Topic: Made new video: "Solving Bitcoin's Centralization: NXT vs Clam" - page 3. (Read 3591 times)

Probably better to just ignore TPTB than laugh. They've been warned. What else can we do?

It's also not really fair to single out Bitshares, the other systems are no different.

And what is the game theory of that then. There is an Iron Law of Political Economics which insures the dominate stakeholders will steal everything from the collective. And they are doing it right now to all you in Bitshares. Mark my word. I will be laughing at you later. There has NEVER be an exception throughout all human history for governance.

I don't think it is really that simple. Obviously when the Chinese government imprisons or disappears someone or confiscates his or her assets, the previous day that person had money (and/or their freedom/life). The next day they don't.

Moreover the "Chinese Government" is not a unitary entity either.


I gave you an example straight from Bitcoin. Setting transaction fees. That obviously accrues to the advantage of some parties an disadvantage of others. It probably doesn't crash the world and destroy the currency value, but it means if you can't protect your interests in the game, your best choice is to leave the game. Thus the ownership contracts until you have private equity that isn't at risk of being disadvantaged by anyone.

It won't work as money, which by its nature becomes universal. It might works as some sort of narrow platform that delivers utility to customers, or possibly a cooperative that delivers utility to its owners, but the ownership will be narrow. That is inevitable.

(And I'd add that since I have serious doubts are there being a useful application for blockchains other than money, it may not work for anything, but that's another question really.)

I understand your shorting attack vector for PoS.  I just think it is unlikely.

I'm not arguing that PoS honors the wishes of the tiny stakeholders.  PoS honors the wishes of the dominate stakeholders.  They set policy.

No that is not what democracy does. Democracy doesn't honor the perogative of anyone other than those who can steal from the collective by amassing the most power and lying to the collective by promising everything and delivering nothing (while socializing losses). Get an education. Read my prior post.

Why the fuck would we even be working on crypto currency if governance worked. Crypto currency would be entirely unnecessary if democracy actually worked.

I will take market capitalization of Apple for $200 Alex.

It has nothing to do with "right or wrong".  It has to do with the prerogative of the majority coin holders.  It's very true that stake can be centralized much further than hashpower.   All someone has to do to get more influence is purchase more stake.  I'm not sure about the argument of "Chinese Miners" competing... Is there any business in China that isn't controlled by the govt?  Is there anyone in China who has money that the govt doesn't want to have money?

Regarding the fact of minority stakeholders being taken advantage of by larger shareholders, I can only imagine a situation where the larger holders would destroy smaller holders currency.  This of course would destroy the currency and its value and would not be in their interest to do so.

The point is that PoS can't be secure (see my post upthread on that) and politically it can't honor the wishes of the common stakeholders (thus arguing they should set policy is entirely vacuous), just the same as how democracy is a total sham.

Some Iron Laws of Political Economics

People are hoodwinked by PoS for the same reason they are hookwinked by democracy. Both of which are complete lies.

Here is what will happen to both every time...


Representative government has always and will always resolve in megadeath and catastrophic failure.

I don't know who gets to define what is "right", and I think I don't care.

If someone has disproportionate and effectively absolute power, it will likely be used. Since you can't limit concentration of coins you have to limit power. PoS is even worse than PoW in this regard. PoW is a physical quantity and you can't cram all the miners into a single point. Even "Chinese Miners" are not a single entity and compete in some ways even as they may cooperate in others (and there are significant miners elsewhere with distinct interests too). You could put 99% of the stake on a small part of a single chip (way smaller than a USB stick).

It just doesn't work. That's why minority shareholders in public corporations have certain legal rights and not just the right to be screwed by larger shareholders with their own agenda. Otherwise public corporations go away and you end up with no real decentralization of ownership and private equity (arguably happening anyway).

Right, but isn't it the currency holders' right to set monetary policy (aka chain rules).  Your argument that miners shouldn't dictate policy is understandable because the miners' influence isn't proportional to their currency holdings, but in a system where currency holdings equal chain influence what does it matter?  If the majority of currency holders want to dictate policy, imo that is their right.  The reason in my mind that DPoS is flawed is because it breaks the linkage of coin ownership and chain ownership via a fraudulent voting mechanism.

You mean either:

• Larger stakeholders get more (either because they can outvote the smaller ones, or because the smaller ones are somehow convinced the coin will gain more value if they give away their coins).
• Corporations are created, new shares are created, production in this economy makes these shares more valuable, minority shareholders agree to give more shares to those who run or work for the company.

