Is Bitcoin breaking up?(wsj.com)
wsj.com
Is Bitcoin breaking up?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-bitcoin-breaking-up-1453044493
99 comments
Not sure due to the paywall.
Google News link which bypasses paywall: https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=ne...
I'd prefer a site that doesn't require a hack to read the text.
Hi Mike. I met you at San Jose conference in 2013. I remember very clearly- you were the most dashing, handsome, well spoken and charismatic person at the entire conference, a very rare find in the developer community. I was just finding my bearings in this technology at the time, I was a long way from home, and remember the confidence it instilled in me, knowing that someone like yourself was involved in this. But as I followed your contributions to the effort in the months after the conference, it was so confusing- nothing you did really seemed to help, your suggestions were widely panned by most of the best technical minds, and you seemed to devote your energy to platforms that are largely made up of newbies.
If I was a handler for an organization that wanted to insert an asset into the bitcoin community, someone like you would be the ideal candidate. Someone that young people, new to the community, naturally respect and will listen to. Strange how you've spent so much time cultivating your standing with people like that, while your reputation plummeted among the people that understood the network (and had far more skin in the game than you did, because if I remember correctly you never foresaw the spectacular growth of the bitcoin network, never thought it would work, and therefore did not really have that many coins yourself). I have a long history of having a keenly skeptical eye, I have solid critical thinking skills, and I bat away wacky theories all day long. I have NEVER, in any forum, posted any comment of any type in regards to bitcoin, this is my first one- I believe in speaking humbly, thinking deeply and acting bravely. While the evidence that your motives in the bitcoin network may not be what you say they are is only circumstantial, it has been accumulating for some time now. And the strongest allegations have come from the people who have the best reputations for clear thinking and scam calling. I mean you no ill will Mike, regardless of your intentions. But the forces at play and the implications of our technologies' reach is so spectacular that it is quite reasonable now for us to assume that smart and highly motivated people will appear who will use great cunning to harm the network. Every spidey sense I possess has been going off about you for a long time now. I can remain silent no longer.
J'accuse Mike, J'accuse.
If I was a handler for an organization that wanted to insert an asset into the bitcoin community, someone like you would be the ideal candidate. Someone that young people, new to the community, naturally respect and will listen to. Strange how you've spent so much time cultivating your standing with people like that, while your reputation plummeted among the people that understood the network (and had far more skin in the game than you did, because if I remember correctly you never foresaw the spectacular growth of the bitcoin network, never thought it would work, and therefore did not really have that many coins yourself). I have a long history of having a keenly skeptical eye, I have solid critical thinking skills, and I bat away wacky theories all day long. I have NEVER, in any forum, posted any comment of any type in regards to bitcoin, this is my first one- I believe in speaking humbly, thinking deeply and acting bravely. While the evidence that your motives in the bitcoin network may not be what you say they are is only circumstantial, it has been accumulating for some time now. And the strongest allegations have come from the people who have the best reputations for clear thinking and scam calling. I mean you no ill will Mike, regardless of your intentions. But the forces at play and the implications of our technologies' reach is so spectacular that it is quite reasonable now for us to assume that smart and highly motivated people will appear who will use great cunning to harm the network. Every spidey sense I possess has been going off about you for a long time now. I can remain silent no longer.
J'accuse Mike, J'accuse.
Personal attacks (and this is a weird and creepy one, something else that Bitcoin doesn't seem to lack for) are not allowed on HN. Please don't post them here, especially when your "keenly skeptical eye" can come up with nothing worse than "dashing, handsome, well spoken and charismatic".
(This is not an opinion about anything to do with Bitcoin or who, if anyone, works for "an organization".)
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921219 and marked it off-topic.
(This is not an opinion about anything to do with Bitcoin or who, if anyone, works for "an organization".)
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921219 and marked it off-topic.
Bitcoin is interesting because it attracts comments like this. Make no mistake, there is a turf-war going on; a true battle of mass popular opinion.
People do good things and they do bad things; but for some reason Bitcoin has crossed the threshold of being technically understandable so people resort to trusting people instead of ideas; so you end up with a lot of narratives (on both sides).
People do good things and they do bad things; but for some reason Bitcoin has crossed the threshold of being technically understandable so people resort to trusting people instead of ideas; so you end up with a lot of narratives (on both sides).
cui bono? Mike and his peers have everything to gain by trying to splinter BTC. Given the stability and distributed nature of Bitcoin itself the weak point is obviously the developers and that is exactly what they are going after.
If you want to read the article without being blocked by WSJ's paywall just Google the name of the article and click on the link. More often times than not you can get to a WSJ article via GoogleNews even if it is pay-restricted.
If you click the link titled "web" under the title, it will do that for you.
Wow when'd that get there? That's incredibly useful. Thanks DanG et al!
Even with Javascript disabled and only session cookies?
Yep thanks, that is useful if someone posted the article to HN. Now if you want to read any article not on HN.
Edit Cool Beans Thanks for the DownVote Mark, glad to be of help.
Edit Cool Beans Thanks for the DownVote Mark, glad to be of help.
So they do reference checking...huh...that would mean Google News doesn't strip out the ref like their search engine does
[deleted]
> Is Bitcoin Breaking Up?
If they have to frame a headline as a question, you can usually assume the answer is "no"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bullshit, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it.
If they have to frame a headline as a question, you can usually assume the answer is "no"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bullshit, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it.
Narrator's law of headlines is : one should prepend "We would like you to believe that" to any headline that ends in a question mark.
This headline is a great "grabber" for older bankers and financiers. It implies that the whole "bitcoin thing" is finally blowing over, without going out and saying it. Music to their ears.
I seriously doubt this is the case. Most bankers I know have regarded bitcoin with a keen curiosity rather than some kind of malignant threat.
