Author

Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 502. (Read 2032286 times)

legendary
Activity: 1204
Merit: 1002
Gresham's Lawyer
February 09, 2015, 02:42:31 PM
And more generally, I think a lot of people make a misjudgment in assuming that actors in the bitcoin ecosystem will behave with only very short-term focus. Tim Swanson (@ofnumbers) is particularly bad about taking these absurdly narrow views and spitting out blog posts full of "analysis". Unfortunately his analysis is often not particularly useful because his assumptions are broken.

Exactly, a particularly absurd attack is that bitcoin will fail due to mining centralization and this centralization will enable miners to act poorly. The reason this is absurd is the more mining becomes centralized the more capital each miner has committed to the project, which means miners will act with more of a long-term mindset as they become larger and commit more capital.

But even if this wasn't the case, the incentive structure of mining means that even IF miners took a short-term only mindset (which is illogical), incentives still encourage them to only mine the longest chain.

To break bitcoin would require a large 51% entity who could operate without economic concerns or constraints, i.e. they have billions in capital to destroy specifically to attack the project, expecting a full loss if successful. Only a government could try to pull this off at this point, the private market will not.

The underlying assumption here is that (Bitcoin) economics is the only motivator.  If there exist entities that both care about Bitcoin and want to end it (and have sufficient motivation and resources), than this argument fails.  There may well be much cheaper ways to end bitcoin than a persistent 51% attack, (and such a persistent 51% would not be guaranteed to succeed anyway), so it is probably in the 'good enough' category.  It is not in the 'safe' category (though Andreas A. disagrees with me on this).
member
Activity: 169
Merit: 10
ExToke - Fee Free Trading
February 09, 2015, 02:40:43 PM
At first it looked like funny trolling and an excuse to make pseudo-sociologic graphs of boobs and butts, but continuing it seems like the author is serious and believes his weird ideas...
legendary
Activity: 1153
Merit: 1000
February 09, 2015, 01:38:10 PM
And more generally, I think a lot of people make a misjudgment in assuming that actors in the bitcoin ecosystem will behave with only very short-term focus. Tim Swanson (@ofnumbers) is particularly bad about taking these absurdly narrow views and spitting out blog posts full of "analysis". Unfortunately his analysis is often not particularly useful because his assumptions are broken.

Exactly, a particularly absurd attack is that bitcoin will fail due to mining centralization and this centralization will enable miners to act poorly. The reason this is absurd is the more mining becomes centralized the more capital each miner has committed to the project, which means miners will act with more of a long-term mindset as they become larger and commit more capital.

But even if this wasn't the case, the incentive structure of mining means that even IF miners took a short-term only mindset (which is illogical), incentives still encourage them to only mine the longest chain.

To break bitcoin would require a large 51% entity who could operate without economic concerns or constraints, i.e. they have billions in capital to destroy specifically to attack the project, expecting a full loss if successful. Only a government could try to pull this off at this point, the private market will not.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
February 09, 2015, 01:16:54 PM
The failure of fiat money will be totally self-imposed. It will be the product of pure hubris. But it will dramatically hasten adoption of Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s killer app isn’t some clever tipping or multisig feature. It’s killer app is merely the stability of the monetary supply. That doesn’t sound very sexy. But in today’s world, in which paper money has failed so badly in the most basic function of currency, that’s saying a lot.

https://medium.com/@abarisser/central-banks-will-hasten-the-rise-of-bitcoin-fb1973c671e9
legendary
Activity: 1281
Merit: 1000
☑ ♟ ☐ ♚
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
February 09, 2015, 12:32:34 PM

i like your idea of fees for relay nodes.  i run 5 at my cost for the network.  i'd run more if i were paid.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
February 09, 2015, 11:57:07 AM
Thanks for writing that. It finally clears up what you've been talking about. Just curious, what are your thoughts about how price discovery will deal with Bitcoin price fluctuation?
Bitcoin exchange rate fluctuation would be no different than any other factor which will affect the price of various services on a day-to-day basis.

Suppliers of services will not do so very long at a loss, so they'll only accept prices that don't work out to be a loss for them.

That basically means that fees would adjust automatically to exchange rate changes.

