Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

here's Luke talking about demurrage again:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=831527.msg9457379#msg9457379

[1713873907]

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[1713873907]

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[Erdogan]

I am not an SC opponent, but I say with Buffet: It's a mirage. They will not take off.

Edit: I am opposed to changing bitcoin in any way to enable the sidechains.

[cypherdoc]

The problem that me, and seemingly a couple others, have with Cypherdoc's concerns is that most of them boil down to the creation of altcoins, something that sidechains did not introduce and do little to enable. I hope you have come to understand this part because the accusation that you make of SC proponents being "unreasonable" can equally be applied to most, if not all, of the SC opponents in this thread.

You seem to be a reasonable person who has a great ability to distill his ideas in thoughtful and concise manners. Maybe you want to share with us notable weaknesses of the 2wp and what considerable risks you can foresee?

I don't know that there are any SC opponents in this thread.
I also don't claim there are any weaknesses in the SPV mechanism, and find it weird that you would see that anywhere in anything I wrote.  
I like SC's, I think it works and does pretty much what it says it does is the blockstream white paper.

There are however risks, some of which have been discussed here already.  Most of the more interesting risks fall into two main categories.
1) Economic risks (changes to miner incentives, centralization issues, and practical concerns, ZB's is one of these)
2) Confidence risks (both "cons" in the scam sense, and misplaced confidence in the mechanism as a panacea, or else misplaced confidence in any particular SC - what you call the altcoin risk, and loss of confidence in Bitcoin generally due to its new ease of change).

As mentioned upthread, the SC mods present a new upgrade path.  Introducing upgrade paths is something to do carefully, and I like that there is this discussion to work through some of the more obvious issues.


There are all sorts of dystopian varieties of these two categories.
Some may imagine a distant future where with a click of a button (or it is done automatically) where one upgrades their bitcoins from Bitcoin 17.4 to 17.5 moving to yet another new chain, and something goes horribly wrong and they find themselves on Central Banker Inflation Coin of something.
Or what is more likely historically, they do this willfully because the news is telling them that it is necessary to do it for their survival in the new important war of the day.

Edit: there is a 3rd category of risk, technical risks (of which SPV brokenness would be an example, but these haven't been much discussed here).

don't forget that Blockstream is a risk as well.

[cypherdoc]

actually, that may not be true.  hardware is entering commoditization and the cost of hashing has dropped 10 fold in the last year.  so there may be some hope for solo mining still.  or at least for individuals holding hardware that want to pool mine.

did you see this: over $3.6M in hardware, one of the risks of centralized mining, the guy was consuming 5.5MW of power and only had 2 security grads. 

link?  wow, that looks like that Chinese mine with huge fans in opposite walls?

[Erdogan]

Can atomic transfers between two coins (say bitcoin and litecoin) work now, without changing any of the two systems?

[cypherdoc]

lol.  what a crack up.  ready for launch:

https://finance.yahoo.com/tumblr/blog-rouble-collpase-could-fuel-next-bitcion-run-153153403.html?.tsrc=applewf

[NewLiberty]

don't forget that Blockstream is a risk as well.

Good point.
I'd likely have put that in the confidence category.  The conflict of interest is a bit tragic.  
I am hopeful that it would get resolved sooner rather than later.
It is sort of a weird one.  Its like some operating system team members are leaving to go work on "InstallShield" (remember that?).

Historically, in security software development, the installer is the principle place to introduce vulnerabilities.  Owning the installer is a privileged position as it is the engine of feature distribution, and the closest persistent connection to "the customer".  So I am kind of glad that it is these guys doing it.  But they shouldn't be doing both.

I'm not an insider there and don't know the technology perimeter of their company.
I just really wish that there were more folks doing what they do so that we didn't have to suffer through these sort of conflicts.