In which case I proffer that they don't understand the implication of the cryptocurrency endgame.
It seems far more likely that you do not, actually. There are thousands of extremely intelligent people working in finance with a lot of domain knowledge -- in the case that something as widely publicized and easily studied as bitcoin is not being taken seriously in finance, it's far more likely that there are serious issues you don't understand.
[deleted]
The Bitcoin community is rapidly coalescing around an effort to increase the maximum allowed blocksize to 2MB as soon as possible. This increase is being implemented in a new client, Bitcoin Classic [0], which is a fork of Bitcoin Core that changes only the single line of code that sets the blocksize limit.
Bitcoin Classic was created by Jonathan Toomim, an American miner and developer who went to China to talk directly with Chinese miners and to test the effect of bigger blocks on mining operations behind the Great Firewall. Gavin Andresen, Bitcoin Core's former lead developer, and Jeff Garzik, another prominent Core developer, as well as many others, are collaborating with Toomim on further changes that Bitcoin Classic may implement later.
The big difference between Bitcoin Classic and Mike Hearn's failed Bitcoin XT is the concerted effort by the people behind Classic to garner the explicit support of miners (and other important members of the Bitcoin ecosystem) for a blocksize increase. At my last check yesterday, mining-pool operators representing 72% of global hashing power had explicitly expressed their support for Bitcoin Classic's blocksize increase, as had the operators of many popular exchanges, web wallets, and payment providers. (There is a growing compendium of prominent supporters on Bitcoin Classic's website; the complete list is on the project's Github page [1].)
That means that Bitcoin Classic is very likely to break Core's monopoly on the protocol soon. The blocksize increase, and the fork of the blockchain that it will create, is tentatively scheduled to take place after March 1. Get ready.
(By the way, the best sources for information and discussion about the Bitcoin world are now the /r/btc sub-Reddit and the discussion forums at bitcoin.com and bitco.in; the community's former hubs, /r/Bitcoin and bitcointalk.org, are both controlled by the same operator/moderator, and he has strongly censored and perverted all discussion of changes to the protocol that are not supported by Core's intransigent cabal of developers.)
0. https://www.bitcoinclassic.com
1. https://github.com/bitcoinclassic/website/issues/3
Bitcoin Classic was created by Jonathan Toomim, an American miner and developer who went to China to talk directly with Chinese miners and to test the effect of bigger blocks on mining operations behind the Great Firewall. Gavin Andresen, Bitcoin Core's former lead developer, and Jeff Garzik, another prominent Core developer, as well as many others, are collaborating with Toomim on further changes that Bitcoin Classic may implement later.
The big difference between Bitcoin Classic and Mike Hearn's failed Bitcoin XT is the concerted effort by the people behind Classic to garner the explicit support of miners (and other important members of the Bitcoin ecosystem) for a blocksize increase. At my last check yesterday, mining-pool operators representing 72% of global hashing power had explicitly expressed their support for Bitcoin Classic's blocksize increase, as had the operators of many popular exchanges, web wallets, and payment providers. (There is a growing compendium of prominent supporters on Bitcoin Classic's website; the complete list is on the project's Github page [1].)
That means that Bitcoin Classic is very likely to break Core's monopoly on the protocol soon. The blocksize increase, and the fork of the blockchain that it will create, is tentatively scheduled to take place after March 1. Get ready.
(By the way, the best sources for information and discussion about the Bitcoin world are now the /r/btc sub-Reddit and the discussion forums at bitcoin.com and bitco.in; the community's former hubs, /r/Bitcoin and bitcointalk.org, are both controlled by the same operator/moderator, and he has strongly censored and perverted all discussion of changes to the protocol that are not supported by Core's intransigent cabal of developers.)
0. https://www.bitcoinclassic.com
1. https://github.com/bitcoinclassic/website/issues/3
The way XT seems to have failed yet Classic seems to be suceeding seems odd to me.
Is all it took really just to have a developer fly out to China and talk to a hanful of people? Seems like there's a lot more politics going on behind the scenes.
In any case, fixing the blocksize limit will be good, but I think the real value in Classic is breaking the perceived monopoly Core has and moving to a healthier political setup. Many people were absolutely unwilling to even talk about XT (or as you mention, allow others to talk about XT) because "OMG it's not Core!". That argument will be a lot less viable if everyone's moved to Classic.
Is all it took really just to have a developer fly out to China and talk to a hanful of people? Seems like there's a lot more politics going on behind the scenes.
In any case, fixing the blocksize limit will be good, but I think the real value in Classic is breaking the perceived monopoly Core has and moving to a healthier political setup. Many people were absolutely unwilling to even talk about XT (or as you mention, allow others to talk about XT) because "OMG it's not Core!". That argument will be a lot less viable if everyone's moved to Classic.
No. It took a sharp fall in the BTC price.
This narrative that Gavin and I were unwilling to compromise is deeply unfortunate. BIP 101 originally started with a 20mb limit+growth. That was based on some calculations Gavin did. At that point the Chinese miners started saying they couldn't accept 20 because of the firewall, but eight would be OK. They put announcements of their support for eight megabyte blocks in their coinbases, etc.
Why eight? Because it's a Chinese homonym for "prosper" or "wealth":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture#Eig...
It crops up in the Chinese Bitcoin community all the time. So this choice obviously wasn't based on any kind of scientific analysis. Having Bitcoin protocol constants be decided by rhymes would obviously have been an embarrassment, but nonetheless, we compromised and did it.
After Core rejected the now-modified BIP 101, Gavin and I released XT together. At this point the miners changed their tune. They announced they would never run anything except Core, period, end of story. This "requirement" had not been specified before. From both speaking to them personally (I have had various phone calls with miners around the world, including miners in China) and their public statments, they made it clear that their loyalty to Core was absolute and no matter what changes we made to XT, they would never run it. Thus compromising further was pointless.
