Topic: Miner cartel, Bankster cartel, or an altcoin? Your choice? - page 16. (Read 33243 times)

Yes lowest relative volatility, and in the future as this changes, we will collective understand that its relative to a conceptual perfectly stable units money. What should we call this unit? The Watt, Celcius, A Newton...?

What makes you unable to see what is happening with Crypto Kingdom now?

yup. a scenario satoshi would have never admitted to.

I am leaning this way. So that means no SegWit and no LN no Rootstock no sidechains no Blockstream.

It means fees skyrocket. Bitcoin becomes power money and the n00bs (minnows) exchange markets for BTC disappear. Massive exodus of minnows into altcoins.

The altcoins become the "sidechains". Besides, Blockstream's Sidechains are insolubly insecure anyway.

The power money can still control the altcoins using high finance and other methodologies, which means the exchange price of BTC will continue to increase because it remains the reserve currency of the anti-fiat ecosystem.

It is necessary to remove the minnows from the power money so that the volatility of its exchange value becomes minimized. The money with the lowest relative volatility is senior to other monies because it is more liquid (requires less be deposited in unleveraged reserves throughout the economy).

I still make the conjecture we are headed into an equilibrium where each special interest gets veto against change, giving the system ultra stability versus change.

Satoshi was so brilliant because he removed the ability of the whales do malfeasance to the protocol and profitably short the token on markets, because it requires sunk costs plus ongoing electricity to mine in order to have control over the protocol (with 51% of the hashrate).

Whereas with consensus algorithms (PoS, Byzantine agreement such as TenderMint) which don't burn a resource there is nothing-at-stake, so the whales can profitably attack their own protocol while shorting their own token. Confiscating deposits doesn't work because there is no electricity burned so the whales can rewind history without any cost. Notwithstanding that nothing-at-stake can't prevent the rewinding of history, the deposits wouldn't be any cheaper than PoW. Edit: but thinking about this some more, if the whale has enough stake to attack PoS then he has enough to short while dumping his stake, thus security is really dependent on having a plurality of whales (who arbitrage each other, because it is an opportunity cost not to do it) even with PoW.

Satoshi wasn't likely one person. He was likely a group of brilliant people hired by a wealthy globalist such as Rothschild, so it is quite probable that every decision they made was deliberate and thoroughly researched.

Thus we know Satoshi understood immutability meant no one can change the protocol without the agreement of 51% of the miners and the economic majority (i.e. 51% of the economic control). Otherwise stalemate.

This is what I have come to believe...it didn't matter.  Satoshi knew the limit had to go on, he couldn't change that.  And the system had to evolve to a point where it was relevant in the world. If the limit was to be stuck in place, he couldn't use that foresight as an excuse not to put the limit on.  And so I thought the meditation on the subject could have started there. But in the meantime, it didn't matter.

Other's complained immediately though, so its obvious he knew.

==> The question is: was Satoshi not understanding his own system ?  Or was he lying and knew damn well what he was implying ?

I tend to think the former / conspiracy theorists will think the latter.  But Satoshi made sufficient errors to make me think that he simply didn't understand the implications.  I do respect Satoshi for the great leap forwards that he made, but contrary to others on the board here, I don't think he is a kind of God, or the incarnation of economic and cryptographic wisdom.  He's a guy who had some great ideas but also fucked up several things - which is normal if you have no experience or back sight.

You regularly read on this board that people distinguish the "immutability of the block chain data" and the "protocol". It seems that Satoshi was thinking that too. This was also the little war over that word when ethereum split in ETH/ETC.  "no, ETH is immutable, we didn't modify the block chain data" was the claim.  Satoshi was maybe thinking the same.

-->  that is fundamentally misguided.

The reason is that "binary data" by themselves don't mean anything.  The rules of their interpretation are just as important as the "binary data".  Information is an OBJECT and is not "binary data", an object with attributes (the binary data if you wish) and METHODS (the INTERPRETATION of those data).

