Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 574. (Read 2032291 times)

Fewer nodes is not itself the entire problem, it is also where the nodes are. If most of the nodes end up at a few big VPS companies that is not a good outcome, even if the node count increases.

He's saying that increasing the full-node bandwidth requirements is a centralizing factor.  It is.  If it requires more resources to run a full-node, less full-nodes will be run (all other variables held constant).  What is "necessary and desirable" is a different question: we want the Blockchain to scale but we require Bitcoin to remain decentralized.  Like you've pointed out several times, the proponents of keeping the blocksize limit small can't prove their claims; however, those who wish to increase or remove the cap can't prove their claims either.  

Bitcoin has value because it is decentralized.  It has value because the Blockchain is an unforgeable global ledger accessible to anyone according to the protocol rules, and secured by the largest single-purpose computing network ever constructed.  It has value because another individual, company or (possibly) government cannot prevent you from doing what you wish with your coins.  It has value because the majority cannot vote to redistribute your funds or attempt to paper-over economic problems by printing additional bitcoins.  In summary, it has value because it behaves less like a human invention/institution and more like a phenomenon of nature itself.  Just like there's nothing in the world we can do to stop gravity, we must also be unable to stop the ceaseless chaining of new blocks upon the Blockchain.  

Full-node count is currently estimated at 6495 nodes, and is steadily dwindling despite the fact that the blocksize-limit has remained static at 1 MB.  How would full-node count change if the average blocksize were 10x larger?  100x larger?  How many nodes do we even need?  I think these are difficult questions to answer.  

The current price reflects the belief that Bitcoin has the potential to one day become a significant world currency/SoV.  Like Smooth pointed out earlier, that pie-in-the-sky $10,000+ price multiplied by the market's estimate of its probability of success sets today's price.  If Bitcoin can't scale to the extent necessary to fulfil this potential, then the price of bitcoin today will become adjusted to this new reality (lower).  How much scaling is necessary?  I don't know, but I'm pretty sure the 1 MB limit put in place by Satoshi many years ago as a stop-gap measure is not it.
  

BTW, I don't think the "free-market-solves-all-problems-so-remove-the-cap-completely" approach can fly.  The Satoshi Social Contract requires that certain system-level constraints exist (for example, the inflation schedule….we can't have the free-market solve that problem).  Another requirement is that Bitcoin remain decentralized.  Without a constraint on blockchain growth, it seems less likely that this would always be the case.  

apparently all we need is moar black hole shit and the dollar.  somehow though, this one should work out differently than 2008:

copper and FCX copper mining?  who the hell needs those too?:

speaking of oil and natgas overlayed; who the hell needs either of those?:

Bitstamp says.  meanwhile, in stockland.  $DJI -321:

actually, the hypothesis is a decent one (ouch, that's painful to say) and i have myself thought about this.  but i don't think it's a potential problem until 2140 when Bitcoin inflation goes to zero.  certainly, it could manifest itself earlier if the market perceives it as a bonafide problem and attempts to front run it.

however, i agree with solex that it can probably be better modelled by what we have in the energy mkts.  and oil companies don't seem to be having a problem; nor even smaller players who nip at their heels thru private oil wells or shale opportunities.

also, Adrian pointed out that your claim of "unlimited HW" is really Econ 101.

The theory of right angles also survived the builders of house in which it was first used.  In a long enough time frame, the implementation must fall ahead of the knowledge.  This is a less profound observation than you might imagine.

That "survives" may be centuries away, or weeks, depending on how things get hacked up.

yes, there are users like me who simply use the exchanges to get in and out of BTC but over long time periods.  anyone who does leave their BTC/fiat on the exchange for prolonged periods are the speculators i'm talking about.  who of us here leave their fiat on Forex exchanges for prolonged periods.  not many i'd suspect as we generally are more about sound money and not speculation.  SC's are tempting us by claiming to be more secure; i question that b/c of the necessity for 100% MM.  the 2wp is also suspect as it implies a way to get out w/o losses esp if you're using the SC for speculation.  bailout is probably too strong a term so maybe my original "put" term applies.

the spvp does sound generic based on what Adam has told us but it's the unexpected feedback effects on MC that i question.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see you say this.  Still, it's a hypothesis on my part, and the appropriate thing to do with a hypothesis is to file it away and match it against future observations.

Another somewhat weaker hypothesis is that some of the value streams that I alluded to are quite valuable indeed if enough data can be collected.  We could see mining completely subsidized in order to capture these value streams (and other's I've not thought of.)

With respect to the 'who spends what where' data, the 'who' part is still the most challenging.  Eventually Big Bro will probably solve that with a 'internet drivers license' type thing, but if/when that happens it's still not clear how available the data will be to private industry.  It will probably be a 'public/private partnership' arrangement with horse-trading that favors the big guys would be my guess.  In the here-and-now, when you see someone wanting you to use a particular authenticator, it's a pretty sure bet that that is what they are after.  Outfits with a large network footprint have other ways of course, but authentication optimizes things significantly.

