Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[tvbcof]

Chomsky's confrontation with a truther idiot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i9ra-i6Knc

I watched it.

His arguments are:

1) If you don't do science through the establishment, then you are not doing science.

2) Only people trained in universities can be trusted to do peer review.

3) Bush was running the government (and not the DEEP STATE) and Bush's only objective was not "you are either for us or you are against us". He entirely sidesteps the point of 9/11 was to foist  "you are either for us or you are against us" on the entire world. And he substitutes a strawman, Hegelian dialectic for logic. He sidesteps the concept that the DEEP STATE plays many different elements against each other in order to retain control.

In short he is either knowingly acting as a gatekeeper, senile, or just not that smart. I would bet on the first conclusion.

I'll agree with your bet.  Classic controlled opposition.  I have to think that Chomsky (and Kruggman) is fully aware of what 9/11 was all about but for whatever reason or set of reasons they believe that it is better to cover it up.  One of the strongest guesses about why this might be is that it is their job.

I'm not sure what the venue was, but one of the most amazing things I noticed was what the audience clapped about.  The programming to 'shut down' has been deeply and broadly implanted for sure.  As I continue to detach from the 'mainstream progressives', this is fast becoming the most disgusting attribute I notice in these people.

[1714008055]

1714008055

[1714008055]

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[1714008055]

1714008055

[rocks]

JGarzik's proposal:
http://gtf.org/garzik/bitcoin/BIP100-blocksizechangeproposal.pdf
Wherein the central authority of developers to set block size is passed to the miners who vote (with the highs and lows dropped).

This seems to solve the issue of figuring out the right size a bit better than one person picking an arbitrary number.

It also moves the ball forward in automating the governance of the protocol.

There are a couple of things to like about this proposal.

The first is that miners voting on blocksize plus IBLT effectively guarantees the blocksize limit will be removed and the bitcoin MC will be allowed to scale as required. The reasoning is simple, IBLT only works if the majority of unconfirmed transactions are included in the next block. If transaction volume bumps against a blocksize limit, then a only a subset of transactions can be included in a block and the miner cannot transmit their block using IBLT and instead has to re-transmit the entire block, increasing the risk of being orphaned.

For example let's say that because of the blocksize limit, only 50% of unconfirmed transactions can be included in the block. Miners on the receiving end do not know which 50% of transactions are in the block and which 50% are not. This means they cannot use IBLT and have to transmit the entire block. However it is in miners' interest to use IBLT to reduce their orphan rate and because it enables them to easily include as many transactions as possible for fees.

Because of this it makes sense with IBLT that miners would favor keeping the blocksize limit high enough that it does act as a real limit, but rather constantly rises as needed to match user volume. It is essentially another way to get to Gavin's original proposal of doubling the limit every 2 years.

The second thing to like is it moves us toward the environment where miners themselves are voting on what bitcoin is. Not developers, not regulators, not users, not full nodes (which are subject to Sybil attacks), but miners who spend real work to vote.

It also will force pools to publicly announce their voting preferences, which in turns allows individual miners to see their preferences and decide which pool to switch to to match their own view. For example if most individual miners want to support larger blocks, but the larger chinese pools vote for 1MB limits, well we might just see miners switching to pools that match their views or that have the capability to grow properly. It brings back the true market, which this dev fight shows we don't have right now.

Personally I like this proposal the best right now.

[cypherdoc]

JGarzik's proposal:
http://gtf.org/garzik/bitcoin/BIP100-blocksizechangeproposal.pdf
Wherein the central authority of developers to set block size is passed to the miners who vote (with the highs and lows dropped).

This seems to solve the issue of figuring out the right size a bit better than one person picking an arbitrary number.

It also moves the ball forward in automating the governance of the protocol.

There are a couple of things to like about this proposal.

The first is that miners voting on blocksize plus IBLT effectively guarantees the blocksize limit will be removed and the bitcoin MC will be allowed to scale as required. The reasoning is simple, IBLT only works if the majority of unconfirmed transactions are included in the next block. If transaction volume bumps against a blocksize limit, then a only a subset of transactions can be included in a block and the miner cannot transmit their block using IBLT and instead has to re-transmit the entire block, increasing the risk of being orphaned.

