Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

How profoundly naïve and myopic point of view! How exceptionally Anglocentric to the point of parochialism! What a beautiful example of "Here be dragons" from somebody who is considered "learned" amongst the Anglophiles.

Not sure what you're on about, but the point here is merely to illustrate a particular dynamic: how something maintained by a group of people can appear consistent because of reasons other than the consistency of opinion and background of such people, when it is really that very thing that accounts for the consistency. Whether Hasnas is actually right about the US legal system is completely irrelevant for my purposes here (though if you really want to discuss legal theory in particular at least read the whole essay; this quote is pretty out-of-context).

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[canth]

if i have to migrate to a new chain and lose money doing it, i'm done with  crypto.

If you see the event ahead of time (and act on it), you'd likely make an enormous amount of money rather than losing.

No, because the principle would be dead. You'd forever have to be an investor, hopping from coin to coin. No reliability as a store of value. That's why it won't happen. Altcoins (meaning alt-ledgers, not alt-protocols) are a fundamentally self-defeating idea, except in catastrophic backup scenarios and as testnets. The window to market an altcoin to a new audience unfamiliar with Bitcoin - so that it wouldn't be an altcoin from those new people's perspective - has mostly closed, making it truly self-defeating as a long-term investment proposition.

Now alt-protocols are different, as they can be pasted on to Bitcoin's ledger via the spinoff method; maintaining Bitcoin's ledger just like a sidechain would try to. If Litecoin, for example, turns out to be better and there's somehow no way to incorporate its better ideas into the Bitcoin protocol, LTC will not be what rises; instead a spinoff of Litecoin will administer Bitcoin's ledger and BTC will rise because it has successfully improved itself!

Eh, I basically agree with you that no other coin really stands a chance of "taking on" or replacing BTC, but my post was based only on the implied possibility in cypherdoc's post that it could happen.

On the flipside, I don't really buy into the One True Ledger^TM thesis, so it doesn't ring true to me that "the principle would be dead" if another coin somehow managed to become the leader. I DO, however, assign an extremely low probability of that happening.

BTC has not yet been anything close to a reliable store of value.

In my mind, it's all about motivation. Right now, there's lots of disagreement about making any changes to Bitcoin that have any (meritorious) objections. In a situation where an altcoin starts surpassing Bitcoin in adoption (unlikely right now) there will there will be plenty of motivation for adopting changes and consensus will be easier to obtain.

Bitcoiners are stubborn, but not stupid and software is flexible.

[cypherdoc]

what comes first?  the code or the economic theory?  to me, it seems all the code monkeys trying to enforce Cripplecoin are just another play on the blockchain comes first theory where the coin is irrelevant.  this is also demonstrated by their incessant focus on decentralization of full nodes while ignoring users.  also demonstrated by their stubbornness in their position in spite of 75% support to inc block size over a number of polls.

they're wrong of course.  for those of us who've been around for a long time and have witnessed the evolution of the altcoin and Bitcoin 2.0 spaces, it should be obvious what comes first.  and that is, a bunch of geeks sit around a table and talk about what types of economic features should go into a coin to draw in as many investors and speculators as possible.  this happens FIRST.   then they go out and code it.  this comes SECOND.  this is what happened with Bitcoin as is clear in Satoshi's writings, the book of which i've read and studied for over 4.5 yrs now.  the code is merely used to enforce the economic precepts.

i see non tech ppl around here and on Reddit get intimidated by devs into thinking they don't know what they're talking about when they voice economic concerns about how core dev is being handled.  they are criticized and dismissed as if this is all about the tech.  i say BULLSHIT.  it's about a very important economic concept that's been around for thousands of years and that is SOUND MONEY.  it's bigger than all of us put together.  it's the human races first chance to have the most efficient form of sound money ever conceived of and created.  if we don't get this one right it could be another hundred years before we get another chance.  all the dev sounding bullshit we get from tvbcof, iCEBlow, gmax, kazukiPimp, MOA and TPTB is just about dev's gotta dev.  so don't let them intimidate you, non techies!

I agree that the code is secondary to the desired functionality; I actually think most of the people you mentioned would agree on that, especially if pressed (meaning this is somewhat a problem of mental compartmentalization). There are arguments from the small-blockers that are purely about what would allow Bitcoin to succeed as sound money, and those are fine in this respect, but some of them also slip into this pitfall you are talking about of seeing the code as primary (Mircea Popescu being the extreme example) rather than as a means to an end.

With that in mind, I think it's important to call out whenever this fallacy is invoked. Often it is not explicitly stated, so it should be drawn out into the open to be swept away. Insofar as the debate revolves solely around what will allow Bitcoin to scale without making it more vulnerable, that is fine. We both happen to think that keeping blocks small is not going to be the best way to achieve the resilience Bitcoin needs, but as Greg might say, "smart people can disagree on this." What is inexcusable is mistaking the code for a sacred cow, and that does extend a bit into the notion that "the devs know best." They're experts at optimizing the existing code, not at sculpting robust economic incentive structures (except Satoshi, of course).

But your being politically correct and non confrontational by leaving out one major factor that is driving the debate under the hood. And that is Blockstream. They, like Bitcoin, are also about money. Except I'd argue, by crippling Bitcoin, they are about USD's.

[2112]

Not sure what you're on about, but the point here is merely to illustrate a particular dynamic: how something maintained by a group of people can appear consistent because of reasons other than the consistency of opinion and background of such people, when it is really that very thing that accounts for the consistency. Whether Hasnas is actually right about the US legal system is completely irrelevant for my purposes here (though if you really want to discuss legal theory in particular at least read the whole essay; this quote is pretty out-of-context).

Sorry, bro. This cannot be explained in the single forum post. The best I could do is give you a link to a philosophy book by Herbert Marcuse:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Dimensional_Man

Essentially the thinking you espouse is a moral equivalent of:

a) football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultras "What is the best football team and why Manchester United?"

b) post-communist intellectuals who consider Marxism the pinnacle of human thought

They're experts at _{snippage}, not at _{{more snippage}} (except Satoshi, of course).

just substitute any of combination of {Marx,Engels,Lenin,Stalin,Mao,...} in place of Satoshi.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Not sure what you're on about, but the point here is merely to illustrate a particular dynamic: how something maintained by a group of people can appear consistent because of reasons other than the consistency of opinion and background of such people, when it is really that very thing that accounts for the consistency. Whether Hasnas is actually right about the US legal system is completely irrelevant for my purposes here (though if you really want to discuss legal theory in particular at least read the whole essay; this quote is pretty out-of-context).

Sorry, bro. This cannot be explained in the single forum post. The best I could do is give you a link to a philosophy book by Herbert Marcuse:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Dimensional_Man

Essentially the thinking you espouse is a moral equivalent of:

a) football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultras "What is the best football team and why Manchester United?"

b) post-communist intellectuals who consider Marxism the pinnacle of human thought

They're experts at _{snippage}, not at _{{more snippage}} (except Satoshi, of course).

just substitute any of combination of {Marx,Engels,Lenin,Stalin,Mao,...} in place of Satoshi.

I think you're reading too much into it. The point is simpler: if we are to take the argument that "devs know best because they have proven themselves" at face value, the only dev we could credit as having any evidence of being a good incentive designer is Satoshi, since he is the one who designed the incentives. I'm not idolizing Satoshi, just pointing out that the other devs have no track record on that front, so it wouldn't make sense to expect them to be particularly skilled at it.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

But your being politically correct and non confrontational by leaving out one major factor that is driving the debate under the hood. And that is Blockstream. They, like Bitcoin, are also about money. Except I'd argue, by crippling Bitcoin, they are about USD's.

The conflict of interest is a real concern, to be sure, but at this point I think it more likely that they are sincere. At least Greg, because he's always been a bit of a pessimist on Bitcoin scalability as a whole, being so code-focused, it really is quite consistent for him to side with Blockstream. Adam I suspect a bit more, since missing out on Bitcoin and all the financial gains despite having created part of it has to hurt, but I'm not at all willing to assume bad faith on his part either. At this point it's basically a social club for their point of view, and I do think the money influence will be corrupting as time wears on, but I'm skeptical that it's having a substantial effect yet. I

In any case, the main point is that it could be but we simply can't know. We can suspect, and it is probably good to needle them about it, but actually jumping to that conclusion as a decided fact doesn't seem helpful to me.

[solex]

is possible LTC rise to 0.1 BTC? 
I heard bitcoin getting stronger because there are two countries that go bankrupt 

if we weren't being crippled by iCEBlow and his Cripplecoiners, we'd have had the huge LTC rally here.

Yep. This is my take:

[brg444]

is possible LTC rise to 0.1 BTC? 
I heard bitcoin getting stronger because there are two countries that go bankrupt 

if we weren't being crippled by iCEBlow and his Cripplecoiners, we'd have had the huge LTC rally here.

Yep. This is my take:

 

I really feel sorry for anyone that falls into the trap of this narrative.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I'm torn on this: the fact that Bitcoin doesn't live in a vacuum and can't afford to be arbitrarily conservative when altcoins can just raise the cap and take the market share is THE pain point to press against the small-blockers, but on the other hand fueling the narrative that there's any substance to altcoin investing, or that this is anything other than an excuse for Litecoin to effect a long-overdue reversion to its usual ratio to BTC, seems hazardous. Which of the two evils is greater and more pressing? Small block obstructionism or altcoin investing? Anyway, this will be on reddit soon enough thanks to all the lurkers here (hi! ).

Also, I misread at first. I thought it said make LTC silver to BTC's gold, which I think makes more sense. I would remove the bottom line for posting on reddit, because it's a little too complex to get maximum upvotes.

Nice touch on the green middle finger resembling a green candle, by the way

[cypherdoc]

Not sure what you're on about, but the point here is merely to illustrate a particular dynamic: how something maintained by a group of people can appear consistent because of reasons other than the consistency of opinion and background of such people, when it is really that very thing that accounts for the consistency. Whether Hasnas is actually right about the US legal system is completely irrelevant for my purposes here (though if you really want to discuss legal theory in particular at least read the whole essay; this quote is pretty out-of-context).

Sorry, bro. This cannot be explained in the single forum post. The best I could do is give you a link to a philosophy book by Herbert Marcuse:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Dimensional_Man

Essentially the thinking you espouse is a moral equivalent of:

a) football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultras "What is the best football team and why Manchester United?"

b) post-communist intellectuals who consider Marxism the pinnacle of human thought

They're experts at _{snippage}, not at _{{more snippage}} (except Satoshi, of course).

just substitute any of combination of {Marx,Engels,Lenin,Stalin,Mao,...} in place of Satoshi.

I think you're reading too much into it. The point is simpler: if we are to take the argument that "devs know best because they have proven themselves" at face value, the only dev we could credit as having any evidence of being a good incentive designer is Satoshi, since he is the one who designed the incentives. I'm not idolizing Satoshi, just pointing out that the other devs have no track record on that front, so it wouldn't make sense to expect them to be particularly skilled at it.

Hear ye hear ye.

[cypherdoc]

everyone is starting to notice.  esp the big hitters like the Nasdaq mafia boys.  anyone who thinks Cripplecoin and the resulting user disruption isn't affecting our rally need to think twice.

i said years ago that high tx costs, like we're starting to get now, will drive all these op_return companies away from Bitcoin.  and it will be the fault of guys like iCEBlow, tvbcof, & the BS core devs.  there will be repercussions:

One potential complication to the vision, however, stems from the current uncertainty and controversy over how Bitcoin’s core developers should modify its software so it can better handle growing transaction volumes (see “Leaderless Bitcoin Struggles to Make Its Most Crucial Decision Yet”).

