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Topic: Montreal scaling Bitcoin workshop recap. (Read 4494 times)

legendary
Activity: 1988
Merit: 1012
Beyond Imagination
September 15, 2015, 07:07:14 PM


Interesting image.

If you look carefully at the graph (B) DECENTRALIZED, you may notice it may not be as decentralized as it looks: look carefully at the middle node, it's a single point of failure. Take him away and the "Decentralized" network is disrupted.

Decentralization is very difficult to define and mesure, and a "decentralized" system may seem decentralized but actually contain hidden points of failure.

The image in B is not really decentralized, a decentralized network would have many connections between those small local hubs, but the image has only one such connection between the top 2 nodes. This terrible picture shows that its author does not really know what he is talking about   Grin
full member
Activity: 219
Merit: 102
September 15, 2015, 02:32:52 PM


Interesting image.

If you look carefully at the graph (B) DECENTRALIZED, you may notice it may not be as decentralized as it looks: look carefully at the middle node, it's a single point of failure. Take him away and the "Decentralized" network is disrupted.

Decentralization is very difficult to define and mesure, and a "decentralized" system may seem decentralized but actually contain hidden points of failure.
Well spotted. You are absolutely right. I missed that.  Roll Eyes It's a clustered topology which is a form of centralised network.
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1008
Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political
September 15, 2015, 02:12:34 PM

maybe you should tell all merchants who use bitpay to process and convert BTC payments they are at risk of being cheated.

you're being overly paranoid, and your ivory tower is really high.
Of course they are at risk. There is always a risk.

Bitcoin is made to be decentralized, apolitical, trustless.
 

I think you missed his point.

SPV is trivially risky compared to payment processers.  And even those are limited risk.  If they don't settle at the end of the day,
you've lost a day's revenue. 
hero member
Activity: 644
Merit: 504
Bitcoin replaces central, not commercial, banks
September 15, 2015, 02:03:34 PM
Do you know what a third-party is?
Yes I do, and you quoted what I said out of context. I said that some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes which can be put up by anyone in a decentralized fashion. I also argued that relying on layer two protocols would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space.
SPV wallets connecting to full nodes = third party risk. no amount of spinning can get you out of this.

Layer two protocols like Lightning rely on no third-party custody therefore you don't have to trust anyone with you money to use them.
Layer two protocols are third parties as well. Not being able to practically transact on the Bitcoin blockchain directly because of it becoming prohibitively expensive after increased adoption would translate into a much greater reliance on third parties, compared to SPV wallets. I am not spinning anything since I never claimed that SPV wallets do not rely on third parties at all, even if it is decentralized in its execution.

Using a SPV wallet does not necessarily mean relying on a third party since some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes

 Roll Eyes
You realize you are doing it again right, you are quoting me out of context. Since in the next sentence I clearly say that: "Having to use a layer two protocol however would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space." The emboldened part of the text implies the acknolegement that SPV wallets do also partially relly on third parties, in the same way that a layer two protocol would as well.
Unfortunately that is wrong. Forcing SPV dependence by making full nodes too expensive for regular people to run is much worst than having them use an open payment protocol that cannot steal or censor their funds for casual transactions
Another straw man argument, I have never said that people will be forced to use SPV wallets because full nodes will become to expensive, actually I have stated the opposite of this. People will still be able to run full nodes from home even with eight megabyte blocks.
Do you have scientific data to prove this?

Consider this from Patrick Stateman this weekend:

Assuming yearly 20% increase blockchain size & 10% reduction in bandwidth costs, after 15-20 years no new nodes can enter system except maybe huge datacenter operations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgjrS-BPWDQ&feature=youtu.be&t=7331

Wouldn't have guessed this heh?
Hilarious another straw man argument lol. In this case I have not been arguing for a 20% increase per year. I was just saying that I can run a full node with eight megabytes today, and that most people within the developed world could also do so on their home desktop computers without that causing any major problems in terms of decentralization.

yo, I can't be bothered with your simple ass anymore. who do you think you fooling trying to politic your way out of every discussions. are you running for president of the free shit army or something?

you really are coming at me with this stupid "most people within the developed world" bullshit after I just presented you with hard data that this would break Bitcoin?

 

member
Activity: 554
Merit: 11
CurioInvest [IEO Live]
September 15, 2015, 02:01:10 PM


Interesting image.

If you look carefully at the graph (B) DECENTRALIZED, you may notice it may not be as decentralized as it looks: look carefully at the middle node, it's a single point of failure. Take him away and the "Decentralized" network is disrupted.

Decentralization is very difficult to define and mesure, and a "decentralized" system may seem decentralized but actually contain hidden points of failure.
hero member
Activity: 546
Merit: 500
September 15, 2015, 01:35:45 PM
Do you know what a third-party is?
Yes I do, and you quoted what I said out of context. I said that some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes which can be put up by anyone in a decentralized fashion. I also argued that relying on layer two protocols would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space.
SPV wallets connecting to full nodes = third party risk. no amount of spinning can get you out of this.

Layer two protocols like Lightning rely on no third-party custody therefore you don't have to trust anyone with you money to use them.
Layer two protocols are third parties as well. Not being able to practically transact on the Bitcoin blockchain directly because of it becoming prohibitively expensive after increased adoption would translate into a much greater reliance on third parties, compared to SPV wallets. I am not spinning anything since I never claimed that SPV wallets do not rely on third parties at all, even if it is decentralized in its execution.

Using a SPV wallet does not necessarily mean relying on a third party since some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes

 Roll Eyes
You realize you are doing it again right, you are quoting me out of context. Since in the next sentence I clearly say that: "Having to use a layer two protocol however would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space." The emboldened part of the text implies the acknolegement that SPV wallets do also partially relly on third parties, in the same way that a layer two protocol would as well.
Unfortunately that is wrong. Forcing SPV dependence by making full nodes too expensive for regular people to run is much worst than having them use an open payment protocol that cannot steal or censor their funds for casual transactions
Another straw man argument, I have never said that people will be forced to use SPV wallets because full nodes will become to expensive, actually I have stated the opposite of this. People will still be able to run full nodes from home even with eight megabyte blocks.
Do you have scientific data to prove this?

Consider this from Patrick Stateman this weekend:

Assuming yearly 20% increase blockchain size & 10% reduction in bandwidth costs, after 15-20 years no new nodes can enter system except maybe huge datacenter operations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgjrS-BPWDQ&feature=youtu.be&t=7331

Wouldn't have guessed this heh?
Hilarious another straw man argument lol. In this case I have not been arguing for a 20% increase per year. I was just saying that I can run a full node with eight megabytes today, and that most people within the developed world could also do so on their home desktop computers without that causing any major problems in terms of decentralization.
legendary
Activity: 3430
Merit: 3080
September 15, 2015, 01:33:22 PM
You realize you are doing it again right, you are quoting me out of context. Since in the next sentence I clearly say that: "Having to use a layer two protocol however would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space." The emboldened part of the text implies the acknolegement that SPV wallets do also partially relly on third parties, in the same way that a layer two protocol would as well.
Unfortunately that is wrong. Forcing SPV dependence by making full nodes too expensive for regular people to run is much worst than having them use an open payment protocol that cannot steal or censor their funds for casual transactions
Another straw man argument, I have never said that people will be forced to use SPV wallets because full nodes will become to expensive, actually I have stated the opposite of this. People will still be able to run full nodes from home even with eight megabyte blocks.

LMAO

He was telling you you were wrong, that was his point.


hero member
Activity: 644
Merit: 504
Bitcoin replaces central, not commercial, banks
September 15, 2015, 01:23:45 PM
Do you know what a third-party is?
Yes I do, and you quoted what I said out of context. I said that some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes which can be put up by anyone in a decentralized fashion. I also argued that relying on layer two protocols would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space.
SPV wallets connecting to full nodes = third party risk. no amount of spinning can get you out of this.

Layer two protocols like Lightning rely on no third-party custody therefore you don't have to trust anyone with you money to use them.
Layer two protocols are third parties as well. Not being able to practically transact on the Bitcoin blockchain directly because of it becoming prohibitively expensive after increased adoption would translate into a much greater reliance on third parties, compared to SPV wallets. I am not spinning anything since I never claimed that SPV wallets do not rely on third parties at all, even if it is decentralized in its execution.

Using a SPV wallet does not necessarily mean relying on a third party since some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes

 Roll Eyes
You realize you are doing it again right, you are quoting me out of context. Since in the next sentence I clearly say that: "Having to use a layer two protocol however would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space." The emboldened part of the text implies the acknolegement that SPV wallets do also partially relly on third parties, in the same way that a layer two protocol would as well.
Unfortunately that is wrong. Forcing SPV dependence by making full nodes too expensive for regular people to run is much worst than having them use an open payment protocol that cannot steal or censor their funds for casual transactions
Another straw man argument, I have never said that people will be forced to use SPV wallets because full nodes will become to expensive, actually I have stated the opposite of this. People will still be able to run full nodes from home even with eight megabyte blocks.

