Fork off

[Taras]

See this pyramid? You're currently at the bottom of it

http://english102-tamuc-barnes.wikispaces.com/file/view/Argument_Pyramid.jpg/112461215/Argument_Pyramid.jpg

Oh yeah, and he was definitely at the top

I went all the way down just to reach his level...

i think he correctly applied consensus principle

we should be writing this down...

edit: oh yeah, message board....

[MrTeal]

This thread was proceeding so civilly for the last week. I suppose I knew I couldn't last.

[VectorChief]

I like this little guy! He has some leadership skills on him too.

Sometimes I wonder, what would this place be if there were some sort of minimal intelligence check...

We would end up in a perfect world with "designer babies" and then... Gattaca!

[neurotypical]

I like this little guy! He has some leadership skills on him too.

Sometimes I wonder, what would this place be if there were some sort of minimal intelligence check...

We would end up in a perfect world with "designer babies" and then... Gattaca!

We need to get Einsteins DNA and mix it with Satoshi, create a baby that will create a new coin that fixes every single problem with BTC

[solex]

Can we trade a little security for wider adoption? Would wider adoption make it more valuable? Nobody knows.

How much will the value of bitcoin drop when people realize it can never scale? Nobody knows.

You aren't sacrificing wider adoption of Bitcoin. You are sacrificing wider on chain adoption of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin can scale perfectly well with off chain transactions. History has shown us this when the "off-chain US dollar" was backed by "on-chain gold."

Your trading a little bit of Bitcoin security for adoption is akin to making the gold more easy to counterfeit.

IMO off chain for serious stuff is trouble and defeats the purpose of Bitcoin, we may as well stay in fiat if this becomes a norm.

The side-chain (off-chain) solutions are also a compromise between performance and de/centralization, and logically it becomes a rats-nest:

Consider the case where 1MB is the block size limit and global bitcoin tx volumes are high enough to require 10MB blocks. Then at least 9 sidechains are needed. Unless one sidechain can have 9MB, or even 10MB blocks, which begs the question of why the BTC mainchain can't have 10MB blocks! Also wouldn't a 10MB sidechain just take over from the crippled 1MB mainchain?

If the offchains or sidechains are centralized in order to raise performance then there is a central point of failure (and central point for surveillance, and central point for government kill-switch) for 90% of the bitcoin transaction volume. This defeats the whole point of the decentralized peer-to-peer network. If the off-chains/sidechains are decentralized then they need a large network of full nodes. Where are they coming from?

Gavin's testing of 20MB blocks shows that loading (disk io) for these is 4x faster than 20 1MB blocks. So there are economies of scale which are not easily seen with lots of sidechains.  The off-chains/sidechains may have a role for micro-tx or faster block times, or 2.0 data storage, but don't help with handling tx volumes while still maintaining a fully decentralized payments system and currency.

[NxtChg]

People worry about transaction fees being too low as a result of larger blocks, but isn't this a free market between miners and users?

If I am a miner, can't I create artificial scarcity by enforcing a soft limit? By simply not including transactions below my profitability threshold?

Similar to the milk producers pouring excess milk down the drain.

So maybe we should worry about the inverse actually: that miners will form cartels and start limiting even 1 MB blocks

[gustav]

Not doing the fork in favour of socialist central planning and letting txs be a scarce thing and let fees rise a little with free market mechanisms will also get rid of the spam. It will also make sure miners have an incentive to mine far in the future. They'll be getting fees afterall.
Without fork, Satoshi dice and other gambling on the chain for small dollars would be the first thing to go and would be looking for offchain gambling (and not even soon but far in the future). I think all this fork-thing has no urgency at all as long as gambling for small dollars can take place on the chain in massive amounts.

Why would you want to allow for blockchain bloat from tons of microtransactions like small-dollar-gambling? A fork to larger blocks isn't justified as long as the microtransactions-spam can take place.

And why should miners support the fork? It just takes their future earning from fees away.

Doing a fork now without a need will also reap you a damaged image as people would start to call it Gavincoin instead of Bitcoin.

[NxtChg]

Why can't miners create artificial scarcity if they need it?

What percentage of blocks the top 3 miners generate? Like 70%? If they come together and decide not to include any transaction with fee smaller than 0.0001, and a few others follow their lead, it might be that you will have to wait a day or two to include cheaper transaction.

It will be a perfect trade-off between time and money: you want your txs confirmed faster? Pay more. It will also limit gambling "spam" by making it either more expensive or too unreliable/slow.

