Topic: Bitcoin XT? - page 3. (Read 4892 times)

One of my biggest gripes with XT, besides it's attempt at a hostile take-over of the blockchain, is that decision are ultimately made by only two people, and one of them can override the other.  That's not what bitcoin is all about, and I hope XT fails miserably.  The problems it aims to address will be patched by core in due time.  Keep the original strong.

Very well put DannyHamilton, as always. People who are pro bigger blocks should also consider that bitcoinXT is not just about that, but rather an envision of a few developers of what he sees as a better bitcoin, network and/or bitcoin client. There are downsides and unaudited code still on the loose.

Furthermore, they should also consider the reason behind bigger blocks. Some think that a small blocksize is halting adoption. Even if that's the case, how and why is Gavin Andresen's bitcoinXT addressing this issue properly? Wouldn't a less invasive (and ideally in consensus with the other devs as well) attempt to address the block size issue be better for the bitcoin ecosystem as a whole? From what we're seeing right now, Gavin's project has not only caused a schism but also spread a lot of uncertainty.

We won't know how much of that 75% is real and how much is spoofed until XT's malicious trigger is (prematurely) activated.

Bitcoin will not die, and Litecoin will not die. Maybe we will reach 75% and then XT is the new version.

but i would like to have Core with bigger blocks but that seems to be impossible  

well then fork litecoin while you are at it.

actually, no.

you dont, because you dont mean anything.

go buy some litecoins, they have bigger blocks..

This poll has nothing to do with bigger blocks.  It is about Bitcoin XT.

Bitcoin XT includes more than just bigger blocks.  It has additional features (such as relaying double spend transactions if the original transaction is not confirmed yet).

It also has a very specific set of triggering crieteria that some may find insufficient. Perhaps you feel that 85% of the last 1000 blocks would be better? Perhaps you feel that 95% of the past 2016 blocks at the time of the difficulty change would be better? Perhaps you feel that 60% of nodes would be better?  Perhaps you feel that January 2016 is to soon, or not soon enough?

The question is, are you for or against Bitcoin XT exactly as it exists right now?

pro bigger blocks. now how should i vote?

Monday, August 10, 2015 opened at $265.89, kicking the week off continuing the pattern that emerged late last week. Throughout the entire day, the Bitcoin price floated in the mid-to-low $260s, hitting a daily low of $261.60 at 9 AM.

Tuesday continued the mid $260s trend in the morning hours, but the market attempted a comeback in the early evening. At 5 PM, the Bitcoin price jumped to $268.82; the price hit a peak of 271.5 at 7 PM. The upward push had no momentum, though, and the price began slowly declining again at 8 PM, setting the trend for Wednesday.

Meanwhile, in the altcoin market, ShapeShift announced that it had added Ether — the crypto-token for the highly popular Ethereum, a blockchain-based protocol for smart contracts. This announcement apparently sparked huge excitement amongst Ethereum supporters and altcoin speculators, as the price of Ether skyrocketed, at one point appreciating 100%.

August 12 began at $270.11. However, the day opened on a steady decline, as the market slowly liquidated the brief gains achieved in the previous day. At 9 AM, after falling back down to $266, the Bitcoin price began rising again, although the increase would be very short-lived. The increase peaked at $270.41 at 6 PM, after which it fell back to the mid $260s. Wednesday ended on the decline, closing at $265.51.

lightning-slideIn the news on August 12, HashPlex released its open source Lightning Hub, a functionality that will contribute to the highly anticipated Lightning Network. Many people are excited about this off chain network, because it can increase Bitcoin’s speed and scalability. A small group of people even cite the Lightning Network as an alternative to increasing the block size, despite the fact that the Network is not yet functional.

Bernard Rihn, CEO and Founder of HashPlex, described the Lightning Hub:

“A full Lightning Hub is not necessarily feature-heavy. Clients decide to lock-up so many Bitcoins in a payment channel with their hub. If the hub disappears or acts maliciously, they can get their money back. Then they send and receive money. Unlike on the blockchain or with credit-card networks, these payments are confirmed immediately with no chance of chargebacks or double-spends, and they require very low fees.”

Thursday, August 13 kicked off at $265.51, a return to the mid $260s trend that was broken by the brief rally on the 11th. Price activity was flat for most of the day; the Bitcoin price fell to the low $260s in the early morning, but returned to $265 by noon. At 10 PM, there was a sharp drop, in which the price fell back to the low $260s, hitting a trough of $262 at 11 PM, and rising to $262.88 to end the day.

The 14th began at $262.88, but quickly climbed back to the mid $260s. After returning to this range, the Bitcoin price remained sideways for the rest of the day. Part of the stability could have been brought on by big news from Visa, which has began researching the blockchain in anticipation of a possible integration. However, the 14th saw some negative news as well; LocalBitcoins announced that it would be ending its services in New York due to BitLicense, making the popular P2P Bitcoin exchange the latest casualty in Benjamin Lawsky’s war on digital currency.