Why is Classic different? It wasn't, just one or two days ago. After I released my article, I was CCd on a private thread where KnC Miner published an "open letter" and suggested switching to Classic. The other miners shot him down immediately saying they wanted the change to come from Core. Then the price started sliding, and they started reversing their positions. Suddenly, Classic was acceptable whereas just hours before it had not been.
This narrative that Gavin and I were unwilling to compromise is deeply unfortunate. BIP 101 originally started with a 20mb limit+growth. That was based on some calculations Gavin did. At that point the Chinese miners started saying they couldn't accept 20 because of the firewall, but eight would be OK. They put announcements of their support for eight megabyte blocks in their coinbases, etc.
Why eight? Because it's a Chinese homonym for "prosper" or "wealth":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture#Eig...
It crops up in the Chinese Bitcoin community all the time. So this choice obviously wasn't based on any kind of scientific analysis. Having Bitcoin protocol constants be decided by rhymes would obviously have been an embarrassment, but nonetheless, we compromised and did it.
After Core rejected the now-modified BIP 101, Gavin and I released XT together. At this point the miners changed their tune. They announced they would never run anything except Core, period, end of story. This "requirement" had not been specified before. From both speaking to them personally (I have had various phone calls with miners around the world, including miners in China) and their public statments, they made it clear that their loyalty to Core was absolute and no matter what changes we made to XT, they would never run it. Thus compromising further was pointless.
Why is Classic different? It wasn't, just one or two days ago. After I released my article, I was CCd on a private thread where KnC Miner published an "open letter" and suggested switching to Classic. The other miners shot him down immediately saying they wanted the change to come from Core. Then the price started sliding, and they started reversing their positions. Suddenly, Classic was acceptable whereas just hours before it had not been.
>No. It took a sharp fall in the BTC price
And the trigger for that was your medium article the other day. :-)
And since, block size/scalability was the key point in your post. Would you be willing to re-join Bitcoin, since what you wanted would be achieved? Even if its Classic and not via XT.
Perhaps, my question may come across as naive. But looking at it from outside (reading /Bitcoin & /btc & etc), it would definitely clear a lot of air, and be good for Bitcoin.
And the trigger for that was your medium article the other day. :-)
And since, block size/scalability was the key point in your post. Would you be willing to re-join Bitcoin, since what you wanted would be achieved? Even if its Classic and not via XT.
Perhaps, my question may come across as naive. But looking at it from outside (reading /Bitcoin & /btc & etc), it would definitely clear a lot of air, and be good for Bitcoin.
I find your writings very clear and refreshing to read. Regardless of what happens with BTC, thanks for your efforts!
XT angered people because it was seen as an attempted coup. That was back when the Core devs were viewed as untouchable gods by most of the Bitcoin community. People are now willing to accept Classic because the core devs have been acting like babies. They've destroyed their reputation with the community by refusing any compromise, attacking Classic with Trojan pull requests and making a lot of outlandish statements in public forums. This hasn't sat well with the people who are heavily invested in Bitcoin. If XT were introduced now it might have gained more traction.
At this point the community seems to be mostly decided that they want to break the Core dev's monopoly and Classic provides a lowest common denominator way to do this. I just hope the Classic devs make better choices.
At this point the community seems to be mostly decided that they want to break the Core dev's monopoly and Classic provides a lowest common denominator way to do this. I just hope the Classic devs make better choices.
Ah, now that makes sense. ...well, as much as anything in the Bitcoin world makes sense, which isn't much. :)
[deleted]
[deleted]
How is this your concern any more? You promised to leave bitcoin scene because it has failed, why don't you focus on R3Coin instead.
> In any case, fixing the blocksize limit will be good
This presumes the blocksize limit is being fixed, which is an incorrect assumption. Originally, the proponents of Classic wanted to boost block size limits to 20MB effective January 2016 [1], and used bombastic and divisive language, inventing their own crisis even, to get people to take them seriously.
Interestingly, those same people are now contending for just 2MB, which is only 0.4MB higher than that proposed by Core.
Performance test data shows 32MB is the absolute maximum block size you can handle on a modern desktop PC today [2]. And by this I mean you could validate no more than one block per 10 minutes, hence realistically you actually couldn't run a full node on a desktop at 32MB. You'd need a clustered full node just to keep up, which is unprecedented in Bitcoin.
To make matters worse, 32MB blocks gets Bitcoin to 300 tps which is less than 1% of VISA's current capacity.
[1]: http://gavinandresen.ninja/does-more-transactions-necessaril...
[2]: https://blog.conformal.com/btcsim-simulating-the-rise-of-bit...
This presumes the blocksize limit is being fixed, which is an incorrect assumption. Originally, the proponents of Classic wanted to boost block size limits to 20MB effective January 2016 [1], and used bombastic and divisive language, inventing their own crisis even, to get people to take them seriously.
Interestingly, those same people are now contending for just 2MB, which is only 0.4MB higher than that proposed by Core.
Performance test data shows 32MB is the absolute maximum block size you can handle on a modern desktop PC today [2]. And by this I mean you could validate no more than one block per 10 minutes, hence realistically you actually couldn't run a full node on a desktop at 32MB. You'd need a clustered full node just to keep up, which is unprecedented in Bitcoin.
To make matters worse, 32MB blocks gets Bitcoin to 300 tps which is less than 1% of VISA's current capacity.
[1]: http://gavinandresen.ninja/does-more-transactions-necessaril...
[2]: https://blog.conformal.com/btcsim-simulating-the-rise-of-bit...
> Interestingly, those same people are now contending for just 2MB...
