Topic: BlockStream or BitcoinXT? Those are your choices, gentlemen. - page 5. (Read 6848 times)

My primary criteria for the success of Bitcoin is not just that significantly more people use it then currently do, however I do believe that this is an important criterion, but quite pointless by itself if Bitcoin became like Visa for instance. So increasing adoption while maximizing decentralization and financial freedom would be a more accurate criterion for me.

First of all you are not actually countering my argument here, you are arguing from a different point. Since mining centralization and decentralization from the users perspective are different things even though they are related.

I can counter this however, since I am a miner myself and have never believed that increasing the block size would lead to increased centralization of mining. Firstly you say that if we do not increase the block size you believe that there would be higher rewards for miners. I do not think that this is true, I think that it is more likely that there would be an increase in the reward for mining when there is increased adoption with an increased block size. Since there would be more transactions to collect fees from, especially if Bitcoin could gain the type of volume that Visa for instance presently does. As opposed to collecting fees of a lower amount of transaction that have a higher fee.

Secondly you claim that when there is less incentive to mine that there will be more mining centralization, I also do not see how this is true since mining incentive within the Bitcoin network is meant to be a self balancing system. The burden of proof is on your end for this particular statement, so i will wait for your response on that.

So in my opinion we need higher transaction volume in order to pay the miners into the future. I do not think that confining Bitcoin to the role of a clearing house so to speak would provide enough incentive for mining far into the future if we want Bitcoin to be the largest and therefore the most secure proof of work block chain. It would also be better to keep the network as inclusive and inexpensive as possible from the users perspective since it is more important to increase adoption first, this would also help Bitcoins survival into the future. There does need to be a block size limit and a fee market should develop in the future but I do not think that time is now since the block reward is still high and adoption is still relatively low.

Great! Welcome to the thread. I agree that there's been too much ad hominem and hyperbole. It would be better if, in particular, people avoided accusing BlockStream of nefarious plans for profiteering and accusing Gavin Andreson of being a CIA mole.

I've thought about ways to try to seriously apply logic to the situation. It's tricky. Let's assume everyone on all sides wants Bitcoin to be successful. The problem is that "success" for Bitcoin means different things to different people. We could distinguish them as different predicates: successful(1), successful(2), successful(3), and so on. And beyond defining success, it's possible for people to have a variety of views on the matter: Bitcoin is successful(i) now and we must keep it successful(i). Bitcoin is not successful(i) now and we must make it successful(i).

It might be possible to model the situation using some kind of modal logic or directly with Kripke semantics. There's the world as it is today, and then there are multiple possible worlds* that may follow. In some of those accessible possible worlds, Bitcoin would be successful(i) and in others it would be unsuccessful(i). Different choices about the development of Bitcoin change the world and so change the possible worlds that can follow. It's probably best that I stop here and continue if there's interest or criticism.

*Sometimes people object to the way "possible worlds" sounds and prefer something like "possible states of the world." They're the same in the way I'm using it here.


It sounds like your primary criteria for the success of Bitcoin is that significantly more people use it than currently do. Is that correct? Would you consider Bitcoin successful if, say, it kept the same number of users as now (give or take a factor of two)?

Thanks for the clarification. Reading the relevant portions of your comments again, I can see this interpretation, so I'm willing to just accept that I misunderstood. It would've been clearer to me if you'd asked me to flesh out the argument if you didn't accept there is such an argument. Here's the closest thing to an actual argument I gave:


It was a long post and maybe it wasn't clear that I didn't actually make the argument. I claimed I could make one that gives the conclusion from axioms like the ones I gave (and maybe other axioms). I'm still willing to do it at some point. (I don't have time today.) I like to do different kinds of Coq developments to keep in practice.

No need to scale or upgrade Bitcoin guys, BlockStream's got you covered. Everyone talks about decentralisation but at the drop of a hat everyone falls over themselves to get back to centralised solutions. 

Most Bitcoin holders have no clue about the blocksize debate, they just want a cork for that fork. As all forks are bad and could lead to blindness. 

Throws in a wrench fork if mining is equal to transaction fees after revenues perpetual increases in block size results in lower rewards, lower rewards = less incentive to mine after halving = Centralization under XT.

A limited supply leads to higher transaction volume above dust = More value per transaction + Miner incentive after halving = Long term growth and development

Spin it how you want it still ='s from both viewpoints.


-
Solution A - Size Increases
Solution B - Side-chains

True Solution
- Will be determined as we approach the true date of settlement in 2016.

Isn't that the same fallacious argument that Krona Rev ably deconstructed just a page or two back?

beautifully constructed argument sir, I am in total agreement well done

To clarify:

IF: Bitcoin XT eliminated the ability to run behind Tor…

THEN: It would follow that Bitcoin XT should be opposed.

BUT: Since Bitcoin XT still allows for the ability to run behind Tor…

THEN: Bitcoin XT should not be opposed.

The conclusion "bitcoin XT should be opposed" does not follow from your axioms sir. Are we clear now?

you too veritassapere. fork the friggin off. noob.

It is nice to see that some real philosophers have joined the discussion, I am a philosopher as well. I have constructed a simple argument of my own, you are welcome to try and rebuttal. There has been a lack of rational responses to my arguments so far, and far to much ad hominem and hyperbole. I believe that good philosophy should be simple.

To put it simply, if we do not increase the block size it will be more expensive and less people will be able to use it, that is to transact on the main chain directly, and instead we will be "forced" to us 3rd party payment processors.

However if we increase the block size then it will be less expensive and more people will be able to use it. Even if full nodes will only be able to be hosted on powerful computers, since miners do not run full nodes, the pools do.

Considering that these would be the most likely outcomes with increased adoption, to me it seems clear that increasing the block size would lead to more decentralization as a whole compared to keeping the restriction in place.

I can go into much more detail of course but I would like to keep it simple in the interest of constructive argument.

Yes. They don't want to discuss that. Instead of discussing it, they spread conspiracy shit.

I was not aware of that.

I've moved on from this static-size/scheduled-increase debate really, anyway. Like I said elsewhere, arguing about the blocksize limit is mindless, like trying to answer the question "how long is a piece of string?"

I have seen this repeated a lot now and I need to correct this, to be clear so that everyone understands. There is actually an alternative version of XT that only changes the block size. You could even run a patched version of Core that implements BIP101. The block size increase is the only fundamental change to the protocol, the other features within XT are all optional. Therefore the discussion should be about BIP101, since those other features are irrelevant to the discussion in terms of reaching consensus.

Carlton stop waistîg your Time with these people.

Zarahustra go fork yourself.

Lol what coin. You people are beginning to sound really desperate, it's not very dignified.

The Blockstream coin will not be a coin on the Blockchain. It will be an altcoin.

I think gmaxwell published some alpha source code a short while ago, but in fairness, they haven't finished developing it yet.

Does the open source nature of XT make it any better that Tor support and consensus rules are compromised? By that logic, you'd be happy to have a surveillance rootkit installed on your computer, as long as you have the source code. Right?

The Hearn gang coin is open source. Your Blockstream gang coin is not.

Exactly. Framing this debate as XT vs Blockstream is highly manipulative; I reserve my right to reject their ideas for Bitcoin also. Blockstream might not succeed as the sidechain extension to Bitcoin, but something better could. But that's a completely different issue to the Hearn gang coup d'etats.