The difference with hard limit is that the hard limit is hard. If there's a sudden jump in popularity, there's nothing you can do.

In case of the soft limit by miners - it can grow dynamically, based on how many 0.0001 txs are being sent.

[gustav]

Why can't miners create artificial scarcity if they need it?

What percentage of blocks the top 3 miners generate? Like 70%? If they come together and decide not to include any transaction with fee smaller than 0.0001, and a few others follow their lead, it might be that you will have to wait a day or two to include cheaper transaction.

It will be a perfect trade-off between time and money: you want your txs confirmed faster? Pay more. It will also limit gambling "spam" by making it either more expensive or too unreliable/slow.

The difference with hard limit is that the hard limit is hard. If there's a sudden jump in popularity, there's nothing you can do.

In case of the soft limit by miners - it can grow dynamically, based on how many 0.0001 txs are being sent.

Sure. The fork supports for the formation of a miners cartel and insider deals. A real great thing (not).

[NxtChg]

Sure. The fork supports for the formation of a miners cartel and insider deals. A real great thing (not).

Not sure what you mean by the scary sounding "insider deals", but nothing stops them from forming cartels any time.

Right now the block reward is much more important to them. Once that's cut or gone they are free to do anything they consider best for their interests. That's how the free market works.

[danielpbarron]

If the offchains or sidechains are centralized in order to raise performance then there is a central point of failure (and central point for surveillance, and central point for government kill-switch) for 90% of the bitcoin transaction volume. This defeats the whole point of the decentralized peer-to-peer network. If the off-chains/sidechains are decentralized then they need a large network of full nodes. Where are they coming from?

Gavin's testing of 20MB blocks shows that loading (disk io) for these is 4x faster than 20 1MB blocks. So there are economies of scale which are not easily seen with lots of sidechains.  The off-chains/sidechains may have a role for micro-tx or faster block times, or 2.0 data storage, but don't help with handling tx volumes while still maintaining a fully decentralized payments system and currency.

It's true that the off-chain transactions would be easier for governments to diddle. So? The blockchain is still there if you're willing to pay for it. You don't just get the nice feature of secure anonymous money transfer without paying for it. Sure, one 20 MB block writes faster than twenty 1 MB blocks, but that 20 MB block is followed by another 20 MB block ten minutes later. If your argument is read/write speed, then off-chain methods are certainly faster. The blockchain is not meant to be fast or efficient; it's just the only way to do what it does, which is keep track of a decentralized ledger.

If I am a miner, can't I create artificial scarcity by enforcing a soft limit? By simply not including transactions below my profitability threshold?

Sure, but you still have to validate, distribute, and store the large blocks of other miners. Also, full node operators that aren't miners will have no control over this soft-limit.

[NxtChg]

If I am a miner, can't I create artificial scarcity by enforcing a soft limit? By simply not including transactions below my profitability threshold?

Sure, but you still have to validate, distribute, and store the large blocks of other miners. Also, full node operators that aren't miners will have no control over this soft-limit.

That's why it seems that the only working solution if we want to get a significant share of world's transactions, will be a system of relatively small number of full nodes, each of which is paid for its service somehow.

The disagreement seems to be whether we want a bigger share: should Bitcoin grow and gain more value by being more useful or forever stay at 7 TPS and be some sort of internal ledger for rich to settle their poker debts.

Your argument about rich vs poor is not completely honest, too. You still need utility, otherwise you can each write your balance on a piece of paper and put it in your safe.

If Bitcoin doesn't grow, its utility will be forever fixed and limited. If you are a rich person, you probably want your money to be used, invested, etc. What good is a niche currency for you then? Just buy gold. If you can't do anything useful with your money anyway, gold is perfect.

[thelibertycap]

If I am a miner, can't I create artificial scarcity by enforcing a soft limit? By simply not including transactions below my profitability threshold?

Sure, but you still have to validate, distribute, and store the large blocks of other miners. Also, full node operators that aren't miners will have no control over this soft-limit.

That's why it seems that the only working solution if we want to get a significant share of world's transactions, will be a system of relatively small number of full nodes, each of which is paid for its service somehow.

The disagreement seems to be whether we want a bigger share: should Bitcoin grow and gain more value by being more useful or forever stay at 7 TPS and be some sort of internal ledger for rich to settle their poker debts.

Your argument about rich vs poor is not completely honest, too. You still need utility, otherwise you can each write your balance on a piece of paper and put it in your safe.