Hearn mentions the backstory behind this in a comment here [0], posted a little while after you posted your comment. After reading his comment, does the shift from 20MB max blocks to something smaller become less "interesting" and more understandable? If not, why not?
Edit: Additionally, do you have anything to say about this comment? [1]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921219
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921209
Hearn mentions the backstory behind this in a comment here [0], posted a little while after you posted your comment. After reading his comment, does the shift from 20MB max blocks to something smaller become less "interesting" and more understandable? If not, why not?
Edit: Additionally, do you have anything to say about this comment? [1]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921219
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921209
Well, any improvement to blocksize will be good, and will hopefully break the logjam preventing changes.
If we wait for a perfect fix to all problems, current and projected, we'll be waiting forever.
If we wait for a perfect fix to all problems, current and projected, we'll be waiting forever.
>Performance test data shows 32MB is the absolute maximum block size you can handle on a modern desktop PC today [2].
No, it's maximum size you can handle using a single-threaded poorly-optimized cpu software.
>Additionally, a profile of the CPU usage of this node, using golang’s great profile capabilities, shows that the CPU usage is dominated by the ECDSA signature verifications
OpenCL on gpu can easily process 50 MILLION bitcoin addresses per second (ecdsa + sha). [0] Note that OpenCL is available even on smartphones. For a very rough estimate, Adreno 530 on Snapdragon 820 has 500GFlops, 10% of 780 ti which can do 50M/s, so it should do about 5M/s. So a $400 smartphone should be more than enough to process 32MB blocks - provided the gpu is used.
[0] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen
No, it's maximum size you can handle using a single-threaded poorly-optimized cpu software.
>Additionally, a profile of the CPU usage of this node, using golang’s great profile capabilities, shows that the CPU usage is dominated by the ECDSA signature verifications
OpenCL on gpu can easily process 50 MILLION bitcoin addresses per second (ecdsa + sha). [0] Note that OpenCL is available even on smartphones. For a very rough estimate, Adreno 530 on Snapdragon 820 has 500GFlops, 10% of 780 ti which can do 50M/s, so it should do about 5M/s. So a $400 smartphone should be more than enough to process 32MB blocks - provided the gpu is used.
[0] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen
This... does not sound good at all. Frankly, I wasn't expecting that scaling the block size would be so taxing on normal nodes.
[deleted]
>The way XT seems to have failed yet Classic seems to be suceeding seems odd to me.
XT was much more aggressive. Not only would it have initially increased the blocksize to 8MB, but then it fixed a schedule of doubling the blocksize every 2 years[0].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_XT#Determining_the_new...
XT was much more aggressive. Not only would it have initially increased the blocksize to 8MB, but then it fixed a schedule of doubling the blocksize every 2 years[0].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_XT#Determining_the_new...
So you believe that whoever was upset with the blocksize/management changes that would have been introduced in XT has been placated by this more inclusive effort? And that this actor will not attempt to sabotage the rollout of Classic as they did with XT?
They absolutely will. At this point though the first alternative implementations helped people calibrate to the dishonesty of the group of people who has worked so hard to censor and alienate everyone who might compromise the need for their company, blockstream.
Most people really gave them way too much credit and took them at their word, but it's been dug into the ground at this point that they are going to try to lie, censor, and outright sabotage any attempt to adapt bitcoin since they think creating problems gives them an opportunity to solve them.
Most people really gave them way too much credit and took them at their word, but it's been dug into the ground at this point that they are going to try to lie, censor, and outright sabotage any attempt to adapt bitcoin since they think creating problems gives them an opportunity to solve them.
It seems misleading to call something "bitcoin classic" that would implement a hard fork.
The bitcoin implementation by the "real" bitcoin foundation (ie, asciilifeform's group) at least can claim that it is an implementation of the actual bitcoin protocol:
http://thebitcoin.foundation/
The bitcoin implementation by the "real" bitcoin foundation (ie, asciilifeform's group) at least can claim that it is an implementation of the actual bitcoin protocol:
http://thebitcoin.foundation/
The original Bitcoin didn't include any block limit and Bitcoin's inventor wasn't worried about block size being too large[0]. The current 1MB limit was itself a hard fork of the original as a temporary spam protection measure while the network was in it's infancy. So the name really isn't misleading. A lot of people are ignorant of the history of the block size limit though.
[0] http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg099...
[0] http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg099...
It was a soft fork.
[deleted](1)
> That means that Bitcoin Classic is very likely to break Core's monopoly on the protocol soon.
As far as I'm concerned, neither side 'has a monopoly' on the protocol because they haven't documented the protocol with a proper specification.
Forking Bitcoin today to 'solve' contingent future problems seems like the height of folly.
As far as I'm concerned, neither side 'has a monopoly' on the protocol because they haven't documented the protocol with a proper specification.
Forking Bitcoin today to 'solve' contingent future problems seems like the height of folly.
> rapidly coalescing around an effort to increase the maximum allowed blocksize to 2MB as soon as possible
I have a small nitpick to offer. Any hard-forking change is one for a new network and a new chain, by the very definition of hard-fork. The original Bitcoin blockchain and network will still exist, no matter how many times some of its users employ a hard-fork. A hard-fork cannot "turn off" Bitcoin for everyone else. This is no different than the way that an altcoin, like Litecoin, cannot "turn off" Bitcoin merely by the deployment and launch of Litecoin.
Since their proposal is a backwards-incompatible change (hard-fork), it should be obvious that it does not increase the capacity of the current system, but rather a new system. I find myself wondering how anyone can think it is increasing the capacity of the previous network, given the definition of an (intentional!) hard-fork?
Maybe if we all just wish hard enough, IPv4 will spontaneously transform into IPv6..... Bitcoin will continue to function even in the presence of yet-another hard-fork.
