Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 680. (Read 2032265 times)

Ah.  Thanks for your clarifications.  Mining support has been implemented for quite some time now.  I'd have to check the commit logs to be certain, but I want to say that mining support went in around the end of June, 4 to 5 months ago.  There is nothing on the development road map for it because there isn't anything else to do for it currently since it's complete.

It's a fairly simple matter to find out if a block will propagate by using BIP0023 block proposals since it checks if a block is valid (excepting the proof of work), before you ever start working on finding the nonce.  In fact, if mining infrastructures started to migrate to checking consensus against multiple implementations in general (or even multiple versions of Bitcoin Core itself), it would be beneficial to the miners and the entire ecosystem in the long run since even accidental forks between Bitcoin Core versions (as has already happened in the past) could be detected and handled gracefully.

I was looking into it to see if I could use it for solo mining, I believe it is on par as a node, and as you point out probably better and continued support seems inevitable, but if I recall correctly I was looking at just a development road map and it didn't seem like there was demand to support the mining functionality, going forward I felt it wasn't worth risking if a block didn't propagate so I am not sure it will be used for mining.  

There are no plans to drop btcd.  I'm interesting to hear in what ways btcd is not on par with Bitcoin Core.  btcd has a more modular code base, more readable code, better documentation, better test coverage, and supports everything that Bitcoin Core does along with a few things it either doesn't yet have or only has on branches and isn't part of master (for example, BIP0023 block proposal support).

Note, that we're talking about the full node daemon, not bitcoin-qt which includes the wallet stuff.  btcd intentionally does not have the wallet integrated which is something that Bitcoin Core still hasn't separated out even though I believe it is on their list of things to do.

EDIT: Oh I just realized you were referring specifically to the mining support offered by btcd.  There are no plans to drop support for that either and, as mentioned above, it even has support for BIP0023 block proposals which is not yet part of the Bitcoin Core mainline.

I'll vouch for Cypher's influence during that time. I remained a bull through that drawn-out bust, and Cypher helped me and others continue to stay on track with that position. Those not involved in the community during that period might be tempted to think "oh, it was just another bear market like today, easy enough to wait through if you see bitcoin's potential." Well, yes and no. Bitcoin was a toy in 2011. We were all fascinated with the technology and talked about how it could change the world, but *nobody* else cared. We believed what we were saying, but the disconnect between what we saw in this community and the rest of world was ridiculous. There was no VC money, the 3 or 4 mainstream news stories that happened that entire year were negative and treated bitcoin as a brief curiosity, the ecosystem sucked, people were scammed and hacked right and left, everything was a giant pain to use, and it was really difficult to talk about bitcoin in polite company without seeming like a total freak show. Couple that with a 90%+ drop in price from your first purchases (my case, anyways), and a total market-cap deflating to less than the value of some people's houses, and it really seemed like bitcoin might just go away. Granted, it was clear that the technology was important and would eventually, somehow, be influential, but it was very much rational at the time to think that the probability of bitcoin, as it stood, to succeed was pretty low.

Contrast that to the present bear market. We have more VC money than the internet in 1995 being pumped into the space. Bitcoin is being debated by top officials at major financial institutions, central banks, and all sorts of government bodies. We have some of the smartest people in the world, with reputations to protect, advocating for it publicly. Even the hard-line skeptics now mostly ack that at least the technology is potentially world-changing. And while we still get our fair share of terrible media pieces, we also get good ones, with no shortage of coverage in general. *This* bear market is a breeze.

So to Cypher's point... It doesn't take much vision to be excited by cool technology; "devs gonna dev". But in the environment we had in late 2011, it did take vision to see that this stuff is world-changing, and to put a significant portion of your net-worth where your mouth is.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120403154846/http://bitcoinmedia.com/bitcoin-vs-metals




I honestly don't know where I land on this stuff yet. I see that there's potential for a number of economic dynamics which we do not understand at first glance, and I personally need to think about how this all plays out with merged-mining a lot more. The spv op-code addition itself, though, I see as more a potential governance precedent issue than a technical problem (since OT can implement sidechains with the same economic implications (assuming that assertion is correct)).

However the idea you note above, that sidechains potentially changes the narrative from sound-money to something else, is a new viewpoint for me in this debate. I would hope, as do sidechains supporters, that the new narrative is *additive* to the old, not mutually exclusive, but I don't know yet.

I believe i read btcd does, but it is not on par with Bitcoin Core and is planed to be dropped.

AFAIK, none of these others have a mining implementation yet in practice, do they?

There are a lot of folks who have been involved in crypto since before Bitcoin that also read and contribute in this thread.  Most are not seeking acknowledgement.

brg444, your insolence is backfiring. I for one posted a very benign assessment of some concerns I has with the SC proposal on the day it was released, it didn't result in a discussion in the tread, but a PM telling me I was full of BS and clueless.

