Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 460. (Read 2032286 times)
The notion of the FEDcoin is beyond ludicrous, it's gone plaid.
A government fork of bitcoin would do the same thing to bitcoin as the paper gold dollar did to gold, make it irrelevant, not used and valueless.
I get the analogy to gold vs. gold-backed dollars, but in Bitcoin's case I can't think of any specific changes the Feds could make to a fork that would allow it to both (a) obviate almost everyone's need for Bitcoin and (b) be enough different from Bitcoin for the government to be satisfied with it (and hardcore bitcoiners to be dissatisfied with it).
For example, if the money supply remains un-changeable, this is awesome as the Federal Reserve has effectively been neutralized. If they make a fork that can be inflated, Bitcoin Classic retains its store-of-value properties and will be highly sought after. If they do something in between, we get a little of both. If they remove all anonymity possibilities in their fork, Bitcoin thrives in the black market; if they don't, awesome. If in between, a little of both.
At one end of the spectrum they take just a few of Bitcoin's properties to build a system that is better than current fiat, which would be moderately liberty-promoting, while still leaving Bitcoin's differentiated value proposition very firmly intact. At the other end of the spectrum they adopt almost all of Bitcoin's properties, which would be extremely liberty-promoting, but leaving Bitcoin with little differentiated advantage. Either result is overall very good liberty-wise (though the result where they mimic Bitcoin quite closely may not be very good for Bitcoin investors - but that result is also highly unlikely), and I see no point in between those extremes that would be any worse. So I conclude there is nothing to worry about.
The problem with government forks is if they get 99% of the public to use the fork (which is likely),
This is a misunderstanding. Bitcoin is a global system. There is absolutely no way all of the worlds governments can or would come together to get 99% or their respective public's to use a new digital system, without highlighting the discussion on the use (pros and cons) of using bitcoin at the same time.
the worlds governments are just too competitive and adversarial for this to happen.
Free speech, even if hindered is still winning the battle on the internet.
Besides they already have 99% of the public using their fork. Network effect and liquidity will not make Bitcoin win, it will make it lose. To have a chance Bitcoin needs to push hard on being profoundly and undeniably superior.
The problem with government forks is if they get 99% of the public to use the fork (which is likely),
This is a misunderstanding. Bitcoin is a global system. There is absolutely no way all of the worlds governments can or would come together to get 99% or their respective public's to use a new digital system, without highlighting the discussion on the use (pros and cons) of using bitcoin at the same time.
the worlds governments are just too competitive and adversarial for this to happen.
Free speech, even if hindered is still winning the battle on the internet.
But on the other hand the more easy and accustomed to forks bitcoin becomes, the easier it is for regulation to push a fork towards some type of FEDCoin.
If they can fork Bitcoin to their liking while not destroying its major selling points, more power to them and I'll even invest in their fork, but I don't think that's possible. The changes the government would demand would make it orders of magnitude less valuable and most of the current economic majority would stay with Bitcoin Classic. They could grow FEDCoin larger than Bitcoin, more valuable, etc., but Bitcoin would still have its uses - precisely those uses that were neutered in FEDCoin.
In summary, government-sponsored forks aren't a threat to Bitcoin. In fact they would probably just help, because they would get the general public familiar with the ins and outs of crypto, such as security. Then there's Bitcoin with its ex-hypothesi better features.
The problem with goverment forks is if they get 99% of the public to use the fork (which is likely), the original system becomes irrelevant even if a few diehards stick to it.
Take gold and the FED's original gold backed dollar. The FED's original dollar was a government fork of gold as money. Gold coins offered many benefits from security, irreversible transactions, privacy, fixed stable value, etc. The gold backed dollar was a fork from mother nature in a sense, and they promoted a variety of benefits including easier transactions, etc.
Even after the FED broke all promises and broke the dollar's ties to gold, there were so few people willing to still use gold as money in daily transactions that gold never regained its true value.
A government fork of bitcoin would do the same thing to bitcoin as the paper gold dollar did to gold, make it irrelevant, not used and valueless. Sure there would be some holdouts who refuse to follow the fork, but they wouldn't be enough to maintain a functional market. Just as the gold bugs weren't enough to maintain gold's role as money or value in society.
