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Author Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.  (Read 2032126 times)
cypherdoc (OP)
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November 07, 2014, 12:32:19 AM
 #16081

So I have a hypothetical situation, and I’m interested in this community’s input, this is the economic speculation thread after all.  

lets say someone has 1% of all Bitcoin.
lets say they create a Bitcoin ETF, and sell shares to that ETF on the NASDAQ. It takes off. Over time the holding in the ETF go up and down the total holdings never Drop below 1%
In this scenario the ETF Charter promise to back the ETF with Bitcoin it guarantees on redemption to pay in USD at market rate and only under special circumstances will it pay out in BTC.
---
In this hypothetical situation an SC-coin-it has been created, it is Open Source, it has proven utility and security,  faster transfer times, it is highly liquid, in fact it is the preferred transfer of value coin for salary’s and typical larger expenses like TV’s and high end consumer goods because of its faster confirmation times, People still use Bitcoin for purchases like cars and houses – and even pay their loans in BTC – yacht for BTC are selling will in this hypothetical scenario, in fact BTC is used for larger deals where instant transfer times are not a risk. But the SC-coin-it is the preferred means of exchange for anything of value that is relinquished at the point of sale.    

What happens when the ETF, knowing they have 1:1 2wp redemption capability with the SC-coin-it, and 1% of all bitcoins that are stagnant start to leverage their BTC, they are still in theory backed by BTC, but start lending out SC-coin-it to AAA rated entities, they haven't broken there charter due the technicality that the BTC is secure, and they are not lending their BTC ?  


owners Winkelvii go to jail for violating their charter b/c scBTC is essentially one in the same as BTC and they weren't supposed to lend them out.

so are Gold ETF charters written in such a way that the gold can not be lent out?

don't know for sure but you can bet on it.

this "paper gold" is it in effect just CB's that lend it out, or with fractional reserves, where does it come from?

GLD buys it and stores it in a vault.
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November 07, 2014, 12:36:46 AM
 #16082


it's b/c they have 5 (?) guys who have commit privileges, 3 of which are core devs and all of which could derail any upgrades to Bitcoin from SC innovations for Blockstream profit motives.  that's if you believe it's not critical that Bitcoin stays around while a SC takes over in the long run.

You can create as many branches with as many commit privileges as you wish.
I can create one -> where no one will commit (core developer or not)
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November 07, 2014, 12:37:41 AM
 #16083

it's b/c they have 5 (?) guys who have commit privileges, 3 of which are core devs and all of which could derail any upgrades to Bitcoin from SC innovations for Blockstream profit motives.  that's if you believe it's not critical that Bitcoin stays around while a SC takes over in the long run.

I'm not certain how exactly github commit work but given the hypothesis that an open source feature becomes so obviously valuable all of the community agrees it should be implemented into the mainchain I don't see how even the Blockstream devs could stop it from happening.

As far as I know they don't have veto power.

"I believe this will be the ultimate fate of Bitcoin, to be the "high-powered money" that serves as a reserve currency for banks that issue their own digital cash." Hal Finney, Dec. 2010
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November 07, 2014, 12:39:37 AM
 #16084

it's b/c they have 5 (?) guys who have commit privileges, 3 of which are core devs and all of which could derail any upgrades to Bitcoin from SC innovations for Blockstream profit motives.  that's if you believe it's not critical that Bitcoin stays around while a SC takes over in the long run.

I'm not certain how exactly github commit work but given the hypothesis that an open source feature becomes so obviously valuable all of the community agrees it should be implemented into the mainchain I don't see how even the Blockstream devs could stop it from happening.

As far as I know they don't have veto power.

the pessimistic view would be they could all make alot of noise and deception to disrupt consensus if they had enough financial motivation to do so.
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November 07, 2014, 12:50:30 AM
 #16085

it's b/c they have 5 (?) guys who have commit privileges, 3 of which are core devs and all of which could derail any upgrades to Bitcoin from SC innovations for Blockstream profit motives.  that's if you believe it's not critical that Bitcoin stays around while a SC takes over in the long run.

I'm not certain how exactly github commit work but given the hypothesis that an open source feature becomes so obviously valuable all of the community agrees it should be implemented into the mainchain I don't see how even the Blockstream devs could stop it from happening.

As far as I know they don't have veto power.

the pessimistic view would be they could all make alot of noise and deception to disrupt consensus if they had enough financial motivation to do so.

Two developer can only make so much noise over a community of others.

I don't see it. Remember also that they have ethics clauses in their Blockstream contract.

Bottom line is the Blockstream team is not there to invent altcoins that compete with Bitcoin's cryptomoney function. Unless you want to paint malicious intent on them without probable cause. This in itself is not very ethical if I might say.

