -- to point out that even non-scalable can achieve some remarkable stuff.  This doesn't answer any particular question about the exact tradeoff that works, but works to wake people up.  Particular because before Bitcoin the alternative was exclusively centralized systems so when you show that if you don't care about decentralization (which you must not if you question the value it provides compared to all that came before) then it can reach arbitrarily high scale.

We can't hope to guess at what anyone from back then would think about the current state of the world, though we do know that e.g. the current mining ecosystem would have been regarded as a system failure from the original precepts; and we also know that decentralization and autonomy were principle motivations for the creation of the system in the first place.

While I'm here, hows your Bitcoin Spinoffs project going, Cypherdoc?

[cypherdoc]

marcus and his character assassins like to argue that Bitcoin should be a "settlement currency". 

how can it ever be a settlement currency when it's use is currently confined to a small group of users?  let alone when the Blockstream plan is to shunt the vast majority of tx's to SC's or LN preventing our transition to mining paid for by tx fees?

it's a ludicrous economic plan that will cause Bitcoin itself to wither and die.  but when your business model depends on SC consulting fees it will be quite lucrative; in USD.

[cypherdoc]

lots and lots of big words.  never any justification for preventing Bitcoin from fulfilling it's original vision:

Your selective quoting ignores how this was a response to a 'how could this possibly work at all'.  I've used the same kind of response to "omg flooding network! how could that possibly work! it's completely non-scalable!" -- to point out that even non-scalable can achieve some remarkable stuff.  This doesn't answer any particular question about the exact tradeoff that works, but works to wake people up.  Particular because before Bitcoin the alternative was exclusively centralized systems so when you show that if you don't care about decentralization (which you must not if you question the value it provides compared to all that came before) then it can reach arbitrarily high scale.

We can't hope to guess at what anyone from back then would think about the current state of the world, though we do know that e.g. the current mining ecosystem would have been regarded as a system failure from the original precepts; and we also know that decentralization and autonomy were principle motivations for the creation of the system in the first place.

While I'm here, hows your Bitcoin Spinoffs project going, Cypherdoc?

hey Greg, do you even understand the concept of "financial conflict"?  if 6 of the Fed Bd of Governors were to set up a for profit company that directly benefitted from the institution of a particular new rule applied to US monetary policy, what would you say to that?

btw, Spinoffs is not my project; it's PeterR's.  i haven't commented in that thread for probably a year or so.

[gmaxwell]

As a point of order; since this seems to be a common and oft-exploited set of misconceptions.

I think Gavin should de-hitch his wagon from Mike Hearn after hearing how Mike proposed centralized checkpointing. The blacklisting thing was his one free pass at a really horrible idea. Now it just looks like he doesn't get what Bitcoin is really about.

Or the proposals to add censorship to tor that _seriously_ pissed off the tor developers? Or the coin confiscation proposal? Or the near constant, first short recourse to centralized, authoritarian solutions-- at a level of consistency that it would be a comedy if it weren't so sad?

I can see why Gavin would utilize XT as an end-run around the political gridlock in core, and I also see that Mike Hearn has a unique perspective and background that is useful, but he should not be a core committer in my opinion. Gavin is the only person qualified to (provisionally) lead the project as far as I can see now, but I think "palling around with Mike Hearn" will be viewed with suspicion, especially if it's unnecessary. Why not just just add in the patch to Core and fork off if necessary?

Mike has never been a core committer-- he's only ever submitted a couple patches, in fact.  His work has been mostly on BitcoinJ, which is whats used by android wallet and multibit hd. He's certainly knowledgeable about the Bitcoin system, so I point this out only as a correction-in-fact not a judgement statement.