Anyone is welcome to do as they please, including whatever hard-forks they might want to participate in, just as anyone is welcome to use Bitcoin or how they are welcome to abandon Bitcoin if they find that they don't like its offering. However, anyone who wants to participate in a hard-fork should do so in a safe and responsible way, such as by using a new name for the new system, using a new address identifier to avoid cross-chain contamination accidents, etc.
What is Bitcoin Core's role in all of this? https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/2016-01-07-statement
Soft-forks and hard-forks? https://petertodd.org/2016/soft-forks-are-safer-than-hard-fo...
bip99 has some more details: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0099.mediawi...
Bitcoin Core published a capacity increases roadmap: http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-...
... and a FAQ about their capacity increases roadmap: https://bitcoincore.org/en/2015/12/23/capacity-increases-faq...
> and [theymos] has strongly censored and perverted all discussion of changes
That's not really true, just search "site:reddit.com/r/bitcoin" for XT or classic or whatever. His lynch mob is waving the banner of censorship but meanwhile actual content shows up on the subreddit. Theymos even acknowledges this, but for some reason refuses to use moderation to eliminate the false allegations of censorship in his subreddit.
I have a small nitpick to offer. Any hard-forking change is one for a new network and a new chain, by the very definition of hard-fork. The original Bitcoin blockchain and network will still exist, no matter how many times some of its users employ a hard-fork. A hard-fork cannot "turn off" Bitcoin for everyone else. This is no different than the way that an altcoin, like Litecoin, cannot "turn off" Bitcoin merely by the deployment and launch of Litecoin.
Since their proposal is a backwards-incompatible change (hard-fork), it should be obvious that it does not increase the capacity of the current system, but rather a new system. I find myself wondering how anyone can think it is increasing the capacity of the previous network, given the definition of an (intentional!) hard-fork?
Maybe if we all just wish hard enough, IPv4 will spontaneously transform into IPv6..... Bitcoin will continue to function even in the presence of yet-another hard-fork.
Anyone is welcome to do as they please, including whatever hard-forks they might want to participate in, just as anyone is welcome to use Bitcoin or how they are welcome to abandon Bitcoin if they find that they don't like its offering. However, anyone who wants to participate in a hard-fork should do so in a safe and responsible way, such as by using a new name for the new system, using a new address identifier to avoid cross-chain contamination accidents, etc.
What is Bitcoin Core's role in all of this? https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/2016-01-07-statement
Soft-forks and hard-forks? https://petertodd.org/2016/soft-forks-are-safer-than-hard-fo...
bip99 has some more details: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0099.mediawi...
Bitcoin Core published a capacity increases roadmap: http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-...
... and a FAQ about their capacity increases roadmap: https://bitcoincore.org/en/2015/12/23/capacity-increases-faq...
> and [theymos] has strongly censored and perverted all discussion of changes
That's not really true, just search "site:reddit.com/r/bitcoin" for XT or classic or whatever. His lynch mob is waving the banner of censorship but meanwhile actual content shows up on the subreddit. Theymos even acknowledges this, but for some reason refuses to use moderation to eliminate the false allegations of censorship in his subreddit.
You act as if the current version is some how pure w/o any hard forks having occurred. The fact is there have been a number of hard forks in Bitcoin's history. The current 1MB block size was itself a hard fork early on and there have been other releases that required a hard fork as well; the world didn't end.
> You act as if the current version is some how pure w/o any hard forks having occurred
Every "version" is pure w.r.t its current rules. Hard-forking is something that impacts a new chain. The old chain still exists even after a hard-fork.
_Anyone_ can run old Bitcoin versions and participate on the old chains using the pre-hard-forked-changed rules.
There is no way to "turn off" the previous chain, at least not in the protocol.
The old version could become unmaintained, have no remaining miners, no remaining validating nodes, etc. That's true. But for this to be the case, there would have to be universal disinterest in maintaining the previous tech, or mining with the previous rules, operating and running fully-validating nodes, etc. Universal disinterest cannot be measured.
I cannot offer you any justification I agree with for the previous hard-forks. At the time that those hard-forks were deployed, various justifications were given, and as of 2016 I am not sure that I can agree with those reasons now. Perhaps at the time I would have found merit in the idea that the Bitcoin ecosystem was small enough to tolerate a hard-fork or something. Another possible rationalization is that, at the time, the Bitcoin software was horribly inefficient in hundreds of ways, this is why verification took >10 hours of a blockchain that was less than 30% the size of the current 2016 blockchain.... and 32MB was probably a security hole that everyone at the time was able to universally agree must be plugged. This sort of reasoning resonates with me even as of 2016; if there was a hole that bad in modern Bitcoin, heck yeah we would all have to do a hard-fork, it's unfortunate but security is important and I like avoiding holes.
FWIW, I don't care about purity.
Here is some text on validation costs:
http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/validation-...
http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/hong-kong/v...
> other releases that required a hard fork as well the world didn't end
Bitcoin isn't going to destroy the world, nsh is. Anyone saying otherwise is just trolling you.
Every "version" is pure w.r.t its current rules. Hard-forking is something that impacts a new chain. The old chain still exists even after a hard-fork.
_Anyone_ can run old Bitcoin versions and participate on the old chains using the pre-hard-forked-changed rules.
There is no way to "turn off" the previous chain, at least not in the protocol.
The old version could become unmaintained, have no remaining miners, no remaining validating nodes, etc. That's true. But for this to be the case, there would have to be universal disinterest in maintaining the previous tech, or mining with the previous rules, operating and running fully-validating nodes, etc. Universal disinterest cannot be measured.