"I believe this will be the ultimate fate of Bitcoin, to be the "high-powered money" that serves as a reserve currency for banks that issue their own digital cash." Hal Finney, Dec. 2010
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November 07, 2014, 12:52:04 AM
 #16086

i personally don't think computer's can do everything.  there are going to be times when humans need to intervene.  in fact, computers do what humans tell them to do most of the time and if that is fraud, computers will commit fraud.

these are the things i worry about with Blockstream.  they stand to make alot of money on this.

I'm curious where the worry about Blockstream comes from.

Everything would be implemented in a completely open-source manner. Blockstream would have zero control to dictate anything.

The only thing Blockstream would have is domain expertise around sidechains. Expertise that anyone else can gain BTW. The only thing they could do with that expertise is to lend it out as consultants to help other entities implement their own sidechains. This is the Redhat model as stated before.

Other individuals or entities could easily replace Blockstream and Blockstream could entirely disappear with no effect. This is the same as Satoshi disappearing. We all agree Satoshi does not control Bitcoin and do not worry about him.

The situation between Satoshi & Bitcoin and Blockstream & sidechains seems the same to me, s so why worry about Blockstream? Is there something different missed?

it's b/c they have 5 (?) guys who have commit privileges, 3 of which are core devs and all of which could derail any upgrades to Bitcoin from SC innovations for Blockstream profit motives.  that's if you believe it's not critical that Bitcoin stays around while a SC takes over in the long run.

OK, that makes sense. But isn't that still the same as Bitcoin in 2009/10/11 where Satoshi and later Gavin had control over commit privileges? The protocol change for sidechains is one time, after that the 5 guys in Blockstream have limited influence.

What this does is to decentralize implementation of new features. Today you have to go through a small number of people to get a commit accepted. With sidechains anyone can implement a new feature and the community can choose which to adopt. This puts the power to extend features directly in the hands of the community and out of the hands of the few commiters of today. This is decentralized implementation of features, which has tremendous potential benefits.

It seems if you are worried about today's situation where only a few people have commit privileges and have too much influence over new features, then sidechains address that worry by removing power from these few people.

It seems another fear is SC's causing the main Bitcoin chain to become stagnate and thus unused over time, damaging the network. I guess I just see this as an upgrade path. If everyone switches to a SC, that SC because the main chain. The 21M ledger is still intact.

And it's actually a better upgrade path from today. Again today those 5 guys with commit privileges can push us all to upgrade. With SC's the upgrade is completely voluntary for individuals to move, everyone can decide on their own when they feel ready to move.
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November 07, 2014, 12:52:40 AM
 #16087

So I have a hypothetical situation, and I’m interested in this community’s input, this is the economic speculation thread after all.  

lets say someone has 1% of all Bitcoin.
lets say they create a Bitcoin ETF, and sell shares to that ETF on the NASDAQ. It takes off. Over time the holding in the ETF go up and down the total holdings never Drop below 1%
In this scenario the ETF Charter promise to back the ETF with Bitcoin it guarantees on redemption to pay in USD at market rate and only under special circumstances will it pay out in BTC.
---
In this hypothetical situation an SC-coin-it has been created, it is Open Source, it has proven utility and security,  faster transfer times, it is highly liquid, in fact it is the preferred transfer of value coin for salary’s and typical larger expenses like TV’s and high end consumer goods because of its faster confirmation times, People still use Bitcoin for purchases like cars and houses – and even pay their loans in BTC – yacht for BTC are selling will in this hypothetical scenario, in fact BTC is used for larger deals where instant transfer times are not a risk. But the SC-coin-it is the preferred means of exchange for anything of value that is relinquished at the point of sale.    

What happens when the ETF, knowing they have 1:1 2wp redemption capability with the SC-coin-it, and 1% of all bitcoins that are stagnant start to leverage their BTC, they are still in theory backed by BTC, but start lending out SC-coin-it to AAA rated entities, they haven't broken there charter due the technicality that the BTC is secure, and they are not lending their BTC ?  


owners Winkelvii go to jail for violating their charter b/c scBTC is essentially one in the same as BTC and they weren't supposed to lend them out.

so are Gold ETF charters written in such a way that the gold can not be lent out?

don't know for sure but you can bet on it.

this "paper gold" is it in effect just CB's that lend it out, or with fractional reserves, where does it come from?

GLD buys it and stores it in a vault.
I was under the impression that there was more paper gold in circulation than there is actual gold in vaults, is that not the case? is all paper gold a 1:1 ratio?