Gavin does not lead the Bitcoin Core project-- the project lead is Wladimir and has been for some time (and I mean this in actual documented agreed on roles, and not just in terms of activities), and Gavin has been largely inactive for the last year (I don't say this to complain-- he was very busy with troubled times at the Bitcoin foundation).

hey Greg, do you even understand the concept of "financial conflict"?  if 6 of the Fed Bd of Governors were to set up a for profit company that directly benefitted from the institution of a particular new rule applied to US monetary policy, what would you say to that?
btw, Spinoffs is not my project; it's PeterR's.  i haven't commented in that thread for probably a year or so.

marcus and his character assassins like to argue that Bitcoin should be a "settlement currency".  
how can it ever be a settlement currency when it's use is currently confined to a small group of users?  let alone when the Blockstream plan is to shunt the vast majority of tx's to SC's or LN preventing our transition to mining paid for by tx fees?
it's a ludicrous economic plan that will cause Bitcoin itself to wither and die.  but when your business model depends on SC consulting fees it will be quite lucrative; in USD.

You have some comparison a bit backwards there, there are other people lobbing for a sudden rule change to the system-- against substantial controversy and out from under the preferences of a substantial minority (e.g. your poll shows a quarter in opposition) whos interest you might want to explore.

Two of the Five people with commit access to Bitcoin core (or a half dozen out of a hundred contributors) created Blockstream to build some important tech that we the space need (and had been lamenting it's non-existence for a long time before we went and found a way to fund doing it!). As the primary technical innovators in this space (certainly if you exclude altcoin work) we can be assured good consulting incomes so long as we keep doing good, important, quality work-- regardless of what happens with SC or LN... and we have a _long_ backlog of powerful technology that we couldn't release for use in Bitcoin without it just ending up in an altcoin before the prospect of sidechains.  But no matter what you protest, you cannot stop LN or SC from existing in some form or another; and they offer advantages Bitcoin by itself fundamentally cannot: e.g. LN can give _instantly_ irreversible payments-- think of all the applications that hold of on using Bitcoin for lack of that; but it's not possible in the plain Bitcoin system.  Look at CT-- we can't just go and try that in Bitcoin and figure out how to advance it, prior to SC there was no avenue to adapt to new needs without picking switching from Bitcoin to a competing currency. None of these things have anything to do with block size, and-- in fact, both SC and LN _strongly_ prefer the biggest blocksize the network can handle.  What they can't tolerate, however, is Bitcoin being very centralized-- and I don't think your own interests can tolerate that either (assuming you still own some Bitcoin).

I bring up spinoffs beyond it just being an honest question because it was your argument on these points-- why worry about what happens to bitcoin when we can create some altcoin that enriches the existing bitcoin holders.  I don't know how much this perspective influences your position here, arguably a spinnoff perspective would strongly prefer original bitcoin would fail, it it would just transfer ownership into a new network before people notice and buy up their coins on the cheap as the developers of counterparty did. ::shrugs:: It's easy to throw rocks about conflicts of interest. But the reality is that the arguments I've presented are straightforward, coherent, extend long before any plausibly argued conflict of interest, and are shared to some degree or another by almost everyone in the technical space, including ones which no amount of fevered imagination can construct a coherent conflict of interest story.

(And at least in my case you know who I am, what business I'm in, what my history is, heck I've even shared details of my employment contract with you---- this is not the same for most other people. But even with that opacity, it's easy to find "shadows" of conflict of interest, if someone wants take your approach of claiming any that can be claimed whenever it supports an argument)

Though back to your question, if you've given up on spinoffs as a salvation-- what do you think is going to make Bitcoin competative against the eventual altcoin that actually gets the formula right and makes significant, no compromise, technical advantages over Bitcoin--- and probably doesn't bother to cut you in on it?  Keep in mind, most of the people we hope will some day use Bitcoin haven't even been born yet.  Unless we fail and sully the potential for cryptocurrency in the public's mind, this is only the very beginning of a long history.

[cypherdoc]

As a point of order; since this seems to be a common and oft-exploited set of misconceptions.

I think Gavin should de-hitch his wagon from Mike Hearn after hearing how Mike proposed centralized checkpointing. The blacklisting thing was his one free pass at a really horrible idea. Now it just looks like he doesn't get what Bitcoin is really about.

Or the proposals to add censorship to tor that _seriously_ pissed off the tor developers? Or the coin confiscation proposal? Or the near constant, first short recourse to centralized, authoritarian solutions-- at a level of consistency that it would be a comedy if it weren't so sad?