A very common way to make money in tech is to achieve something that a big player will want then either sell it to them or sell the ability to obtain it (e.g., your company.)  One of my (very initial) hypothesis about OpenTransaction is that this might be their game because a successful transport layer would be a high-value item in a bunch of ways.


The energy markets are probably about the worst example of a 'free market' that one could find.  For one, there are huge national security issues which touch almost every aspect of it.  For two, it's probably not a complete junk theory that our monetary system itself(!) is heavily tied in through what is monikered the 'petro-dollar' (and the 'world reserve currency' status of the USD.)  None-the-less, the old supply/demand laws are so powerful that they cannot be buried forever and they can be expected to rear their 'ugly heads' even in a heavily manipulated market like energy...with time...

Its not just speculators that use the exchanges.  The sidechain model is not a bailout, it is a potentially more secure financial system where users have much less exposure to theft.  While bitcoin is still in beta, I don't see any reason to not implement it.

that's interesting.  i tried listening to that video of SNARK and boy was that complex.  certainly not yet developed.

but let's say SNARKS do come to fruition.  wouldn't it be better to integrate it into Bitcoin if possible?  this would prevent existing cold wallets from having to migrate to the SNARK SC which would save alot of ppl time and headache, not to mention all the ppl who WON'T have heard of this new SC and the need to move their BTC. 

if it turns out SNARKS are not implementable into Bitcoin and are somehow able to prove that it's functionality is SO MUCH better than Bitcoin, then maybe.  we'll have to see about that.

but that's not really what we're talking about here.  we're discussing spvp, a 2 way peg.  if what you're talking about comes to fruition, we'd be only needing a 1 way peg, which technically is simpler and probably safer for Bitcoin MC.

but that is not practical nor realistic.

at that level of abstraction, gvt's should not bother with a blockchain as no one would trust the data integrity of GovBlockchain.

I agree that sharding reduces security. I wouldn't propose sharding the blockchain as a scapability solution.[/quote]


You're saying that retaining the possibility for home computers to be full nodes is both necessary and desirable.

I understand that many people have made this claim over the years, but I am not aware of any attempts to actually prove either of those.

One of the problematic implicit assumptions I can identify in that claim is that if home users can't run nodes, the number of total nodes in the network would decrease.

Why would anyone assume that in a future Bitcoin economy that generated 100k tps of demand would not fewer business users running full nodes then than home users running full nodes today?

If
 a) you build exchange as SC using SNARK
and
 b) bitcoin protocol will be able to verify this SC (sequence of bid/ask/deposit/withdrawal signed by owners) using OP_SIDECHAIN_VERIFY
then
  NO MM is required. It will impossible to stole bitcoins from exchange.  

-> this is how I see SC.

Actually, a blockchain can have security without a currency.

It would be less decentralized though.

For example, you have GovBlockchain. Secured by proof of work. The blockchain could be so important, that government would secure it without any financial incentives, and mandate all record keeping to be done on this blockchain, secured by hundreds of 3 letter agencies.

with anything new like this, i'm interested in knowing the upper and lower bounds of the IBLT data size.

lower bound:  theoretically, as the UTXO set difference shrinks to zero with 0 network latency, the IBLT will shrink similarly but can never reach zero since it has to at minimum relay enough data to convey the exact subset of tx's included in the miner's block.  how small can this data get esp in relation to the avg block size now?

upper bound:  if the UTXO set difference is 100%, how big does the IBLT data size get?  or does the entire IBLT concept fall apart at some intermediate set difference?

yep, this is the correct view.

just goes to show you how early we all are.  even our greatest public proponent seems not to get it.

talk about confused; even after Adam pointed out to you that federated servers are intermediaries that stand btwn the MC and SC.  son, mining pools are who are needed to MM the SC for security and transactional integrity, remember?

no, not necessarily.  your assumption is that SC's are more secure than current exchange models.  the only way to achieve this is to obtain 100% MM cooperation from miners.  there is no model for this and the best we have is about 55% for NMC.  just given the fact that some miners won't be aware of SC existence if and when they do come to fruition means they won't be mining SC's which means there will be <100% for sure.  theoretically, anything <100% MM'ing is vulnerable and i'm sure this can be mathematically modelled.

plus, i'm not sure where all this desire comes from to "bailout" speculators on current exchanges.  b/c that is what they are, imo.  the reason i have never lost a coin is b/c i realize that Bitcoin is about increasing personal responsibility by becoming your own bank.  i have never used an exchange as a trading mechanism and have just used them to buy and move coin to my privkeys.  SC's are an attempt to bailout the individual speculator who wishes to leave their coin on some speculative trading platform.  but even that doesn't work b/c of the MM'ing fallacies i've outlined above.