Thank me in Bits 12MwnzxtprG2mHm3rKdgi7NmJKCypsMMQw
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November 07, 2014, 01:03:51 AM
 #16088

i personally don't think computer's can do everything.  there are going to be times when humans need to intervene.  in fact, computers do what humans tell them to do most of the time and if that is fraud, computers will commit fraud.

these are the things i worry about with Blockstream.  they stand to make alot of money on this.

I'm curious where the worry about Blockstream comes from.

Everything would be implemented in a completely open-source manner. Blockstream would have zero control to dictate anything.

The only thing Blockstream would have is domain expertise around sidechains. Expertise that anyone else can gain BTW. The only thing they could do with that expertise is to lend it out as consultants to help other entities implement their own sidechains. This is the Redhat model as stated before.

Other individuals or entities could easily replace Blockstream and Blockstream could entirely disappear with no effect. This is the same as Satoshi disappearing. We all agree Satoshi does not control Bitcoin and do not worry about him.

The situation between Satoshi & Bitcoin and Blockstream & sidechains seems the same to me, s so why worry about Blockstream? Is there something different missed?

it's b/c they have 5 (?) guys who have commit privileges, 3 of which are core devs and all of which could derail any upgrades to Bitcoin from SC innovations for Blockstream profit motives.  that's if you believe it's not critical that Bitcoin stays around while a SC takes over in the long run.

OK, that makes sense. But isn't that still the same as Bitcoin in 2009/10/11 where Satoshi and later Gavin had control over commit privileges? The protocol change for sidechains is one time, after that the 5 guys in Blockstream have limited influence.

What this does is to decentralize implementation of new features. Today you have to go through a small number of people to get a commit accepted. With sidechains anyone can implement a new feature and the community can choose which to adopt. This puts the power to extend features directly in the hands of the community and out of the hands of the few commiters of today. This is decentralized implementation of features, which has tremendous potential benefits.

It seems if you are worried about today's situation where only a few people have commit privileges and have too much influence over new features, then sidechains address that worry by removing power from these few people.

It seems another fear is SC's causing the main Bitcoin chain to become stagnate and thus unused over time, damaging the network. I guess I just see this as an upgrade path. If everyone switches to a SC, that SC because the main chain. The 21M ledger is still intact.

And it's actually a better upgrade path from today. Again today those 5 guys with commit privileges can push us all to upgrade. With SC's the upgrade is completely voluntary for individuals to move, everyone can decide on their own when they feel ready to move.

the way i understand the github process is that while you may be able to put patches up there freely, nothing can be written to the source code w/o consensus from the core devs themselves.  b/c the vast majority of them now work in one company, there is a potential for them to possibly insert what they want and definitely to block what they don't want.

JR has asked the question about technology that might obsolete the need for SC's and how that might get blocked.  he doesn't think his question got answered satisfactorily.  it is a potential problem that the community needs to address and talk about as it does have real world implications if abused.  they're basically saying "trust us".  it's up to you.
cypherdoc (OP)
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November 07, 2014, 01:05:02 AM
 #16089

So I have a hypothetical situation, and I’m interested in this community’s input, this is the economic speculation thread after all.  

lets say someone has 1% of all Bitcoin.
lets say they create a Bitcoin ETF, and sell shares to that ETF on the NASDAQ. It takes off. Over time the holding in the ETF go up and down the total holdings never Drop below 1%
In this scenario the ETF Charter promise to back the ETF with Bitcoin it guarantees on redemption to pay in USD at market rate and only under special circumstances will it pay out in BTC.
---
In this hypothetical situation an SC-coin-it has been created, it is Open Source, it has proven utility and security,  faster transfer times, it is highly liquid, in fact it is the preferred transfer of value coin for salary’s and typical larger expenses like TV’s and high end consumer goods because of its faster confirmation times, People still use Bitcoin for purchases like cars and houses – and even pay their loans in BTC – yacht for BTC are selling will in this hypothetical scenario, in fact BTC is used for larger deals where instant transfer times are not a risk. But the SC-coin-it is the preferred means of exchange for anything of value that is relinquished at the point of sale.    

What happens when the ETF, knowing they have 1:1 2wp redemption capability with the SC-coin-it, and 1% of all bitcoins that are stagnant start to leverage their BTC, they are still in theory backed by BTC, but start lending out SC-coin-it to AAA rated entities, they haven't broken there charter due the technicality that the BTC is secure, and they are not lending their BTC ?  


owners Winkelvii go to jail for violating their charter b/c scBTC is essentially one in the same as BTC and they weren't supposed to lend them out.

so are Gold ETF charters written in such a way that the gold can not be lent out?

don't know for sure but you can bet on it.

this "paper gold" is it in effect just CB's that lend it out, or with fractional reserves, where does it come from?