I assume you mean #2, since #1 is idiotic.

But by definition the shares have to be non-fungible with shares of other corporations. So unless you make Bitshares one corporation for every productive venture, then the new shares can't be Bitshares.

So there is the flaw. You can't have one corporation that produces everything for the world. It lacks degrees-of-freedom. It is same as tying yourself to your sister and trying to each go about your daily life tied together.

Dumb shit like this is why I do not respect the Larimer incest.

The point you are missing is that it isn't necessarily to their determent. You're only considering "crash the world" type attacks. If Bitcoin miners 51% attack to prevent increasing the blocksize and drive up fees while maintaining their competitive advantage, they help themselves at the expense of people who want to transact with lower fees. That's just one example that comes to mind, and maybe not the best example regarding PoS but the underlying issues are the same.

Crypto without decentralization is just inefficient fiat (aside from the zero sum trading game aspect).

I never said the point of crypto was only to make money.  I think for a lot of the original believers in crypto that was more of a secondary consequence.  I understand your point of participants not being protected from each other, but there are very few people who would act to their own detriment.  I think it is much better to have the currency holders secure the network than miners in the PoW sense because the motives of the miners and the holders do not always coincide.

I understand the frustration of losing so much time defending points. I suffer the same frustration and sometimes lash out because of it. You have real school work to do, and I should instead be coding than commenting here. Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about this. Each of us makes a decision to post or not post.

Smooth and I (and some others) are deep into this shit already and hard to get us to do something else. You should not let your school work suffer for this. We experts are not going to totally screw up crypto land. I am for one a counter balancing force to pretty much everything else out there. Have some faith, relax, and pick your priority points to make once in a while, to help advance crypto while not letting your education suffer since that is so important for your future.

I understand you feel we are giving a one-sided view of Bitshares, but I have explained my side of that in the Decentralization thread and also in a short exchange with Stan Larimer. Daniel is always pitching some new gimick which doesn't make any sense to me at all. I think his market clearing ideas are nonsense. I think his latest blog post about making a PoS that does work is also complete nonsense. I have already explained some of my reasons but tersely in some cases. I don't have the time to detail all my thinking on that to the point where I can convince every diehard Bitshares fan to understand my logic entirely. I don't expect anything worthy to come from Daniel, because he always has some gimick that is the antithesis of decentralization and/or which doesn't scale in the real world.


The world is not going to adopt a coin that is a corporation. Period.

Same for that shit OBITS.

No, I am annoyed because you guys have no life and have now sucked me into another full night of debating. I could spend all night refuting some of the points you two have made ITT. You guys portray everything you say as fact when a lot of it is at least partially based on opinion.

The amount of say you get in the company is compared to the amount of stake that you own. Corporations have been thriving on such practices for years now. Executives get nice stock options and benefits and the larger shareholders have more say, yet all stakeholders profit (if it is a well ran business of course.) If that is known before someone invests in a company/cryptocurrency that whoever has more stake will get more say in the company, then it is ridiculous to call it not fair.

You are also assuming that everyone votes in their best interest only and not the company's best interest, which is not always the case. If you go have a look at what each paid witness is doing for Bitshares then it becomes clear it is not the case.

Again the point is that with PoS, there is no FAIR or EQUITABLE way to distribute new coins that doesn't mimic the proportionality of the existing stakes, thus this is the same as the divisibility that is already built into the existing coins. No new distribution was achieved, just offsetting inflation.

If you have any other gimick in mind, please cite it specifically, so I can identify the flaw for you. You have been hoodwinked.

I am sorry if you don't like facts. And sorry for you if you believe anything junior Dan and papa Stan Larimer say without fact checking it with someone who really understands the technology and is a straight shooter.

Why do you get disgusted with us, when we are willing to entertain any technical facts you can bring to bear in this thread. We are not censoring you. But we do expect you to bring details, so we can refute those details.

We are interested in open disclosure. And we are happy if you can prove us wrong, as we will have learned something new. You can't expect to state something we know is impossible, and then we will just accept it without any details from your side. Enumerate how you think the feature you claim can be done, and then we will explain why you are a n00b.

Remember I defended your right to have your reputation heal over time and not be faulted for one incident for the rest of your existence here on this forum. I have not been against you in any way. You are all heated and puffed up because you made an investment in Bitshares and thought you discovered the holy grail of crypto. And now I am giving you bad news.

Okay great. By that standard every statement by anyone is opinion, so obviously the distinction you are trying to make is pointless.

That is your opinion about your opinion not being an opinion.

Only my last sentence was opinion.