That's one of my fears for the project. The harder and less common we make forks to implement, then the harder this attack vector becomes.
But on the other hand the more easy and accustomed to forks bitcoin becomes, the easier it is for regulation to push a fork towards some type of FEDCoin.
If they can fork Bitcoin to their liking while not destroying its major selling points, more power to them and I'll even invest in their fork, but I don't think that's possible. The changes the government would demand would make it orders of magnitude less valuable and most of the current economic majority would stay with Bitcoin Classic. They could grow FEDCoin larger than Bitcoin, more valuable, etc., but Bitcoin would still have its uses - precisely those uses that were neutered in FEDCoin.
In summary, government-sponsored forks aren't a threat to Bitcoin. In fact they would probably just help, because they would get the general public familiar with the ins and outs of crypto, such as security. Then there's Bitcoin with its ex-hypothesi better features.
It isn't the 20MB block size that scares me, it is the automatic doubling every two years until we reach 20GB blocks. This scares the crap out of me because if a problem turns up we need a fork to pause the scaling.
I'm starting to wonder if forks are really that big a deal.
Imagine if all the exchanges were set up to handle economic arbitrage of two or more forks. Say you have 20 BTC on Bitstamp when a fork happens. Your account is automatically split into 20 BTC in BitcoinOld and 20BTC in BitcoinNew. If you don't know/care about the fork, you do nothing. If you think one of the two is obviously more viable and/or obviously more likely to get support, you immediately start selling BTC in one for BTC in the other.
Since everyone is doing the same, I bet this all plays out in a matter of minutes because once the trend becomes clear it will snowball since no one wants to be on the losing fork. Luckily, again, you can sit out the arbitrage and leave your stash untouched whichever fork wins. It's just that you can earn yourself some extra coin if you guess the winning fork correctly.
Now to guard against possible glitches in BitcoinNew, even if it wins in initial trading, BitcoinOld will probably still retain some value for a time - for instance 10% of its former value for a few days or weeks - as a representation of an estimated 10% probability of a glitch in BitcoinNew. After that it would likely fade into nothingness. All the while your bitcoins are safe no matter the outcome.
Not only is this far faster than waiting for "consensus," it also ties more solidly into the basic economics of Bitcoin itself. As Daniel Krawisz has pointed out, where investors go, everyone else follows. Investors have the ultimate control, so the forking process should reflect this and exchanges should be setting their systems up for this.
I agree.
I would like this scenario a lot more if we replaced "exchanges set up to handle multiple forks" to "wallets/nodes set up to handle multiple forks".
Maybe I should prepare for such scenario and have a node / wallet ready that does that. Anyone have a suggestion?
I dont know. On one hand I agree that a fork to improve bitcoin or fix an issue isn't a big deal.
But on the other hand the more easy and accustomed to forks bitcoin becomes, the easier it is for regulation to push a fork towards some type of FEDCoin. To me the default should be that forks are rare and only for exceptional reasons
:-) please tell me, how many of 7,000,000,000 people can understand, verify and safe use bitcoins ?
It's less than the number of people currently using bitcoins.
far less. ... molecular is an example :-) (legendary member that can be trapped in simple scam)
I don't see any connection with one way pegs or spin offs at all except that Bitcoin badly needs improvement that could come from a viable and economically sensible upgrade path if legendary members fall for simple scams.
You are free to use as many "shit, spin-offs, alts, forks ... and digital" coins as you wish. Bitcoin is only one.
Which Bitcoin
you guys cant seriously still be debating side chains? 
Mainly because people tend to make up completely bass-ackards stuff our of ignorance or malice. Ref: ~cbeast (now ~mortified) post above.
Cypherdoc's 'hollowed out' Bitcoin is another example. WTF is that supposed to mean? Sidechains would 'hollow out' Bitcoin to a much lesser degree than the Wingklevoss dudes who sit on a pile of BTC and probably don't perform any transaction activity for weeks at a time. There is real concern that with a healthy sidechains ecosystem at scale even the 7 TPS which has gotten Bitcoin through 6 years and billions in marketcap might be strained just doing settlements, and a healthy transaction fee plus significant infrastructure support thanks to sidechains would be anticipated as extra niceties.