GLD buys it and stores it in a vault.
I was under the impression that there was more paper gold in circulation than there is actual gold in vaults, is that not the case? is all paper gold a 1:1 ratio?

no it's not.  you're talking about futures/derivatives contract abuse.  way more than there is gold.
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November 07, 2014, 01:14:11 AM
 #16090

the way i understand the github process is that while you may be able to put patches up there freely, nothing can be written to the source code w/o consensus from the core devs themselves.  b/c the vast majority of them now work in one company, there is a potential for them to possibly insert what they want and definitely to block what they don't want.

JR has asked the question about technology that might obsolete the need for SC's and how that might get blocked.  he doesn't think his question got answered satisfactorily.  it is a potential problem that the community needs to address and talk about as it does have real world implications if abused.  they're basically saying "trust us".  it's up to you.

this part is not true. 2 out of 5 is not the majority. Only Greg & Peter are at Blockstream and can write to the source code

"I believe this will be the ultimate fate of Bitcoin, to be the "high-powered money" that serves as a reserve currency for banks that issue their own digital cash." Hal Finney, Dec. 2010
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November 07, 2014, 01:17:51 AM
 #16091

OK, that makes sense. But isn't that still the same as Bitcoin in 2009/10/11 where Satoshi and later Gavin had control over commit privileges? The protocol change for sidechains is one time, after that the 5 guys in Blockstream have limited influence.

What this does is to decentralize implementation of new features. Today you have to go through a small number of people to get a commit accepted. With sidechains anyone can implement a new feature and the community can choose which to adopt. This puts the power to extend features directly in the hands of the community and out of the hands of the few commiters of today. This is decentralized implementation of features, which has tremendous potential benefits.

It seems if you are worried about today's situation where only a few people have commit privileges and have too much influence over new features, then sidechains address that worry by removing power from these few people.

It seems another fear is SC's causing the main Bitcoin chain to become stagnate and thus unused over time, damaging the network. I guess I just see this as an upgrade path. If everyone switches to a SC, that SC because the main chain. The 21M ledger is still intact.

And it's actually a better upgrade path from today. Again today those 5 guys with commit privileges can push us all to upgrade. With SC's the upgrade is completely voluntary for individuals to move, everyone can decide on their own when they feel ready to move.

the way i understand the github process is that while you may be able to put patches up there freely, nothing can be written to the source code w/o consensus from the core devs themselves.  b/c the vast majority of them now work in one company, there is a potential for them to possibly insert what they want and definitely to block what they don't want.

Your understanding of the process is the same as mine.

But again, isn't this the case today? What's different from today. At least with SC's you can implement new features outside of the centralized process we have currently (which I do not like).

JR has asked the question about technology that might obsolete the need for SC's and how that might get blocked.  he doesn't think his question got answered satisfactorily.  it is a potential problem that the community needs to address and talk about as it does have real world implications if abused.  they're basically saying "trust us".  it's up to you.

If there is strong demand, I don't think they can block SC alternatives. In Linux committers have a lot of control over their pieces, but it's not infinite by any means.

And again Blockstream does not have any control over sidechains where adoption of sidechains guarantees them money in any sort of way. We might find Blockstream has disappeared in a year and the 5 people mentioned above are now advocating for a SC alternative.

I think you bring up an important point which is "is this version of sidechains the best or are there potentially other solutions that are better". The reason this is important is once we have one version implemented, the preference will be to stick with the current version even if something better comes along later. So, we should make sure we implement the right technology first. That's a bigger sticking point for me.
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November 07, 2014, 01:28:07 AM
 #16092

the way i understand the github process is that while you may be able to put patches up there freely, nothing can be written to the source code w/o consensus from the core devs themselves.  b/c the vast majority of them now work in one company, there is a potential for them to possibly insert what they want and definitely to block what they don't want.

JR has asked the question about technology that might obsolete the need for SC's and how that might get blocked.  he doesn't think his question got answered satisfactorily.  it is a potential problem that the community needs to address and talk about as it does have real world implications if abused.  they're basically saying "trust us".  it's up to you.

this part is not true. 2 out of 5 is not the majority. Only Greg & Peter are at Blockstream and can write to the source code

i went back to a quote from gmax:

Blockstream's cofounders include 2 of 5 of the people with commit access to the bitcoin core github repo. Or, if you count people with non-trivial contributions to Bitcoin we have 5 people out of hundreds.
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November 07, 2014, 01:29:59 AM
 #16093

the way i understand the github process is that while you may be able to put patches up there freely, nothing can be written to the source code w/o consensus from the core devs themselves.  b/c the vast majority of them now work in one company, there is a potential for them to possibly insert what they want and definitely to block what they don't want.

