Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[brg444]

Does that make my argument any less true?

You aren't making any arguments.

You're inventing stories on the fly, without even bothering to maintain a pretense of consistency from post to post.

Do you not recognize there are applications that demand more decentralization than federation/oracles/OT can provide?

Would you trust any lesser decentralized schemes with money functions of Bitcoin that are not supported by the mainchain?

[STT]

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/islamic-state-finances-how-terror-groups-move-money-E1QGs4SPTaaMkUzcjjMi~g.html


Islamic state using gold (silver, copper also) as their 'national' currency but also bitcoin allegedly.      US spec ops investigating ways to disrupt payments ?
I dont get how they even still exist, yet alone operate actual economies out there in the desert.  Not that we cant reach them surely

[brg444]

Do you not recognize there are applications that demand more decentralization than federation/oracles/OT can provide?

Would you trust any lesser decentralized schemes with money functions of Bitcoin that are not supported by the mainchain?

Please STFU this used to be a nice thread to follow.

I agree, that is until cypherdoc polluted it with his FUD and misinformation.

By the way there's at least 4 pages of discussion on sidechains that were created today without any of my participation so maybe you should stay away for awhile if you don't care to discuss them.

[justusranvier]

Do you not recognize there are applications that demand more decentralization than federation/oracles/OT can provide?

Would you trust any lesser decentralized schemes with money functions of Bitcoin that are not supported by the mainchain?

That's not the point.

You started out selling sidechains as an "equivalent level of decentralization and security" compared to the main chain.

Are they or are they not capable of providing that?

[Adrian-x]

an analogy to the self contained financial system that i envision with Bitcoin is gold.

there is a finite amount of gold circulating throughout the world.  it's stored, it's used, it's supply is theoretically immutable.  none of it gets "transformed" to other speculative assets at any time.  and for 5000 yrs it served as the basis for a sound money system.  

by promoting the transformation of BTC units over to "different less secure ledgers" which now seems to be accepted here by even brg444, how is Bitcoins Sound Money function sustained?

There are plenty of examples of gold "side chains".  The GLD ETF derives its value from gold.  Egold once derived its value from gold.  In fact anyone who owns any kind of note that is redeemable for gold is participating in a gold "side chain".  Perhaps the most infamous example is the USD which has also lost its peg to gold.  These pegs were eventually lost because of central points of failure, but the physical gold remained unharmed.  Bitcoin distributes these central points of failure and if side chains fail, the bitcoin will remain.  Of course none of the elemental properties of gold were changed to create gold "side chains" and that is why we should go the federated route with bitcoin.

the bitcoin can be lost in a SC failure though.  i think confidence is eroded in the entire system certainly in the case of those owners who lose their scBTC.

Bitcoin can also be locked in for a length of time by the miners, remember merge mining can mine empty blocks on the SideChain locking it without forfeiting there mining revenue earned on other SideChains or Bitcoin.  

Which implies they forfeit the mining revenue of the chain they are attacking. If users decide that this chain is valuable to them it is in the miners best interest to preserve their economic incentives

this is new, in Bitcoin land, to use 100% of your mining power you had to forfeit 100% of your income and pay for the energy needed to be a malicious miner, in the post SC BTC world you can use 100% of your mining power and attack the network, while still earning tx fees on other chains, these kind of speculative attacks was not possible before, its just labour and gold rigging, on the protocol level. its will always be profitable.

[brg444]

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/islamic-state-finances-how-terror-groups-move-money-E1QGs4SPTaaMkUzcjjMi~g.html


Islamic state using gold (silver, copper also) as their 'national' currency but also bitcoin allegedly.      US spec ops investigating ways to disrupt payments ?
I dont get how they even still exist, yet alone operate actual economies out there in the desert.  Not that we cant reach them surely

The situation is probably akin to a typical serfdom

[brg444]

Do you not recognize there are applications that demand more decentralization than federation/oracles/OT can provide?