Thirdly, I personally cannot get over the Pavlovian negative response that people have to the seemingly very simple concept that Sidechains are for a different purpose than Bitcoin and one normally would not have much at risk with a given one. Native Bitcoin continues to exist and is available for people with ultra-high security needs and are thus able to pay what the solution is worth (which is a lot!) Those who don't have such needs and don't support the solution from an infrastructure perspective are a drag on the system and are very very likely to sink it eventually and blow it for both themselves and everyone else.
iv barely read much about sidechains but that makes sense tbh.. but what i have noticed is the very same people who slag off alt coins as worthless app coins and say that the features of alt coins should built around coins(like copay, open bazaar etc) opposed to built into coins are the same people proposing to bolt app coins onto the side of bitcoin? all that tells me is they want the apps, just as long as they are on (or attached) to the bitcoin blockchain.. im not going to pretend to understand the technicalities or economics of side chains, but the mind set of the proponents of side chains is easy to understand.
:-) please tell me, how many of 7,000,000,000 people can understand, verify and safe use bitcoins ?
It's less than the number of people currently using bitcoins.
far less. ... molecular is an example :-) (legendary member that can be trapped in simple scam)
I don't see any connection with one way pegs or spin offs at all except that Bitcoin badly needs improvement that could come from a viable and economically sensible upgrade path if legendary members fall for simple scams.
You are free to use as many "shit, spin-offs, alts, forks ... and digital" coins as you wish. Bitcoin is only one.
you guys cant seriously still be debating side chains?
Mainly because people tend to make up completely bass-ackards stuff our of ignorance or malice. Ref: ~cbeast (now ~mortified) post above.
Cypherdoc's 'hollowed out' Bitcoin is another example. WTF is that supposed to mean? Sidechains would 'hollow out' Bitcoin to a much lesser degree than the Wingklevoss dudes who sit on a pile of BTC and probably don't perform any transaction activity for weeks at a time. There is real concern that with a healthy sidechains ecosystem at scale even the 7 TPS which has gotten Bitcoin through 6 years and billions in marketcap might be strained just doing settlements, and a healthy transaction fee plus significant infrastructure support thanks to sidechains would be anticipated as extra niceties.
Thirdly, I personally cannot get over the Pavlovian negative response that people have to the seemingly very simple concept that Sidechains are for a different purpose than Bitcoin and one normally would not have much at risk with a given one. Native Bitcoin continues to exist and is available for people with ultra-high security needs and are thus able to pay what the solution is worth (which is a lot!) Those who don't have such needs and don't support the solution from an infrastructure perspective are a drag on the system and are very very likely to sink it eventually and blow it for both themselves and everyone else.
:-) please tell me, how many of 7,000,000,000 people can understand, verify and safe use bitcoins ?
It's less than the number of people currently using bitcoins.
far less. ... molecular is an example :-) (legendary member that can be trapped in simple scam)
I don't see any connection with one way pegs or spin offs at all except that Bitcoin badly needs improvement that could come from a viable and economically sensible upgrade path if legendary members fall for simple scams.
:-) please tell me, how many of 7,000,000,000 people can understand, verify and safe use bitcoins ?
It's less than the number of people currently using bitcoins.
far less. ... molecular is an example :-) (legendary member that can be trapped in simple scam)
Bitcoin is literally at a fork. One path leads to super-gold, the other leads to yet another forgettable/replaceable retail token.
Why "forgettable/replaceable retail token"? You could just as easily have said "spendable super gold".
I think that the promise of Bitcoin is, at its core, disintermediation (transfer to anyone, anywhere, nearly instantly). This is where it gains its intrinsic value which then supports the value holders put on it by holding. But if it costs too much for individuals to make transactions, then txns must be posted through intermediaries who as Circle/Coinbase have shown are susceptible to all the problems with today's banking system. "Welcome the new boss same as the old boss".
Sidechains could solve some of that problem which is why it is interesting to consider them alongside the block size; I suppose we could have sidechains for daily spending and Bitcoin could be essentially be your super-gold "savings account". A carefully designed sidechain would still achieve disintermediation. But money flow between sidechains and Bitcoin will not be quick so it would not be and ideal situation, and is still not achieveable with 1MB block sizes.