JR has asked the question about technology that might obsolete the need for SC's and how that might get blocked.  he doesn't think his question got answered satisfactorily.  it is a potential problem that the community needs to address and talk about as it does have real world implications if abused.  they're basically saying "trust us".  it's up to you.

this part is not true. 2 out of 5 is not the majority. Only Greg & Peter are at Blockstream and can write to the source code

i went back to a quote from gmax:

Blockstream's cofounders include 2 of 5 of the people with commit access to the bitcoin core github repo. Or, if you count people with non-trivial contributions to Bitcoin we have 5 people out of hundreds.

Which confirms what I was saying.

Contributions can be proposed by everyone. This only mean they have 3 other person with them who have made "non-trivial" contributions.

"I believe this will be the ultimate fate of Bitcoin, to be the "high-powered money" that serves as a reserve currency for banks that issue their own digital cash." Hal Finney, Dec. 2010
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November 07, 2014, 01:34:38 AM
 #16094

the way i understand the github process is that while you may be able to put patches up there freely, nothing can be written to the source code w/o consensus from the core devs themselves.  b/c the vast majority of them now work in one company, there is a potential for them to possibly insert what they want and definitely to block what they don't want.

JR has asked the question about technology that might obsolete the need for SC's and how that might get blocked.  he doesn't think his question got answered satisfactorily.  it is a potential problem that the community needs to address and talk about as it does have real world implications if abused.  they're basically saying "trust us".  it's up to you.

this part is not true. 2 out of 5 is not the majority. Only Greg & Peter are at Blockstream and can write to the source code

i went back to a quote from gmax:

Blockstream's cofounders include 2 of 5 of the people with commit access to the bitcoin core github repo. Or, if you count people with non-trivial contributions to Bitcoin we have 5 people out of hundreds.

commit access is not technical problem. => it is about "this 5 people did verify the new code"
you can clone github repo and anybody can commit => it is about trust who will trust in this commits
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November 07, 2014, 01:37:37 AM
 #16095

OK, that makes sense. But isn't that still the same as Bitcoin in 2009/10/11 where Satoshi and later Gavin had control over commit privileges? The protocol change for sidechains is one time, after that the 5 guys in Blockstream have limited influence.

What this does is to decentralize implementation of new features. Today you have to go through a small number of people to get a commit accepted. With sidechains anyone can implement a new feature and the community can choose which to adopt. This puts the power to extend features directly in the hands of the community and out of the hands of the few commiters of today. This is decentralized implementation of features, which has tremendous potential benefits.

It seems if you are worried about today's situation where only a few people have commit privileges and have too much influence over new features, then sidechains address that worry by removing power from these few people.

It seems another fear is SC's causing the main Bitcoin chain to become stagnate and thus unused over time, damaging the network. I guess I just see this as an upgrade path. If everyone switches to a SC, that SC because the main chain. The 21M ledger is still intact.

And it's actually a better upgrade path from today. Again today those 5 guys with commit privileges can push us all to upgrade. With SC's the upgrade is completely voluntary for individuals to move, everyone can decide on their own when they feel ready to move.

the way i understand the github process is that while you may be able to put patches up there freely, nothing can be written to the source code w/o consensus from the core devs themselves.  b/c the vast majority of them now work in one company, there is a potential for them to possibly insert what they want and definitely to block what they don't want.

Your understanding of the process is the same as mine.

But again, isn't this the case today? What's different from today. At least with SC's you can implement new features outside of the centralized process we have currently (which I do not like).

JR has asked the question about technology that might obsolete the need for SC's and how that might get blocked.  he doesn't think his question got answered satisfactorily.  it is a potential problem that the community needs to address and talk about as it does have real world implications if abused.  they're basically saying "trust us".  it's up to you.

If there is strong demand, I don't think they can block SC alternatives. In Linux committers have a lot of control over their pieces, but it's not infinite by any means.

And again Blockstream does not have any control over sidechains where adoption of sidechains guarantees them money in any sort of way. We might find Blockstream has disappeared in a year and the 5 people mentioned above are now advocating for a SC alternative.