I can see why Gavin would utilize XT as an end-run around the political gridlock in core, and I also see that Mike Hearn has a unique perspective and background that is useful, but he should not be a core committer in my opinion. Gavin is the only person qualified to (provisionally) lead the project as far as I can see now, but I think "palling around with Mike Hearn" will be viewed with suspicion, especially if it's unnecessary. Why not just just add in the patch to Core and fork off if necessary?

Mike has never been a core committer-- he's only ever submitted a couple patches, in fact.  His work has been mostly on BitcoinJ, which is whats used by android wallet and multibit hd. He's certainly knowledgeable about the Bitcoin system, so I point this out only as a correction-in-fact not a judgement statement.

Gavin does not lead the Bitcoin Core project-- the project lead is Wladimir and has been for some time (and I mean this in actual documented agreed on roles, and not just in terms of activities), and Gavin has been largely inactive for the last year (I don't say this to complain-- he was very busy with troubled times at the Bitcoin foundation).

hey Greg, do you even understand the concept of "financial conflict"?  if 6 of the Fed Bd of Governors were to set up a for profit company that directly benefitted from the institution of a particular new rule applied to US monetary policy, what would you say to that?
btw, Spinoffs is not my project; it's PeterR's.  i haven't commented in that thread for probably a year or so.

marcus and his character assassins like to argue that Bitcoin should be a "settlement currency".  
how can it ever be a settlement currency when it's use is currently confined to a small group of users?  let alone when the Blockstream plan is to shunt the vast majority of tx's to SC's or LN preventing our transition to mining paid for by tx fees?
it's a ludicrous economic plan that will cause Bitcoin itself to wither and die.  but when your business model depends on SC consulting fees it will be quite lucrative; in USD.

You have some comparison a bit backwards there, there are other people lobbing for a sudden rule change to the system-- against substantial controversy and out from under the preferences of a substantial minority (e.g. your poll shows a quarter in opposition) whos interest you might want to explore.

Two of the Five people with commit access to Bitcoin core (or a half dozen out of a hundred contributors) created Blockstream to build some important tech that we the space need (and had been lamenting it's non-existence for a long time before we went and found a way to fund doing it!). As the primary technical innovators in this space (certainly if you exclude altcoin work) we can be assured good consulting incomes so long as we keep doing good, important, quality work-- regardless of what happens with SC or LN... and we have a _long_ backlog of powerful technology that we couldn't release for use in Bitcoin without it just ending up in an altcoin before the prospect of sidechains.  But no matter what you protest, you cannot stop LN or SC from existing in some form or another; and they offer advantages Bitcoin by itself fundamentally cannot: e.g. LN can give _instantly_ irreversible payments-- think of all the applications that hold of on using Bitcoin for lack of that; but it's not possible in the plain Bitcoin system.  Look at CT-- we can't just go and try that in Bitcoin and figure out how to advance it, prior to SC there was no avenue to adapt to new needs without picking switching from Bitcoin to a competing currency. None of these things have anything to do with block size, and-- in fact, both SC and LN _strongly_ prefer the biggest blocksize the network can handle.  What they can't tolerate, however, is Bitcoin being very centralized-- and I don't think your own interests can tolerate that either (assuming you still own some Bitcoin).

I bring up spinoffs beyond it just being an honest question because it was your argument on these points-- why worry about what happens to bitcoin when we can create some altcoin that enriches the existing bitcoin holders.  I don't know how much this perspective influences your position here, arguably a spinnoff perspective would strongly prefer original bitcoin would fail, it it would just transfer ownership into a new network before people notice and buy up their coins on the cheap as the developers of counterparty did. ::shrugs:: It's easy to throw rocks about conflicts of interest. But the reality is that the arguments I've presented are straightforward, coherent, extend long before any plausibly argued conflict of interest, and are shared to some degree or another by almost everyone in the technical space, including ones which no amount of fevered imagination can construct a coherent conflict of interest story.