I cannot offer you any justification I agree with for the previous hard-forks. At the time that those hard-forks were deployed, various justifications were given, and as of 2016 I am not sure that I can agree with those reasons now. Perhaps at the time I would have found merit in the idea that the Bitcoin ecosystem was small enough to tolerate a hard-fork or something. Another possible rationalization is that, at the time, the Bitcoin software was horribly inefficient in hundreds of ways, this is why verification took >10 hours of a blockchain that was less than 30% the size of the current 2016 blockchain.... and 32MB was probably a security hole that everyone at the time was able to universally agree must be plugged. This sort of reasoning resonates with me even as of 2016; if there was a hole that bad in modern Bitcoin, heck yeah we would all have to do a hard-fork, it's unfortunate but security is important and I like avoiding holes.
FWIW, I don't care about purity.
Here is some text on validation costs:
http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/validation-...
http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/scalingbitcoin/hong-kong/v...
> other releases that required a hard fork as well the world didn't end
Bitcoin isn't going to destroy the world, nsh is. Anyone saying otherwise is just trolling you.
The different versions of Bitcoin programs, I am confused, will it be possible to send Bitcoins to each address using the different programs or will each program have different Bitcoin addresses and blockchains so they are incompatible?
If I had Electum which uses the Bitcoin Core could I send Bitcoin to someone using Bitcoin Classic or Bitcoin XT?
If not then this causes a lot of problems and confusion.
If I had Electum which uses the Bitcoin Core could I send Bitcoin to someone using Bitcoin Classic or Bitcoin XT?
If not then this causes a lot of problems and confusion.
Exuma(1)
> The problem is bitcoin is open-source software, so any change has to be approved a majority of the community, and it hasn’t been able to agree.
The author has conflated a couple of things. That is the exact opposite of how OSS works. The reason why the majority need to adopt is purely from a "one true coin" standpoint—there is nothing stopping forks or new alt coins from spinning out.
The author has conflated a couple of things. That is the exact opposite of how OSS works. The reason why the majority need to adopt is purely from a "one true coin" standpoint—there is nothing stopping forks or new alt coins from spinning out.
The current situation reminds me a lot of the time when Firefox replaced Internet Explorer as the most popular browser. And of the time when Chrome replaced Firefox as the most popular browser.
Currently there is only one Bitcoin implementation. And the developers a) refuse to implement what users want. And b) implement bloat that users dont't want.
So Bitcoin will "break up" in a similar way the WWW "broke up" when new browsers were introduced.
It's a good thing.
Currently there is only one Bitcoin implementation. And the developers a) refuse to implement what users want. And b) implement bloat that users dont't want.
So Bitcoin will "break up" in a similar way the WWW "broke up" when new browsers were introduced.
It's a good thing.
The WWW's fundamental job is not to establish consensus. It is to communicate information. Incompatible changes to the web and incompatible changes to the bitcoin protocol have very different significance.
different significance
Its not as if somebodies coins will suddenly become worthless.
Bitcoin has a lot of actors. Users, investors, miners, exchanges, shops... And everybody will have some hassle with a fork.
Just like on the WWW where there are webmasters, webdesigners, users, browser vendors, shops... And every has some hassle with browser compatibility.
> Its not as if somebodies coins will suddenly become worthless.
I think this is in fact the nightmare scenario that some folks are worried about.
I agree with you it's unlikely to happen, because it's in very few people's interests, but I think that the degree of danger is exactly what's causing people to try so vigorously to find ways to co-operate on this matter.
And it's true that browsers also have incentive toward compatibility. But the fact is, despite this incentive, browsers remain in many ways incompatible. And for the most part, nobody notices, because minor incompatibilities in browsers do not "fork" the web the same way an incompatibility in bitcoin protocol forks the blockchain.
I think this is in fact the nightmare scenario that some folks are worried about.
I agree with you it's unlikely to happen, because it's in very few people's interests, but I think that the degree of danger is exactly what's causing people to try so vigorously to find ways to co-operate on this matter.
And it's true that browsers also have incentive toward compatibility. But the fact is, despite this incentive, browsers remain in many ways incompatible. And for the most part, nobody notices, because minor incompatibilities in browsers do not "fork" the web the same way an incompatibility in bitcoin protocol forks the blockchain.
Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser among users worldwide. Chrome is the most popular browser among certain techies. Chrome is also popular among users tricked into installing it via forced bundleware with Java updates, free antivirus engine updates, and (ironically) Flash plugin downloads for Firefox.
Apologies. I'd skimmed this earlier and thought we were only talking about desktop browser share instead of overall.
Oh hi 2012, what are you doing here?
Just like IE is popular among users tricked into installing it via forced bundleware with Windows?
Microsoft was forced to include the browser choice thing for a few years in Europe.
I wish someone would take a closer look at how Google push Chrome as well.
I wish someone would take a closer look at how Google push Chrome as well.
The block size issue is missing the point. The use case that matters for Bitcoin right now is converting yuan to Bitcoins, then Bitcoins to dollars. That's one way people in China get around China's exchange controls. (Note that mining in China also is used to move yuan to dollars.) Those are big transactions. They'll get through regardless of the block size.
Bitcoin as a retail currency doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Robocoin, the Bitcoin ATM company, just went bust. Lots of companies nominally accept Bitcoin, but that's just a shopping cart program talking to Coinbase or Bitpay for immediate conversion. The retail transaction volume is small. Given the volatility problem, the conversion costs, the risk of loss, and the general headaches, Bitcoin is a lose vs. paying 1% - 3% for credit card processing.
Bitcoin as a retail currency doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Robocoin, the Bitcoin ATM company, just went bust. Lots of companies nominally accept Bitcoin, but that's just a shopping cart program talking to Coinbase or Bitpay for immediate conversion. The retail transaction volume is small. Given the volatility problem, the conversion costs, the risk of loss, and the general headaches, Bitcoin is a lose vs. paying 1% - 3% for credit card processing.