I think you bring up an important point which is "is this version of sidechains the best or are there potentially other solutions that are better". The reason this is important is once we have one version implemented, the preference will be to stick with the current version even if something better comes along later. So, we should make sure we implement the right technology first. That's a bigger sticking point for me.

no one is saying there "are" going to be problems, only that there is the potential for problems when it comes down to money.  blocking other innovations that might make SC's obsolete in the future could cost Blockstream lucrative contracts; after all, Austin has talked about designing SC's for gvts currencies.

a fundamental principle of Bitcoin as i've understood it is to design systems to be as resilient and trust free as possible.  why wouldn't this extend to those ppl who have influence over the source code?
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November 07, 2014, 01:55:35 AM
 #16096

I was under the impression that there was more paper gold in circulation than there is actual gold in vaults, is that not the case? is all paper gold a 1:1 ratio?

GLD is an exchange traded fund without any leverage.  Some allege they do not have full backing but outside of a conspiracy theory I think we can assume they do keep the gold they are supposed to.    
One idea is they buy the gold but then lease it out to market, this is similar to stock short sales.   For a fee you can borrow stock from long term holders, sell it and then buy it back later.  If the stock falls in price, it can be very profitable.  I guess gold leasing works in a similar way, I know european banks were leasing gold some time ago but Im not sure now.   So that is leverage, but its not fraud as it must all be reversed eventually.

The big fuss on derivatives for gold or anything is not needed as most contracts may circulate in market at a price but expire with no action taken, one side collects a small premium for giving an option to buy which seems alot like insurance to me; only a potential liability. Still theres maybe alot of tricks done by people desperate to make gold price fall.  
  China is the biggest influence as they fail to report their accumulation of gold and they are the worlds largest miner I have read; this allows them to buy gold from the west more cheaply.  So Im stating the opposite, there are more gold sales then reported and it is not circulated but China is transacting and storing gold

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brg444
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Bitcoin replaces central, not commercial, banks


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November 07, 2014, 03:28:25 AM
 #16097

https://cdn.panteracapital.com/wp-content/uploads/Pantera-Bitcoin-Letter-November-2014-1.pdf

Pantera is very bullish on sidechains

Quote
The most promising aspect of sidechains is that they can support decentralization of anything that couldn’t previously be decentralized because of limitations of the Bitcoin protocol.

They have nailed it down perfectly. Both sidechains' opportunity and Blockstream's mission.

There needs to be only one true ledger, one blockchain to rule them all. Sidechains enables Bitcoin to truly realize's its promises as the TCP/IP of money. They effectively confirm the layer idea on top of which other decentralized value applications of the future should be built.

Because Bitcoin's chain is the only truly decentralized blockchain in crypto, other attempt at creating similar mechanisms to support different applications was always going to be imperfect. Bitcoin is the only trustable decentralized value transmission protocol.

Blockstream is trying to build the main applications that will be used on top of this protocol

Quote
Sidechains are a major step forward in the Bitcoin network effects sequence. They are one of Bitcoin’s network effects, in that they are the product of developers attracted to Bitcoin and inspired to build on its technology. At the same time, sidechains cause further Bitcoin network effects by enabling unimaginable and facilitating theoretically difficult sidechain-based applications. We are curious to see how sidechains will exponentiate Bitcoin’s disruptive force in the next few years.

+1


"I believe this will be the ultimate fate of Bitcoin, to be the "high-powered money" that serves as a reserve currency for banks that issue their own digital cash." Hal Finney, Dec. 2010
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November 07, 2014, 05:24:35 AM
Last edit: November 07, 2014, 05:34:37 AM by rocks
 #16098

OK, that makes sense. But isn't that still the same as Bitcoin in 2009/10/11 where Satoshi and later Gavin had control over commit privileges? The protocol change for sidechains is one time, after that the 5 guys in Blockstream have limited influence.

What this does is to decentralize implementation of new features. Today you have to go through a small number of people to get a commit accepted. With sidechains anyone can implement a new feature and the community can choose which to adopt. This puts the power to extend features directly in the hands of the community and out of the hands of the few commiters of today. This is decentralized implementation of features, which has tremendous potential benefits.

It seems if you are worried about today's situation where only a few people have commit privileges and have too much influence over new features, then sidechains address that worry by removing power from these few people.

It seems another fear is SC's causing the main Bitcoin chain to become stagnate and thus unused over time, damaging the network. I guess I just see this as an upgrade path. If everyone switches to a SC, that SC because the main chain. The 21M ledger is still intact.

And it's actually a better upgrade path from today. Again today those 5 guys with commit privileges can push us all to upgrade. With SC's the upgrade is completely voluntary for individuals to move, everyone can decide on their own when they feel ready to move.

the way i understand the github process is that while you may be able to put patches up there freely, nothing can be written to the source code w/o consensus from the core devs themselves.  b/c the vast majority of them now work in one company, there is a potential for them to possibly insert what they want and definitely to block what they don't want.

Your understanding of the process is the same as mine.