Though back to your question, if you've given up on spinoffs as a salvation-- what do you think is going to make Bitcoin competative against the eventual altcoin that actually gets the formula right and makes significant, no compromise, technical advantages over Bitcoin--- and probably doesn't bother to cut you in on it?  Keep in mind, most of the people we hope will some day use Bitcoin haven't even been born yet.  Unless we fail and sully the potential for cryptocurrency in the public's mind, this is only the very beginning of a long history.

i've always said that when it comes down to federated server pegged SC's, go right ahead.  it doesn't change the protocol so i don't worry.  it's not a valid proxy for spvp anyways so i'm not sure why you'd claim it would be.  yeah, i have a problem with spvp b/c it's a protocol change to facilitate your business model and i'd think most of the for-profit companies that have constructed themselves around op_return embedded data would be outraged at facing higher tx fees.  perhaps that's why Luke has been accusing them of spam these days?

for the thousandth time, 1MB was a temporary patch to counteract DoS on the network when it was small and vulnerable.  today is quite different, which goes to your pt that things have evolved for Bitcoin to easily remove that artificial limit to allow for the inevitable growth that will come in the next spike.  cramping it at 1MB, which was never meant to happen, is the height of hypocrisy. many, many ppl including in the technical community that i see here and on reddit feel that the limit should be raised.  everyone who works in SV understands that rapidly gaining mkt share via the Uber and AirBnB model  works and is crucial to outrunning regulation.  your small block theory is the epitome of centralization forcing all users off the mainchain and into offchain solutions, some more centralized and regulated than others.

[cypherdoc]

also, about your hangup about every single user being capable of running a full node, Satoshi saw otherwise:

Long before the network gets anywhere near as large as that, it would be safe
for users to use Simplified Payment Verification (section eight) to check for
double spending, which only requires having the chain of block headers, or
about 12KB per day.  Only people trying to create new coins would need to run
network nodes.  At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the
network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to
specialists with server farms of specialized hardware.  A server farm would
only need to have one node on the network and the rest of the LAN connects with
that one node.

https://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography%40metzdowd.com/msg09964.html

[cypherdoc]

Spinoffs

it's been so long since i've even thought of spinoffs.  PeterR should be able to attest to that.  it shouldn't even be needed the way Bitcoin has progressed.  

i see Bitcoin as being highly successful and fulfilling it's vision.  you seem to see shadows everywhere.

i see XT as merely an upgrade to that vision needed for growth which will make mining sustainable in the long run by keeping tx fees on the mainchain.  

[elux]

for the thousandth time, 1MB was a temporary patch to counteract DoS on the network when it was small and vulnerable.  today is quite different, which goes to your pt that things have evolved for Bitcoin to easily remove that artificial limit to allow for the inevitable growth that will come in the next spike.  cramping it at 1MB, which was never meant to happen, is the height of hypocrisy. many, many ppl including in the technical community that i see here and on reddit feel that the limit should be raised.  everyone who works in SV understands that rapidly gaining mkt share via the Uber and AirBnB model  works and is crucial to outrunning regulation.  your small block theory is the epitome of centralization forcing all users off the mainchain and into offchain solutions, some more centralized and regulated than others.

Hear, hear.

[cypherdoc]

Greg,

it's just not the for profits that want to embed data into the mainchain that will be outraged, it will be all of the for profits in the space.  which is ALL of them. eventually.  why?  b/c they all depend on growth which means increasing users which can only happen by increasing the limit.  there may be a few of them that you can temporarily convince with your obfuscations.

the reason SC's won't work is b/c none of them are going to want to hitch their futures to Blockstream that has shown they will do what's best for themselves and not Bitcoin.

