Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 558. (Read 2032291 times)

the creeping fear is accelerating:

Exciting trading ahead! Big profits, big losses. I can't wait to see how it all plays out.

One coin to rule them all:

oil?  who the hell needs oil?  let alone natgas.  major storm brewing:



Dow Theory non-confirmation still in force:

Necro. My apologies (sort of).

You argument, in three words: network insufficiently decentralized.

The counter argument, in just one more word: according to which alternative?


First, it would be pointless imo to argue against the facts: mining is concentrated more than most expected, say, 2 years ago, and more than many are fully comfortable with.

Fact as well, however: none of those conjectured 'mining cartel attacks' ever took place, and there's good reason for that: they might be technically possible, but economically not viable for anyone who holds a stake in Bitcoin (hint: sunk cost in single purpose hardware is a "stake" as well) because of the resulting market reaction upon discovery (or even suspicion such attacks are taking place). They would therefore only be mounted from someone who is willing to pay for an attack on the network itself, and I have yet to see any evidence that this is a realistic vector consistent with what we know about existing hashpower and who paid to employ it.

Finally: the level of decentralization doesn't look so bad anymore when one considers the existing alternatives. Well, there's only one really: traditional banking. It's like you're blaming jet plane air-travel for being hopelessly outdated and slow: until there's a superior alternative, it is the de facto optimum wrt speed.

 Brent crude oil drops more than 5% to $47.27 a barrel.

meanwhile in greece rufusal to pay tax to the government and a possible bank run before the elections on the 25th of this month.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-12/greeks-stop-paying-taxes-ahead-elections-central-bank-scrambles-halt-bank-run-rumors

Five years since the invention of Bitcoin, currency as its first application has made significant inroads into the global financial system. Its disruptive effect has shaken up taken for granted notions of money and inflamed the imagination as to what money could be. Bitcoin is characterized as decentralized stateless currency. Some critics call it money with a Libertarian bent, designed to promote a new capitalism, while many economists are quick to judge its perceived deflationary design as a fatal flaw. Yet Bitcoin does not fit any existing paradigm. It can best be understood on its own merits within the framework through which the technology itself emerged.

http://falkvinge.net/2015/01/06/understanding-bitcoin-and-its-disruption-through-its-roots/#pq=ElxHAW

Yes, no, sort of.

I would not necessarily shun an implementation which 'floated the peg' as long as there were valid reasons for doing so (likely associated with performance optimizations and subsequent reduced costs), and as long as I could be assured that the rate-of-change of the 're-pegging' had to remain reasonable and there was suitable transparency.

Such an implementation would not be my first choice, but I could certainly imagine using such a system for certain things.  Especially low-value, but I see all uses of sidechains being for 'low value' tasks in relative terms.

"Floating peg" is an oxymoron.  It was intentional. Markets aren't going away. They will become decentralized, but not replaced by confederate functionaries. Altcoins will evolve into state sponsored fiat currencies while Bitcoin flourishes in free states and as a voluntary reserve currency.

Ya, I saw what you did...even before being triggered by the red '4 comments since...' tag to glance at the thread evolution.  That's why I said "Drop the 'floating' part..."

I was making a light hearted point, but my agnosticism can be dispelled with an actual working demonstration on a test chain. I couldn't care less about deanonymization. I can barter and have made a good living at it.

Drop the 'floating' part of the peg (usually) and it sounds like a winner to me.

Being to lazy to look up Maxwell's 2wp stuff, I did a stream of consciousness idea on one of these threads a month or two ago.  It used private keys as an intermediate currency and peg implementation between native Bitcoin and the back-end (and required no changes to core.)

By the way, if you want to know who's working on the deanonymization and economic tracking problems, mention exchanging private keys systematically and watch who shits a brick

Well it's obvious to me you don't really know what you're talking about since sidechains are exactly what you need to stop (or at least provide an alternative) to offchain schemes.

I'll concede there's not a damn thing anyone can do to stop them, but it's obvious to me that side chains don't solve any problem that isn't already solved.

So you prefer off-chain schemes. Gotcha!

I hid the answer in tiny text. Gotcha!

Well please save us all from this debate and grace us with your solution.

On what level does your algorithm run? How do you control the peg?

If you read my post carefully, we already have that solution. 

Not sure if serious....

This is precisely what sidechains are.

Howabout this idea...

An asynchronous algorithm that links multiple side chains to Bitcoin in a floating peg. These side chains can offer many different capabilities that Bitcoin isn't designed for. The asynchronous protocol will protect Bitcoin should any of these side chains fail, but their success will make Bitcoin stronger and give it better scalability and liquidity. I already have much of the code for this protocol and it doesn't require any changes to Bitcoin. This protocol may have some bugs, but in time they should be worked out.
...it's called the market.