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/539171/why-nasdaq-is-betting-on-bitcoins-blockchain/

[2112]

I think you're reading too much into it. The point is simpler: if we are to take the argument that "devs know best because they have proven themselves" at face value, the only dev we could credit as having any evidence of being a good incentive designer is Satoshi, since he is the one who designed the incentives. I'm not idolizing Satoshi, just pointing out that the other devs have no track record on that front, so it wouldn't make sense to expect them to be particularly skilled at it.

Where do you want to go with that strawman "devs know best..."?

The more-than-one-dimension thinking is much simpler:

The "dev" members of the core development team were (and are) the people who are willing to lie and misrepresent on absolutely any issue for some short term gain. Those lies aren't only related to the economic issues, they are also related to the strictly technical matters.

I would expect that any non-one-dimensional person will recognize the current discussion as another variant of "how many angels can fit in the mempool?"

Three years ago it was "[POLL] Multi-sig or scalability--which is more pressing?"

blah blah blah blah

Gentle reminder to the other bitcoin developers: it is generally best not to feed trolls.  Use the ignore button.

The immoral equivalent of Gavin Andresen, Mike Hearn, Gregory Maxwell (and others)pontificating on the database technology would be an ophthalmologist (like cypherdoc) giving supposedly professional advice on complications of pregnancy. Fortunately for all of us the "docs" have a code of ethics.

Unfortunately for us there's no ethical code for the "devs". Sa anyone can pontificate about mempool, which is basically a really lame implementation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-memory_database .

It doesn't take years of medical studies to understand the difference between ophthalmologist and obstetrician.

It shouldn't need years of engineering studies to understand that there's no real technical discussion going on between the various sub-camps in the developer's camp.

[domob]

the exit starts slowly at first and then will morph into a stampede; especially if the price starts plunging.  the mempool is a problem that does have to be fixed so that ordinary users can start getting their tx's through.  they won't be as patient as some of us here.

It looks like the bull cycle has already started and investors are looking for alternatives, likely because of the 1mb attack that has gone unresolved for years now.  Hopefully its not too late to increase the limit and let the bull run... or maybe its time to jump ship.

Or maybe it's just another trick whales are using to get the last weak hands to dump their BTC. This "attack" is just part of their schemes.

You people need to stop with the paranoia and the scare tactics. All this money is gonna end up flowing back into BTC in due times. Lots of people are going to end up holding the LTC, PPC and NMC bag.

I definitely know that I'm using this to "rebalance" my holdings in those three into BTC.  (I've been looking for a good opportunity to get out of LTC and PPC for a long time know; they are pointless.  Only NMC is interesting as a small portion of my crypto portfolio, since it has real features.)  Thanks to all the pumpers for that!

[cypherdoc]

the exit starts slowly at first and then will morph into a stampede; especially if the price starts plunging.  the mempool is a problem that does have to be fixed so that ordinary users can start getting their tx's through.  they won't be as patient as some of us here.

It looks like the bull cycle has already started and investors are looking for alternatives, likely because of the 1mb attack that has gone unresolved for years now.  Hopefully its not too late to increase the limit and let the bull run... or maybe its time to jump ship.

Or maybe it's just another trick whales are using to get the last weak hands to dump their BTC. This "attack" is just part of their schemes.

You people need to stop with the paranoia and the scare tactics. All this money is gonna end up flowing back into BTC in due times. Lots of people are going to end up holding the LTC, PPC and NMC bag.

I definitely know that I'm using this to "rebalance" my holdings in those three into BTC.  (I've been looking for a good opportunity to get out of LTC and PPC for a long time know; they are pointless.  Only NMC is interesting as a small portion of my crypto portfolio, since it has real features.)  Thanks to all the pumpers for that!

wow, good for you!  you've been patient as heck!

