Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 376. (Read 2032266 times)

C'mon that's totally unfair to the majority of developers (again). It is not simply a 'sacred cow' and that totally over-simplifies the problem while casting negative aspersions against most of the developers.

These guys have worked themselves to the point of mental exhaustion in some cases to keep this thing scaling up to handle the transaction growth rate thus far and have made huge advances. They would all simply agree (ya know, a consensus) to raise the limit if it was such an obvious 'fix', it is not and there are no obvious fixes, that is just wishful thinking by the unthinking majority. Raising the limit is the last ditch 'suck it and see' hail mary pass when everything else has been optimised as much as possible ...

If the limit gets raised substantially above the technological improvements growth rate I'll be pulling the vast majority of my investment out because it is not going to be operating like we thought it would, i.e. it won't be a clearing and settlement digital gold network but a paypal2.0, fun internet googlesque reversable, traceable payments network

then tell me, why hasn't it happened already?  there are supposedly billions to be made doing this.

well, i don't see them EVER agreeing to perform an attack.  they would destroy confidence in the network and all their equipment value goes poof.  cashing out in USD after an attack is problematic as well as the exchanges are watching for any funny business and Bitstamp is an example of how account funds can be frozen (Jed McCaleb).

this graph is probably never going to change much even with huge Bitcoin success.  there will always be bigger pools than others.

furthermore, pools consist mainly of individual participants who will defect if their pool operator is abusing their hashing power.  ghash has been decimated by defection.

all it takes is for the owners of the 3 pools to be corrupt and btc is screwed. that isnt decentralization... thats asking for trouble.

I guess it is in the eye of the beholder. I still see 3 pools (assuming "unknown is a mostly some big pool, if not that changes things") with >50%. The other tiny little slices don't matter at all as long as the top 3 agree and if even two of them agree, the tiny slices still hardly matter at all.

Is it better, worse, or about the same as in the past?

Maybe some people are complaining about centralization when they actually mean they are disgruntled about competition making mining at home less lucrative than it was in the good old days.

Is it better, worse, or about the same as in the past?

from gmax:

"So far the mining ecosystem has become incredibly centralized over time."

i totally disagree.  the trend has been back towards decentralization since ghash and ghash has been punished accordingly by the market down to a measly 3.6%.  what i see in this graph is a normal, expected distribution gradient from large to small share.  btw, gmax has been complaining about mining centralization since at least 2012 but yet here we are.  why do we accept his arguments on this when there hasn't been one major incident of a 51% attack?:

Wrong, you could get that with Ripple. The utility value of bitcoin is decentralised, irreversible, permissionless settlement and clearing, (trust no-one consensus) ... like SWIFT but better. Bitcoin will get more valuable the less people can use it but want to, like any desirable scarce resource commodity. The demand already exists and the miner's are providing the secure commodity.

The days of people writing graffitti and spam into the blockchain ending will be the evidence that it is finally useful only as a monetary network, not some kind of toy ... who would use SWIFT to message banal profanities?

i see that alot of the 1MB proponents are attempting to use the excuse of "digital gold as a reserve currency" or as a "settlement currency" to argue for their cap.

as one of the first, if not the first, to have made the conceptual switch from physical gold to what i consider digital gold (Bitcoin), AND act on it, i think i am qualified to comment on this excuse:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.443129

my argument against leaving the limit at 1MB to guide Bitcoin's future towards being a reserve or settlement currency is that it is too early to claim Bitcoin as a gold substitute.  Bitcoin is unknown by probably greater than 60-70% of the world's population.  those African kids digging gold out of mine shafts 3ft wide and down 100 yds have no idea that something like Bitcoin even exists.  otoh, they obviously know about the value of gold.  i'd argue they even understand why; that it can't be debased by their gvts by legalized counterfeiting.  they also understand that they can hold the metal in their hands.  it's hard, it's physical, they can break it up, it doesn't seem to lose it's value, and they can instantly transact with it with their local peers.  this is possible b/c gold has been around for thousands of years and has had the benefit of time and usage to spread itself along with it's sound money properties to all corners of the Earth.  the hivemind around gold is set, it's mature, it's universal, it's accepted by gvts and central banks; it's a given.

contrast that with Bitcoin that has maybe a couple of hundred thousand dedicated users.  that is not enough.  there are very few of us, mostly those of this in this thread, that understand that Bitcoin is actually a superior form of gold, ie, digital gold.  it can be transmitted across the internet in fractions of a second.  it's supply is harder and more fixed than gold ever can be by the laws of mathematics.  it isn't under threat of further debasement by asteroid mining or ocean gold.  it's more easily transportable and crosses guarded borders seamlessly and effortlessly.  it certainly can replace gold.  but it is too early to make the claim.

