Bitcoin 20MB Fork

[danielpbarron]

It will be enough if they wish to have an unusable coin with confirmations being processed at a practically unusable speed for at least 2 weeks, and than slow as molasses for another 2 weeks. It may take many months with more miners dropping off with fear before they reach equilibrium due to the retarget limits set in the current source code.

This is why I was offering some friendly advice for them to get ready to create their own hard fork and migrate it to a new github so they have a chance of surviving during the brutal transition they will witness.

You pulled this notion directly out of your ass, and you keep repeating it like that'll make it true. Do you think that if you mimic my confidence it will make up for your lack of understanding? And yeah, in order to prevent a hard-fork we're gonna make a hard fork.

Time to start over with a new account. Yours is dead.

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[Cryddit]

True, you'll remain able to get the old version out of the repository, because it has all the past versions.  If you intend never to change anything ever again, I guess that's enough.  

Good luck with that.  

It will be enough if they wish to have an unusable coin with confirmations being processed at a practically unusable speed for at least 2 weeks, and than slow as molasses for another 2 weeks. It may take many months with more miners dropping off with fear before they reach equilibrium due to the retarget limits set in the current source code.

This is why I was offering some friendly advice for them to get ready to create their own hard fork and migrate it to a new github so they have a chance of surviving during the brutal transition they will witness.

Ooooh yeah. Been there, explained that.  Best case scenario with 5% of the hashing power is dropping 6 out of every 7 transactions on the ground. And it'll take a hell of a lot longer than 2 weeks to get 2016 blocks.

But, you know, I'm waiting to see how they cope with Berkeley Database 4.8, and OpenSSL version 1.01k, and how things are going to fail when google changes the format of its protocol buffers, and how other things are going to fail with the next revision of boost, and ....  well, ALL of that stuff I keep pointing to and saying we need to fix?  All of the stuff that, until it gets fixed, is going to give us occasional maintenance jobs, some of which are emergencies?  

When software depends on a property of a library which is not important to the main purpose of that library and which may be changed at any moment, it is vulnerable to version breaks.  And right now, Bitcoin has several version breaks.  

Berkeley Database is one that happened a while ago but we've never cleaned it out of the code.  OpenSSL broke just last month.  Protocol buffers and Boost haven't broken yet, but the people who maintain them WILL change them eventually.  Protocol buffers, in particular, are going to be a semi-emergency when it happens (same as OpenSSL was) because we have a dependency on the binary form of the data; if it changes, our signatures break, so we can't just convert data.  

But hey, if you're committed to never changing the software?  I guess you never have to build it either.  Just static-link that sucker and wait for the next Heartbleed bug....

[inBitweTrust]

Some honest advice of how you will need to ultimately defeat "Gavincoin" from occurring and/or destroying any antiquated remnant fork:
Start buying more asics and insure that you control at least 6% of hashrate at any given moment.

I have absolutely no idea how many miners your small group currently has but it is certainly possible if you invest enough, quickly enough, you may be able to prevent this from occurring or at least delay it.

You will need at least 20,085,506 GH/s and growing as difficulty is increasing in 6 days.

An investment of 17,390 ANTMINER S5s should do it

https://www.bitmaintech.com/productDetail.htm?pid=00020141223160858878EmLu6L5Q067D

which when purchased in bulk will cost over 6.1 million dollars .... but you will likely have to source miners from all companies new and used due to limitations in stock and asic retailers scamming you so costs will be much higher. Of course some of you may already mine so it would be a good idea to get together and figure out how much of a group buy is needed.

cheers.

[onemorebtc]

Some honest advice of how you will need to ultimately defeat "Gavincoin" from occurring and/or destroying any antiquated remnant fork:
Start buying more asics and insure that you control at least 6% of hashrate at any given moment.

I have absolutely no idea how many miners your small group currently has but it is certainly possible if you invest enough, quickly enough, you may be able to prevent this from occurring or at least delay it.

You will need at least 20,085,506 GH/s and growing as difficulty is increasing in 6 days.