If you keep the data constant, but you allow to modify the methods (which is what ETH did) you are just as well "modifying history".  History, in crypto sense, is not about historians reconstructing the past ; it is about RIGHTS AND ENGAGEMENTS THAT FOLLOW FROM THAT PAST.   Nobody cares about the "history for historians" on the block chain (apart maybe law enforcement) ; the only thing the block chain is needed for, is to grant rights and to recall engagements (if smart contracts).

Immutability means of course: immutability of the GRANTED RIGHTS, not of the historical verification of past happenings.  As such, the granted rights are the object that combines RULES and DATA.

Immutability hence implies just as well "not changing the rules" as "not changing the data".  We don't care about the data alone if you can change the rules at will.  That changes JUST AS MUCH the granted rights than changing the data.

This is why, if you think that there is a mechanism at work that results in immutability, it results automatically in immutability both of the data (the binary block chain data) and the right-granting rules of the protocol.  Immutability of just the former doesn't mean anything.  You can keep the binary data, and triple, in the protocol, all *my specific* spending rights of *my addresses* while denying yours.  No iota changed to the block chain, but our rights fundamentally modified.

This is why I think that a truly decentralized immutable crypto cannot "evolve" and is to follow the protocol from the moment you lay down the genesis block until the moment the system dies.  And if it can "evolve", it is simply centralized, and you have to put trust in those people that can change the protocol.  Which can be a thing to do.  You also trust Facebook.  At least, many do.

Stalemate = higher fees and no scaling...

All right - I've caught up. And I stand by my expression of skepticism.

Your above claim is equivalent to a claim that:
a) you know exactly who each of 'the whales' are;
b) you know the rough holdings of each said 'whale'; and
c) you know the intent of each such 'whale' with respect to changing the PoW.
My short retort is 'I call bullshit'.


I see you have swallowed traincarswreck's thesis hook, line, and fisherman's forearm. While plausible, I'm not yet convinced that there is any there, there.


Well, I think so. However, I am cognizant of the ephemeral nature of new technologies. We're not even a decade in on this one. It makes for a hard comparison against another measure that has stood for millennia.


Sorry for condensing your post down to a single statement of what I got out of it. I don't disagree with anything in it, except for the characterization of all the above as somehow 'not cheating'.


Hmm. I'm not seeing that. Here's an eight minute old snapshot of solved blocks:



Of course, the miners may be playing games as well. No real way to know.


Perhaps. I've not yet thrown in the towel.

Clarification of my stance on Ethereum:



The DAO attacker is a Bitcoin $billionaire and he (and @r0ach) claim that Ethereum is backed by an R3 consortium of banksters who also have connections with the USA govt DEEP STATE and the DEEP STATE's academic institutions such as MIT, Cornell, etc..

My stance on this is that it appears to be true that Ethereum's backers are able to pull strings at the United Nations, and mass media. I am not invested in Ethereum long-term. I don't believe in it as a long-term viable project. I invested as a diversification, in case that corrupt group that backs Ethereum is able to succeed.

I believe TPTB in our world planted Bitcoin as Nash Ideal Money virus to help bring about their NWO with a world central bank. I think they also helped created Ethereum through one of the factions of their network of control, for several reasons:

1. To provide a playground for the fools so they can separate them from their money.
2. To stress test challenges to Bitcoin.
3. To stress test other sub-blockchains or networks that could be master controlled by settlement to the Bitcoin chain in the future.

My view is that both Bitcoin and Ethereum are corrupt shit. And I intend to challenge those. But until I do, I am diversified currently with some holdings of both BTC and ETH (in addition to some minor holdings of a couple other very speculative altcoins).

That doesn't necessarily mean that Vitalik or Gmaxwell are corrupt. I really don't know those guys well. Those devs aren't the whales who are controlling those blockchains.