[cypherdoc]

so the other day they lie to us that a deal had been struck just so they can ramp the stock mkt and yet we hear this only 2h ago:

Default dangerously closer after Greece debt talks collapse

Brussels (AFP) - Default by debt-wracked Greece loomed dangerously closer after last-ditch talks between Athens and its EU-IMF creditors collapsed on Sunday, bringing the threat of a Greek exit from the euro closer than ever.

http://news.yahoo.com/greece-bailout-talks-end-no-deal-significant-gaps-171655815.html

[cypherdoc]

It really is that bad:

There are claims of an astonishing three-year fall in a Greek person’s life expectancy in just five years since the country’s economy crashed. If confirmed, this would be without precedent in modern Europe.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3123060/Babies-held-hostage-medical-fees-porters-paramedics-19-20-cut-searing-despatch-Athens-s-blood-soaked-hospitals-shows-Greece-literally-dying-leave-Euro.html

[tvbcof]

Though back to your question, if you've given up on spinoffs as a salvation-- what do you think is going to make Bitcoin competative against the eventual altcoin that actually gets the formula right and makes significant, no compromise, technical advantages over Bitcoin--- and probably doesn't bother to cut you in on it?  Keep in mind, most of the people we hope will some day use Bitcoin haven't even been born yet.  Unless we fail and sully the potential for cryptocurrency in the public's mind, this is only the very beginning of a long history.

Just FWIW, if the current Blockstream cohort does this there is some chance that I would convert over via proof-of-burn on reasonable terms, and especially if the clowns cannot be run out of Bitcoin (which doesn't seem eminent.)  I'd want to see it backing sidechains and would want to see a modestly promising sidechains ecosystem in practice first.

... everyone who works in SV understands that rapidly gaining mkt share via the Uber and AirBnB model  works and is crucial to outrunning regulation.

Pfft!  How's that working out for you after half a decade now?  Not well?  How very surprising that a solution which is vastly inferior to the competition in the exchange currency space cannot get a foothold.  Even with an amazing degree of media support, and even a surprising degree regulatory support here in the U.S. for that matter.

Edit:  BTW, what the fuck do you know about SV anyway?  'Outrunning regulation' was no more a winning strategy than 'security through obscurity'.  Sure, it can work fine...mostly when nobody gives a shit about you.

[FNG]

marcus and his character assassins like to argue that Bitcoin should be a "settlement currency". 

how can it ever be a settlement currency when it's use is currently confined to a small group of users?  let alone when the Blockstream plan is to shunt the vast majority of tx's to SC's or LN preventing our transition to mining paid for by tx fees?

it's a ludicrous economic plan that will cause Bitcoin itself to wither and die.  but when your business model depends on SC consulting fees it will be quite lucrative; in USD.

Spot on.

BTC needs to go through it's growth phases to get to it's ultimate destination. 1mb blocks doesn't allow for this to happen.

Their plan kills the network effect which leads to bitcoin integration. It's a direct threat to bitcoin maintaining and winning as "The Worldwide Ledger". Their activities are the greatest threat to bitcoin. A possible drop in nodes or their "centralization" threat is nowhere near as severe as them kneecapping bitcoin in it's race to global use and integration.

It was a no-brainer that bitcoin was going to come out on top and be "the blockchain". I'm not so sure anymore.

[Erdogan]

so the other day they lie to us that a deal had been struck just so they can ramp the stock mkt and yet we hear this only 2h ago:

Default dangerously closer after Greece debt talks collapse

Brussels (AFP) - Default by debt-wracked Greece loomed dangerously closer after last-ditch talks between Athens and its EU-IMF creditors collapsed on Sunday, bringing the threat of a Greek exit from the euro closer than ever.

http://news.yahoo.com/greece-bailout-talks-end-no-deal-significant-gaps-171655815.html

If someone could control that information flow, they could play the market multiple times before they eventually pulled out, just before the carnage.

[Natalia_AnatolioPAMM]

The one good thing to have come out of Blockstream is the confidential values technique for blinding output amounts.

What if that technique outlives sidechains and Blockstream?

Very good chance at that happening.

I guess the chance is more than good

[macsga]

It really is that bad:

There are claims of an astonishing three-year fall in a Greek person’s life expectancy in just five years since the country’s economy crashed. If confirmed, this would be without precedent in modern Europe.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3123060/Babies-held-hostage-medical-fees-porters-paramedics-19-20-cut-searing-despatch-Athens-s-blood-soaked-hospitals-shows-Greece-literally-dying-leave-Euro.html

I can confirm, this is the story. I've recently had to go to a hospital for a family member and the situation there is awful. If you don't have the money to handle your own medicine, you literally die. The situation is far worse with people who face a critical medical situation (ie: cancer patients). The medicines they apply to them are presented as "similar" but it's nowhere near that. The chemical compounds are in different percentage, not to mention the questionable process (and country) they're made.