For example let's say that because of the blocksize limit, only 50% of unconfirmed transactions can be included in the block. Miners on the receiving end do not know which 50% of transactions are in the block and which 50% are not. This means they cannot use IBLT and have to transmit the entire block. However it is in miners' interest to use IBLT to reduce their orphan rate and because it enables them to easily include as many transactions as possible for fees.

Because of this it makes sense with IBLT that miners would favor keeping the blocksize limit high enough that it does act as a real limit, but rather constantly rises as needed to match user volume. It is essentially another way to get to Gavin's original proposal of doubling the limit every 2 years.

The second thing to like is it moves us toward the environment where miners themselves are voting on what bitcoin is. Not developers, not regulators, not users, not full nodes (which are subject to Sybil attacks), but miners who spend real work to vote.

It also will force pools to publicly announce their voting preferences, which in turns allows individual miners to see their preferences and decide which pool to switch to to match their own view. For example if most individual miners want to support larger blocks, but the larger chinese pools vote for 1MB limits, well we might just see miners switching to pools that match their views or that have the capability to grow properly. It brings back the true market, which this dev fight shows we don't have right now.

Personally I like this proposal the best right now.

the only problem with voting is that it seems to me that that could be gamed in some way. also, miners aren't forced to follow the results of a vote.  maybe better to leave voting out all together?  just set an automatic adjustment increase and let the market players adapt around it.

[cypherdoc]

big move in mkts.

must have been an FOMC anncmt...

[Adrian-x]

I sold some btc this morning on localbitcoins and then went and bought 3 ounces of gold.
Did I make the right choice?

Never go full retarded - I did something similar when bitcoin as about $10 and gold $2000. I'm hanging in here to say I told you so to cypher.

I have patients (and this new feeling called regret)

[cypherdoc]

big move in mkts.

must have been an FOMC anncmt...

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in April suggests that economic activity has been expanding moderately after having changed little during the first quarter. The pace of job gains picked up while the unemployment rate remained steady. On balance, a range of labor market indicators suggests that underutilization of labor resources diminished somewhat. Growth in household spending has been moderate and the housing sector has shown some improvement; however, business fixed investment and net exports stayed soft. Inflation continued to run below the Committee's longer-run objective, partly reflecting earlier declines in energy prices and decreasing prices of non-energy imports; energy prices appear to have stabilized. Market-based measures of inflation compensation remain low; survey-based measures of longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable.

Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. The Committee expects that, with appropriate policy accommodation, economic activity will expand at a moderate pace, with labor market indicators continuing to move toward levels the Committee judges consistent with its dual mandate. The Committee continues to see the risks to the outlook for economic activity and the labor market as nearly balanced. Inflation is anticipated to remain near its recent low level in the near term, but the Committee expects inflation to rise gradually toward 2 percent over the medium term as the labor market improves further and the transitory effects of earlier declines in energy and import prices dissipate. The Committee continues to monitor inflation developments closely.

To support continued progress toward maximum employment and price stability, the Committee today reaffirmed its view that the current 0 to 1/4 percent target range for the federal funds rate remains appropriate. In determining how long to maintain this target range, the Committee will assess progress--both realized and expected--toward its objectives of maximum employment and 2 percent inflation. This assessment will take into account a wide range of information, including measures of labor market conditions, indicators of inflation pressures and inflation expectations, and readings on financial and international developments. The Committee anticipates that it will be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate when it has seen further improvement in the labor market and is reasonably confident that inflation will move back to its 2 percent objective over the medium term.

The Committee is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction. This policy, by keeping the Committee's holdings of longer-term securities at sizable levels, should help maintain accommodative financial conditions.