[Erdogan]

lol.  what a crack up.  ready for launch:

https://finance.yahoo.com/tumblr/blog-rouble-collpase-could-fuel-next-bitcion-run-153153403.html?.tsrc=applewf

Not really worth commenting, but:

The ruble is not free floating if the masters of the russians ban circulation of dollars.

Bitcoin can not be used as a mass value exodus from russia unless there are sufficient supply of bitcoins from other russians, in a regime with currency controls.

[brg444]

I just really wish that there were more folks doing what they do so that we didn't have to suffer through these sort of conflicts.

I'm afraid this is the source of the problem. There are only so many highly qualified crypto-developers out there who are willing to work on Bitcoin projects. We should expect to have more in the future but meanwhile a project requiring industry experts only have so many candidates to pick from.

[Odalv]

Can atomic transfers between two coins (say bitcoin and litecoin) work now, without changing any of the two systems?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=193281.msg2224949#msg2224949

[Erdogan]

Can atomic transfers between two coins (say bitcoin and litecoin) work now, without changing any of the two systems?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=193281.msg2224949#msg2224949

So locktime is needed.

[brg444]

The problem that me, and seemingly a couple others, have with Cypherdoc's concerns is that most of them boil down to the creation of altcoins, something that sidechains did not introduce and do little to enable. I hope you have come to understand this part because the accusation that you make of SC proponents being "unreasonable" can equally be applied to most, if not all, of the SC opponents in this thread.

You seem to be a reasonable person who has a great ability to distill his ideas in thoughtful and concise manners. Maybe you want to share with us notable weaknesses of the 2wp and what considerable risks you can foresee?

I don't know that there are any SC opponents in this thread.
I also don't claim there are any weaknesses in the SPV mechanism, and find it weird that you would see that anywhere in anything I wrote.  
I like SC's, I think it works and does pretty much what it says it does is the blockstream white paper.

There are however risks, some of which have been discussed here already.  Most of the more interesting risks fall into two main categories.
1) Economic risks (changes to miner incentives, centralization issues, and practical concerns, ZB's is one of these)
2) Confidence risks (both "cons" in the scam sense, and misplaced confidence in the mechanism as a panacea, or else misplaced confidence in any particular SC - what you call the altcoin risk, and loss of confidence in Bitcoin generally due to its new ease of change).

As mentioned upthread, the SC mods present a new upgrade path.  Introducing upgrade paths is something to do carefully, and I like that there is this discussion to work through some of the more obvious issues.


There are all sorts of dystopian varieties of these two categories.
Some may imagine a distant future where with a click of a button (or it is done automatically) where one upgrades their bitcoins from Bitcoin 17.4 to 17.5 moving to yet another new chain, and something goes horribly wrong and they find themselves on Central Banker Inflation Coin of something.
Or what is more likely historically, they do this willfully because the news is telling them that it is necessary to do it for their survival in the new important war of the day.

Edit: there is a 3rd category of risk, technical risks (of which SPV brokenness would be an example, but these haven't been much discussed here).

Now these are reasonable, sensible remarks that do not rely on hyperbole scenarios and generally address the situation in a non-biased manner. Thank you.

While there are some issues presented that I don't see as a problem, some definitely merit attention. Of course, due diligence on the part of the user is always one of the main concern but while sidechains might introduce new forms of scams, I will continue to say that fools, no matter the mechanism, will find a way to part with their money.

[Odalv]

don't forget that Blockstream is a risk as well.

Good point.
I'd likely have put that in the confidence category.  The conflict of interest is a bit tragic.  
I am hopeful that it would get resolved sooner rather than later.
It is sort of a weird one.  Its like some operating system team members are leaving to go work on "InstallShield" (remember that?).

Historically, in security software development, the installer is the principle place to introduce vulnerabilities.  Owning the installer is a privileged position as it is the engine of feature distribution, and the closest persistent connection to "the customer".  So I am kind of glad that it is these guys doing it.  But they shouldn't be doing both.

I'm not an insider there and don't know the technology perimeter of their company.
I just really wish that there were more folks doing what they do so that we didn't have to suffer through these sort of conflicts.