Those are two very separate things solved in different ways. Chinese exchanges and transactions per second are very orthogonal.
> Bitcoin as a retail currency doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
I buy things online with btc much more than a credit card, so I beg to differ
> Robocoin, the Bitcoin ATM company, just went bust.
They made huge and expensive ATMs that aren't necessary for what most people try to do right now, which is buy bitcoins. You can literally buy parts and make your own ATM.
> Lots of companies nominally accept Bitcoin, but that's just a shopping cart program talking to Coinbase or Bitpay for immediate conversion.
As opposed to credit card transactions? Don't blur the issue of accepting payment and a business keeping and therefore investing in bitcoins.
> the conversion costs Less than credit card fees. 1% as opposed to 3% off your revenue stream matters quite a bit, not to mention no charge backs.
> Bitcoin as a retail currency doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
I buy things online with btc much more than a credit card, so I beg to differ
> Robocoin, the Bitcoin ATM company, just went bust.
They made huge and expensive ATMs that aren't necessary for what most people try to do right now, which is buy bitcoins. You can literally buy parts and make your own ATM.
> Lots of companies nominally accept Bitcoin, but that's just a shopping cart program talking to Coinbase or Bitpay for immediate conversion.
As opposed to credit card transactions? Don't blur the issue of accepting payment and a business keeping and therefore investing in bitcoins.
> the conversion costs Less than credit card fees. 1% as opposed to 3% off your revenue stream matters quite a bit, not to mention no charge backs.
> They'll get through regardless of the block size.
They'll get through until China bans it.
China has a classic trilemma : let the currency depreciate, give up on monetary stimulus, or institute capital controls.
Pick any 2 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity
To date, they've shown pretty good success in controlling the Internet and Bitcoin is no different.
I don't think Bitcoin advocates have necessarily thought through the implications if countries were no longer able to control capital movements, hence pursue independent monetary and currency policies. As the euro experience has shown (also the history of the gold standard), it's not necessarily an improvement in monetary arrangements.
They'll get through until China bans it.
China has a classic trilemma : let the currency depreciate, give up on monetary stimulus, or institute capital controls.
Pick any 2 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity
To date, they've shown pretty good success in controlling the Internet and Bitcoin is no different.
I don't think Bitcoin advocates have necessarily thought through the implications if countries were no longer able to control capital movements, hence pursue independent monetary and currency policies. As the euro experience has shown (also the history of the gold standard), it's not necessarily an improvement in monetary arrangements.
"They'll get through until China bans it."
China's leaky exchange controls are a strange subject. So much is leaking that investors in China are buying large amounts of property in London, New York, and Miami, but not occupying it, as a way to stash cash. However, the outflows aren't big enough to affect the value of the yuan.
The People's Bank of China (comparable to the Treasury Department plus the Fed) hasn't cracked down as much as they could. There seems to be an internal policy disagreement within China's government over whether the yuan should be an international currency. To be used internationally means allowing convertibility and giving up some control, and facing the possibility that China's domestic economy can be yanked around by world events. But convertibility increases China's external economic power. Back in 2013, there were announcements of convertibility within the next year. In November 2015, the target date was 2020.[1] China's stock market crashed last week, which may prompt tightening up on capital outflows again.
Much of what happens with Bitcoin is driven by these far larger issues.
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/china-deve...
China's leaky exchange controls are a strange subject. So much is leaking that investors in China are buying large amounts of property in London, New York, and Miami, but not occupying it, as a way to stash cash. However, the outflows aren't big enough to affect the value of the yuan.
The People's Bank of China (comparable to the Treasury Department plus the Fed) hasn't cracked down as much as they could. There seems to be an internal policy disagreement within China's government over whether the yuan should be an international currency. To be used internationally means allowing convertibility and giving up some control, and facing the possibility that China's domestic economy can be yanked around by world events. But convertibility increases China's external economic power. Back in 2013, there were announcements of convertibility within the next year. In November 2015, the target date was 2020.[1] China's stock market crashed last week, which may prompt tightening up on capital outflows again.
Much of what happens with Bitcoin is driven by these far larger issues.
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/china-deve...
Bitcoin's appeal as an alternative value store only grows the longer the network continues to keep chugging along, and as the price grows less volatile (year to year). It is still very unique as an asset in terms of the properties it offers.
Have you looked at the price drop in the last 72 hours?
"Bitcoin is breaking up" = Buy like a madman. The blocksize cuts down on the transaction spam making transactions non-free, maybe a few cents each. This is not optimal and certainly needs to fix in the next few years, because it harms microtransactions.
But "breaking up" ? That's just sensationalist bullshit. That's like saying Netflix is on the edge of bankruptcy because it's raging success has temporarily killed HD streaming in Australia & Antarctica. As a community building exercise, this debacle is great for Bitcoin, it really shows no one is in control and consensus to change the rules of the game is very hard to reach.
But "breaking up" ? That's just sensationalist bullshit. That's like saying Netflix is on the edge of bankruptcy because it's raging success has temporarily killed HD streaming in Australia & Antarctica. As a community building exercise, this debacle is great for Bitcoin, it really shows no one is in control and consensus to change the rules of the game is very hard to reach.
The fact that every transaction ever is saved for ever harms microtransactions. Luckily nobody actually uses Bitcoin, especially not for microtransactions. The network can't handle more than 3 transactions a second, and luckily it doesn't have that volume. Lightning is the only thing that can actually make Bitcoin more performant than a small VPS with postgres, if it is something that people want.