When the Committee decides to begin to remove policy accommodation, it will take a balanced approach consistent with its longer-run goals of maximum employment and inflation of 2 percent. The Committee currently anticipates that, even after employment and inflation are near mandate-consistent levels, economic conditions may, for some time, warrant keeping the target federal funds rate below levels the Committee views as normal in the longer run.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Janet L. Yellen, Chair; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; Lael Brainard; Charles L. Evans; Stanley Fischer; Jeffrey M. Lacker; Dennis P. Lockhart; Jerome H. Powell; Daniel K. Tarullo; and John C. Williams.
Read more at http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/#HDdC6iT89HzpgKlA.99

[molecular]

I sold some btc this morning on localbitcoins and then went and bought 3 ounces of gold.
Did I make the right choice?

Never go full retarded - I did something similar when bitcoin as about $10 and gold $2000. I'm hanging in here to say I told you so to cypher.

I did something similar, too (when bitcoin reached silver partity) and I was planning to do it again with gold parity (but it wasn't quite reached).

Now I'm not so sure any more if I will swap BTC <-> gold when parity is reached.

To answer freakying99: there are no wrong choices, just choices. You never know what it's good for or how the alternative would've played out. Sure, you can always isolate things and say stuff like: "I should've sold at $1160 and rebought at $160". But everything's connected and who knows, maybe you would've been run over buy a bus or crashed your Ferrari on cocaine had you done that.

The important thing is that you make the choice (not someone else) and that you actually make it and not let time make a choice for you (inaction). And of course also that you use the information, the resources (includes opinions of others) and tools available to you. That way one can learn from mistakes, improve tools and resources and one doesn't get into the habit of blaming others.

[cypherdoc]

this should work. nice and simple and pleases Chinese miners w/o giving miners in general any votes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39ziy6/eli5_what_will_happen_if_there_is_a_hard_fork/cs7xe9o



If 75% of hashing power is producing up-version blocks

AND after some brave miner decides to actually produce a >1MB block.

8MB max block size (chinese miners were unhappy with 20 for not-entirely-clear reasons)
Earliest fork date 11 Jan 2016 (miners and others want sooner rather than later)
Activation when 750 of last 1,000 blocks are up-version (version 0x20000004 to be compatible with sipa's new versioning bits scheme)
2 week 'grace period' after 75% threshold reached before first >1MB block allowed to be mined
8MB cap doubles every two years (so 16MB in 2018, etc: unless there is a soft fork before then because 16MB is too much)

[_mr_e]

this should work. nice and simple and pleases Chinese miners w/o giving miners in general any votes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39ziy6/eli5_what_will_happen_if_there_is_a_hard_fork/cs7xe9o



If 75% of hashing power is producing up-version blocks

AND after some brave miner decides to actually produce a >1MB block.

8MB max block size (chinese miners were unhappy with 20 for not-entirely-clear reasons)
Earliest fork date 11 Jan 2016 (miners and others want sooner rather than later)
Activation when 750 of last 1,000 blocks are up-version (version 0x20000004 to be compatible with sipa's new versioning bits scheme)
2 week 'grace period' after 75% threshold reached before first >1MB block allowed to be mined
8MB cap doubles every two years (so 16MB in 2018, etc: unless there is a soft fork before then because 16MB is too much)

Not sure why limiting the date is necessary. I feel like we should be able to pull this off sooner, especially if we are backed into a corner by some kind of big rally.

[cypherdoc]

volume is moving in:

https://twitter.com/barrysilbert/status/611242936370626560

[cypherdoc]

this should work. nice and simple and pleases Chinese miners w/o giving miners in general any votes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39ziy6/eli5_what_will_happen_if_there_is_a_hard_fork/cs7xe9o



If 75% of hashing power is producing up-version blocks

AND after some brave miner decides to actually produce a >1MB block.

8MB max block size (chinese miners were unhappy with 20 for not-entirely-clear reasons)
Earliest fork date 11 Jan 2016 (miners and others want sooner rather than later)
Activation when 750 of last 1,000 blocks are up-version (version 0x20000004 to be compatible with sipa's new versioning bits scheme)
2 week 'grace period' after 75% threshold reached before first >1MB block allowed to be mined
8MB cap doubles every two years (so 16MB in 2018, etc: unless there is a soft fork before then because 16MB is too much)

Not sure why limiting the date is necessary. I feel like we should be able to pull this off sooner, especially if we are backed into a corner by some kind of big rally.

i agree but miners need time to switch over and indicate so with the versioning.