Naturally I wanted to know why, so I followed the discussion, anyone cowardly to attack me with a PM but not reply to my post made me think there is a problem here. So I looked, and sure enough this idea has problems, I don't hold all the same concerns as cypher, but I can't dismiss them either he is just exploring the defects to there very probable outcome, so I do see his points and can even imagine that many of the probabilities have higher odds of success than say Bitcoin did in 2010.

FYI if you weren't so closed minded I wouldn't have explored ways to engage with you, so thank you for that, the results are below.

It seems someone thought it a good idea to post my comments and cyphers on r/Bitcoin

I was surprised to see the community over there overwhelmingly 83% of over 300 votes feel we have valid ideas.  (that's about a 33% voter participation if you follow r/Bitcoin a lot.)

again, if they were so smart, how come they didn't get Bitcoin until 2013?  even with their noses buried within it?

how come some cypherdoc dude did?

facts are facts.

all i'm saying is your character assassination attempts towards me are just propaganda.  it's a good thing you're not associated with Blockstream, b/c if you are, that could turn out to be a big problem for them.

Bitcoin's killer app is SoV, those who have put cold hard cash create the liquidity we all so value, those are the heroes. Businesses who look to find win win and tax us are welcome, but businesses who want to change the rules of the game, so they can extract value and influence the network growth, at the protocol level need to stand up to a whole new paradigm of scrutiny.  Who cares if its open source, we'r talking about the rules, it has as much value as saying its a free market and sure anyone can start a bank and compete in this open market under the rules of the FED, and if you dont like the rules start a political campaign and change them when you have a majority.  

The parallels to the banking collapses in the late 1800 and early 1900 and the failed Bitcoin companies, and the Bitcoiners attitudes are uncanny, and to top it all off the solution is comparable to the FED backing banks but only this time its a network backed by the worlds greatest Network tightens, and if you hadn't realized Bitcoin is a network, not a bank.

 

this was all in reference to you stupid "devs gon devs" meme.

Austin founded Zero Knowledge Systems in 1997. If you want to debate vision. This guy has loads of it.

you're continuing to use selective memory loss.

if you go back, i've acknowledged Adam's contributions many times in this thread.  i'm not sure about Austin's.

the only reason we're talking about these "contributions" is b/c you brought their names into the recent discussion as examples of the only ones we should be listening to in regards to SC's.  you've also given preference to dev opinion as more important to Bitcoins success.  this is wrong as this is a community you know and involves much more than just code.

And they absolutely plan to show it.

I simply have some issues seeing people's reputation be ignorantly attacked when they are in part responsible for the existence of Bitcoin or have contributed to the technology and movement that spawned Bitcoin before most of us here even considered it possible or desirable

I can recognize this.

But the fact that you so conveniently dismiss the works of people who have been involved in crypto since before you even knew about Bitcoin says a lot about your character.

These guys have been developing for years some of the very technology that underlies Bitcoin.

I think that deserves some respect

Adam Back figured that proof of work could be useful and not where it could most usefully be employed.

He deserves credit for what he accomplished, and that credit in no way absolves him of proving his case in future endeavours.

Adam Back has to show his work, just like anybody else. Even Satoshi would be in that same category.

Past returns are not a guarantee of future results.

I would bet they will be largely more relevant to the future of Bitcoin than you are.

I was referring to Bitcoin's white paper, not Sidechains'. You know, the one were Adam Back is credited with developing the proof-of-work system that Bitcoin runs under.

hey, the money i pumped in played a part no doubt.

also, the constant evangelizing and trench wars i fought right here in this forum went a long way in convincing others also.

but i'm not a dev though so i'm sure that doesn't count in your book.

Build businesses and products that use them.

you make it sound as if Adam and Austin are crucial for Bitcoins future success. (they aren't)

why would i want to put my name on a paper with a flawed assumption?

Zerg once asserted that i was probably the first venture capitalist to invest in Bitcoin back in 2011.  i believe he is right.

what i saw in Bitcoin was the ultimate SOV sound money system that had the potential to replace gold and silver and consume fiat currencies worldwide.  everybody knows i went out and acted on that belief by selling all my silver startingat its peak of 49 (avg out 44) in May 2011 and then almost all my gold in Aug 2011 (avg out around 1750).  i started buying BTC @ 1.60 the day before Easter Apr 2011 and for the rest of 2011 mostly into the bottom @1.98.  this vision has been more than fulfilled.

now i see an existential threat to the whole concept of Bitcoin as Money with this spvp.  it breaks the linkage btwn the BTC currency unit and its ultrasecure blockchain.  this will dilute the entire money function and potential for Bitcoin as Money.  expect the price of BTC to drop if this is implemented.  you will no longer be able to describe Bitcoin as digital cash or digital gold or even as "apolitcal" money.  that's b/c of Blockstream control and the conversion of Bitcoin to a WoW trading platform.  you will have to say that Bitcoin is a trading platform that now offers stocks, bonds, insurance, contracts, Truthcoin, and oh, btw, currency.  this will cause confusion and dilution.

what a shame.  we had a chance to change the world.