Would you trust any lesser decentralized schemes with money functions of Bitcoin that are not supported by the mainchain?

That's not the point.

You started out selling sidechains as an "equivalent level of decentralization and security" compared to the main chain.

Are they or are they not capable of providing that?

Sorry then, maybe equivalent was not the proper word.

They surely are closer to Bitcoin's level of decentralization and security than any other option. As close as technically possible in fact.

[Adrian-x]

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/islamic-state-finances-how-terror-groups-move-money-E1QGs4SPTaaMkUzcjjMi~g.html


Islamic state using gold (silver, copper also) as their 'national' currency but also bitcoin allegedly.      US spec ops investigating ways to disrupt payments ?
I dont get how they even still exist, yet alone operate actual economies out there in the desert.  Not that we cant reach them surely

if you flow the news the US congress agreed to supply the moderate rebels with arms, they then delivered a huge chunk to the wrong rebels (ISIS), and the other reals who were supposed to fight them and the Syrians took delivery but surrendered to ISIS without a shot.

then there is the oil, you just need to sanction them not buy the oil, but someone is buying their oil, its not Europe the Russians or China, 

[brg444]

this is new, in Bitcoin land, to use 100% of your mining power you had to forfeit 100% of your income and pay for the energy needed to be a malicious miner, in the post SC BTC world you can use 100% of your mining power and attack the network, while still earning tx fees on other chains, these kind of speculative attacks went possible before, its just labour and gold rigging, on the protocol level. its will always be profitable.

I understand the risk but as I have suggested before, I envision that only chains supporting considerable value will use MM to secure themselves.

In this scenario miners will MM 100% of these chains because they have considerable economic incentive to do so. What you are suggesting is that they will forfeit a percentage of their revenue for obscure reasons.

It seems to me this is no more a valuable proposition than attacking Bitcoin itself. A chain that supports only 10% of the economy could possibly generate hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in potential revenue for the miners.

Moreover, is it not possible for the network to eventually penalize malicious actors? If a pool finds it reasonable to attack a 10% of the ecosystem is there not a way for the network to effectively "ban" this pool from mining all of the chains to penalize them?

[justusranvier]

In this scenario miners will MM 100% of these chains because they have considerable economic incentive to do so. What you are suggesting is that they will forfeit a percentage of their revenue for obscure reasons.

This is the same argument PoS systems to explain their security model.

You've either proved that PoS is equivalent to PoW for distributed consensus, or you're advocating replacing Bitcoin with a PoS system under the guise of an upgrade.

[Erdogan]

Of course none of the elemental properties of gold were changed to create gold "side chains" and that is why we should go the federated route with bitcoin.

i think this is where we agree; if we are going to use SC's at all.  of course, there's always OT as well.

Yes.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Bingo!  we have a Winner!

If you look at Peter R's three scenarios and my comments (I hoped someone else would point this out...) there is not really that much difference between sidechains and altcoins. The sidechains' promoters just want to get a flying start. In my opinion, they won't. The economics does not support it.

 

There is absolutely a most fundamental difference. Sidechains, unlike altcoins, derive their value and their scarcity from the Bitcoin mainchain. This enables users to claim a 1:1 stake in any sidechain they are interested in, unlike with altcoins

The sidechain scBTS's are a different form of money. Much like the warehouse receipts for gold, just like you said earlier. They will have a different value if they are allowed to float. If not, as with the peg (there will always be a bit of resistance between the two, just like with gold certificates, it takes at least some time and some cost to deposit and retrieve the gold). The idea that you can take the bitcoins off the blockchain and shove them around, is wrong. You can only have the bitcoins, or deposit them, manually with trust as in a bank, or automatically with the sidechain.