[_mr_e]

this should work. nice and simple and pleases Chinese miners w/o giving miners in general any votes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39ziy6/eli5_what_will_happen_if_there_is_a_hard_fork/cs7xe9o



If 75% of hashing power is producing up-version blocks

AND after some brave miner decides to actually produce a >1MB block.

8MB max block size (chinese miners were unhappy with 20 for not-entirely-clear reasons)
Earliest fork date 11 Jan 2016 (miners and others want sooner rather than later)
Activation when 750 of last 1,000 blocks are up-version (version 0x20000004 to be compatible with sipa's new versioning bits scheme)
2 week 'grace period' after 75% threshold reached before first >1MB block allowed to be mined
8MB cap doubles every two years (so 16MB in 2018, etc: unless there is a soft fork before then because 16MB is too much)

Not sure why limiting the date is necessary. I feel like we should be able to pull this off sooner, especially if we are backed into a corner by some kind of big rally.

i agree but miners need time to switch over and indicate so with the versioning.

Sure. But doesn't the 2 week grace period after 75% imply enough time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuHfVn_cfHU

[cypherdoc]

this should work. nice and simple and pleases Chinese miners w/o giving miners in general any votes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39ziy6/eli5_what_will_happen_if_there_is_a_hard_fork/cs7xe9o



If 75% of hashing power is producing up-version blocks

AND after some brave miner decides to actually produce a >1MB block.

8MB max block size (chinese miners were unhappy with 20 for not-entirely-clear reasons)
Earliest fork date 11 Jan 2016 (miners and others want sooner rather than later)
Activation when 750 of last 1,000 blocks are up-version (version 0x20000004 to be compatible with sipa's new versioning bits scheme)
2 week 'grace period' after 75% threshold reached before first >1MB block allowed to be mined
8MB cap doubles every two years (so 16MB in 2018, etc: unless there is a soft fork before then because 16MB is too much)

Not sure why limiting the date is necessary. I feel like we should be able to pull this off sooner, especially if we are backed into a corner by some kind of big rally.

i agree but miners need time to switch over and indicate so with the versioning.

Sure. But doesn't the 75% imply enough time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuHfVn_cfHU

huh?  he's going to release the code probably within the week.  it'll probably take 6 mo for the miners to implement to get to the 75% level as indicated by the versioning of the blocks they will be releasing by that time.

[_mr_e]

this should work. nice and simple and pleases Chinese miners w/o giving miners in general any votes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39ziy6/eli5_what_will_happen_if_there_is_a_hard_fork/cs7xe9o



If 75% of hashing power is producing up-version blocks

AND after some brave miner decides to actually produce a >1MB block.

8MB max block size (chinese miners were unhappy with 20 for not-entirely-clear reasons)
Earliest fork date 11 Jan 2016 (miners and others want sooner rather than later)
Activation when 750 of last 1,000 blocks are up-version (version 0x20000004 to be compatible with sipa's new versioning bits scheme)
2 week 'grace period' after 75% threshold reached before first >1MB block allowed to be mined
8MB cap doubles every two years (so 16MB in 2018, etc: unless there is a soft fork before then because 16MB is too much)

Not sure why limiting the date is necessary. I feel like we should be able to pull this off sooner, especially if we are backed into a corner by some kind of big rally.

i agree but miners need time to switch over and indicate so with the versioning.

Sure. But doesn't the 75% imply enough time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuHfVn_cfHU

huh?  he's going to release the code probably within the week.  it'll probably take 6 mo for the miners to implement to get to the 75% level as indicated by the versioning of the blocks they will be releasing by that time.