---

That's also a possibility, but ICOs are very easy to manipulate, you just buy your token from yourself with borrowed BTC (then pay back the BTC to the lender) so you own most the tokens at $0 cost.


That is @dinofelis' stance and I have been leaning towards it lately as I have stated publicly.

More evidence that @dinofelis may be correct in his prediction:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--1847448

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/f2pool-owner-bitcoin-cant-fork-and-wont-fork-1847125

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/what-will-happen-with-bitcoin-if-it-never-scales-1847331

Bitcoin is analogous to ObamaCare or Hotel California, once you check in then you can never check out:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/us-politics/trumpcare-ryancare-obamacare-is-dead-for-now-who-killedit-trump-paul-ryan/article34428768/

I explained that unbounded nondeterminism is the nature of our universe. I had mentioned this upthread also.

@jbreher I am just very exhausted of this thread (sleepless, sleep deprived, trying to do too much), that is all. Relieved to see @dinofelis has energy for some continued high quality discussion.

@dinofelis I agree it is fascinating that miners may be turning away from BU after they read this thread and figured out they are stuck between pet rock ASICs and gouging for fees ("between a rock and a hard place"). Your initial opinion of an immutable stalemate may end up being correct.

My diversification opinion:

First of all, the art of doing business successfully and becoming rich is based upon building an illusion in the head of the gullible while not being explicit about it, because "selling illusion" is a business with high demand by the gullible, and of which the offer can be extremely lucrative.  In other words, selling illusions is the art of human profitable interaction.  That is not different than the car salesman who makes you think you are a "real man" if you buy this sports car "with character".

But FRB is not about selling snake oil.  The bank that is issuing bank money will do everything in its power (that is, at the height of its reserves) to honour the 1-1 exchange relationship with OTHER bank dollars of other banks.  It has a certain amount of collateral doing so ; and even, the modern fiat system allows the central bank to issue always enough EXTRA collateral to do so, *on the condition that a genuine bank has a 1-1 coverage by non-fluid assets that can be taken over by the FED*.

However, the extend of coverage of the bank is finite.  In normal cases, it will always be sufficient to keep the exchange ratio with other bank-dollars on-par.  But in exceptional circumstances, it can go broke.  

If your bank goes broke, in principle, you shouldn't be surprised that you've lost all the money in that bank.  So deep down, you KNOW that this is "bank money" and not "FED money".

The REAL LIARS are the states, who *guarantee* bank deposits without having any means to do so.  THEY are the ones making people believe bank money is FED money.

In the modern banking system, the fractional reserve is not an issue, really.   The real issue, as I said, is elsewhere.  Even a FRB bank needs to have FULL ASSET COVERAGE.  A bank cannot issue money without having a "backing asset" ; not even the FED is allowed to do so.  The whole question is, what is a backing asset ?  Normally, it is something of economical value.  Real estate, land are primary examples.  Gold.  But also promises from the future that are credible: mortgages.  Business stock.  This is, however a slippery slope.  The real problem, the fundamental problem with our current fiat system is that we have *self-referential* assets: the whole big giant bobbal of derivatives, referencing other derivatives referencing wallets of derivatives maybe including themselves, orders of magnitude BIGGER than earth's economy.

When you use self-referential backing, of course, you kill the system.

It is quite ironic that this infinite recursion that blows the derivatives bobble comes about because of a de facto Turing completeness of the specification of derivatives, which is very similar to the hack of the DAO !

But do you believe bitcoin is as good as or better than gold in the hoardable sense?


Keep in mind also, the suggestion is that eventually, as bitcoin's value is discovered and it stabilizes more in relation to each respective fiat, more people will wake up to the idea that the most important thing in the world is to guard bitcoin's value proposition.