An investment of 17,390 ANTMINER S5s should do it

https://www.bitmaintech.com/productDetail.htm?pid=00020141223160858878EmLu6L5Q067D

which when purchased in bulk will cost over 6.1 million dollars .... but you will likely have to source miners from all companies new and used due to limitations in stock and asic retailers scamming you so costs will be much higher. Of course some of you may already mine so it would be a good idea to get together and figure out how much of a group buy is needed.

cheers.

it would be easier for them by making a reward program where mp sends coins to any coinbase (miner-address) which does not advertise it'll make bigger blocks.

thats the best way i can imagine to prevent a fork - not that i want them to do that...

[inBitweTrust]

Ooooh yeah. Been there, explained that.  Best case scenario with 5% of the hashing power is dropping 6 out of every 7 transactions on the ground. And it'll take a hell of a lot longer than 2 weeks to get 2016 blocks.

But, you know, I'm waiting to see how they cope with Berkeley Database 4.8, and OpenSSL version 1.01k, and how things are going to fail when google changes the format of its protocol buffers, and how other things are going to fail with the next revision of boost, and ....  well, ALL of that stuff I keep pointing to and saying we need to fix?  All of the stuff that, until it gets fixed, is going to give us occasional maintenance jobs, some of which are emergencies?  

When software depends on a property of a library which is not important to the main purpose of that library and which may be changed at any moment, it is vulnerable to version breaks.  And right now, Bitcoin has several version breaks.  

Berkeley Database is one that happened a while ago but we've never cleaned it out of the code.  OpenSSL broke just last month.  Protocol buffers and Boost haven't broken yet, but the people who maintain them WILL change them eventually.  Protocol buffers, in particular, are going to be a semi-emergency when it happens (same as OpenSSL was) because we have a dependency on the binary form of the data; if it changes, our signatures break, so we can't just convert data.  

But hey, if you're committed to never changing the software?  I guess you never have to build it either.  Just static-link that sucker and wait for the next Heartbleed bug....

+ 1 insightful post that reflects the difference between who develops code and who doesn't. This is exactly why I am sincerely warning them to prepare their hardfork and start getting their dev team ready. I am not doing so to mock them or strike fear in them, but sincerely rooting for them because some of them are showing signs they have absolutely no idea what to expect. Part of me wants them to be ready and survive the transition as it will sure be an interesting experiment.

it would be easier for them by making a reward program where mp sends coins to any coinbase (miner-address) which does not advertise it'll make bigger blocks.

thats the best way i can imagine to prevent a fork - not that i want them to do that...

Another brilliant idea... but how long could such bribery last?

A bit sad that we are left formulating strategies for them because they have no answers besides sticking their heads in the sand(with exception to tvbcof and one or two others who has been giving some well reasoned posts I can respect)

[traincarswreck]

It should be necessary to show that at least one of us can change our strategies and gain.

[cbeast]

it would be easier for them by making a reward program where mp sends coins to any coinbase (miner-address) which does not advertise it'll make bigger blocks.

thats the best way i can imagine to prevent a fork - not that i want them to do that...

Loss of faith in Bitcoin would make make the bribes less and less due to the law of diminishing returns until it lost it's network effect. Really they have no chance and it will be amusing to see just how desperate they become to use this FUD tactic. Their next tactic will be to promote what they consider a superior altcoin. Watch MPs Trilemma blog for this in the near future.

[inBitweTrust]

it would be easier for them by making a reward program where mp sends coins to any coinbase (miner-address) which does not advertise it'll make bigger blocks.

thats the best way i can imagine to prevent a fork - not that i want them to do that...

Loss of faith in Bitcoin would make make the bribes less and less due to the law of diminishing returns until it lost it's network effect. Really they have no chance and it will be amusing to see just how desperate they become to use this FUD tactic. Their next tactic will be to promote what they consider a superior altcoin. Watch MPs Trilemma blog for this in the near future.

