Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[tvbcof]

well now i am just insulted.  i thought they spent all their time here?!

I think I can speak for the majority of the Alt section when I say "we wish they did"

And I think I speak for the majority when I say keep this in the alt section, please.

For my part I often get valuable information out of various spats like this and I don't follow most of the other boards.  I don't follow the alt boards at all since I don't have an interest (financially) in any alts and not enough of an interest (intellectually) to justify they effort.  I temper my interpretation of what someone says based on my understanding of the person's affiliations and history.  I always have to be the consensus breaker I guess. 

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[cypherdoc]

looks to me like this post by Mike has been taken down off the main page by mods:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3griiv/on_consensus_and_forks_by_mike_hearn/

Still there for me. If they were taking it this far, modding a heavily commented thread off the front page, that would generate some serious blowback, so I doubt they would.

hmm, back up for me too.  WTF?

/u/raisethelimit has been having all sorts of problems:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3gsxqf/all_my_posts_are_currently_being_censored_this_is/cu19uva?context=3

This is the second time in the past few days it has looked like a possible internal squabble among the mods. Perhaps someone is hiding them and someone else is reinstating them.

i think we have a winner:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3gz9ut/do_the_stress_tests_show_that_gavin_was_wrong/cu2udsv

[justusranvier]

I still don't understand how anyone interested in Bitcoin can support anything associated with Hearn after hearing anything the guy has to say

If everybody adopts a "do the opposite of anything Mike Hearn suggests" policy, then they've just shut their brain off and given complete control over their decision making to Mike Hearn.

It's a great way to achieve the opposite of the stated goal.

[brg444]

I still don't understand how anyone interested in Bitcoin can support anything associated with Hearn after hearing anything the guy has to say

If everybody adopts a "do the opposite of anything Mike Hearn suggests" policy, then they've just shut their brain off and given complete control over their decision making to Mike Hearn.

It's a great way to achieve the opposite of the stated goal.

Even if that would make any sense at all that's quite an interpretation of what the guy said...

[Erdogan]

this is what i think has happened with Blockstream:

 First they ignore it, then they attempt to fight it, and finally, when it becomes obvious that the fight can't be won, they try to buy it. We seem to be entering the third stage now, so those of us who see the long-term advantages of Bitcoin should be on our toes. Big banks have failed to discredit the idea, now the danger is that they will just buy it.

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/bitcoin-how-my-views-and-the-currency-have-changed-during-the-last-year-cm508666

A lifestyle article. I don't care about lifestyle. I care about doing.

[thezerg]

I still don't understand how anyone interested in Bitcoin can support anything associated with Hearn after hearing anything the guy has to say

If everybody adopts a "do the opposite of anything Mike Hearn suggests" policy, then they've just shut their brain off and given complete control over their decision making to Mike Hearn.

It's a great way to achieve the opposite of the stated goal.

Even if that would make any sense at all that's quite an interpretation of what the guy said...

The point is: don't make this about people.

If you do, you fall into the same system that has doomed politics / representative democracies.  You vote for the guy who promises X but doesn't actually DO it.  Look at Greece for the most blatant recent example but it happens everywhere.

Stay focused on your opinion of the issues and you can be simultaneously allies and opposing with the same person depending on your respective opinion on ongoing debates.

For example, I disagreed with Cypherdoc about sidechains but agree with him about block size...

(although at this point I do have to recognize that while I still like sidechains technically, he was correct in his estimation of the conflict of interest they might create)

[Adrian-x]

this is what i think has happened with Blockstream:

 First they ignore it, then they attempt to fight it, and finally, when it becomes obvious that the fight can't be won, they try to buy it. We seem to be entering the third stage now, so those of us who see the long-term advantages of Bitcoin should be on our toes. Big banks have failed to discredit the idea, now the danger is that they will just buy it.

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/bitcoin-how-my-views-and-the-currency-have-changed-during-the-last-year-cm508666

LOLed , the part in bold is the goal, but a lot of bitcoiners dont seem to want to stay the course, there are lots of definitions for "it" the last part, but I envisioned "it" being BTC.

off to read that now :-)

[smoothie]

it seems the avg Bitcoiner can't bear to hear or even discuss "possible" messy scenarios as Mike is quite rightfully willing to do.

It's pretty clear that Mike doesn't understand what an economic majority means. If you have the economic majority, you don't need to enforce a "technical mess" to fix anything.

I still don't understand how anyone interested in Bitcoin can support anything associated with Hearn after hearing anything the guy has to say, unless they actually want to turn Bitcoin into something completely unrecognizable.

I'm not completely opposed to bigger blocks, but I am completely opposed to BitcoinXT and anything Hearn.

I am not in support of such an action where miners in china are essentially shunned by the "economic majority".

I tend to think the miners (all of them around the world) make up a big part of the economic majority as they help facilitate the transactions.

So if Hearn is thinking along the lines of doing that some day (I would not support it). The only way I support XT is through actual consensus, not forced consensus.

[tvbcof]

I still don't understand how anyone interested in Bitcoin can support anything associated with Hearn after hearing anything the guy has to say

Here's a pretty good indication of a shill, or at best someone who is disturbed and threatened by the idea of a 'free' cryoto-currency:  A person who has been around for a while and/or has paid a modicum of attention and does support Hearn's vision and projects.

If everybody adopts a "do the opposite of anything Mike Hearn suggests" policy, then they've just shut their brain off and given complete control over their decision making to Mike Hearn.

It's a great way to achieve the opposite of the stated goal.

When do you guys expect to use btcd as the reference implementation for XT?

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3h01p2/how_is_the_bitcoin_community_supposed_to_build/

*poof* Top thread on the front page one moment, a few minutes later gone.

The subreddit has set a policy where not only is talking about alternative implementations banned, but apparently so is talking about the ban itself.

This reeks of desperation.

[Peter R]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3h01p2/how_is_the_bitcoin_community_supposed_to_build/

*poof* Top thread on the front page one moment, a few minutes later gone.

The subreddit has set a policy where not only is talking about alternative implementations banned, but apparently so is talking about the ban itself.

This reeks of desperation.

That post was by aminok (one of my favourite posters over there, actually).  It looks like he's now been banned:

[Odalv]

here's further evidence the Reddit mods are steering the blocksize debate. they're letting this guy spam attack me with false allegations despite me reporting him.  same post about a dozen times:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3gutfp/if_youre_not_running_a_node_youre_not_really/cu1x6fl

Yesterday you were complaining about mod "censorship" and today you are demanding the same mods censor posts you don't like.

it's a repetitive spam attack; over a dozen times the exact same slanderous post attempt at character assassination.  have you forgotten the case seems to be going nowhere and that i deny the allegations?

everybody gets it already. i am a BitcoinXT proponent and i am a threat to you Cripplecoiners.  the HF dispute has nothing to do with it as much as you'd like to tie the two together.

but of course, i wouldn't expect you to see the difference.

Hmm, "character assassination" doesn't mind you when you are using it against Blockstream and especially against  gmax.

[brg444]

here's further evidence the Reddit mods are steering the blocksize debate. they're letting this guy spam attack me with false allegations despite me reporting him.  same post about a dozen times:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3gutfp/if_youre_not_running_a_node_youre_not_really/cu1x6fl

Yesterday you were complaining about mod "censorship" and today you are demanding the same mods censor posts you don't like.

it's a repetitive spam attack; over a dozen times the exact same slanderous post attempt at character assassination.  have you forgotten the case seems to be going nowhere and that i deny the allegations?

everybody gets it already. i am a BitcoinXT proponent and i am a threat to you Cripplecoiners.  the HF dispute has nothing to do with it as much as you'd like to tie the two together.

but of course, i wouldn't expect you to see the difference.

Hmm, "character assassination" doesn't mind you when you are using it against Blockstream and especially against  gmax.

*ding ding ding* we have a winner!

[lunarboy]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3h01p2/how_is_the_bitcoin_community_supposed_to_build/

*poof* Top thread on the front page one moment, a few minutes later gone.

The subreddit has set a policy where not only is talking about alternative implementations banned, but apparently so is talking about the ban itself.

This reeks of desperation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3h0lhn/theymos_as_the_administrator_of_rbitcoin/

thought this was funny but as aminok is banned now it's not showing up

[brg444]

I'm actually quite excited about this idea.  It has a sort of inevitable feel to it.

Yes. Since anyone can run any software they want to interact with the Bitcoin network, this idea does seem like a logical development.

It also seems like one of those counter-intuitive anti-fragility things, where the seeming chaos and instability at a micro level will actually lead to a more predictable and stable behaviour at the macro level.

If it became more common for individual nodes to be able to tweak consensus parameters, then I think that would actually lead to more predictable and stable consensus behaviour in the long run. The worst thing that can happen to a node operator is to fall out of consensus with the rest of the network, so individual node operators would be strongly incentivised to develop methods to ensure they can track the status of the network, and deal with any potential consensus forks.

As it stands now, consensus behaviour is based on the specific implementation details of Bitcoin Core. The software is not designed with the assumption that hard consensus forks are a likely event, and when they do happen nodes are not designed to handle it gracefully. The accidental hard form of March 2013 happened because of an obscure implementation detail in the Core software, and was only possible because the software monoculture created a "single point of failure". A more diverse implementation of consensus rules might result in more frequent consensus divergences and orphaned blocks, but each one would be non-catastrophic, and would lead toward a more stable and resilient network in the long run.

Great insight!

You bring up an interesting point: rather than viewing forks as something that must be avoided, let's view them as something inevitable and necessary for the evolution of Bitcoin, and then work to find ways to make convergence of consensus in the presence of forks as robust as possible.  

I think you're right that this "seeming chaos and instability at a micro level will actually lead to a more predictable and stable behaviour at the macro level."

ZB had brought up this point before and while it does sort of makes sense from an "antifragile" standpoint, I have a problem accepting it as a viable or desirable outcome.

On that point I believe this post from Alex Morcos is relevant:

What gives Bitcoin value aren't its technical merits but the fact that people believe in it.   The biggest risk here isn't that 20MB blocks will
be bad or that 1MB blocks will be bad, but that by forcing a hard fork that isn't nearly universally agreed upon, we will be damaging that belief.   If I strongly believed some hard fork would be better for Bitcoin, say permanent inflation of 1% a year to fund mining, and I managed to convince 80% of users, miners, businesses and developers to go along with me, I would still vote against doing it.  Because that's not nearly universal agreement, and it changes what people chose to believe in without their consent. Forks should be hard, very hard.  And both sides should recognize that belief in the value of Bitcoin might be a fragile thing.

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34092527/

While I do understand your point about improving on the ability of the users to come to consensus, it seems a stretch to me to suggest that regular changes to the way Bitcoin operate can strengthen the trust people have in it. Rather we should strive to come to a point where the consensus critical code in Bitcoin is set in stone for eternity as it becomes harder and harder for an ever-growing ecosystem to come to consensus on a proposed change.

For that reason, I am wary and quite frankly curious of recent attempts by Hearn in particular to lessen the impact and the dangers of hard forks.

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

…
At this point I'd say just find a way to put the forks on the market and let's arbitrage it out. I will submit if a fork cannot gain the market cap advantage, and I suspect the small-blockers will likewise if Core loses it. Money talks.

I had a strange idea recently: what if we don't even bother with BIP100, BIP101, etc., or trying to come to "consensus" in some formal way.  What if, instead, we just make it very easy for node operators to adjust their block size limit.  Imagine a drop down menu where you can select "1 MB, 2 MB, 4 MB, 8 MB, … ."  What would happen?  

Personally, I'd just select some big block size limit, like 32 MB.  This way, I'd be guaranteed to follow the longest proof of work chain, regardless of what the effective block size limit becomes.  I'd expect many people to do the same thing.  Eventually, it becomes obvious that the economic majority is supporting a larger limit, and a brave miner publishes a block that is 1.1 MB is size.  We all witness that indeed that block got included into the longest proof of work chain, and then suddenly all miners are confident producing 1.1 MB blocks.  Thus, the effective block size limit slowly creeps upwards, as this process is repeated over and over as demand for block space grows.

TL/DR: maybe we don't need a strict definition for the max block size limit.

Indeed, a fixed block limit may not be necessary at all. A fair limit can be decided by the network, as a balance between the higher real costs of larger blocks ( more difficult hash target against fixed subsidy) and the reward of increased fees from a larger number of tx' s.  I think this would allow blocksize to grow, but requiring sufficient tx's to justify it.

This growth could be controlled within a set 'range' of difficulty, enforced by an algorithm in the code, the bounds of which are determined from such factors as a weighted average of the difficulty for the previous n blocks....

However, this doesn't deal with the issues raised by spam.

[solex]

So, is a monero a unique collectible unlike anything the world has seen since gold? Yes or No!

I think you mean to suggest no, but the answer might be yes. Satoshi proposed viewing Bitcoin as a new and unusual kind of metal with the property that it can be sent instantly over long distances. Monero is similar except that it has the ability to be sent over long distances without leaving a public record of having done so. Bitcoin and Monero are different in kind, but both new and usual kinds of "metals"

I mean yes, and I see that brg444 agrees too.
This just serves to prove my rebuttal to his "capital growth priority over user growth" theory.
It is the increasing ecosystem size (including user-base and mining power) which gives a crypto-coin an increasing market price (capital value), and any of the 600 alts could potentially be "unique collectables", and many already are. The only thing holding them back is their rate of ecosystem growth and network effect.

If we were to derive the latter from "ecosystem usage" as you represent it : transactions on the blockchain, then we should argue Bitcoin is a pretty low value network since the velocity of transactions on the network is, frankly, very low. Have a quick look at the top 500 (you can even go up to 20,000) on the website here http://bitcoinrichlist.com/top500?page=40. A very short glance should make it very clear that most bitcoins rarely move on the blockchain.

The other important point is that markets always contain a speculative element about the future. Some percentage of the BTC price is purely a premium that the coin will scale to handle volumes of global significance. We will never know exactly, but 50% of the price may be an investor play on Bitcoin reaching MasterCard volumes. That is why many coins lie unmoving in cold wallets. The other 50% of the price is the current utility value of the payment network, free of capital controls, be-your-own-bank, escape from the fiat hegemony.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

ZB had brought up this point before and while it does sort of makes sense from an "antifragile" standpoint, I have a problem accepting it as a viable or desirable outcome.