People will want to transact with bitcoin, but they will be forbidden by the Bitcoin protocol from doing so.

that quote from your article should be changed, as i know you didn't mean it the way it reads.  you mean "limited by market prices".
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1013
February 09, 2015, 11:54:47 AM
well, a hard fork new chain gets started with x hashing rate.  blocks are 10 min apart, just like they were with Bitcoin back in 2009.  any increases in hashing rate from miner adoption that decreases the frequency below 10 min is automatically adjusted every 2 wks with difficulty.  we've never had a problem with block intervals going to days or weeks in Bitcoin so why should it happen with a new chain, given it is a hard fork with minimal protocol changes?
At the point of the fork, the difficulty has already been set based on the entire network's hash rate.

Miners have to choose one fork to mine.

If half of them go one way, and the other half goes to the other fork, then both forks are mining at with difficulty at double the value it should be, so both forks will experience 20 minute block times until the next difficulty adjustment.

If the split is 70/25, then the smaller chain will experience 40 minute block times and the larger chain will get 13 minute block times.
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1013
February 09, 2015, 11:51:39 AM
Thanks for writing that. It finally clears up what you've been talking about. Just curious, what are your thoughts about how price discovery will deal with Bitcoin price fluctuation?
Bitcoin exchange rate fluctuation would be no different than any other factor which will affect the price of various services on a day-to-day basis.

Suppliers of services will not do so very long at a loss, so they'll only accept prices that don't work out to be a loss for them.

That basically means that fees would adjust automatically to exchange rate changes.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
February 09, 2015, 11:48:32 AM
He made a technical error in the article; a low hashrate of a fork wouldn't extend the time between blocks. It only would make them less secure.

really? I would had thought it would be the case at least until the next diff re-target, no?

well, a hard fork new chain gets started with x hashing rate.  blocks are 10 min apart, just like they were with Bitcoin back in 2009.  any increases in hashing rate from miner adoption that decreases the frequency below 10 min is automatically adjusted every 2 wks with difficulty.  we've never had a problem with block intervals going to days or weeks in Bitcoin so why should it happen with a new chain, given it is a hard fork with minimal protocol changes?
donator
Activity: 1736
Merit: 1014
Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.
February 09, 2015, 11:41:07 AM

Thanks for writing that. It finally clears up what you've been talking about. Just curious, what are your thoughts about how price discovery will deal with Bitcoin price fluctuation?
hero member
Activity: 622
Merit: 500
February 09, 2015, 10:38:30 AM
Im gonna give that to a coworker who is a conspiracy theorist yet pessimistic about bitcoin.. He always asks who controls bitcoin and never satsified as a fork can cause a large loss to his investment.. Thus labels it a ponzi scheme aimed at luring in small fish

He will panic-buy at much higher prices.
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1013
February 09, 2015, 08:44:42 AM
Tim Swanson (@ofnumbers) is particularly bad about taking these absurdly narrow views and spitting out blog posts full of "analysis".
You misspelled "concern trolling".
hero member
Activity: 544
Merit: 500
February 09, 2015, 08:39:29 AM
Europe really is hotting up these days. Greece could end up being the new Lehman Brothers.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31300992

Quote
Greek bank shares fall sharply as fears over exit grow

one word ...  Contagion
legendary
Activity: 1202
Merit: 1015
February 09, 2015, 06:10:06 AM

legendary
Activity: 2338
Merit: 2106
February 09, 2015, 04:11:49 AM
5 Reasons To Buy Gold & Silver In 2015: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-08/guest-post-5-reasons-buy-gold-silver-2015



this chart oddly reminds me Bitcoin's diff+price chart  Lips sealed


lol, gold looks like btc in 2013...   did china ban gold ?   Cheesy
legendary
Activity: 1260
Merit: 1008
February 09, 2015, 03:20:38 AM
He made a technical error in the article; a low hashrate of a fork wouldn't extend the time between blocks. It only would make them less secure.

really? I would had thought it would be the case at least until the next diff re-target, no?
legendary
Activity: 1260
Merit: 1002
February 09, 2015, 02:21:05 AM
5 Reasons To Buy Gold & Silver In 2015: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-08/guest-post-5-reasons-buy-gold-silver-2015



this chart oddly reminds me Bitcoin's diff+price chart  Lips sealed
Jump to: