Topic: Bitcoin 20MB Fork - page 91. (Read 154787 times)

You're "getting tired of it" isn't going to stop it from happening.

The commercial world is going to notice the difference between a 10 second confirmation time and a 30 minute one.

It's going to notice the difference between a traceable transaction and an untraceable one.

It will notice the difference between elastic money and inelastic money.

It will notice the difference between cryptocurrencies which are pegged to fiat and ones that are risk investments.

If you think that Bitcoin can span all these diverse and incompatible requirements then I suggest you try living off potatoes for the rest of your life - you might save some money  

This seems pretty tautological.

it's a qualitative question, not a quantitative one

Side chains or treechains... Additionally , I'm getting tired of people repeating the same lie that alts have more features of development behind them.

You sound a bit thick.

in the end of the day the big winners is the coins with:

- most stability
- most trust
- most consensus
- highest rate of fairness in the initial distribution and thereafter
- highest decentralisation
- most efficiency (HD and bandwidth use and cost of transactions)
- best speed

'innovation' and 'features' is highly overrated. Security is the best feature.

Most above points are interconnected. Bitcoin fails in most points.

No. It will not do that.

The modern technical requirements of monetary mediums are far to diverse for one blockchain to be able to monopolise the entire world.

That doesn't mean that Bitcoin won't continue to dominate the marketcap - it may well do (see my post above). But it's already been left in the dust as far as technical performance goes. It is never going to be used as a day to day currency. (Gold wan't, even when its value backed all other currencies).

people don't need to use it - they have a choice and they will go to something less volatile. Trading one volatile thing for an even more volatile thing is madness. People don't like that concept.

Bitcoin as basemoney can't compete in the long run due to its volatility. Yes, it is the job of the basemoney to be stable if you like it or not.

It's the opposite. Alts will continue to evolve and make Bitcoin pointless with time. However the rate of failure is still high with the new alts. But that will become better.

It is not the job of "base money" to be stable against other currencies. Base money doesn't give a f*ck what its value is or even whether it has any - its job is to function as a monetary medium of high integrity which means resistance to counterfeit, fungibility and tranrsmittability.

In a physical market, many things fulfill that role. In an electronic platform only cryptocurrencies can fulfill that role - in other words they can be transmitted on an electronic platform without the need for a counterparty (bank).

Sorry , Bitcoin isn't merely tool to fund scamcoins and p/ds. Bitcoin will continue to evolve and make most alts pointless with time.

This leads into deep discussion 

That sounds like a bit of a robotic statement that's never been thought through.

The dollar is backed by the debt of bond and mortgage holders. It is not in a position to back anything. It is a vague proxy for future economic activity for the most part.

tl,dr

@graphic: Btc backing alts with monetary value is wrong. The dollar/euro/CNY backs alts with monetary value. People will trade alts more and more directly for fiat in the future. Bitcoin isn't as significant as it wants to be

In fact it has been observed that trading alts against bitcoin is harmful for the altmarkets because of bitcoins volatility. Any altcoin that wants to grow needs a direct fiatmarket. Bitcoin is not useful as currency to trade other coins against because it is too volatile to let an altmarket be healthy or stable.
If you want a stable and healthy altcoin: avoid trading it against bitcoin (for now)


Different more stable alternatives will take its place as basemoney. Bitcoin is  on the best way to sink into obscurity - this hardfork just speeds it up.

I was talking definitions.

If a market prices an asset using a common unit, then that unit represents the "base monetary unit" for pricing purposes. If you care to check across all cryptocurrency exchanges, you'll find that 99% of all cryptocurrencies are priced in Bitcoin.

That in itself makes Bitcoin the "base monetary unit" of the entire cryptocurrency economy, however there is another, more fundamental basis for that terminology - namely the fact that Bitcoin is an unbacked monetary token, just as gold was.

Any economy needs something which can function as a monetary medium. It's very rare to find a candidate that works as such because the requirements of a monetary medium are so demanding. Gold worked in physical markets because it's one of the few elements that isn't found in abundance.

Until 2009 there wasn't a single technology that could fulfil that role on an electronic platform - you needed counterparties (otherwise known as 'banks').

So saying that "Bitcoin is a protocol" is a bit like saying "Gold is a metal" - i.e. true but not very relevant to its potential monetary function.

Bitcoin isn't a base monetary unit because you want it to be. Bitcoin is a protocol because it's how it was designed.

Folks. If a hardfork is really needed to support Bitcoin's role in the cryptocurrency economy, then so be it (I'm not technically clued enough to know). But before we decide about the hardfork, lets be utterly sure what that role is:

Bitcoin has done its job. Its role from now on is economic not technical. Just sit there and do sweet F.A. with slow block times and small block sizes (as long as they won't kill it).

I can understand Gavin "worrying' about blocksizes from the perspective of a programmer, but Bitcoin is the reserve of crypto. It will compensate for any technical inefficiencies with value.

Bitcoin is a BASE MONETARY UNIT - NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH.

Gold never got upgraded since the formation of the universe and neither should Bitcoin (unless it's a question of survival). Alts, cryptocurrency derivatives and the world financial system will do the heavy lifting needed to propagate bitcoin's value to the masses.

Bitcoins job (as Gold's was) is to exist. No more.

If you need any evidence for that, here it is:

[1] - during the last 2 years, a flotilla of altcoins far more technically advanced than bitcoin has emerged, yet none of them even made a dent in Bitcoin's marketcap. What does that tell you ? That a currency reserve has more value than a technically superior derivative.

[2] - all the alt's are PRICED in Bitcoin. Therefore even if it doesn't get used as a direct payments medium, its value is still being propagated by the alts

[3] - it is the first ever cryptocurrency. It was designed by Satoshi Nakomoto. All other cryptos valuations are measured in "Satoshis", so even if another crypto is used for "fast confirmation" or "anonymity" or "other fandango bells and whistles all sing all dance features", Bitcoin is what backs that crypto with value because Bitcoin is the BASE MONETARY UNIT of crypto

So a complimentary relationship is emerging here.

Let Bitcoin be the 'old man of crypto' which accrues in value and backs the "alts" as they find their way into all kinds of specific market sectors with increasingly powerful functionality.

Meanwhile, just allow it to exist, be maintained, and be transmitted in a reasonably practical time period (half an hour is fine). Impatient ? Use an alt (who's value is backed by bitcoin).

Bitcoin will never compete with the alts on "features and functions" but the alts will never compete with Bitcoin on value because ultimately it's Bitcoin's value that endorses them (Just look at all the exchanges - everything is priced in BTC). That's where this industry is going.

On the one hand, the hard fork is risky, because it means running the risk of Bitcoin splitting into networks. On the other hand, a Bitcoin that never does a hard fork and sticks with the 1 MB restriction forever has no realistic chance of ever attaining mass adoption:


The sooner the hard fork happens, the sooner the market will stop being spooked by the uncertainty, and can invest for growth.



 

Sorry for the confusion.

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