If Bitcoin doesn't grow, its utility will be forever fixed and limited. If you are a rich person, you probably want your money to be used, invested, etc. What good is a niche currency for you then? Just buy gold. If you can't do anything useful with your money anyway, gold is perfect.

few full nodes = current central banking paradigm. we don't need another centralized solution.
those nodes could make any changes to the protocol because it is up to the miners which bitcoin fork to accept.
bitcoin is dangerously centralized even right now so i am quite horrified by these sort of suggestions!!

for some reason ppl here try to suggest that growing bitcoin means more and more transactions. but it it not really about the amount but rather the volume. VISA card is not good for buying a gum for $50 (many shops will simply refuse to accept the card because of a high transaction fee) and I don't think VISA is bothered with the lack of growth due to this fact.

[NxtChg]

few full nodes = current central banking paradigm. we don't need another centralized solution.

I know. But from a purely technical perspective this must be done this way.

Yes, we will eventually build some sort of a banking system 2.0, probably with several levels of hierarchy. But hopefully it will be a better system: based on open source, transparency and checks and balances embedded into it by design and algorithms.

Idealistic vision of being completely free from governments and corporations is silly. We just need to build better versions of them.

for some reason ppl here try to suggest that growing bitcoin means more and more transactions. but it it not really about the amount but rather the volume. VISA card is not good for buying a gum for $50 (many shops will simply refuse to accept the card because of a high transaction fee) and I don't think VISA is bothered with the lack of growth due to this fact.

And you think 600 K transactions per day is enough to make any impact in the world of 7+ billion people?

[thelibertycap]

Idealistic vision of being completely free from governments and corporations is silly. We just need to build better versions of them.

Bitcoin does not depend on a government nor a corporation. I prefer it to stay this way and don't see anything silly about it.
If they want to use bitcoin or build services on top of it, I am fine with it, it's a free market, just don't mess with running our decentralized platform.
I think that the talk about superior centalized bitcoin that is exactly the kind of propaganda governments would pay for to get hold of bitcoin.

[NxtChg]

Bitcoin does not depend on a government nor a corporation. I prefer it to stay this way and don't see anything silly about it.
If they want to use bitcoin or build services on top of it, I am fine with it, it's a free market, just don't mess with running our decentralized platform.
I think that the talk about superior centalized bitcoin that is exactly the kind of propaganda governments would pay for to get hold of bitcoin.

Yeah, darn 'em gormevments and comprorations... Stay away from our community! We're building a barn.

Long live Amishcoin!

[danielpbarron]

I know. But from a purely technical perspective this must be done this way.

Why should I entertain your "technical perspective" when you aren't in the WoT. Maybe you should spend less time talking in circles on this thread, and confront your own problems over here.

Yeah, darn 'em gormevments and comprorations... Stay away from our community! We're building a barn.

Long live Amishcoin!

Seriously. Are you a USG plant? Get out of here.

[NxtChg]

Why should I entertain your "technical perspective" when you aren't in the WoT.

This is beyond retarded. What the hell is WoT? And you only listen to people who are on some IRC chat? Get outta here, clown...

Maybe you should spend less time talking in circles on this thread, and confront your own problems over here.

"My own problems"? I don't have any. Since when is one deranged lunatic a problem?

[phillipsjk]

This is beyond retarded. What the hell is WoT? And you only listen to people who are on some IRC chat? Get outta here, clown...

This is better explanation of the "web of trust".

Cryptographically proving who you are is how it is possible to do remote trades off-exchange.

I think his assertion that everything of importance is decided in #bitcoin-assets is a little presumptuous myself.

If we want to prove we can to better, we need better organization. That will prove difficult without some sort of Trust (or ability to ignore toxic people).

[NxtChg]

This is better explanation of the "web of trust".

Cryptographically proving who you are is how it is possible to do remote trades off-exchange.

I think his assertion that everything of importance is decided in #bitcoin-assets is a little presumptuous myself.

If we want to prove we can to better, we need better organization. That will prove difficult without some sort of Trust (or ability to ignore toxic people).

Thanks. That makes sense for OTC, but you don't seriously expect it to be some sort of gauge for forum posts?

When it comes to arguments, authority of any kind should be of little importance.

If you think I am stupid based on what I say, that's fine. But just dismissing me because I don't trade on some IRC? Pfff...

Still, it's nice that he's so scared he decided to discredit me personally, rather then reply

I'll take it as a compliment.