Topic: Decentralization? My ass... (Read 1802 times)

Bitcoin is decentralized because no one party has monopoly control over the system. That DOES NOT mean that resources and influence will not coalesce around certain points (MtGox, the core dev team, etc.).

However, there is all the difference in the world between a system like Bitcoin and a system like the Federal Reserve, where one organization has monopoly power to print, manipulate, and control.

Don't confuse "decentralized" with "evenly distributed."

the fact that you had to reply twice in a row proves that you are just trolling yourself. And since you even asked for it twice: gfto 

Yes.  The sooner the better too.  In a certain sense, this kind of thing is part of the "experiment".


Part of the mythos that surrounds bitcoin is that transfers should be effectively free.  "Send millions for pennies!"  Or something.

The question is: why?

Even within the confines of bitcoin ideology, a fee should be demanded, as these resources will be re-invested in the network, making it more secure, so even larger amounts of wealth can be trusted to it.

Any answer to questions and points made that is of the form "Go take your dinosaurs and play somewhere else", is inherently escalatory(sp?).   All it proves is that this forum is indeed only for True Believers.

I've watched this forum for two months, and I've decided that is is game I wish not to play.  So to save time (yours and mine), my answer is simple:  fuck that shit.   I like to think of myself as an honorable gentleman, so my offer stands:  if you don't like me or my plain-talking arguments, say the word -- polite or otherwise -- and I am gone.  You don't even have to procure the services of a moderator here to kick me out.  Just one guy, anyone, even a 1 post newbie, merely has to say the word(s).


Sad to say it, but you sound like a sucker too, but one with an especially bad case of cognitive dissonance.

Yeah, sure, so you paid for your video cards.  You cleared your electricity expenses.  You got some value -- ironically, denominated in USD! -- from this little exercise.

But you could have gotten more.

For example, right now at www.bitcoinwatch.com, it is reporting that 200k of BTC were transferred in the last 24hr.  At a feeble fee of .1%, that is an extra 200 BTC that would have been distributed throughout the mining network.

It's as if everyone -- not just you, but everyone -- got a 3% boost in hashing rate.


Like I said, say the word, and I am gone.


Can we just ponder things a bit longer before the fingers tickle the keyboard?

Under a proportional fee it hardly matters how they structure the transaction.

It would be prudent, though, to add a bandwidth component to the fee, as it does cost resources, plus to keep the completely incompetent from trying to save a few micro-BTC due to rounding or something.


I am to blame because bitcoin has not taken the world by storm?  Gee.

How about this:  you are to blame because YOU ARE NOT TAKING BITCOIN SERIOUSLY (pardon the screaming).

It is your lack of initiative re: more realistic fee structures that is one (albeit small) component of bitcoin's general failure to date.

Now, unlike you, I can't lay all of the blame on joulesbeef or any other specific individual.  Collectively though, you are all guilty.  Miners, pool operators, developers.  All of you have drunk the Koolaid, it is a fait accompli:  the Satoshi-client position is that you can all collectively live on the 7200 BTC/day subsidy and nothing more.

Absolute, 100%, pure nonsense.

It is especially ironic that a bunch of libertarian diehard miners are basically living on nothing more than bit.dole!


What do you mean "skimmed"?  You are aware that the sender has to agree to the fee, right?  If he wants to send a free transaction, let him find the damn block himself.


Might I suggest you limit your focus to your bitcoin mining business?

Question: how can you maximize the return on your investment.

Answer: you have to go beyond the scraps the protocol throws you.

Pool operators especially should be asking this question, as they arguably owe a duty to their computational contributors.


Fine, you want to remain poor.  Your choice.  Why not just turn off your miner?  Whatever.

The rest of the network, though, does deserve more.  A 2 megacoin transaction is worth far more to both the sender and the network and can be assessed a correspondingly higher fee.

Furthermore, this is hardly radical stuff.  Stock exchanges do this.  Banks.  Even television stations:  they charge more for airtime at some times of the day than others, even though their is almost no difference in cost to them.  Are they "skimming" their customers?  Numerous other examples are easy to find.


Back to this again?

Man, maybe I should just leave.

How about his instead:

1) I believe this forum software has an ignore feature;  just add me to the list and that's that!  Out of sight, out of mind.

2) I hereby promise I will never, ever, apply for "whitelist" status, and I will even refuse to leave my cell if someone unlocks the door.

Feel better?

The whole transaction fee question will sort itself out eventually. If I understand correctly, mining pools were not part of the original design -- they were created to address the variance in block discovery. There will be a similar emergent "solution" for transaction fees.

It makes sense to transition from getting rewarded out of generated BTC vs getting rewarded from transactions. If we charged a lot for transactions, we do have something to lose -- the  value of BTC is not in its ability to hold wealth, but in its ability to transfer wealth. As the network grows, there will be an increasing amount of people who will use BTC to hold wealth (beyond the speculation that is going on now).

I used to think the newbie section sucked, But this thread proves why it doesnt.



the guy simply said start your own pool.. no reason for the profanity and to escalate this, this isnt 4chan. And your going to be "polite just this once"?? well you can be as impolite as you want banned from this board.



You sound like a troll and really not someone I want to debate, yeah the reward is way too low(/s), which is why are are all making money mining BTC and people have had entire server farms paid for by their video card., My video card paid for itself in amonth.. but yeah Lets make the reward 100 coins.. we now only need to cut the price on mtgox in half.. and ....read teh wiki transaction fees are supposed to limit micro transactions which spam the chain. They are slowly growing and one day they will replace that 50btc blocks.

I think that quote stands on its own.



well for one people will just split up transactions much like people bundle them now. Plus what do you want people to do, broadcast that they want to make a large payment and then wait for the nodes to send back a fee structure? really?



People like you are one reason bitcoin isnt taken so seriously, How about tone it down a bit and maybe inject more facts and less insults into your "argument" which thus far ammounts to "believe me I have looked at the code, but I;m not going to prove my point cause you are too lazy and stupid."



Left on what table? I should be pissed I didnt skim someone elses money into my pocket?

and why shouldnt we be proud? you know you cant move 10k in the us without involving the government, bitcoin just handled 20 million and it is no ones business but the owner(s).

I'm making money thank you. Yeah sure I could make more, but that doesnt mean I deserve more.

On a separate subject, WE should be able to vote  that some people stay in the newbie section a bit longer. Like every 10 votes adds a half our and 1 more post to their requirements. WE really cant have this place seem so 4chanish

In my oppinion it is to early to judge the Bitcoin Project, it will develope and in some years from now we will see

Why would deepbit not include transactions with lower fees? Looks like as a missed opportunity to me. And indeed, if one pool does not include these low-fee-transactions, there will be another (more efficient?) pool that includes them.

meh, this is a very very young market. Don't expect stability. The more churn the better, for stability in the long run.

It is none of our business why someone sent 2 million coins.

It is none of their business why miners set certain fees.  Or not.

BTC is unfortunately a no go for adopters that are starting now. Nor the adopters from last month like me. Right now, the only market for BTC is MTGOX exchange making it simply too easy to manipulate the exchange rates for someone that are already holding a lot of btc (early adopters for example). It is almost "God-like" syndrome. Today, the price will go up ... Tomorrow, the price will go down.

I'm going to be polite about this only once:  if you just want to tell me to fuck off and die, why not just be honest about it?  Say the words, and I'm gone.  Seriously.  Until then:


You sound like a sucker to me:  transaction fees always make sense.  Miners have a service to offer, and that needs to be paid for.  The block "reward" is already way too low, and has been since the beginning.


You are not thinking this through.

If deepbit and other pools started an aggressive fee structure, unconfirmed transactions would start to pile up rapidly.  The pools and miners would not care a damn.  The worst-case scenario is exactly what you have today:  they get 50 BTC, but remember that get it whether or not a transaction is in the block.


You can not configure the current client re: transaction fee structure.  The policies are all hard-coded.  If you read the code, you'll find that the policies so encoded never really made much sense to begin with, and over time make increasingly less and less sense.

Today the network is just a "send money for free" machine.


By the way, this is another reason why I was so snarky in the first sentence, above.

Why is it that I am "greedy", when we have the bit.rich not paying for access to the confirmation services of the network?  Sounds to me like they are the greedy ones.

But of course, they aren't greedy -- they are just taking advantage of a sweet deal, architected mainly by deficient software.  Miners and pool operators, though, are just being bit.lazy, if not downright bit.stupid.  They should look at the 2 million coins as a huge lost opportunity.  A massive amount of money was left on the table, and this is not something to be proud of.

You can send as much or as less as many times you want and transaction fees are per kilobyte not amount since this is the actual cost to the network (storage space, it doesn't matter much now but as volume increases it will become more and more relevant)

Why would one ask more fee for bigger transactions? For the processor it doesn't matter how big a transaction is. Moreover, it seems that the transaction fee exists to avoid micro-transaction spamming.

Well you can start your own pool or solo mine and just include transactions with a fee in them.

Right now high transaction fees do not make sense but expect them to rise the amount of new coins per block decreases. More miners will demand transaction fees then but it wouldn't rise too much because there will always be someone to do it for less.
The protocol is pretty much open in this matter it all depends on how you configure / implement the client.

But a proportional fee doesn't make sense besides your personal greed there is no reason why.

It is showing the usefulness of a design flaw in current bitcoin client software.

Ask yourself this:  suppose the software allowed node operators to dictate their own transaction fee structure.  Under such a regime, would anybody allow 2 megacoins into the block chain without a minimum 2000, or even 20,000, BTC fee?   All the pools could offer their miners much more incentive -- over and above the piddly 50 BTC for the block.

Bitcoin is touted as the "decentralized currency".  If it is in fact no more decentralized than "normal money", then maybe some advertising copy needs to be changed?

Holy shit!!!! 2,000,000 bitcoins transferred in 111 transactions and only 0.108 bitcoins as fee, not even on the big lumps!

Definitely decentralization showing it's usefulness...

Dude has a point. I can't read bitexplorer well but if he is right, that's pretty big. Do you know why bitcoins went down to 6 last time? I mean some people are trying to make a living off selling bitcoins, with their 10k loan and stuff. If it ever goes below 4-6 uSd/bitcoin i'm sure it won't pay off the electricity. I think where I come from @ .11 per kwh. If it goes below 5.5 USD/btc, I can't afford to pay my bills. And still have 6+ months to break even on my GPU/motherboards.

https://mtgox.com/