But this code will include a rule that even if we wanted to or are able to get it all deployed faster, it still cannot be activated. I mean how difficult is installing new software anyway? Took me all of 5 minutes to upgrade to XT. I understand it may be more difficult for a larger organization... but 6 months? Really? If we have a huge rally and the network starts you choke you better believe these people will be capable of rolling out the upgrade much more quickly.

[cypherdoc]

here's another big hint that Gavin has the support:

"Earliest fork date 11 Jan 2016 (miners and others want sooner rather than later)"

Blockstream and gmax take heed.

[cypherdoc]

this should work. nice and simple and pleases Chinese miners w/o giving miners in general any votes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39ziy6/eli5_what_will_happen_if_there_is_a_hard_fork/cs7xe9o



If 75% of hashing power is producing up-version blocks

AND after some brave miner decides to actually produce a >1MB block.

8MB max block size (chinese miners were unhappy with 20 for not-entirely-clear reasons)
Earliest fork date 11 Jan 2016 (miners and others want sooner rather than later)
Activation when 750 of last 1,000 blocks are up-version (version 0x20000004 to be compatible with sipa's new versioning bits scheme)
2 week 'grace period' after 75% threshold reached before first >1MB block allowed to be mined
8MB cap doubles every two years (so 16MB in 2018, etc: unless there is a soft fork before then because 16MB is too much)

Not sure why limiting the date is necessary. I feel like we should be able to pull this off sooner, especially if we are backed into a corner by some kind of big rally.

i agree but miners need time to switch over and indicate so with the versioning.

Sure. But doesn't the 75% imply enough time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuHfVn_cfHU

huh?  he's going to release the code probably within the week.  it'll probably take 6 mo for the miners to implement to get to the 75% level as indicated by the versioning of the blocks they will be releasing by that time.

But this code will include a rule that even if we wanted to or are able to get it all deployed faster, it still cannot be activated. I mean how difficult is installing new software anyway? Took me all of 5 minutes to upgrade to XT. I understand it may be more difficult for a larger organization... but 6 months? Really? If we have a huge rally and the network starts you choke you better believe these people will be capable of rolling out the upgrade much more quickly.

we're talking about a worldwide "organization" not all of whom are paying attention like you.  believe it or not.  the most striking example is all the miners who keep hitting 750KB.  i totally hear you that if >75% is achieved sooner than Jan, ideally we could flip the switch.  first off, that might not happen and you have to accept the fact that it just takes some miners more time than others for whatever reason.  second, miners aren't the only ones that have to change their software.  exchanges and merchants will have to update as well.  so there are alot of ppl involved and they need a set, reliable deadline as opposed to a fuzzy, maybe tomorrow might happen, type switch.

[Erdogan]

JGarzik's proposal:
http://gtf.org/garzik/bitcoin/BIP100-blocksizechangeproposal.pdf
Wherein the central authority of developers to set block size is passed to the miners who vote (with the highs and lows dropped).

This seems to solve the issue of figuring out the right size a bit better than one person picking an arbitrary number.

It also moves the ball forward in automating the governance of the protocol.

There are a couple of things to like about this proposal.

The first is that miners voting on blocksize plus IBLT effectively guarantees the blocksize limit will be removed and the bitcoin MC will be allowed to scale as required. The reasoning is simple, IBLT only works if the majority of unconfirmed transactions are included in the next block. If transaction volume bumps against a blocksize limit, then a only a subset of transactions can be included in a block and the miner cannot transmit their block using IBLT and instead has to re-transmit the entire block, increasing the risk of being orphaned.

For example let's say that because of the blocksize limit, only 50% of unconfirmed transactions can be included in the block. Miners on the receiving end do not know which 50% of transactions are in the block and which 50% are not. This means they cannot use IBLT and have to transmit the entire block. However it is in miners' interest to use IBLT to reduce their orphan rate and because it enables them to easily include as many transactions as possible for fees.

Because of this it makes sense with IBLT that miners would favor keeping the blocksize limit high enough that it does act as a real limit, but rather constantly rises as needed to match user volume. It is essentially another way to get to Gavin's original proposal of doubling the limit every 2 years.