Do you have scientific data to prove this?

Consider this from Patrick Stateman this weekend:

Assuming yearly 20% increase blockchain size & 10% reduction in bandwidth costs, after 15-20 years no new nodes can enter system except maybe huge datacenter operations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgjrS-BPWDQ&feature=youtu.be&t=7331

Wouldn't have guessed this heh?
hero member
Activity: 546
Merit: 500
September 15, 2015, 01:16:01 PM
Do you know what a third-party is?
Yes I do, and you quoted what I said out of context. I said that some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes which can be put up by anyone in a decentralized fashion. I also argued that relying on layer two protocols would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space.
SPV wallets connecting to full nodes = third party risk. no amount of spinning can get you out of this.

Layer two protocols like Lightning rely on no third-party custody therefore you don't have to trust anyone with you money to use them.
Layer two protocols are third parties as well. Not being able to practically transact on the Bitcoin blockchain directly because of it becoming prohibitively expensive after increased adoption would translate into a much greater reliance on third parties, compared to SPV wallets. I am not spinning anything since I never claimed that SPV wallets do not rely on third parties at all, even if it is decentralized in its execution.

Using a SPV wallet does not necessarily mean relying on a third party since some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes

 Roll Eyes
You realize you are doing it again right, you are quoting me out of context. Since in the next sentence I clearly say that: "Having to use a layer two protocol however would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space." The emboldened part of the text implies the acknolegement that SPV wallets do also partially relly on third parties, in the same way that a layer two protocol would as well.
Unfortunately that is wrong. Forcing SPV dependence by making full nodes too expensive for regular people to run is much worst than having them use an open payment protocol that cannot steal or censor their funds for casual transactions
Another straw man argument, I have never said that people will be forced to use SPV wallets because full nodes will become to expensive, actually I have stated the opposite of this. People will still be able to run full nodes from home even with eight megabyte blocks.
hero member
Activity: 644
Merit: 504
Bitcoin replaces central, not commercial, banks
September 15, 2015, 01:13:06 PM
Do you know what a third-party is?
Yes I do, and you quoted what I said out of context. I said that some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes which can be put up by anyone in a decentralized fashion. I also argued that relying on layer two protocols would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space.
SPV wallets connecting to full nodes = third party risk. no amount of spinning can get you out of this.

Layer two protocols like Lightning rely on no third-party custody therefore you don't have to trust anyone with you money to use them.
Layer two protocols are third parties as well. Not being able to practically transact on the Bitcoin blockchain directly because of it becoming prohibitively expensive after increased adoption would translate into a much greater reliance on third parties, compared to SPV wallets. I am not spinning anything since I never claimed that SPV wallets do not rely on third parties at all, even if it is decentralized in its execution.

Using a SPV wallet does not necessarily mean relying on a third party since some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes

 Roll Eyes
You realize you are doing it again right, you are quoting me out of context. Since in the next sentence I clearly say that: "Having to use a layer two protocol however would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space." The emboldened part of the text implies the acknolegement that SPV wallets do also partially relly on third parties, in the same way that a layer two protocol would as well.

Unfortunately that is wrong. Forcing SPV dependence by making full nodes too expensive for regular people to run is much worst than having them use an open payment protocol that cannot steal or censor their funds for casual transactions
hero member
Activity: 602
Merit: 500
In math we trust.
September 15, 2015, 01:10:17 PM

maybe you should tell all merchants who use bitpay to process and convert BTC payments they are at risk of being cheated.

you're being overly paranoid, and your ivory tower is really high.
Of course they are at risk. There is always a risk.

Bitcoin is made to be decentralized, apolitical, trustless.

Bigger block advocates often try to support that that Satoshi would be with them.
"Satoshi introduced the initial 1mb block limit as a measure to prevent spam.
He intended to remove it in the future and leave the market do its magic."

I won't tell you what he wanted, but I will only point on his initial paper and judge yourself.

Before reading, please ask youreself; Do you consider bitpay and coinbase "financial institutions" ??
If so, this will trouble you.

Quote from: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf Satoshi Nakamoto Bitcoin Paper
Abstract. A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online
payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a
financial institution.
Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main
benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending.
We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network.
The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of
hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing
the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of
events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As
long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to
attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers.
The
network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcast on a best effort
basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest
proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.

