Topic: Bitcoin XT - Officially #REKT (also goes for BIP101 fraud) - page 168. (Read 379003 times)

Not by themselves, perhaps, but throw a few others into the mix and the picture starts to look a little different.


Larger (than 1MB) blocks will naturally provide benefit to:

Anyone who wants to use Bitcoin as a payments network
VC investors
Miners
Merchants
Payment processors
Average users in general

Smaller blocks will naturally provide benefit to:

Those who want to use Bitcoin as an asset class (i.e. not the average user)
Those wanting to run full nodes cheaply (i.e. not the average user)
Those who don't care if the average user is priced off the main chain (i.e. definitely not the average user)

Pretty sure that first group will agree on a proposal before too long.  We'll see if you're right about them not being an economic majority.  

Would this require a fork to enhance scripts, or are we saying today's scripting do this? 

Yep, mixing a spend with chain-specific inputs can work. It's a workaround, though, as one would have to provide these inputs.

I've read about the process for chain-specific spending in enough of these threads to think it's not so difficult.

1. Obtain coins that are chain-specific. These could either be descendants of coins mined on one chain or descendents of coins that were purposefully separated on the chains. (Purposeful separation might require several tries, but it's clear how to do it and that it will eventually succeed.)

2. Use chain-specific coins as one of the inputs to the tx being signed.

If I remember correctly, Peter R is one of the people arguing: There won't be more than one active chain. Certainly I've seen Gavin make such an argument. However, it's clearly possible, and any "bet" should take this possibility into account.

Are the zero percenters still crying?

Let's remember the only measure that is not vulnerable to sockpuppetry AKA Sybil attacks:


Doubles as the encephalogram of most XTards.

ill take that as a "yes".

 

The economic majority is the one most interested in keeping the block size small.

The XT #REKT event should have made that clear.

Consumers and merchants are never going to be the economic majority in Bitcoin

isn't the very idea of an "economic majority" tied to consensus? if the miners don't support industry players, that doesn't mean the miners can be ignored. the lower we place the threshold for a hard fork, the more likely we will see a "civil war" play out as Nick Szabo pointed out. that's why hashing power is paramount to the concerns of Bitpay et al.

You love going around in circles, don't you? 

As knight22 already explained a few times, there's no such thing as perfect consensus.

Do you refuse to accept the possibility that an economic majority will have their way and increase the blocksize even though you don't agree?

Look Peter it's quite simple, either you accept that for the block size to increase consensus needs to be reach by all actors of the Bitcoin market or you continue pretending that the demand of consumers & merchants for lower cost transactions will move the needle which it won't in that case if they "fork" it will be in their own cheap little altcoin.

I'm not sure which it is.  Either they think the economic majority will side with them in the event of a fork, or they're cocky enough to believe that they are the economic majority all by themselves.  

Bitcoin XT was a real test to the community. I'm happy decentralization came out as a winner.

By protocol fork, I just mean increasing the block size limit to satisfy demand.  I don't understand how that implies "bootstrapping a new economy."  Can you explain?

 

Yeah sure, bootstrapping a new economy surely is the path of least resistance, not cashing out to fiat to make whatever purchase you're trying to make....

Personally, I see the protocol fork as the path of least resistance.

Anyways, regardless of what either of us think, my hypothesis can easily be proven wrong. All it would take is for aggregate fees to be significantly higher than aggregate losses due to orphaning over a sustained period.  I don't believe this will happen.

But time will tell.

I appealed to expertise, not "authority."

It's very sad you lack the basic intelligence required to understand the day-and-night difference between expert opinion and argumentum ad baculum.

No wonder you are still pushing XT's dead, utterly #REKT fail-agenda.

A protocol fork implies enormously more costs and potential loss than a pivot toward alternatives. Please don't pretend the two are proportional options. They are not.

The problem with your logic here is that the users responsible for the majority of Bitcoin's monetary base are not deterred by or concerned with transactions fees. Therefore what you are essentially suggesting is that those users who are not comfortable with paying for the security and the services of the network would essentially bootstrap their own altcoin.

Seeing as they are necessarily less wealthy individuals who'd have a hard time supporting an economy with their own pockets I'm betting they will think twice before doing this.

The question is whether or not we have a choice.  My prediction is that there will never be a sustained period in the future where aggregate fees are significantly greater than aggregate losses due to orphaning.  The protocol will fork (or demand will leak somewhere else) before this happens.

Let's say "sustained" = more than 6 months and "significantly greater" = more than double.

You don't load a credit card up with money. When you spend money on a credit card, you are borrowing money when you pay.

In trading terms, when you buy an asset using a credit card, you are shorting (selling via borrowing) the currency the credit card is in and going long the asset you purchased. If your credit card is in US dollars, for example, and you purchase a $100,000 Mercedes car with it, you are now short $100,000 US dollars and long a $100,000 Mercedes.

If the value of the Mercedes doubles before your payment is due and you can sell it by then for $200,000 (doubtful) and make your $100,000 monthly payment to pay back the credit card loan, then you will have made $100,000 profit and it was all borrowed money. This is not a very realistic example as most people don't use credit cards to buy assets they believe will appreciate in value. They usually use them to pay bills or buy non-performing assets. However, it is true that when you use one to purchase an asset, you are going long that asset and shorting the dollar until your payment is made to close out the loan.

Credit cards are different from debit cards. A debit card is not a loan, the purchase amount is deducted from the bank account associated with the card.

Because credit cards are loans, they generally have higher fees than debit cards. One big reason is because not everyone who borrows money pays it back. Some people buy a bunch of stuff on credit cards and run away and/or file bankruptcy.

And that's one of the reasons credit cards have higher interest rates than other payment methods. You are not spending your money, you are spending their money.

There are a variety of other differences between cards, such as the amount of buyer protection you have if someone rips you off. More details are here:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/debit-cards1.htm