[NewLiberty]

an analogy to the self contained financial system that i envision with Bitcoin is gold.

there is a finite amount of gold circulating throughout the world.  it's stored, it's used, it's supply is theoretically immutable.  none of it gets "transformed" to other speculative assets at any time.  and for 5000 yrs it served as the basis for a sound money system.  

by promoting the transformation of BTC units over to "different less secure ledgers" which now seems to be accepted here by even brg444, how is Bitcoins Sound Money function sustained?

There are plenty of examples of gold "side chains".  The GLD ETF derives its value from gold.  Egold once derived its value from gold.  In fact anyone who owns any kind of note that is redeemable for gold is participating in a gold "side chain".  Perhaps the most infamous example is the USD which has also lost its peg to gold.  These pegs were eventually lost because of central points of failure, but the physical gold remained unharmed.  Bitcoin distributes these central points of failure and if side chains fail, the bitcoin will remain.  Of course none of the elemental properties of gold were changed to create gold "side chains" and that is why we should go the federated route with bitcoin.

the bitcoin can be lost in a SC failure though.  i think confidence is eroded in the entire system certainly in the case of those owners who lose their scBTC.

Bitcoin can also be locked in for a length of time by the miners, remember merge mining can mine empty blocks on the SideChain locking it without forfeiting there mining revenue earned on other SideChains or Bitcoin.  

Which implies they forfeit the mining revenue of the chain they are attacking. If users decide that this chain is valuable to them it is in the miners best interest to preserve their economic incentives

this is new, in Bitcoin land, to use 100% of your mining power you had to forfeit 100% of your income and pay for the energy needed to be a malicious miner, in the post SC BTC world you can use 100% of your mining power and attack the network, while still earning tx fees on other chains, these kind of speculative attacks was not possible before, its just labour and gold rigging, on the protocol level. its will always be profitable.

Hmm...
It seems that in later years (with smaller coinbase TX block rewards) under the scenario of a very successful MM SC, the miner may be 51% the MC and mining the SC profitably without significant opportunity costs.
Since SPV is a soft fork, they could be 51%ing MC without supporting SPV on the MC and maliciously unlocking BTC from the SC.

[thezerg]

The same value can not be held simultaneously in the main chain and in a side chain.

But the value of the sidechain is derived from the mainchain and so the scarcity and ledger is respected.

This is a very interesting theoretical question: "where is the value stored for a sidechain?"  

blah blah blah

Wow, you can describe all that in one line:  The price change will be proportional to the flow derivative.  

In other words, if BTC was moving (and would have continued to move) into the sidechain, the SC price when "broken" will rise.  If BTC is moving out of the sidechain the price will fall.

If you are still confused think about modelling it.  You would best model this by creating "value" as an immaterial quantity.  Each chain HAS a value (essentially a market cap, which is price * quantity), based on its usefulness.  If 2 chains are pegged, changes to the value cannot be expressed in price, so quantity must change -- that is BTC is transmuted from one chain to another.  If 2 chains are not pegged, changes to the value cannot be expressed by moving quantity so price must change.  This idea is fundamental; it applies to all commodities and products where you can transform one to another.

the whole point that Peter R is trying to make is that with SC's, value gets "shared" btwn MC and all SC's.  with the potential of being "severed" or "fragmented".  

we don't want that with Bitcoin.  we want it ALL on the mainchain.  we want all outsiders to be forced to "buy in" to BTC for their seat at the table.

who here wants to share value with Truthcoin?

Cypherdoc your reasoning is completely flawed.  First of all, I know that you aren't an engineer, but you still you should be able to understand  that it CANT be ALL on the mainchain.  There are diametrically opposed requirements.  Like anonymity vs. public spending accountability.  Like handling vast numbers of txns per second vs. keeping all transactions forever.  Like blockchain spam vs. document timestamping.  There are plenty of things with diametrically opposed requirements in life, like sleeping (darkness) and reading a book (bright light); its unrealistic to imagine no 2 applications will emerge in a space which covers the entire concept of economic activity.