But again, isn't this the case today? What's different from today. At least with SC's you can implement new features outside of the centralized process we have currently (which I do not like).

JR has asked the question about technology that might obsolete the need for SC's and how that might get blocked.  he doesn't think his question got answered satisfactorily.  it is a potential problem that the community needs to address and talk about as it does have real world implications if abused.  they're basically saying "trust us".  it's up to you.

If there is strong demand, I don't think they can block SC alternatives. In Linux committers have a lot of control over their pieces, but it's not infinite by any means.

And again Blockstream does not have any control over sidechains where adoption of sidechains guarantees them money in any sort of way. We might find Blockstream has disappeared in a year and the 5 people mentioned above are now advocating for a SC alternative.

I think you bring up an important point which is "is this version of sidechains the best or are there potentially other solutions that are better". The reason this is important is once we have one version implemented, the preference will be to stick with the current version even if something better comes along later. So, we should make sure we implement the right technology first. That's a bigger sticking point for me.

no one is saying there "are" going to be problems, only that there is the potential for problems when it comes down to money.  blocking other innovations that might make SC's obsolete in the future could cost Blockstream lucrative contracts; after all, Austin has talked about designing SC's for gvts currencies.

a fundamental principle of Bitcoin as i've understood it is to design systems to be as resilient and trust free as possible.  why wouldn't this extend to those ppl who have influence over the source code?

I get that you are only talking about the potential for problems.

I am asking why you think problems related to only a few people having commit privileges is either: 1) new to sidechains or 2) worse with sidechains.

Again, the issue of having to trust a few centralized people with commit privileges is a problem Bitcoin has today and has always had. These maintainers have a variety of conflicting interests today. The potential problem you are ascribing to sidechains is not a problem for sidechains but a problem for Bitcoin. Yes the Bitcoin network is trustless in that you only have to trust the code and math, but Bitcoin still places a great deal of trust in a few people who maintain the code. Everytime you update your wallet version, you are trusting that someone else did not do something dishonest.

Sidechains have the potential to reduce this problem by enabling decentralized implementation of features and not relying on a few people, it actually improves the issue.

a fundamental principle of Bitcoin as i've understood it is to design systems to be as resilient and trust free as possible.  why wouldn't this extend to those ppl who have influence over the source code?

Bitcoin today requires significant trust in a few people maintaining the code. For example last month Luke Jr slipped an update to Ubuntu (or was it Debian) that blocked statoshidice and a few similar addresses, and it caused a huge uproar. Many people claimed he tried to force his religious preferences against gambling onto the network (personally I think it was just a non-malicious mistake where his own setting were accidentally moved to the release version), but it demonstrates that the potential for abuse is very real today.

This is an example of Bitcoin today not being trustless, but in fact trusting maintainers.

The issue you are ascribing to sidechains is not a sidechains issue, it is a Bitcoin issue. Unless you can show that the problem is made worse with sidechains, then it's not really a problem for sidechains.
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November 07, 2014, 11:01:13 AM
 #16099

Somewhat related to the ongoing debate on the sidechains concept,
this is a good-to-read thread on the bitcoin development mailing list:

http://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net&q=subject:%22Re%3A+%5BBitcoin-development%5D+The+difficulty+of+writing+consensus+critical+code%3A+the+SIGHASH_SINGLE+bug%22

particularly enlightening is this piece from Peter Todd in response to Justus:

Quote from: Peter Todd (emphasis mine)
In the current model, the specification *is* the protocol, and the
Bitcoin Core team is scared to death of changing anything; they've got
very little real power. Soft-forks are the minimum-viable way of making
changes to the protocol, and it's very clear how they get adopted:
minerr consensus. They're also a fundemental way of changing the
protocol that is impossible to prevent, so you might as well use it.

You'll find another insight of what's the real complexity of bitcoin
development at the beginning of the aforementioned thread.

Peter is talking about how every node alt-implementation has to
replicate the exact same behaviour of Bitcoin Core in terms of consensus
policies (even bugs if any), otherwise it will be forked off the network.
It is what he calls "bug-for-bug" compatibility. I've found it fascinating.

Another really interesting quote from Peter :

Quote from: Peter Todd
You know, the smartest thing the Bitcoin Foundation could do if they
wanted to cement their place in the Bitcoin ecosystem as a power broker
would be to setup a program of periodic hard-forks, say every year or
two, and then manage the committees that decide what goes into those
hard-forks. That they haven't suggested that yet is a sign that they're
either not evil, or they don't understand Bitcoin very well.

p.s. sorry for being way too OT

Bitcoin is a participatory system which ought to respect the right of self determinism of all of its users - Gregory Maxwell.
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November 07, 2014, 12:41:34 PM
 #16100

OK, that makes sense. But isn't that still the same as Bitcoin in 2009/10/11 where Satoshi and later Gavin had control over commit privileges? The protocol change for sidechains is one time, after that the 5 guys in Blockstream have limited influence.

