Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 352. (Read 2032266 times)

If all full nodes don't adopt the change then IBLT doesn't function (or the nodes that don't adopt it, are in a major disadvantage in terms of orphan rate and earnings and thus they fall away), thus it is a hard (i.e. non-optional feature change) fork.

Peter R asked me upthread to explain why I think it is a hard fork. So there is my explanation.

I don't know about the arguments of others, but my argument is that at some level of scale the small miners can't keep up with all those transactions. My point was never against raising the blocksize of Bitcoin. My point is that Bitcoin as it is currently designed where every full node must see and verify every transaction, can't scale without being centralized (or moving transactions offchain which is the same thing as centralization if they will be done offchain on the servers of the behemoths if the fundamental blockchain scaling issue has remained unresolved).

I thought that was an obvious implication from my posts. If I write everything that is obviously implied then my posts become verbose walls-of-text. If I don't write what should be deducible, then some allege that I don't make sense or write vaguely. I can't win either way.

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1. You are not addressing the fundamental scaling issue, rather doing some bounded compression.

2. As BTC rises in price, dust may become spendable.

So why did you watch them? (don't try to pretend you didn't otherwise you wouldn't know their content with confidence)

If you see I am in a silly wrestling match with Cypherdoc then why are you bothering to click youtubes in a post where he and I are not discussing anything factual.


Here we have a supposedly serious technical thread started by a b-lister in a Speculation forum and you expect to have noiseless and efficient A-lister geek discussion  

The mistake is who is allowed to post here. I shouldn't be posting here because of who else is allowed to post here. That is if you want to have a very high S/N.

haha. b-listers are so clueless.

No I have work to do.

I don't claim to have superior intelligence over every member of this thread and certainly not in every facet of knowledge (that would be absurd). I know for a fact that both smooth and Peter R have corrected me in the past. I get frustrated that I can't write something critical, succinct, and factual without inflaming someone's ego.

I make some succinct corrections and insights and this appears to set off the egos of those b-listers who are being debated. Note however, the way the discussion between NewLiberty and myself proceeded in this thread. There was no inflamed ego, so you probably missed the factual discussion. Try to review and see how I cordially I debate with those who are interested in useful discussion and not ego wars.

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You added to my knowledge. Normally I don't acknowledge, because it is noisy to do so. Just this once, so that others will understand I don't think I have all the knowledge (would be an absurd claim).

I don't know what part of "centralization" you thought you were refuting.   You appear to be describing centralization underway.

I don't know why you think the global elite wouldn't profit from destroying the USD as they usher in a political multi-polar world run top-down with a one-world reserve currency. China and Russia are in the power sharing agreement of the elite and the plans to enslave the minions and maximize fascist profit with a Global Technocracy.

I don't have more time to expend on you. Sorry.

Correct (I agree). The block size must be increased. Within the current design (even with IBLT) this is driving Bitcoin towards centralization as I have outlined. And only a radical redesign that removed transaction data from blocks could change that. So increasing block size and implementing IBLT has to be done and moving towards censorship (via increased centralization) has to be accepted. The only alternative is radical redesign.

Butthurt idols aside, it is better when we deal in reality and not fantasy. I would bother to explain why mentioning Nash equilibrium in this context is not applicable, but I see that my efforts here are not welcome.

I respect many of those in this thread who deserve the respect because their comments are factual (or they don't persist ignorantly when someone points out an error) and they don't pick silly fights with me because of ego. Examples include Peter R, NewLiberty, smooth, etc.. Note what I did not write. Did I write they want to associate with me?


Yes I know the reaction of b-listers when they are factually corrected. Instead of recognizing error and moving forward on learning and synergy, they play their egos all over the thread wasting all our time.

My mistake is letting them drag me into it, thus making it appear as I am the one with the problem.


If you interpret "arsehole" as disrespect then that's entirely on you.  

Based on the responses, gold and Bitcoin are not very related at all.  Is  that the summery here?

They are both forks in the sense above.

The difference is in whether or not all nodes need to change to accept blocks under the new rules or if the change is backward compatible and old nodes can still function without changing themselves.

This is a good description
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/30817/what-is-a-soft-fork

Obviously a soft fork is easier to roll out. A hard fork required everyone to agree to the change and the exact block to change.

It will rise until average joes are talking about how great the market is again.

Well, you know what they say, sell when they yell etc. It looks rather stretched to me, that is DOW, NAS, S&P. But I suspect that there might be something attractive in smaller caps which have been overlooked while the big boys were being pumped up.

Compromise solution: up to 500 tps on-chain while keeping the 1MB limit, however, a hard-fork is still needed.