I think there is possible to create very interesting Federated 2wp (using oracles, automated auditors, and human judges).
So if there is fraud attempt detected , more conflicting SPV proofs or  incosistency in side-blockchain. Then human judges are required.

So even service like Gox can be used safe . :-)
Maybe Federated peg is even better than only bitcoin protocol peg. Currently I do not know SC where I want keep BTCs for decade.

[Adrian-x]

actually, that may not be true.  hardware is entering commoditization and the cost of hashing has dropped 10 fold in the last year.  so there may be some hope for solo mining still.  or at least for individuals holding hardware that want to pool mine.

did you see this: over $3.6M in hardware, one of the risks of centralized mining, the guy was consuming 5.5MW of power and only had 2 security grads. 

link?  wow, that looks like that Chinese mine with huge fans in opposite walls?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2lexl2/here_is_why_the_hash_rate_jumped_and_took_a_dive/
I flowed up on BT last night and there are a few other threads.

[cypherdoc]

actually, that may not be true.  hardware is entering commoditization and the cost of hashing has dropped 10 fold in the last year.  so there may be some hope for solo mining still.  or at least for individuals holding hardware that want to pool mine.

did you see this: over $3.6M in hardware, one of the risks of centralized mining, the guy was consuming 5.5MW of power and only had 2 security grads. 

link?  wow, that looks like that Chinese mine with huge fans in opposite walls?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2lexl2/here_is_why_the_hash_rate_jumped_and_took_a_dive/
I flowed up on BT last night and there are a few other threads.

goes to show you there are risks to centralization.

[brg444]

actually, that may not be true.  hardware is entering commoditization and the cost of hashing has dropped 10 fold in the last year.  so there may be some hope for solo mining still.  or at least for individuals holding hardware that want to pool mine.

did you see this: over $3.6M in hardware, one of the risks of centralized mining, the guy was consuming 5.5MW of power and only had 2 security grads. 

link?  wow, that looks like that Chinese mine with huge fans in opposite walls?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2lexl2/here_is_why_the_hash_rate_jumped_and_took_a_dive/
I flowed up on BT last night and there are a few other threads.

goes to show you there are risks to centralization.

I think that's more a case of a wealthy amateur job going wrong

[Odalv]

brg444, how do you want to implement fastBTC using MM ?

Edit:
I think it is only possible by splitting into more(1000) SCs

[brg444]

brg444, how do you want to implement fastBTC using MM ?

In all honesty that type of design question is out of my technical range.

I understand from your posts there are different ways to go about it and I'm certainly not knowledgeable enough to pretend to know which one would be best.

I'm certainly interested in hearing what you have in mind though..

[brg444]

actually, that may not be true.  hardware is entering commoditization and the cost of hashing has dropped 10 fold in the last year.  so there may be some hope for solo mining still.  or at least for individuals holding hardware that want to pool mine.

did you see this: over $3.6M in hardware, one of the risks of centralized mining, the guy was consuming 5.5MW of power and only had 2 security grads. 

link?  wow, that looks like that Chinese mine with huge fans in opposite walls?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2lexl2/here_is_why_the_hash_rate_jumped_and_took_a_dive/
I flowed up on BT last night and there are a few other threads.

goes to show you there are risks to centralization.

I think that's more a case of a wealthy amateur job going wrong

After seeing some more pictures I have to take that back. It is suggested the fire did not originate from the miners. Setup looked fine

[Odalv]

brg444, how do you want to implement fastBTC using MM ?

In all honesty that type of design question is out of my technical range.

I understand from your posts there are different ways to go about it and I'm certainly not knowledgeable enough to pretend to know which one would be best.

I'm certainly interested in hearing what you have in mind though..

I think that this service will use HUGE amount of small transactions
1) split into 1000 local providers
2) or maybe at the and of month return btc to all participants and start fresh blockchain.