[domob]

I definitely know that I'm using this to "rebalance" my holdings in those three into BTC.  (I've been looking for a good opportunity to get out of LTC and PPC for a long time know; they are pointless.  Only NMC is interesting as a small portion of my crypto portfolio, since it has real features.)  Thanks to all the pumpers for that!

wow, good for you!  you've been patient as heck!

Yes, I'm very happy about the pump.   "Unfortunately", it is still (and always was) only a minor part of my crypto portfolio.  I believe mostly in Bitcoin in terms of store of value.  So it wasn't too hard to be patient all along.

[cypherdoc]

Slowly creeping out the door... tiptoe...

[sickpig]

Who ever have put in place this DoS is extremely persistent:

Code:

Unconf Txs:    30202 
Fees:          1.04549825 BTC
Mempoll Size:  73600.9267578125 (KB)

[smooth]

is possible LTC rise to 0.1 BTC? 
I heard bitcoin getting stronger because there are two countries that go bankrupt 

if we weren't being crippled by iCEBlow and his Cripplecoiners, we'd have had the huge LTC rally here.

Yep. This is my take:

 

I really feel sorry for anyone that falls into the trap of this narrative.

I rarely agree with brg and rarely disagree with ICE but in this case I'll do both. LTC is being pumped based on the short term catalyst of the halving and will resume its regularly scheduled march to zero shortly.

[smooth]

Doesn't matter; software changes rapidly and you shouldn't get married to any one implementation (or stock in a promising new sector).

By all means, upgrade the protocol, even to the Litecoin or Monero protocol or whatever. But to change ledgers every time you need to upgrade the protocol doesn't make sense at all. People don't want to have to play stock trader with their bank account.

Fortunately, because of spinoffs (and maybe sidechains), the Bitcoin ledger is a safe place to store value even if the Bitcoin protocol gets superseded.

The problem with this reasoning is that Bitcoin is not a bank account. A chart was recently posted that showed Bitcoin price volatility to be in line with several other asset classes (for some relatively short historical period). Unfortunately, the asset classes were stocks, oil, and a couple of severely damaged/broken currencies. Those are all highly speculative assets.

The nature of speculative assets is that there are more than one of them, people do play stock trader with them, and some of them fail and are replaced by others.

As long as Bitcoin is in the speculative asset category, it doesn't constitute a "global ledger" of anything akin to bank accounts and it makes perfect sense for one speculative asset to potentially be replaced by others. That is nothing like people playing stock trader with their bank accounts.

Only when Bitcoin achieves the status of a reference currency can it claim legitimacy as a ledger that is (even somewhat) immune from the nature of speculative winners and losers, not before.

[NewLiberty]

But your being politically correct and non confrontational by leaving out one major factor that is driving the debate under the hood. And that is Blockstream. They, like Bitcoin, are also about money. Except I'd argue, by crippling Bitcoin, they are about USD's.

The conflict of interest is a real concern, to be sure, but at this point I think it more likely that they are sincere. At least Greg, because he's always been a bit of a pessimist on Bitcoin scalability as a whole, being so code-focused, it really is quite consistent for him to side with Blockstream. Adam I suspect a bit more, since missing out on Bitcoin and all the financial gains despite having created part of it has to hurt, but I'm not at all willing to assume bad faith on his part either. At this point it's basically a social club for their point of view, and I do think the money influence will be corrupting as time wears on, but I'm skeptical that it's having a substantial effect yet. I

In any case, the main point is that it could be but we simply can't know. We can suspect, and it is probably good to needle them about it, but actually jumping to that conclusion as a decided fact doesn't seem helpful to me.

The conflict of interest is a simple matter of the facts.

Whether it is problematic to the point of whether any recusal is warranted is another matter entirely. 
Likely its sufficient to examine on an issue by issue basis.