This is an idea which I have been mulling over since Gavin came up with IBLT, but have not expounded because, until recently I did not realise the depth of support within Core dev for maintaining the 1MB. If dev are not able to compromise on a can-kick, e.g. 20MB, or an adaptive limit which leverages the demand for larger blocks with pressure to keep a cleaner UTXO set / better fees market, then there is an alternative. Also, Pieter's "headers-first" change which went live in version 0.10 makes this alternative safer on resync.

A "third way": Decoupling the size limit check on blocks from new block messages.

Today, the 1MB size limit is bluntly used to check any block which a node sees. It does not matter whether the block being checked is 2 years old and just read from disk, or whether it is a new block announcement to a fully-synced node. The principle here is that the 1MB check would be retained for new block announcement messages, but not when processing old blocks, or applied after a new block is constructed from an announcement message.

A hard-fork is still required, as the window is then opened for blocks to be accepted which are >1MB on disk, and to support compression/decompression of new blocks.  All nodes will need to be able to decode blocks which might be compressed by different methods.

Notes:

Bandwidth usage for new blocks is kept to 1MB per 10 minutes. People can continue to mine via TOR.

More than one type of compression would then be supported, e.g. IBLT and transaction hash lists, so miners have a choice of which to use. IBLT could be used on top of hash lists which gives even greater compression. CPU overhead is a consideration.

The network can already handle a much higher tps of real-time unconfirmed tx so block propagation methods which rely on the initial publication of tx are encouraged.
e.g. IBLT usage is incentivized for miners wanting to construct blocks larger than 1MB. This also reduces blockchain spam as miners cannot stuff new blocks >1MB with secret transactions. This reduces the rate of increase in UTXO relative to average block size increase.

Fees on a 20MB disk block would approximate the 6.25 reward in 5 years time. This happy state could be reached while retaining the 1MB limit on new block messages.

Resync would still require sending blocks >1MB, however this is not on the critical path for the whole network, just one node.

Current status:

Wladimir has indicated that he wants to close off version 0.11 soon.
If nothing is done about the 1MB in version 0.11 then one of the last chances is wasted for achieving a smooth transition to larger tx volumes without a period of serious confirmation delays, (user unhappiness, bad publicity, price hit, harm to the network effect).

I suggest that if no compromise is possible in dev on the 1MB then at the very least version 0.11 should prepare the way for block compression, and provide an incentive for it to be used, incorporating software to decode an IBLT, and be able to use transaction hashes like the block relay service. This might take a number of weeks/months, but far less time than waiting for Lightning Networks, tree-chains, or other off-chain scaling solutions.

IMHO, the safest hard fork uses both a block version transition PLUS a 30 or 60 day grace period. i.e. after the 75% target is reached, a delay occurs before the change becomes effective. This achieves mining consensus and also allows non-mining nodes and laggard miners more time to upgrade.

Have at it!

I like the stock market here.. Lots of high risk gamblers will make a fortune in coming time.. Usd also a good buy right now.

The stock market seems ripe for a major collapse. Is gold likely to rocket? And bitcoin? Also the dollar has been sagging quite a bit lately. That should help gold but what about BTC?

and your definition of a hard vs soft fork?

I'd define it as Bitcoin is the blockchain data structure and the set of rules that govern what constitutes a valid block. If you want to change the rules that govern what is a valid block (transactions and block structure) then that is a fork. Anything else is not a fork. The reasoning is simple, these are the rules that govern if a specific chain is valid and thus govern consensus.

Nodes however can operate however they want, as long as they agree on the rules that define a valid block. If some nodes decide on a different set of rules, then they will be forced onto their own chain and lose consensus with the main chain.

Take Gavin's IBLT proposal as an example. This is a major change to bitcoind that changes how nodes communicate blocks to each other. This is not a fork simply because it does not change anything at all about what defines a valid or invalid block. Just the communication of blocks.

Take LukeJr's insertion of Ubuntu nodes that block SatoshiDice type services into the Ubuntu default client. This was not a fork because he simply made the nodes decide not to relay transactions to/from specific addresses, but these nodes still followed the same rules on what is a valid block, and so they would accept these transactions after they were confirmed in a block. (To do otherwise would be a fork and they would be kicked onto their own tiny chain).

it's interesting how us non CS trained participants can blur things together.  i guess i should speak for myself; as one unit, as opposed to a separate base protocol layer governed by rigid communication rules interacting with an overlaying program, like Bitcoin Core and other wallets, which have the flexibility to interact with the protocol in any number of ways, including loose agreements.

Good question.