b/c Bitcoin is digital, there exists a burden of proof that is higher than just proving mathematically that the supply is fixed.  that involves proving it's worth as a payment network. this is not only b/c Bitcoin has the unique ability to be the best payment network the world has ever seen but also b/c it is necessary to prove it's worth as a gold substitute.  it will do so by proving to be a reliable payment network which will allow BTC units to be disseminated widely to places like Africa.  b/c those kids in Africa can't touch Bitcoin, admire it's color, wear it, transact with it (no smartphones), they will never accept Bitcoin until these things happen:  

1. they first have to be able to access it:  this first challenge is easily foreseeable as long as we let the Bitcoin expand; smartphone penetration is coming.  all data analyses point to this.  as we speak, thousands of miles of fiber optic cable is being laid across Africa.  Benedict Evans of a16z regularly talks about this.  this eventually will solve the problem of these ppl accessing the internet which will make transacting in Bitcoin possible.  actually, as an aside, i was the first i know to have talked publicly about M-Pesa being a great foreseeable example of how Bitcoin could take over Africa.  here is where i first talked about it.  someone correct me if they know of someone else who talked about it earlier than this:

https://bitcoin-forums.net/index.php?topic=6322.20

2. since those kids can't touch or feel Bitcoin, these kids have to be able to use it reliably; no payment delays, no double spending, no loss of tx's in a queue, no loss in value. this is necessary to develop confidence in Bitcoin as a gold substitute.  this is a few years off even with a block size increase.  but Bitcoin won't even get to them with the 1MB cap as this will prevent the worldwide dissemination necessary for this level of confidence to occur.

capping at 1MB will cause unacceptable confirmation delays, lost tx's, loss of revenues, loss of user base, loss of confidence, loss of exchange value, and generalized degradation of Bitcoin.  it will then never reach the status of digital gold we all aspire to.

I guess it is in the eye of the beholder. I still see 3 pools with >50%. The other tiny little slices don't matter at all as long as the top 3 agree and if even two of them agree, the tiny slices still hardly matter at all.

Implicitly,

decentralised => clearing and settlement digital gold network

centralised => reversable, traceable payments network

(without thinking that is not well-known by now).

I guess it is in the eye of the beholder. I still see 3 pools with >50%. The other tiny little slices don't matter at all as long as the top 3 agree and if even two of them agree, the tiny slices still hardly matter at all.

from gmax:

"So far the mining ecosystem has become incredibly centralized over time."

i totally disagree.

Implicitly,

decentralised => clearing and settlement digital gold network

centralised => reversable, traceable payments network

(without thinking that is not well-known by now).

You are doing the same thing you are accusing others of doing. There is no consensus or even an easy answer, whether Bitcoin should be a "clearing and settlement digital gold network" or a "payments network" (I don't think too many want it to be reversible and traceable but you are injecting that as a form of commentary). If there were an easy answer, it would already be accepted as consensus, but there isn't and it isn't.

These guys have worked themselves to the point of mental exhaustion in some cases to keep this thing scaling up to handle the transaction growth rate thus far and have made huge advances. They would all simply agree (ya know, a consensus) to raise the limit if it was such an obvious 'fix', it is not and there are no obvious fixes, that is just wishful thinking by the unthinking majority. Raising the limit is the last ditch 'suck it and see' hail mary pass when everything else has been optimised as much as possible ...

If the limit gets raised substantially above the technological improvements growth rate I'll be pulling the vast majority of my investment out because it is not going to be operating like we thought it would, i.e. it won't be a clearing and settlement digital gold network but a paypal2.0, fun internet googlesque reversable, traceable payments network

BTC intrinsic value IS its ease of worldwide cheap txns and large network.

C'mon that's totally unfair to the majority of developers (again). It is not simply a 'sacred cow' and that totally over-simplifies the problem while casting negative aspersions against most of the developers.

These guys have worked themselves to the point of mental exhaustion in some cases to keep this thing scaling up to handle the transaction growth rate thus far and have made huge advances. They would all simply agree (ya know, a consensus) to raise the limit if it was such an obvious 'fix', it is not and there are no obvious fixes, that is just wishful thinking by the unthinking majority. Raising the limit is the last ditch 'suck it and see' hail mary pass when everything else has been optimised as much as possible ...

If the limit gets raised substantially above the technological improvements growth rate I'll be pulling the vast majority of my investment out because it is not going to be operating like we thought it would, i.e. it won't be a clearing and settlement digital gold network but a paypal2.0, fun internet googlesque reversable, traceable payments network