Rajat Taneja, Executive Vice-President of Technology at Visa, explained the intentions behind the company’s blockchain research:

“For now, the focus of this technology innovation centre will be on Visa Checkout and mVisa, but for certain, India will soon have teams that will jointly work with our two research labs in US and Singapore in studying the many aspects of blockchain disrupting technologies.”

Friday the 14th ended on a quiet note, with the Bitcoin price hovering at $265.77.

August 15 opened at $265.77, and didn’t change much for the first half of the day. However, starting at 1 PM, the Bitcoin price entered a relatively significant decline that would set the tone for the rest of the week. After hitting $261 at 7 PM, the markets calmed down and hovered between $261 and $260 for the rest of the night. At 3 AM Sunday morning, however, the price sharply dropped once again to $256 — even hitting an hourly low of $255. The Bitcoin price spent the rest of August 16 hovering between $259 and $254, eventually closing out the week at $256.96.

Bitcoin XT Drama

Bitcoin Mining ProfitabilityA likely source for this further decline in the Bitcoin price is the community drama over the looming Bitcoin XT fork. As a solution to the incessant block size debate, Gavin Andresen has released an alternative version of Bitcoin Core, called “Bitcoin XT,”  that has a larger block size, which is set to automatically increase periodically. The release of Bitcoin XT sparked yet another debate, as the major mining pools now must decide if it will use XT or continue using the regular Bitcoin Core. Community leaders have turned to censorship in order to suppress opinions regarding XT; Theymos has forbidden any XT-related topics on the Bitcoin subreddit and BitcoinTalk, the two largest Bitcoin community hubs.

This drama will likely have an affect on the Bitcoin price as it unfolds. The deliberation between the mining pools regarding whether or not to adopt XT may end up giving speculators anxiety, causing some turbulence in the Bitcoin price. Additionally, depending on which version of Bitcoin gains consensus, disillusioned Bitcoiners — unsatisfied with whichever version is chosen — may chose to leave the community and cash out their coins. If this happens on a large enough scale, there would definitely be some downward pressure on the price. Nevertheless, the Bitcoin XT drama is sure to create some interesting market action in the coming days.

Are you siding with Bitcoin XT or Bitcoin Core? Let us know in the comments below!

Images courtesy of Wikipedia, “The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin” (documentary)

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of Bitcoinist.net.

Originally posted on: Bitcoinist Weekly News Re-Hash: Visa Tackles the Blockchain, Bitcoin XT, and More

more here http://insidebitcoins.com/news/bitcoinist-weekly-news-re-hash-visa-tackles-the-blockchain-bitcoin-xt-and-more/34397

Laughable or not, there should have been more thought before deciding to go head on towards a probable bitcoin fork. In my eyes, it's an offensive reminder that bitcoinXT isn't as great and failproof as some want it to appear. Even Adam Back posted in the dev list saying the following:

"The recent proposal here to run noXT (patch to falsely claim to mine on XT while actually rejecting it's blocks) could add enough uncertainty about the activation that Bitcoin-XT would probably have to be aborted".

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With the current rules set, the fork locks in right after 75% of 1000 blocks are agreeing with BIT 101 and occurs after two weeks (given we're past Jan 2016). This is perfectly exploitable since support for BIP101 can be faked. The fork could end up occurring with a lot less actual support which would be disastrous since from what we know until now, until the last moment fake and real nodes would be indistinguishable.

BS. Blockstream is.

Check their website...check the comments of Adam Back. It's the perfect example of conflict of interest.

Also, please detail the business model of Blockstream. (hint: they will introduce centralized layers on top of bitcoin, payment hubs and channels).

The fork cannot even activate without the super majority of the network onboard.

No

XT is the first real existential threat to Bitcoin.

XT is the same network, the same chain and unless BIP101 is triggered the same rules.

XT is not an altcoin.

it's opensource and does not rely on any developers. 

Mining 75%+ of the blocks requires 75%+ of the hashrate. NotXT is a laughable attack like the censorship on /r/bitcoin.

Scaling blocks are needed in the future, but not from 2 rogue devs through an altcoin. no to XT

MSM didn't hesitate to overhype the issue (so as Blockstream, check out adam backs fearmongering comments on reddit) and newbies have been always manipulated easily.
A panic can form a negative feedback loop (people start to sell because they see the exchange rate fall which causes even more fall).

Personally, I will dump only if Core devs maintain status quo on development and do not raise the blocksize limit.

Not really, 75% of the last 1000 blocks would be needed to be mined with XT to trigger the fork. But NotXT can also be used to mine.

So why is everypony selling their bitcoins then if there is nothing to worry about