So I think we should accept Gavin's scalability plan, and guess what? its not set in stone. If it scales faster than the available hardware, we can always change it.
Really, the crux of the argument for me is this:
The worst case with the scalability plan is that individuals can't in practice be full nodes, but can STILL hold BTC in local wallets and spend them.
The worst case without scalability is that individuals must trust intermediaries to hold their BTC because a single txn is so expensive it must be aggregated -- i.e. the same banking system we have today.
(none of the awesome functionality like multi-sig "custodial" accounts can be used (on a per customer basis); they all require a transaction to unlock the funds which would be too expensive to do per customer)
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We need to get this right the first time. One does not simply "always change it." Otherwise hard forks would be called 'easy forks.'
When TOR and other slow/hardened connections are excluded by GavinBlocks, users must then trust their ISP/.gov/etc. to not snoop on or throttle/banhammer their nodes. This creates intolerable intermediaries at the network layer, which destroys the basis for BTC's antifragility and thus its unique/intrinsic store-of-value function.
Come on man. Think about the problem instead of arguing your position.
First of all, you can receive txns and blocks over the open net and still send your private txn via TOR.
Secondly, if Bitcoin is so successful that it "wants" to fill a 20MB block but only has 1MB (demand 20x higher than supply), it will cost so much to send a txn you won't be topping up your SR account with bitcoin anyway.
Third, it probably makes sense to in general transition that kind of use to an altcoin with true anonymity anyway.
We can't ignore the trade off between retail suitability and super-gold fitness. Trade-offs, like diminishing marginal returns, are economic law.
Some of us simply won't be able to afford Bitcoin when it assumes its rightful position as Gold 2.0. Let's accept that and move on, instead of rejiggering everything just to appease us pikers at great risk to the whales who do the heavy lifting to keep BTC viable and growing. If you can't afford regular gold now, what makes you think you have the right to expect affordable SuperGold?
This is just dumb. I can always buy some fraction of super-gold. This equalizer, this lack of differentiation between haves and have-nots is what makes Bitcoin awesome.
Many of us will actively resist network degradation and less super-gold fitness in exchange for more retail noise accommodation and uncertainty about the impact of exponential blocksize growth. It's not just the initial 20MB Gavinblocks, it's the >>20MB Gigablocks that kick in relatively soon which concern those of us who care about the weakest links in the system's chain.
Individuals making low value tx don't have to trust Paymium or other off-chain intermediaries so long as plenty of capacity exists in 2nd tier altcoins' blockchains. Litecoin, for example, is secured by more than enough ASICs and GPUs to be perfectly acceptable for small and medium size daily retail consumer BS.
Let's also note that blockchain technology, by enabling unprecedented transparency and real time auditing, allows us to keep our off-chain overlords on a short leash. As Davout put it so succinctly:
This is sig-worthy quote really gets to the crux of the 'retail token vs super-gold' fissure, and makes clear why the FUD of Fundamentalist Monopolists ("Thou shall have no other coins before Holy BTC, lest you be cast into the off-chain lake of fiat") is unfounded.
Individuals making low value tx don't have to trust Paymium or other off-chain intermediaries so long as plenty of capacity exists in 2nd tier altcoins' blockchains. Litecoin, for example, is secured by more than enough ASICs and GPUs to be perfectly acceptable for small and medium size daily retail consumer BS.
Let's also note that blockchain technology, by enabling unprecedented transparency and real time auditing, allows us to keep our off-chain overlords on a short leash. As Davout put it so succinctly:
The true value that Bitcoin brings to the table is not "everyone gets to write into the holy ledger", it is instead "everyone gets to benefit from sane and non-inflationary financial instutions whose sanity and honesty are ensured by the holy blockchain".
This is sig-worthy quote really gets to the crux of the 'retail token vs super-gold' fissure, and makes clear why the FUD of Fundamentalist Monopolists ("Thou shall have no other coins before Holy BTC, lest you be cast into the off-chain lake of fiat") is unfounded.
But they don't get to benefit from it. Because they can't use it without an intermediary (with small blocks). So that intermediary goes fractional. But with a large block size your home wallet might not be able to grab the whole blockchain (verify incoming $). But it could still hold your coins and submit transactions.