Perhaps this is his plan all along because he is becoming less and less relevant daily which must be infuriating for a megalomaniac sociopath. Since they have their own community they have nurtured which looks as if it has ~20 active members expect this to fail faster than paycoin but amusing nonetheless.... not interesting enough to do any research over there as most of the posts are incomprehensible pretentious drivel and spending 1 minute on their IRC reflects at least 60% grade school circle jerk humor.... and I thought Bitcoin talk was getting bad lately. 

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

The consensus process will be users of the network upgrading their software to versions that support version 4 blocks, and miners producing those blocks.

The blockchain will record the point at which a consensus has been reached.

I don't need to buy a new laptop for this do I

[inBitweTrust]

I don't need to buy a new laptop for this do I

Increasing the block limit will not increase transactions or bloat by itself. Further adoption  certainly would and thus if you have to worry about upgrading your laptops HD to store a full node you will certainly have the funds to do so because bitcoin would be much more valuable or you could just run a pruned node which is going to be offered in 0.11

[forevernoob]

I don't need to buy a new laptop for this do I

Increasing the block limit will not increase transactions or bloat by itself. Further adoption  certainly would and thus if you have to worry about upgrading your laptops HD to store a full node you will certainly have the funds to do so because bitcoin would be much more valuable or you could just run a pruned node which is going to be offered in 0.11

Isn't pruning available in 0.10?

[inBitweTrust]

I don't need to buy a new laptop for this do I

Increasing the block limit will not increase transactions or bloat by itself. Further adoption  certainly would and thus if you have to worry about upgrading your laptops HD to store a full node you will certainly have the funds to do so because bitcoin would be much more valuable or you could just run a pruned node which is going to be offered in 0.11

Isn't pruning available in 0.10?

No , some changes were made to accommodate future pruning that will likely appear in 0.11

[traincarswreck]

The things is, sirs (doesn't seems to be otherwise, pissing etc), if we happen to already be in a Nash Equilibrium, then there can be NO consensus for change. Before we go back to and continue debating, we should check to see, if any of the significant parties can change their strategies and gain. (otherwise we might be looking at a whole different kind of "consensus")

[danielpbarron]

it would be easier for them by making a reward program where mp sends coins to any coinbase (miner-address) which does not advertise it'll make bigger blocks.

thats the best way i can imagine to prevent a fork - not that i want them to do that...

Loss of faith in Bitcoin would make make the bribes less and less due to the law of diminishing returns until it lost it's network effect. Really they have no chance and it will be amusing to see just how desperate they become to use this FUD tactic. Their next tactic will be to promote what they consider a superior altcoin. Watch MPs Trilemma blog for this in the near future.

You mean like this reward program? Again, why would those who oppose a fork go ahead and make a fork? That's like drinking for sobriety or screwing for.. well you get it.

Whatever you aren't going to seriously consider my argument; this is for everyone else that isn't on the USG payroll. Look at the language used here in the quoted text above. This is what a muppet sounds like. They don't have any opinions that are their own; they have a list of buzzwords and a periodic memo to regurgitate. Also note that the muppets group together and spam a thread to bury the opposing view. They don't add anything new; they repeat the same nonsensical lines. If you check my post history, you'll see that my content is always unique, and always relevant to its context. If you check their history, you'll see that it is repetitive and out of context.

See this post for more details on the topic of content farms.

Here is an example of an App Store review farm. This is not fiction. It takes place anywhere there is financial incentive to game a "democratic" system.

[traincarswreck]

Here is the thing. This "situation" is in fact well addressed in the lecture "ideal money" especially in relation to a very special future decision to be made.  I'd quote the relevant parts but we aren't reading them anyways. We are trying to solve bitcoin in a vacuum, without the overall global economic considerations which were purposefully outlined over 20 years of lectures in Ideal Money.  We have a cognitive bias vs money so this is difficult to hear.

You are in a Nash Equilibrium, this is clear, and unless of course someone can identify how they might gain by changing their own strategy.  This means that there can be no consensus to change block size. But it means some other very special things as well.