Why have all prior altcoins failed?  Simply because they're all essentially the same.  Different POW?  Come on, what end user cares?  Bitcoin 2.0 (assets)?  Colored coins is good enough, but the market is not mature enough for anyone to care right now.  

You may argue that there will never emerge a use case that is both compelling and that Bitcoin cannot handle.  Ok in that case there will be no sidechains, because Metcalf's law, etc and so the functionality will simply sit unused, and eventually be deprecated.  There is no drawback to this.

But if a use case DOES emerge, the only way to pull that value into Bitcoin is via sidechains -- because with a sidechain the Bitcoin 21million scarcity token can be applied to that use case.

You need to contemplate what you cannot contemplate, not make decisions only based on what you know.

So the ONLY way to get "all outsiders to be forced to "buy in" to BTC for their seat at the table" is via sidechains.

my position is that Bitcoin should only be used as Money.  all other services should simply use Bitcoin as money.  Bitcoin should not have to build in any other services.

is that consistent with your model?  it doesn't sound like it.

Hmm... we are lacking the terminology here.  Gold or USD is also money.  Bitcoin is money with addtl features like guaranteed scarcity and simple transfer.  These features make it better money.  But exchange is not supported (atomic trustless worldwide).   Changetip and lots of other services dont really use it.  By this I mean other then the on and off ramp changetip might as well be using USD.

I want BTC to be the universal electronic embodiment of value -- the final money.

 To do so it needs to truly be integral to the applications that require value.  But I want the main chain to remain the safe low risk equivalent of holding FRNs or gold.  I dont want tons of features thrown into the mainchain -- too dangerous.  At the same time having every app use BTC equivalently to how it would use USD (centralized offline storage with individuals balance in a DB) is wasting btc's revolutionary technologies.  Sidechains are the way to keep the core safe yet allow BTC to assume the role of the ultimate money.

[Adrian-x]

an analogy to the self contained financial system that i envision with Bitcoin is gold.

there is a finite amount of gold circulating throughout the world.  it's stored, it's used, it's supply is theoretically immutable.  none of it gets "transformed" to other speculative assets at any time.  and for 5000 yrs it served as the basis for a sound money system.  

by promoting the transformation of BTC units over to "different less secure ledgers" which now seems to be accepted here by even brg444, how is Bitcoins Sound Money function sustained?

There are plenty of examples of gold "side chains".  The GLD ETF derives its value from gold.  Egold once derived its value from gold.  In fact anyone who owns any kind of note that is redeemable for gold is participating in a gold "side chain".  Perhaps the most infamous example is the USD which has also lost its peg to gold.  These pegs were eventually lost because of central points of failure, but the physical gold remained unharmed.  Bitcoin distributes these central points of failure and if side chains fail, the bitcoin will remain.  Of course none of the elemental properties of gold were changed to create gold "side chains" and that is why we should go the federated route with bitcoin.

the bitcoin can be lost in a SC failure though.  i think confidence is eroded in the entire system certainly in the case of those owners who lose their scBTC.

Bitcoin can also be locked in for a length of time by the miners, remember merge mining can mine empty blocks on the SideChain locking it without forfeiting there mining revenue earned on other SideChains or Bitcoin.  

Which implies they forfeit the mining revenue of the chain they are attacking. If users decide that this chain is valuable to them it is in the miners best interest to preserve their economic incentives

this is new, in Bitcoin land, to use 100% of your mining power you had to forfeit 100% of your income and pay for the energy needed to be a malicious miner, in the post SC BTC world you can use 100% of your mining power and attack the network, while still earning tx fees on other chains, these kind of speculative attacks was not possible before, its just labour and gold rigging, on the protocol level. its will always be profitable.

Hmm...
It seems that in later years (with smaller coinbase TX block rewards) under the scenario of a very successful MM SC, the miner may be 51% the MC and mining the SC profitably without significant opportunity costs.
Since SPV is a soft fork, they could be 51%ing MC without supporting SPV on the MC and maliciously unlocking BTC from the SC.

I hadn't thought of it like that, but yes it may take a while to unwind the locked BTC, if it could happen. I presumed we'd be left with the SC and Bitcoin intact, and just manipulate the market by stopping (or slowing) the flow in and out at opportune moments.

[brg444]

In this scenario miners will MM 100% of these chains because they have considerable economic incentive to do so. What you are suggesting is that they will forfeit a percentage of their revenue for obscure reasons.

This is the same argument PoS systems to explain their security model.

You've either proved that PoS is equivalent to PoW for distributed consensus, or you're advocating replacing Bitcoin with a PoS system under the guise of an upgrade.

I guess so, except it takes considerably more resources

[brg444]

Of course none of the elemental properties of gold were changed to create gold "side chains" and that is why we should go the federated route with bitcoin.

i think this is where we agree; if we are going to use SC's at all.  of course, there's always OT as well.

Yes.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Bingo!  we have a Winner!

If you look at Peter R's three scenarios and my comments (I hoped someone else would point this out...) there is not really that much difference between sidechains and altcoins. The sidechains' promoters just want to get a flying start. In my opinion, they won't. The economics does not support it.

 

There is absolutely a most fundamental difference. Sidechains, unlike altcoins, derive their value and their scarcity from the Bitcoin mainchain. This enables users to claim a 1:1 stake in any sidechain they are interested in, unlike with altcoins

The sidechain scBTS's are a different form of money. Much like the warehouse receipts for gold, just like you said earlier. They will have a different value if they are allowed to float. If not, as with the peg (there will always be a bit of resistance between the two, just like with gold certificates, it takes at least some time and some cost to deposit and retrieve the gold). The idea that you can take the bitcoins off the blockchain and shove them around, is wrong. You can only have the bitcoins, or deposit them, manually with trust as in a bank, or automatically with the sidechain.

A different form is right.

Currency issued out of a reserve chain. The difference in value that you propose (in the case of a peg) is experience equally by all the users of the sidechain. The point is whatever value is assigned to the chain is derived from a user's stake in BTC.

Moreover atomic swaps in an optimal and liquid market will allow for near instant reversibility or transfer of assets.

Also, if no user uses the chain then there are effectively no coins on the chain. That is very much unlike altcoins vers units are either premined or distributed following some parameters.

[cypherdoc]

Do you not recognize there are applications that demand more decentralization than federation/oracles/OT can provide?

Would you trust any lesser decentralized schemes with money functions of Bitcoin that are not supported by the mainchain?

Please STFU this used to be a nice thread to follow.

I agree, that is until cypherdoc polluted it with his FUD and misinformation.

By the way there's at least 4 pages of discussion on sidechains that were created today without any of my participation so maybe you should stay away for awhile if you don't care to discuss them.

what an idiot

[cypherdoc]

The same value can not be held simultaneously in the main chain and in a side chain.

But the value of the sidechain is derived from the mainchain and so the scarcity and ledger is respected.

This is a very interesting theoretical question: "where is the value stored for a sidechain?"  

blah blah blah

Wow, you can describe all that in one line:  The price change will be proportional to the flow derivative.  

In other words, if BTC was moving (and would have continued to move) into the sidechain, the SC price when "broken" will rise.  If BTC is moving out of the sidechain the price will fall.

If you are still confused think about modelling it.  You would best model this by creating "value" as an immaterial quantity.  Each chain HAS a value (essentially a market cap, which is price * quantity), based on its usefulness.  If 2 chains are pegged, changes to the value cannot be expressed in price, so quantity must change -- that is BTC is transmuted from one chain to another.  If 2 chains are not pegged, changes to the value cannot be expressed by moving quantity so price must change.  This idea is fundamental; it applies to all commodities and products where you can transform one to another.

the whole point that Peter R is trying to make is that with SC's, value gets "shared" btwn MC and all SC's.  with the potential of being "severed" or "fragmented".  

we don't want that with Bitcoin.  we want it ALL on the mainchain.  we want all outsiders to be forced to "buy in" to BTC for their seat at the table.

who here wants to share value with Truthcoin?

Cypherdoc your reasoning is completely flawed.  First of all, I know that you aren't an engineer, but you still you should be able to understand  that it CANT be ALL on the mainchain.  There are diametrically opposed requirements.  Like anonymity vs. public spending accountability.  Like handling vast numbers of txns per second vs. keeping all transactions forever.  Like blockchain spam vs. document timestamping.  There are plenty of things with diametrically opposed requirements in life, like sleeping (darkness) and reading a book (bright light); its unrealistic to imagine no 2 applications will emerge in a space which covers the entire concept of economic activity.

Why have all prior altcoins failed?  Simply because they're all essentially the same.  Different POW?  Come on, what end user cares?  Bitcoin 2.0 (assets)?  Colored coins is good enough, but the market is not mature enough for anyone to care right now.  

You may argue that there will never emerge a use case that is both compelling and that Bitcoin cannot handle.  Ok in that case there will be no sidechains, because Metcalf's law, etc and so the functionality will simply sit unused, and eventually be deprecated.  There is no drawback to this.

But if a use case DOES emerge, the only way to pull that value into Bitcoin is via sidechains -- because with a sidechain the Bitcoin 21million scarcity token can be applied to that use case.

You need to contemplate what you cannot contemplate, not make decisions only based on what you know.

So the ONLY way to get "all outsiders to be forced to "buy in" to BTC for their seat at the table" is via sidechains.

my position is that Bitcoin should only be used as Money.  all other services should simply use Bitcoin as money.  Bitcoin should not have to build in any other services.

is that consistent with your model?  it doesn't sound like it.

Hmm... we are lacking the terminology here.  Gold or USD is also money.  Bitcoin is money with addtl features like guaranteed scarcity and simple transfer.  These features make it better money.  But exchange is not supported (atomic trustless worldwide).   Changetip and lots of other services dont really use it.  By this I mean other then the on and off ramp changetip might as well be using USD.

I want BTC to be the universal electronic embodiment of value -- the final money.

 To do so it needs to truly be integral to the applications that require value.  But I want the main chain to remain the safe low risk equivalent of holding FRNs or gold.  I dont want tons of features thrown into the mainchain -- too dangerous.  At the same time having every app use BTC equivalently to how it would use USD (centralized offline storage with individuals balance in a DB) is wasting btc's revolutionary technologies.  Sidechains are the way to keep the core safe yet allow BTC to assume the role of the ultimate money.

if you give it time to grow it can be that ultimate money.  but by breaking the security link btwn the unit and blockchain, how can this be achieved.  the SC's will be less secure and different ledgers.  they are not extensions of Bitcoin.  they will be speculative.  we want the same things but i don't see how SC's do this.

please explain your vision of atomic trustless exchange.

[Adrian-x]

brg444, i see the game is changing, is this the shitty job you were taking about? "Reactveritsing™"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHp5_Gcpb9Q
I believe the euphemism in the industry is called a Digital Influencers.

oh hell they have teems of there guys who's going to pay for all this advertising.  

[tabnloz]

Jim Rickards in an interview re: China debt, global depression (lower % growth than could be achieved - the Keynesian def) and timing of the next crisis

Anyways, speaking about a system reset, the last question was:

Do you think such scenarios make people more optimistic about crypto currencies like Bitcoins?

I see the rise of crypto-currencies as a sign of waning confidence in traditional currencies, such as the dollar. I expect the trend towards alternative currencies, such as Bitcoin, to grow as central banks continue to fail in their efforts to manipulate asset values.

http://internationalfinancemagazine.com/article/The-debt-problem-in-China-is-not-hype.html#sthash.XPW1qNhD.dpuf

Nice find.

The back pedaling is  almost complete.

And, accordingly on Twitter, his new online store accepts bitcoin.