Remember the blocks won't be filled. And if they DO get filled its a great problem for us holders to have. It means Bitcoin is 20x or 1000x more popular than it is today.
The fastest way to kill this coin is to create artificial transaction scarcity. That's just inviting an altcoin to come relieve the pressure.
Seriously, sometimes I wonder whether you people want Bitcoin to succeed. Are you a miner or altcoin holder?
:-) please tell me, how many of 7,000,000,000 people can understand, verify and safe use bitcoins ?
It's less than the number of people currently using bitcoins.
you guys cant seriously still be debating side chains?
Apparently you missed the part where the title of this thread actually says "Debate sidechains here!"
If you spend bitcoins on one fork then anybody can publish same transaction on other chain ... I think :-)
The wallet could manage that by moving the coins to fresh own address on the other chain?
Yes, but hacker(bot) can move fork-coins to fresh address too ? :-)
edit:
I only want to say. One mistake(signature) on worthless fork-chain and you lose all bitcoins in main-chain
The coins go to the same destination on both chains (or nowhere at all if the transaction isn't valid on both chains). So unless you were sending coins to the hacker on one chain, he won't get them on the other chain either.
Yes, you are right. But it is easy to scam noobs.
- show them worthless fork-chain
- pay them $$ for worthless fork-coins
- and finally -> steal bitcoins using same transactions on main-chain
Change the transaction format (header) slightly on the fork so transactions are not portable. That make the whole thing work more directly like a spin off.
:-) please tell me, how many of 7,000,000,000 people can understand, verify and safe use bitcoins ?
If you spend bitcoins on one fork then anybody can publish same transaction on other chain ... I think :-)
The wallet could manage that by moving the coins to fresh own address on the other chain?
Yes, but hacker(bot) can move fork-coins to fresh address too ? :-)
edit:
I only want to say. One mistake(signature) on worthless fork-chain and you lose all bitcoins in main-chain
The coins go to the same destination on both chains (or nowhere at all if the transaction isn't valid on both chains). So unless you were sending coins to the hacker on one chain, he won't get them on the other chain either.
Yes, you are right. But it is easy to scam noobs.
- show them worthless fork-chain
- pay them $$ for worthless fork-coins
- and finally -> steal bitcoins using same transactions on main-chain
Change the transaction format (header) slightly on the fork so transactions are not portable. That make the whole thing work more directly like a spin off and avoids the confusion that some transactions are portable and some not.
If you spend bitcoins on one fork then anybody can publish same transaction on other chain ... I think :-)
The wallet could manage that by moving the coins to fresh own address on the other chain?
Yes, but hacker(bot) can move fork-coins to fresh address too ? :-)
edit:
I only want to say. One mistake(signature) on worthless fork-chain and you lose all bitcoins in main-chain
The coins go to the same destination on both chains (or nowhere at all if the transaction isn't valid on both chains). So unless you were sending coins to the hacker on one chain, he won't get them on the other chain either.
Yes, you are right. But it is easy to scam noobs.
- show them worthless fork-chain
- pay them $$ for worthless fork-coins
- and finally -> steal bitcoins using same transactions on main-chain
This is a storm in a teacup. The reality is that a properly implemented fork will have 80+% hashing power on the new version blocks before the first >1MB block is produced. (Hopefully there will be a grace period of, say, 10k blocks after the 80% is triggered, for laggard miners and non-mining nodes to upgrade). So the old fork will have less than 20% hashing power, quickly dropping to as little as 5%. Blocks on the old fork will take about 2 hours each to produce, with coinbase rewards spendable after 1 to 2 weeks.
No company in the Bitcoin ecosystem will accept fresh reward coins from the old fork. There will be no "market" as the old fork will be unusable as it will take a year for difficulty to fall until old fork blocks take 10 mins each again.
No company in the Bitcoin ecosystem will accept fresh reward coins from the old fork. There will be no "market" as the old fork will be unusable as it will take a year for difficulty to fall until old fork blocks take 10 mins each again.
It is not necessarily determined ahead of time which fork will be the 80% and which the 20%, so people will go slow for a while. In complex cases where the decision isn't clear it could take weeks or longer for one to win out. I wouldn't necessarily expect that to happen often, but it could happen.
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