As a Greek, I hope for an exit. I wish it would happen in 2009 - we would've been in the phase of economic rising rather than recession by now...

[cypherdoc]

Dow down - 178

Yes, they lie and manipulate news.

[wpalczynski]

It really is that bad:

There are claims of an astonishing three-year fall in a Greek person’s life expectancy in just five years since the country’s economy crashed. If confirmed, this would be without precedent in modern Europe.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3123060/Babies-held-hostage-medical-fees-porters-paramedics-19-20-cut-searing-despatch-Athens-s-blood-soaked-hospitals-shows-Greece-literally-dying-leave-Euro.html

I can confirm, this is the story. I've recently had to go to a hospital for a family member and the situation there is awful. If you don't have the money to handle your own medicine, you literally die. The situation is far worse with people who face a critical medical situation (ie: cancer patients). The medicines they apply to them are presented as "similar" but it's nowhere near that. The chemical compounds are in different percentage, not to mention the questionable process (and country) they're made.

As a Greek, I hope for an exit. I wish it would happen in 2009 - we would've been in the phase of economic rising rather than recession by now...

The sooner the better.  Look at Iceland now.

[thezerg]

It really is that bad:

There are claims of an astonishing three-year fall in a Greek person’s life expectancy in just five years since the country’s economy crashed. If confirmed, this would be without precedent in modern Europe.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3123060/Babies-held-hostage-medical-fees-porters-paramedics-19-20-cut-searing-despatch-Athens-s-blood-soaked-hospitals-shows-Greece-literally-dying-leave-Euro.html

I can confirm, this is the story. I've recently had to go to a hospital for a family member and the situation there is awful. If you don't have the money to handle your own medicine, you literally die. The situation is far worse with people who face a critical medical situation (ie: cancer patients). The medicines they apply to them are presented as "similar" but it's nowhere near that. The chemical compounds are in different percentage, not to mention the questionable process (and country) they're made.

As a Greek, I hope for an exit. I wish it would happen in 2009 - we would've been in the phase of economic rising rather than recession by now...

I hope so too for you guys.  Go bankrupt -- I believe that that is an inalienable right because the inability to do so results in slavery -- once termed "sharecropping" in the US, but today I think its commonly called "wage slavery".  You seem to be an entire country in wage slavery right now and honestly the people who need to feel the repercussions of the mistakes that led to that are yourselves (done -- you've been bearing the brunt of for years) and your creditors (who so far have escaped unscathed).

Repudiate the debt but don't give the keys to the currency printing presses to your government.  I do not think that they have shown to be responsible enough to handle them.  They may attempt to take them, but you -- every individual -- needs to simply refuse to transact in the new Drachma.  The result would be Venezuela -- and the result of the Venezuela socialist experiment is ironically a 100%-capitalist black market economy (in practice), with an additional leech-class that sucks the value out of the country via artificial commodity to currency exchange rates only available to the politically connected.  You are seeing this to some degree now -- you can't get medical treatment unless you pay under the table in advance in cash.  Imagine that for absolutely everything that can be bought, not that much will be available for sale.   Instead of allowing the above, continue to use Euro, or move to USD (without a local central bank to create monetary units), and keep introducing people to Bitcoin.  I think Ecuador (for one) follows this model using the USD as its main currency unit.

Moving to Bitcoin would actually be best long term since the monetary supply inflation of the Euro or USD will end up being spent not-in-Greece, resulting in essentially a 2-5% yearly tax.  But right now using Bitcoin seems unlikely -- Bitcoin's supply inflation is higher than fiat currencies right now, and asking a country to adopt it en-masse seems far-fetched given Bitcoin's current adoption rate and scalability issues.

[justusranvier]

If you don't have the money to handle your own medicine, you literally die.

Government supplied "free" services always sound great in the beginning, but when the government runs out of money nobody is remembers how to take care of themselves the way they did before the "free" services showed up.