I would like to see bitcoin scaling to thousands of transactions per second, but not at the cost of any bit further centralization.
Bitcoin is apolitical, trustless, decentalised money. Any aberration would mark it as failed.
If you don't have a problem with relying on a third party financial institution/processor you can very well use paypal.
Be sure to check how reputable the US gov is, backing the dollar.
hero member
Activity: 546
Merit: 500
September 15, 2015, 01:08:27 PM
Do you know what a third-party is?
Yes I do, and you quoted what I said out of context. I said that some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes which can be put up by anyone in a decentralized fashion. I also argued that relying on layer two protocols would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space.
SPV wallets connecting to full nodes = third party risk. no amount of spinning can get you out of this.

Layer two protocols like Lightning rely on no third-party custody therefore you don't have to trust anyone with you money to use them.
Layer two protocols are third parties as well. Not being able to practically transact on the Bitcoin blockchain directly because of it becoming prohibitively expensive after increased adoption would translate into a much greater reliance on third parties, compared to SPV wallets. I am not spinning anything since I never claimed that SPV wallets do not rely on third parties at all, even if it is decentralized in its execution.

Using a SPV wallet does not necessarily mean relying on a third party since some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes

 Roll Eyes
You realize you are doing it again right, you are quoting me out of context. Since in the next sentence I clearly say that: "Having to use a layer two protocol however would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space." The emboldened part of the text implies the acknowledgment that SPV wallets do also partially rely on third parties, in some of the same ways that a layer two protocol would as well. What are you trying to do here anyway trying to prove that I believe something that is factually incorrect while I am repeatedly stating the opposite? That is just silly.
hero member
Activity: 546
Merit: 500
September 15, 2015, 12:44:29 PM
Do you know what a third-party is?
Yes I do, and you quoted what I said out of context. I said that some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes which can be put up by anyone in a decentralized fashion. I also argued that relying on layer two protocols would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space.
SPV wallets connecting to full nodes = third party risk. no amount of spinning can get you out of this.

Layer two protocols like Lightning rely on no third-party custody therefore you don't have to trust anyone with you money to use them.
Layer two protocols are third parties as well. Not being able to practically transact on the Bitcoin blockchain directly because of it becoming prohibitively expensive after increased adoption would translate into a much greater reliance on third parties, compared to SPV wallets. I am not spinning anything since I never claimed that SPV wallets do not rely on third parties at all, even if it is decentralized in its execution.
hero member
Activity: 644
Merit: 504
Bitcoin replaces central, not commercial, banks
September 15, 2015, 12:38:26 PM
Do you know what a third-party is?
Yes I do, and you quoted what I said out of context. I said that some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes which can be put up by anyone in a decentralized fashion. I also argued that relying on layer two protocols would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space.

SPV wallets connecting to full nodes = third party risk. no amount of spinning can get you out of this.

Layer two protocols like Lightning rely on no third-party custody therefore you don't have to trust anyone with you money to use them.

legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1037
Trusted Bitcoiner
September 15, 2015, 12:29:49 PM
if there is more than one node keeping track of the blockchain then we are still decentralized. period the end.
of course you want the system to be as decentralized as possible, but limiting functionally in order to get a little more decentralization???
i mean where do you draw the line
is 1MB the line why not 1.1 or 1.5MB
you going to argue 1.1MB would make a difference for decentralization?
where do you draw the line? that is the question, once that's defined everything falls into place
What on earth are you talking about?

I pointed out that decentralisation isn't synonymous with distributed which is what the network images imply. The byte size of anything was never mentioned. Not even tangentially or incidentally.

oh nevermind.
full member
Activity: 219
Merit: 102
September 15, 2015, 12:17:42 PM
if there is more than one node keeping track of the blockchain then we are still decentralized. period the end.
of course you want the system to be as decentralized as possible, but limiting functionally in order to get a little more decentralization???
i mean where do you draw the line
is 1MB the line why not 1.1 or 1.5MB
you going to argue 1.1MB would make a difference for decentralization?
where do you draw the line? that is the question, once that's defined everything falls into place
What on earth are you talking about?

I pointed out that decentralisation isn't synonymous with distributed which is what the network images imply. The byte size of anything was never mentioned. Not even tangentially or incidentally.
hero member
Activity: 546
Merit: 500
September 15, 2015, 12:13:47 PM
Do you know what a third-party is?
Yes I do, and you quoted what I said out of context. I said that some SPV wallets can connect to full nodes which can be put up by anyone in a decentralized fashion. I also argued that relying on layer two protocols would translate into much greater reliance on third parties especially with increased adoption and limited blocksize space.
legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1037
Trusted Bitcoiner
September 15, 2015, 12:10:07 PM
there's a difference between decentralized and distributed...

regular joe, doesn't necessarily have to run a node to keep bitcoin decentralized.

does that necessarily mean the bitcoin network is not Decentralized?