The second thing to like is it moves us toward the environment where miners themselves are voting on what bitcoin is. Not developers, not regulators, not users, not full nodes (which are subject to Sybil attacks), but miners who spend real work to vote.

It also will force pools to publicly announce their voting preferences, which in turns allows individual miners to see their preferences and decide which pool to switch to to match their own view. For example if most individual miners want to support larger blocks, but the larger chinese pools vote for 1MB limits, well we might just see miners switching to pools that match their views or that have the capability to grow properly. It brings back the true market, which this dev fight shows we don't have right now.

Personally I like this proposal the best right now.

the only problem with voting is that it seems to me that that could be gamed in some way. also, miners aren't forced to follow the results of a vote.  maybe better to leave voting out all together?  just set an automatic adjustment increase and let the market players adapt around it.

I originally thought of Garzik's voting proposal that it was brilliant. But now I think adding this would be unnecessarily complex.

If there is a need to hold back blocsize, it should be a hard increase based on previous blocks in the style of difficulty change. We can then continue the situation where the only link to the real world is the timestamps.

The miners could agree on a soft limit (dont make larger blocks, but build on larger blocks from others). The soft limit could be communicated in a side channel outside bitcoin. Call it a miner cartel, but before you dismiss it, know that a cartel is a very weak economic construct, with possible attacks from inside and outside. Don't forget that each miner is free to choose which block to base his mining on, he chooses that based on self interest.

So dynamically incremented hard limit for security, market based soft limit.

[cypherdoc]

http://imgur.com/uCd0Vx1

[Adrian-x]

JGarzik's proposal:
http://gtf.org/garzik/bitcoin/BIP100-blocksizechangeproposal.pdf
Wherein the central authority of developers to set block size is passed to the miners who vote (with the highs and lows dropped).

This seems to solve the issue of figuring out the right size a bit better than one person picking an arbitrary number.

It also moves the ball forward in automating the governance of the protocol.

There are a couple of things to like about this proposal.

The first is that miners voting on blocksize plus IBLT effectively guarantees the blocksize limit will be removed and the bitcoin MC will be allowed to scale as required. The reasoning is simple, IBLT only works if the majority of unconfirmed transactions are included in the next block. If transaction volume bumps against a blocksize limit, then a only a subset of transactions can be included in a block and the miner cannot transmit their block using IBLT and instead has to re-transmit the entire block, increasing the risk of being orphaned.

For example let's say that because of the blocksize limit, only 50% of unconfirmed transactions can be included in the block. Miners on the receiving end do not know which 50% of transactions are in the block and which 50% are not. This means they cannot use IBLT and have to transmit the entire block. However it is in miners' interest to use IBLT to reduce their orphan rate and because it enables them to easily include as many transactions as possible for fees.

Because of this it makes sense with IBLT that miners would favor keeping the blocksize limit high enough that it does act as a real limit, but rather constantly rises as needed to match user volume. It is essentially another way to get to Gavin's original proposal of doubling the limit every 2 years.

The second thing to like is it moves us toward the environment where miners themselves are voting on what bitcoin is. Not developers, not regulators, not users, not full nodes (which are subject to Sybil attacks), but miners who spend real work to vote.

It also will force pools to publicly announce their voting preferences, which in turns allows individual miners to see their preferences and decide which pool to switch to to match their own view. For example if most individual miners want to support larger blocks, but the larger chinese pools vote for 1MB limits, well we might just see miners switching to pools that match their views or that have the capability to grow properly. It brings back the true market, which this dev fight shows we don't have right now.

Personally I like this proposal the best right now.

the only problem with voting is that it seems to me that that could be gamed in some way. also, miners aren't forced to follow the results of a vote.  maybe better to leave voting out all together?  just set an automatic adjustment increase and let the market players adapt around it.

I originally thought of Garzik's voting proposal that it was brilliant. But now I think adding this would be unnecessarily complex.

If there is a need to hold back blocsize, it should be a hard increase based on previous blocks in the style of difficulty change. We can then continue the situation where the only link to the real world is the timestamps.