The thesis of ideal money, is that bitcoin could arise very auspiciously yet without most people understanding what it is or what its purpose is.  At a certain point (ie exchanges are in Nash Eq), it would then be up to the citizens to flip the switch.  Ideal Money is about the need for a universal gold, in which every country in the world can peg their currencies to without there being any possible pressure on the actually pegged gold itself (whether political or geographical or discovery of more gold etc.).
 
We all want bitcoin to be an amazing currency system that takes the places of the current one.  But we must realize as quick as possible that this is not the way this scenario can possibly play out.  He has you.  I read many different papers by Nash.  One of the ways to solve cooperative games is to reduce them to there non-cooperative equivalent and find the Nash Equilibrium.

It seems none of you are skilled in game theory enough to recognize this.  Debate cannot solve this game.  Debate and conflict is exactly what holds this entire problem together, and no one expects us to solve this in the way most are looking for. But this is not to no avail.  Bitcoin, our global economy, the currency wars, and specifically price (we are all greedy right?) rests not at all on whether we make this consensus or that...but rather like stated in the lecture Ideal Money many times in many ways...the future quality of a currency rides exactly on the psychological view of the stability.

You CANNOT change bitcoin, but you can come to the consensus that it will NEVER be changed, which is obvious fact...and this my friends, is a consensus, and we are only in fact looking for a consensus. Bitcoin will take over the USD/Gold (government bond) de facto standard overnight upon our consensus/realization of this in this thread. This is the core of the decision, and it obviously cannot involve any of the bitcoin elite that actually already understood this problem/paradox/paradigm.

I just wanted to show that some more countries have in fact joined in, yesterday on the left, and today on the right, which makes more sense and is helpful (malta, panama are likely poker related ;p), unfortunately Greece has not joined us as they are likely preoccupied:



Lastly in case you are not convinced, I must point out (and btw I'm getting visits from TOR) that if "Ideal Money" in regards to bitcoin requires a consensus for change, all of the governments and intelligence agencies will NOT allow such change to happen (obviously we do not have the "economic" power to combat this).  We have arrived sirs/madames, the world awaits our consensus not on "debate", but rather on the realization we are in fact "stuck" in a Nash Equilibrium.

[NewLiberty]

The difference is most everything.  Consensus is agreement.  Usually there isn't any debating at that point.
If it comes to a vote, or a battle, then it isn't a consensus.

Consensus is preferred, but it is already clear that certain individuals are unwilling to compromise no matter what, so ultimately it will
never be reached between the whole bitcoin community. Ultimately, 95% consensus will be reached to make this happen. How quickly will the remaining 5% upgrade when the hardfork initiates will also be interesting to watch. My guess is at least 1% will fail to upgrade due to be stubborn or oblivious.

It would be wise for those being left behind to start getting ready to release their own hard fork to solve some serious concerns when they control less than 5% hashing power overnight on a forked coin. They should create their own github and start marketing it to users and miners to solve this serious problem which will make their currency unusable overnight unless they adjust difficulty retarget manually and possibly implement more checkpoints.

It will be interesting to see if their coin survives and for how long? Most miners and pools would be unlikely to attack their coin but with such a small hash rate one group may attempt a 51% attack out of spite, curiosity, or for profit.

Bitcoin has always remained interesting to say the least.

It is entirely possible that there is more than one consensus, which are not in agreement with each other.  There is one consensus per chain.  All on that chain are in agreement that it is the longest for that chain.

So for the 'best' solution is still a pretty bad one.  Its more of a software fix than a protocol fix.  If enough adoption occurs, and transaction volumes continue to grow, such that lots of people think that we HAVE to DO SOMETHING or else really bad things happen, and the crisis that we manufacture for ourselves convinces us that a bad solution is better than those really bad things...  Then we get forked.

I'm still holding hope for a better proposal that isn't too complex.

[inBitweTrust]

I'm still holding hope for a better proposal that isn't too complex.