I was here before, and I followed the discussion, but it is only recently that I understood the full implications of "immutability" ; something that Satoshi himself a) didn't understand fully or b) was lying about.  If it is not part of "at block X we do Y" (like block halving) *from the start* and if it is not a "regular HF coin" (like monero or ethereum) or a centralized one like DASH where the central dev can decide anything at any moment, then in a truly decentralized system no "future change that has not taken a precise form for how, when, where" is not part of the contract, even if they made you to believe so.  Because of the immutability dynamics that antagonists will never find a consensus over their different opinions on the matter if ever it gives the slightest financial/political/ego-tripping/.... advantage to the winner.


Bingo.  This immutability dynamics, even in the face of diminishing decentralization, is fascinating.
It is like Turkeys having to vote for Xmas, even if all of them know that this is their demise, but they cannot agree upon anything else: escape, kill the farmer, pretend to be sick, beg for mercy.... in the end, they only vote for Xmas !


Well, awe, I don't know.  Forks are healthy if the only option is to vote for Xmas if not !


Ah, but *with the list of transactions*.  That's just a small factor smaller than the full block.  I was thinking one was specifying to transmit the block header only.  If you make 50 GB blocks, that list of transactions won't be 80 bytes but several GB too.
So it is just a small factor (the ratio of the full transaction size over the empty size).

Moreover, this doesn't allow for consensus resolution.  After all, nodes receiving the list of transaction hashes, have not necessarily received the transactions themselves at that moment.  If you have to wait to have received the transactions themselves, 1) you needed to be sufficiently online and not have had any network failures to be sure to have received the old ones in the mem pool already 2) there's no point, because apparently you WERE capable of receiving those transactions through the network, so (up to a factor of 2, which is negligible) that doesn't play a role.

Well, I am gratified that at least you understand the true nature of the vampire squid. Or at least its underpinnings. But how you can justify being given one asset while being told it is some other asset is somehow 'not cheating' is ludicrous.

If I were to represent that my 1 oz rounds of gold-plated titanium were American Eagles, I would be rightly castigated as a fraud and a charlatan. How is your vaunted FRB -- as you yourself present it -- any different?


In a world where the IMF -- the NWO's central bank of central banks -- has been working on displacing the USD with the SDR as the reserve currency of the world for over a decade, isn't Bitcoin a mere distraction to them?


C'mon now. Carlton has a point here. Which you blew completely past unacknowledged. If TPTB are the creators of (the known faulty) Bitcoin, why would they leave us to stumble upon the 'solution' which delivers us once and for all into their clutches -- an eventuality which might possibly not occur?

(And I'm sure Carlton would corroborate that I'm not jumping in here based merely upon our mutual respect -- more properly characterized as persistent mutual antagonism)


Even _if_ there were any truth to MP's self-aggrandizing braggadocio ( ::cough:: as if ::cough:: ), even his grandiose exaggerations wold make him an insignificant gnat on a world scale. To the IMF, MP is as insignificant as you or I -- or even a Doge n00b. i.e., lost in the noise.


But we can all picture a perfect circle in our mind's eye.

This much of traincarswreck's thesis* I can agree with: ideal money, while not realizable, is an aspirational goal. If we can get all of humanity to aspire to ideal money, they will be able to recognize in which ways their governmental fiats resemble such an ideal money, and in what ways it diverges. And this will build pressure to bring these gov fiats in line with such an ideal. For those that recognize the characteristics will choose to employ other district's fiats where their somewhat better fidelity to the ideal is useful.

*At least, I think these are elements of traincarswreck's thesis. I'm sure s/he'll loudly and arrogantly correct any misattribution.

Where I diverge is in the insistence that Bitcoin is the bestest closest and most idealist-ist approximation that humanity will ever know. And further, that Bitcoin already is cognizant of this role, so will strive to fulfill it (as it were a conscious entity of some sort).


...aaaannnd with that, I have caught up with the head of this thread as it stood when I entered. Epic so far. First sleep, then re-read my content to see what clarifications and rescinsions may be required. Only then, defense of rebuttals. See you on the flipside....