The miners could agree on a soft limit (dont make larger blocks, but build on larger blocks from others). The soft limit could be communicated in a side channel outside bitcoin. Call it a miner cartel, but before you dismiss it, know that a cartel is a very weak economic construct, with possible attacks from inside and outside. Don't forget that each miner is free to choose which block to base his mining on, he chooses that based on self interest.

So dynamically incremented hard limit for security, market based soft limit.

I think its worth expanding the obvious power the miners have, its not just: "dont make larger blocks, but build on larger blocks from others" as written but "dont make larger blocks, but build on larger blocks from others only if they are part of the longest chain as supported by the majority of nodes."

[cypherdoc]

JGarzik's proposal:
http://gtf.org/garzik/bitcoin/BIP100-blocksizechangeproposal.pdf
Wherein the central authority of developers to set block size is passed to the miners who vote (with the highs and lows dropped).

This seems to solve the issue of figuring out the right size a bit better than one person picking an arbitrary number.

It also moves the ball forward in automating the governance of the protocol.

There are a couple of things to like about this proposal.

The first is that miners voting on blocksize plus IBLT effectively guarantees the blocksize limit will be removed and the bitcoin MC will be allowed to scale as required. The reasoning is simple, IBLT only works if the majority of unconfirmed transactions are included in the next block. If transaction volume bumps against a blocksize limit, then a only a subset of transactions can be included in a block and the miner cannot transmit their block using IBLT and instead has to re-transmit the entire block, increasing the risk of being orphaned.

For example let's say that because of the blocksize limit, only 50% of unconfirmed transactions can be included in the block. Miners on the receiving end do not know which 50% of transactions are in the block and which 50% are not. This means they cannot use IBLT and have to transmit the entire block. However it is in miners' interest to use IBLT to reduce their orphan rate and because it enables them to easily include as many transactions as possible for fees.

Because of this it makes sense with IBLT that miners would favor keeping the blocksize limit high enough that it does act as a real limit, but rather constantly rises as needed to match user volume. It is essentially another way to get to Gavin's original proposal of doubling the limit every 2 years.

The second thing to like is it moves us toward the environment where miners themselves are voting on what bitcoin is. Not developers, not regulators, not users, not full nodes (which are subject to Sybil attacks), but miners who spend real work to vote.

It also will force pools to publicly announce their voting preferences, which in turns allows individual miners to see their preferences and decide which pool to switch to to match their own view. For example if most individual miners want to support larger blocks, but the larger chinese pools vote for 1MB limits, well we might just see miners switching to pools that match their views or that have the capability to grow properly. It brings back the true market, which this dev fight shows we don't have right now.

Personally I like this proposal the best right now.

the only problem with voting is that it seems to me that that could be gamed in some way. also, miners aren't forced to follow the results of a vote.  maybe better to leave voting out all together?  just set an automatic adjustment increase and let the market players adapt around it.

I originally thought of Garzik's voting proposal that it was brilliant. But now I think adding this would be unnecessarily complex.

If there is a need to hold back blocsize, it should be a hard increase based on previous blocks in the style of difficulty change. We can then continue the situation where the only link to the real world is the timestamps.

The miners could agree on a soft limit (dont make larger blocks, but build on larger blocks from others). The soft limit could be communicated in a side channel outside bitcoin. Call it a miner cartel, but before you dismiss it, know that a cartel is a very weak economic construct, with possible attacks from inside and outside. Don't forget that each miner is free to choose which block to base his mining on, he chooses that based on self interest.

So dynamically incremented hard limit for security, market based soft limit.

giving miners a vote in terms of block size is paying them too much deference in terms of the market dynamics in Bitcoin. i've always said that no contingent is more powerful than another in Bitcoin.  everyone is important and needed and has power to a degree or so; users, merchants, miners, node operators.  which is why i always give that bucket analogy when i think in terms of which of those subspaces i would want to invest in.  some will always be more developed (filled) or over invested in than the others while the whole space can still be in a bull mkt w/o anyone of them being "in charge".