Also, "Lightning-like" channels aren't unique to Bitcoin- they can be implemented on Turing-complete currencies, and even on bank servers[1]
1. http://altheamesh.com/blog/universal-payment-channels/
Also, "Lightning-like" channels aren't unique to Bitcoin- they can be implemented on Turing-complete currencies, and even on bank servers[1]
1. http://altheamesh.com/blog/universal-payment-channels/
What is the downside to moving from 1MB to 2MB blocksizes, instead of moving up to 8MB or 20MB? If the reasonable maximum number of trades per minutes is 3 at the moment, does a doubling of the blocksize merely double the allowable number of trades per minute, or is it somehow a logarithmic change?
It does just double it. The problem with increasing it more is propagation speeds around the planet (this needs to be as fast as possible or another miner may get the block reward), especially if the miner is sitting in china.
So is increasing the blocksize beyond 2MB expected to favour Chinese minors more so than average users? And if that's the case, would you mind explaining how so, exactly?
The dynamic is not one in which when miners win, users lose. The issue is that users want more transactions per second and therefore want bigger blocks to be created, however, when miners create larger blocks, they have a hard(er) time propagating them to the entire network and thereby run the risk of their block being orphaned (someone else's block will be accepted first, and the miner's block and work done on that block will be wasted).
Oh I see, which is why Chinese miners would be especially hesitant about moving to larger block sizes, because the GFoC significantly limits speeds.
I'm fairly certain that the problem is that users with catastrophically slow or spotty internet connections are the ones that stand to lose in that situation, and that > 50% of Bitcoin's miners are in China, which partially explains the rabid past support for a refusal to increase the max blocksize.
Many people have said the same thing. Right now a group of people has gone to a lot of trouble to control the main repository and forums. At the same time, many algorithms have been proposed. The most pressing problem at the moment is making sure there is room to grow, proving that a fork can happen, and getting the software out of the control of the people who have incentives that are opposing the vast majority of actual users. Once these problems are worked out more sophistication is much more likely.
Ah, okay. So it's a matter of getting the ball rolling for now. And then XT-type changes may occur in the future?
I think that is likely although that is predicting the future territory. Fundamentally the block size limit is about consensus, which bitcoin is very good at. I personally think consensus about the block size limit should be amended constantly through each block mined. Some would agree and some would disagree.
Bitcoin is already specified. I doubt that nodes, miners, and the bitcoin richlist will converge around any alternative spec (whether XT or Litecoin) and decide to call it "bitcoin". However, the ecology of decentralized digital assets inspired by the nakamoto consensus has already fragmented and will continue to do so at an exponential rate. As a rough estimate let's say there are already 1000 bitcoin clones that have more than a handful of nodes and miners. I would not be surprised to see that number increase to 10,000 within 2016. That some of the individuals associated with Bitcoin Core are moving onto other projects is not going to mean very much one way or another for the original bitcoin spec, though we may see the Core project change. There are other alternatives for those who want to run an implementation of the original bitcoin spec. (http://thebitcoin.foundation/) And there are an exponentially growing number of alternative networks for those who do not.
"Mining already is so expensive that it takes company-sized investments to participate"
This is not true at all. I do not understand why journalists repeat this claim. It is like saying "investing in the stock market is so expensive that it takes company-sized investments to participate". It is not true. Whether you invest $1000 or $1 million your returns—as a percentage of your initial investment—will be the same regardless if this is the stock market or Bitcoin mining.
In fact I would say the opposite is true: small miners have a slightly better profitability than large-scale miners, because they are so small they do not even have to cover certain costs. A large-scale miner will have to pay for hosting or for building a data center but a small miner will host the hardware in his house at no extra cost. A large-scale miner will have to hire staff to maintain the miners but a small miner will maintain his machine himself.
Of course profitability depends a lot on electricity costs, but again you might be a small miner and live (for example) in Douglas County, Washington and pay a domestic electricity rate of 2.5 cents per kWh, and you will beat many large-scale miners who almost always pay more (see my previous comment on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10907584).
Large-scale miners may get a financial advantage by buying hardware in bulk, or manufacturing it themselves, but this is a cost saving of at most 20 or 30%, and this certainly does not make mining so expensive that small miners cannot participate.
This is not true at all. I do not understand why journalists repeat this claim. It is like saying "investing in the stock market is so expensive that it takes company-sized investments to participate". It is not true. Whether you invest $1000 or $1 million your returns—as a percentage of your initial investment—will be the same regardless if this is the stock market or Bitcoin mining.
In fact I would say the opposite is true: small miners have a slightly better profitability than large-scale miners, because they are so small they do not even have to cover certain costs. A large-scale miner will have to pay for hosting or for building a data center but a small miner will host the hardware in his house at no extra cost. A large-scale miner will have to hire staff to maintain the miners but a small miner will maintain his machine himself.
Of course profitability depends a lot on electricity costs, but again you might be a small miner and live (for example) in Douglas County, Washington and pay a domestic electricity rate of 2.5 cents per kWh, and you will beat many large-scale miners who almost always pay more (see my previous comment on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10907584).
Large-scale miners may get a financial advantage by buying hardware in bulk, or manufacturing it themselves, but this is a cost saving of at most 20 or 30%, and this certainly does not make mining so expensive that small miners cannot participate.
I think these are very exciting problems. The bigger the problem the more creative the solution.
It took us two thousand years or so to go from using the weight of a bale of barley to represent the value of silver, bronze, copper to eventually actual coinage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money
Maybe digital currency takes 15-years or so to work out the problems much like they did with barley to coins but it is definitely the future.
It took us two thousand years or so to go from using the weight of a bale of barley to represent the value of silver, bronze, copper to eventually actual coinage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money
Maybe digital currency takes 15-years or so to work out the problems much like they did with barley to coins but it is definitely the future.
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