Agreed, and thus this conversation. There is a time limit on this proposal and it isn't manufactured via our own sense of panic but by the fact that the combination in merchant adoption and halvening in 2016 will likely increase transactions and it may happen within a very short period of time thus a dynamic solution may be needed to prevent an additional last minute hard fork. The time limit IMHO is 2015 for the hardfork , and preferably by the second quarter. We also need to start preparing for the transition where we pay for security (miners ) with transaction fees vs block rewards as the reward continues to drop. Some suggest they would rather increase fees to ridiculous amount on par with w/u and moneygram but I would be more comfortable taking the approach of collecting larger amounts of smaller fees to have a competitive advantage with fiat and other alts.

A dynamic proposal that allows the "anti-spam" limit to increase and decrease may allow us to continue to search for other solutions while we have the backstop in place so we don't hit a crisis may be a good idea.

[NewLiberty]

I'm still holding hope for a better proposal that isn't too complex.

A dynamic proposal that allows the "anti-spam" limit to increase and decrease may allow us to continue to search for other solutions while we have the backstop in place so we don't hit a crisis may be a good idea.

This is where my conversation with Gavin fell apart.  He was not able to acknowledge the concept of a too-high limit.  His reasoning was that since the limit was only one-sided (blocks with size above it are prevented) that it couldn't be too high.

You, I and others, can see the fallacy of this in a moment, but he seems willing to ignore it.  I have good confidence in his programming.  I like the way he codes, it is tight and clean.  He is a great software engineer, and he has tested the software so that it works with large blocks.
As a protocol engineer he may be able to improve.  He has set himself up as the curator of ideas, and decides which have merit and which do not.  He was wise enough to revise this aspect of his proposal for the protocol once already, so he can hear some criticisms and respond.
This is why I hold some hope for him yet and have not given up on him.

[cbeast]

I'm still holding hope for a better proposal that isn't too complex.

A dynamic proposal that allows the "anti-spam" limit to increase and decrease may allow us to continue to search for other solutions while we have the backstop in place so we don't hit a crisis may be a good idea.

This is where my conversation with Gavin fell apart.

Translation: This is where I stopped thinking.

 He was not able to acknowledge the concept of a too-high limit.  His reasoning was that since the limit was only one-sided (blocks with size above it are prevented) that it couldn't be too high.

It's one-sided because it's chosen by the miner that builds the block. It's the miner that chooses how big the bloc will be. That's partly why there have been empty blocks with no new transactions included.

You, I and others, can see the fallacy of this in a moment, but he seems willing to ignore it.  

We're mostly ignoring you. The fallacy is yours. Own it.

I have good confidence in his programming.  I like the way he codes, it is tight and clean.  He is a great software engineer, and he has tested the software so that it works with large blocks.
As a protocol engineer he may be able to improve.  He has set himself up as the curator of ideas, and decides which have merit and which do not.  He was wise enough to revise this aspect of his proposal for the protocol once already, so he can hear some criticisms and respond.
This is why I hold some hope for him yet and have not given up on him.

The ever popular concern troll.

[inBitweTrust]

This is where my conversation with Gavin fell apart.  He was not able to acknowledge the concept of a too-high limit.  His reasoning was that since the limit was only one-sided (blocks with size above it are prevented) that it couldn't be too high.

If the miners still control which transactions to include in blocks than ultimately they decide upon the limit. Is your concern more to deal with the miners and you prefer the developers to impose restrictions upon the market to remove the ability for miners to process more transactions?

Can anyone direct me to the BIP for the gigablockchain proposal ?

All I can find is a blog post from one developer saying he made tests with 20 MB blocks on one computer on the testnet and that it was fine, plus a spreadsheet showing that if one multiplies the previous line by two the result is that you can quickly have a cell that contains an integer greater than 1E9.

Anyone ?

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips

There isn't one and it is clear that Gavin is still at the stage of floating around ideas carefully to test assumptions, hear criticism, listen to other suggestions, and study his proposal before introducing a formal BIP.

Another reason I am liking a dynamic approach more than a static one now is this has been discussed Ad nauseum over years already. Going through a hard fork seems to be painfully tedious and we better just make it the right combination of flexible and simple so we don't have to revisit this in a year.