What this does is to decentralize implementation of new features. Today you have to go through a small number of people to get a commit accepted. With sidechains anyone can implement a new feature and the community can choose which to adopt. This puts the power to extend features directly in the hands of the community and out of the hands of the few commiters of today. This is decentralized implementation of features, which has tremendous potential benefits.

It seems if you are worried about today's situation where only a few people have commit privileges and have too much influence over new features, then sidechains address that worry by removing power from these few people.

It seems another fear is SC's causing the main Bitcoin chain to become stagnate and thus unused over time, damaging the network. I guess I just see this as an upgrade path. If everyone switches to a SC, that SC because the main chain. The 21M ledger is still intact.

And it's actually a better upgrade path from today. Again today those 5 guys with commit privileges can push us all to upgrade. With SC's the upgrade is completely voluntary for individuals to move, everyone can decide on their own when they feel ready to move.

the way i understand the github process is that while you may be able to put patches up there freely, nothing can be written to the source code w/o consensus from the core devs themselves.  b/c the vast majority of them now work in one company, there is a potential for them to possibly insert what they want and definitely to block what they don't want.

Your understanding of the process is the same as mine.

But again, isn't this the case today? What's different from today. At least with SC's you can implement new features outside of the centralized process we have currently (which I do not like).

JR has asked the question about technology that might obsolete the need for SC's and how that might get blocked.  he doesn't think his question got answered satisfactorily.  it is a potential problem that the community needs to address and talk about as it does have real world implications if abused.  they're basically saying "trust us".  it's up to you.

If there is strong demand, I don't think they can block SC alternatives. In Linux committers have a lot of control over their pieces, but it's not infinite by any means.

And again Blockstream does not have any control over sidechains where adoption of sidechains guarantees them money in any sort of way. We might find Blockstream has disappeared in a year and the 5 people mentioned above are now advocating for a SC alternative.

I think you bring up an important point which is "is this version of sidechains the best or are there potentially other solutions that are better". The reason this is important is once we have one version implemented, the preference will be to stick with the current version even if something better comes along later. So, we should make sure we implement the right technology first. That's a bigger sticking point for me.

no one is saying there "are" going to be problems, only that there is the potential for problems when it comes down to money.  blocking other innovations that might make SC's obsolete in the future could cost Blockstream lucrative contracts; after all, Austin has talked about designing SC's for gvts currencies.

a fundamental principle of Bitcoin as i've understood it is to design systems to be as resilient and trust free as possible.  why wouldn't this extend to those ppl who have influence over the source code?

I get that you are only talking about the potential for problems.

I am asking why you think problems related to only a few people having commit privileges is either: 1) new to sidechains or 2) worse with sidechains.

Again, the issue of having to trust a few centralized people with commit privileges is a problem Bitcoin has today and has always had. These maintainers have a variety of conflicting interests today. The potential problem you are ascribing to sidechains is not a problem for sidechains but a problem for Bitcoin. Yes the Bitcoin network is trustless in that you only have to trust the code and math, but Bitcoin still places a great deal of trust in a few people who maintain the code. Everytime you update your wallet version, you are trusting that someone else did not do something dishonest.

Sidechains have the potential to reduce this problem by enabling decentralized implementation of features and not relying on a few people, it actually improves the issue.

a fundamental principle of Bitcoin as i've understood it is to design systems to be as resilient and trust free as possible.  why wouldn't this extend to those ppl who have influence over the source code?

Bitcoin today requires significant trust in a few people maintaining the code. For example last month Luke Jr slipped an update to Ubuntu (or was it Debian) that blocked statoshidice and a few similar addresses, and it caused a huge uproar. Many people claimed he tried to force his religious preferences against gambling onto the network (personally I think it was just a non-malicious mistake where his own setting were accidentally moved to the release version), but it demonstrates that the potential for abuse is very real today.

This is an example of Bitcoin today not being trustless, but in fact trusting maintainers.

The issue you are ascribing to sidechains is not a sidechains issue, it is a Bitcoin issue. Unless you can show that the problem is made worse with sidechains, then it's not really a problem for sidechains.

Well see, you haven't really read the last 100 pages or so of this debate, or at least what I've repeatedly said  about conflict of interest.

The problem is your starting supposition : something is  wrong with Bitcoin and needs  to be fixed. That's not my starting point. I  don't think something is wrong  with Bitcoin and it should be left  alone.
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