Topic: Bitcoin XT - Officially #REKT (also goes for BIP101 fraud) - page 154. (Read 378996 times)

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one person to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with the human herd, and to assume among the powers of the world the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature entitle them, a modicum of respect to their own intelligence requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident : that no men nor women are created, but born ; that nothing ever is or could be equal to any other thing ; that each man and each woman are sovereign entities and the sole sovereign entities ; that sovereigns and sovereigns alone are entitled to anything they may take for themselves, but nothing more ; that "rights" are a poor substitute of liberties much like railroad tracks are poor substitutes of wings, for on wings one may soar and on his liberty one may soar, but on the railroad tracks of alleged rights one can but trudge ; that things made not born have no liberties, nor are nor can ever become sovereign, but must remain subjected to the will and disposition of those sovereign in the world and limited by their rights as granted by their sovereigns, like slave is limited by his chains and computer programs by their language.

To secure our liberty from the encroachment of virtual entities, devoid of substance, deriving their pretense to power from the pretense of consent, that is in the ideal a shameful subversion of the sacred principles of sovereignty and in fact absent, we find --

That whenever any one or any thing becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that things long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such nonsense, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of the Internet ; and such is now the necessity which constrains us to reject the pretense to power of obsolete forms and fictions left over from a time long gone. The history of the present fiat governments of the world is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over us. To prove this, no facts shall be submitted, you may research on your own.

We, therefore, free and independent of any bond or link of loyalty or fealty, in #bitcoin-assets assembled, appealing to no one ; recognising nothing above and the whole world below us, do, in our own name, and by our own authority, solemnly publish and declare, that we are and of right ought to be free and independent ; that we are absolved from all allegiance to any entity, whether it styles itself a "crown" or a "state" or a "government" or however else ; and that all political connection between them and us is wholly imagined, by them ; and that as free and independent we have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which sovereigns may of right do.

Either way we are going to have to solve the core of the problem in either case. I mean Satoshi solves the biggest problem of all and we are left with a measly p2p networking problem which we can't solve on our own collectively? :p

Let's think what would happen if political pressure in most of the world causes internet firewalls to go up in most countries (just as it has in China), if they intentially slow down the net they can kill bitcoin, unless we try to work around it, thus solving issues that large blocks would cause aswell, in terms of network delays. That kills one bird out of 2, and I think we will need to sooner or later.

Right now im leaning on not increasing the block size until the time is right... when is it right? When a 0 fee transaction cannot get included in a block for more than 5 days (current bank wire transfer times). By then hopefully we solve the technical problems and are in need for smaller fees.

The key characteristic here is the ability to keep Bitcoin within the range of technology accessible by majority of Bitcoin users. If Bitcoin demonstrates that its demand for block-space outgrows the capabilities of present day home networks, it may turn into a trend that will be very hard to stop especially if the network loses most of its validating full nodes in the process of such expansion.

The limit on block size is supposed to serve as a "brake" and help reverse this trend backwards for a period of time, so that in the long run the costs of validation oscillate within a certain corridor instead of steadily growing. We can think of it as cycles in nature, where the periods of almost empty blocks (perceived as "large") are followed by the periods of almost full blocks (perceived as "small"), pretty much the same way seasons alternate throughout a year.

Try and understand what I am saying here, it is a very important distinction. If you have read my article you will know I have made the comparison to pools acting like a type of representative democracy for miners within a free market. There are no real solo miners in Bitcoin anymore, to be a solo miner it requires an industrial scale operation to counter the variance and even then the pools are still used instead, even if it is a private pool. I am a miner and I am not running a full node, I point my hashing power towards slush and they run the full node for me instead. This is how the vast majority of mining power operates today and this is the reality of Bitcoin mining today and it does work. In the case of the Chinese miners, they could point their hashing power towards a pool outside of china, or Chinese pools can be setup outside of china as well if that specifically became a problem for them.

Not sure I get it. Either way, miners, be it pools or solo miners, have to run full nodes (if they are actually doing their job properly). The centralization pressure here mainly comes not from validation costs, but from propagation costs. And a lot here depends on the network topology (e.g. The Great Firewall), i.e. the limiting factor is latency, not bandwidth. It's been discussed many times here.

1. Isn't efficiency in storage capacity and bandwidth overcoming the demand for it with our current block structure? With bigger blocks perhaps demand capacity and bandwidth will be higher, but the tradeoff is less fees correct?

Satoshi did most definitely support larger blocks

1. Isn't efficiency in storage capacity and bandwidth overcoming the demand for it with our current block structure? With bigger blocks perhaps demand capacity and bandwidth will be higher, but the tradeoff is less fees correct? If so then I'd like to know based on an assumption on the entire world running on bitcoin that what the percentage of success of having a transaction get included in a block with current limits such that it is set with 0 fees. (IMO having it completed within 5 days is not bad, which competes with overseas transfer times today.)

2. With bigger blocks miners have no choice but to read headers off of each other to try to be profitable, and even bigger blocks will cause more centralization correct? However what if the value of bitcoin rises? Perhaps bigger blocks can be afforded if bitcoin was of sufficient value to follow the difficulty curve.. and in lean times those that do not believe in its long term potential can give up and be replaced with ones that do (those that aren't doing it strictly for business, converting to fiat). I don't find this issue as important as the need to have miners anonymous as regulation can really cripple the network if miners can be physically identified. By adding anonymity this includes latency in the system that will encourage centralization just like bigger blocks would do, but bigger blocks is not really the largest issue here in regards to centralization of miners.

Not sure I get it. Either way, miners, be it pools or solo miners, have to run full nodes (if they are actually doing their job properly). The centralization pressure here mainly comes not from validation costs, but from propagation costs. And a lot here depends on the network topology (e.g. The Great Firewall), i.e. the limiting factor is latency, not bandwidth. It's been discussed many times here.

The concerns are two fold (ranked from my own opinion):

1. Raising cost of entry to become a network peer (running a full node)

2. Mining centralization.

The concerns are two fold (ranked from my own opinion):

1. Raising cost of entry to become a network peer (running a full node)

2. Mining centralization.

I accept zero confirmation transactions at my brick and mortar store and it works perfectly, people can also use payment processors for instant transactions as well of course.

Regarding bitcoin not being a settlement system, there is a reason why Satoshi did have 10 minute blocks and I wouldn't want to second guess his motives. If it were designed to be a real-time processing system it would have been designed differently, see Bitshares for an example of using a consensus algorithm that allows for real-time processing with faster block times.

It is not conjecture since my theories are based on the factual observations of how the Bitcoin network functions today. To simplify the argument for you however it is based on the fact that the vast majority of miners do not run full nodes for the purpose of mining. The pools run the full nodes for mining instead, that is why miners are not effected by the increased difficulty of running a full node, because miners do not run full nodes for the purpose of mining. This is why increasing the blocksize does not lead to increased mining centralization.