On that point I believe this post from Alex Morcos is relevant:

What gives Bitcoin value aren't its technical merits but the fact that people believe in it.   The biggest risk here isn't that 20MB blocks will
be bad or that 1MB blocks will be bad, but that by forcing a hard fork that isn't nearly universally agreed upon, we will be damaging that belief.   If I strongly believed some hard fork would be better for Bitcoin, say permanent inflation of 1% a year to fund mining, and I managed to convince 80% of users, miners, businesses and developers to go along with me, I would still vote against doing it.  Because that's not nearly universal agreement, and it changes what people chose to believe in without their consent. Forks should be hard, very hard.  And both sides should recognize that belief in the value of Bitcoin might be a fragile thing.

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34092527/

While I do understand your point about improving on the ability of the users to come to consensus, it seems a stretch to me to suggest that regular changes to the way Bitcoin operate can strengthen the trust people have in it. Rather we should strive to come to a point where the consensus critical code in Bitcoin is set in stone for eternity as it becomes harder and harder for an ever-growing ecosystem to come to consensus on a proposed change.

For that reason, I am wary and quite frankly curious of recent attempts by Hearn in particular to lessen the impact and the dangers of hard forks.

You can't force a fork.

[smooth]

So, is a monero a unique collectible unlike anything the world has seen since gold? Yes or No!

I think you mean to suggest no, but the answer might be yes. Satoshi proposed viewing Bitcoin as a new and unusual kind of metal with the property that it can be sent instantly over long distances. Monero is similar except that it has the ability to be sent over long distances without leaving a public record of having done so. Bitcoin and Monero are different in kind, but both new and usual kinds of "metals"

I mean yes, and I see that brg444 agrees too.
This just serves to prove my rebuttal to his "capital growth priority over user growth" theory.
It is the increasing ecosystem size (including user-base and mining power) which gives a crypto-coin an increasing market price (capital value), and any of the 600 alts could potentially be "unique collectables", and many already are. The only thing holding them back is their rate of ecosystem growth and network effect.

The other important point is that markets always contain a speculative element about the future. Some percentage of the BTC price is purely a premium that the coin will scale to handle volumes of global significance. We will never know exactly, but 50% of the price may be an investor play on Bitcoin reaching MasterCard volumes. That is why many coins lie unmoving in cold wallets. The other 50% of the price is the current utility value of the payment network, free of capital controls, be-your-own-bank, escape from the fiat hegemony.

Ah, good points. I'd add that it might be 90-10 instead of 50-50 or even 99-1 or 99-1. As you say we will never know.

[brg444]

So, is a monero a unique collectible unlike anything the world has seen since gold? Yes or No!

I think you mean to suggest no, but the answer might be yes. Satoshi proposed viewing Bitcoin as a new and unusual kind of metal with the property that it can be sent instantly over long distances. Monero is similar except that it has the ability to be sent over long distances without leaving a public record of having done so. Bitcoin and Monero are different in kind, but both new and usual kinds of "metals"

I mean yes, and I see that brg444 agrees too.
This just serves to prove my rebuttal to his "capital growth priority over user growth" theory.
It is the increasing ecosystem size (including user-base and mining power) which gives a crypto-coin an increasing market price (capital value), and any of the 600 alts could potentially be "unique collectables", and many already are. The only thing holding them back is their rate of ecosystem growth and network effect.

The other important point is that markets always contain a speculative element about the future. Some percentage of the BTC price is purely a premium that the coin will scale to handle volumes of global significance. We will never know exactly, but 50% of the price may be an investor play on Bitcoin reaching MasterCard volumes. That is why many coins lie unmoving in cold wallets. The other 50% of the price is the current utility value of the payment network, free of capital controls, be-your-own-bank, escape from the fiat hegemony.

Not at all. It's not hard to understand really..

The thing holding other crypto back is the amount of capital people are willing to trust to them. Not necessarily the amount of users. The increasing ecosystem size is a result of capital, speculative or not, being stored into Bitcoin. As far as the nature of the speculation this is beside the point which is that Bitcoin is not used, as we speak, as a medium of exchange to purchase goods or services.

People are not buying Bitcoin because the number of transactions or users is seemingly increasing. They are buying because it attracts wealth unlike what most other coins can claim.

I've stated this repeatedly but I honestly believe it to be true: we are talking about a money protocol, a money network effect. the unit concerned is not number of users but amount of capital.

Think of it like this : if the 1% of the world's population who apparently controls around 40% of the world's wealth moved that money into Bitcoin it would do more to strengthen & grow the ecosystem than if 25% of the other people on earth invested all of their savings.