NO.

if you think joe is interested in running a full node because he fears counterparty risk you don't know joe.

Except there is a conflation with those definitions that I think was intentional so as to simplify.
A) is certainly centralised.
B) is certainly decentralised.
C) is also decentralised but just a different organisation.

B) is a Hierarchical decentralisation - commonly used in military communications and c) is a Mesh decentralisation commonly used in ad-hoc wireless.

So where does distributed come in to it?
Distributed is used to describe how work or computation is partitioned within a network. Things like BOINC are distributed and it is quite possible to have decentralised and distributed as well as centralised and distributed (where BOINC is the latter).

In a nutshell. Decentralised != Distributed in the same way a Road != a Car

As an example, lets take a mining pool. So in a mining pool,  the mining *work* is distributed to the participants but the network architecture is B) hierarchical decentralisation (around the work coordinator/ provider). All communications within the pool are worker to and from the admin and the admin communicates the results to the wider network and relays any benefits back to the workers.

The issue we have at present is there is that full node clients are mesh networked to create their view of the block chain but all mining is Hierarchically decentralised and as the number of full nodes (required for acceptance of the miners' blocks) decreases, miners will start up their own botnets to propagate their blocks faster. Therefore they will own the means of production and the means of distribution and centralisation will be complete and you will have large mining corporations sitting in Google Datacenters with everyone using webs wallets.

Because mining is no longer "distributed" as originally envisioned, a decentralised network is counter-productive to mining efficiency. In the old days, a client was a miner and thus all mining was distributed and decentralised and until that is the case again, we will see more and more centralisation unless its already too late.

if there is more than one node keeping track of the blockchain then we are still decentralized. period the end.
of course you want the system to be as decentralized as possible, but limiting functionally in order to get a little more decentralization???
i mean where do you draw the line
is 1MB the line why not 1.1 or 1.5MB
you going to argue 1.1MB would make a difference for decentralization?
where do you draw the line? that is the question, once that's defined everything falls into place
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1008
Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political
September 15, 2015, 11:48:19 AM
multi layer is ok if it's still permissionless distributed consensus.  But is it?
full member
Activity: 219
Merit: 102
September 15, 2015, 11:47:13 AM
there's a difference between decentralized and distributed...

regular joe, doesn't necessarily have to run a node to keep bitcoin decentralized.

does that necessarily mean the bitcoin network is not Decentralized?

NO.

if you think joe is interested in running a full node because he fears counterparty risk you don't know joe.

Except there is a conflation with those definitions that I think was intentional so as to simplify.
A) is certainly centralised.
B) is certainly decentralised.
C) is also decentralised but just a different organisation.

B) is a Hierarchical decentralisation - commonly used in military communications and c) is a Mesh decentralisation commonly used in ad-hoc wireless.

So where does distributed come in to it?
Distributed is used to describe how work or computation is partitioned within a network. Things like BOINC are distributed and it is quite possible to have decentralised and distributed as well as centralised and distributed (where BOINC is the latter).

In a nutshell. Decentralised != Distributed in the same way a Road != a Car

As an example, lets take a mining pool. So in a mining pool,  the mining *work* is distributed to the participants but the network architecture is B) hierarchical decentralisation (around the work coordinator/ provider). All communications within the pool are worker to and from the admin and the admin communicates the results to the wider network and relays any benefits back to the workers. In the early days of Bitcoin, each client was a miner and was its own admin where block mining was distributed rather than distributed mining of a block. It was distributed computation within a mesh network.

The issue we have at present is there is that full node clients are mesh networked to create their view of the block chain but all mining is Hierarchically decentralised and as the number of full nodes (required for acceptance of the miners' blocks) decreases, miners will start up their own botnets to propagate their blocks faster. Therefore they will own the means of production and the means of distribution; centralisation will be complete and you will have large mining corporations sitting in Google Data-centers with everyone using webs wallets.

Because mining is no longer "distributed" as originally envisioned, a decentralised network is counter-productive to mining efficiency. In the old days, a client was a miner and thus all mining was distributed and decentralised and until that is the case again, we will see more and more centralisation unless its already too late.
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