Topic: Solution to The Bitcoin Foundation (the announcement) (Read 5137 times)

I never said I was trying to replace bitcoins, in any post. And you can't cite where I did. I guess that's why you're "out". Either you have a problem with reading comprehension, or with admitting you're wrong. Perhaps that's why you think reasoning is of no use.

Yes, well. Because you said it. Either this post is BS or the OP is.

Either way I'm out, since attempting to reason with you seems about as useful as chasing a hyper-active gerbil.

Firefop, your arguments are very fuzzy and have nothing to do with what OP is saying.

I have tried explaining as clear as possible what I felt OP meant and he acknowledged it. But you keep going on about irrelevant stuff.

I realize many people are like you. You assume there is no danger, because you cannot see it (yet). You have difficulty understanding and making clear and logical arguments, you fail to see the big picture and/or have a dangerously naive world-view.

You sir, are why I feel there is need for strong altcoins.

I disagree. Power comes in different forms. Consider the President of the United States. The president has no legal authority to control the stock market, yet just the words he says or even how he says them can affect markets. That power didn't come explicitly with the presidential office, but as a side effect.


Aha, now I see why you are so resistant. Like DeathAndTaxes, you think I'm trying to replace bitcoins. I'm not. I want bitcoins to succeed just as much as I always did, and I hope the Bitcoin Foundation can help achieve that. I intend to help the foundation however I can in that regard.

At the same time I do, however, believe bitcoins should have competition in the marketplace. I'm going to write up a post on competing currencies when I get a chance because I think the community really needs to understand that concept, and why it's better overall. It doesn't weaken bitcoins/cryptocurrencies, it strengthens them.

To summarize, imagine you went to the store and saw prices not just in dollars, but also something called dwellers. The people controlling dwellers were completely different than the Fed. If the Fed did something you didn't like like lowering interest rates causing inflation you could exchange more of your dollars for dwellers, and use those to buy things instead of dollars. If the people running dwellers mismanaged them you could choose to hold and use more dollars. Both currencies would exist and have value in the marketplace, but because no single currency had a monopoly it would ultimately benefit the market participants by giving them choice. Choice is usually always better. Consider politics. Is it better to have only one or two candidates or would you think the more the better?



As for securing the LTC network please see my comment here:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1250825

Bitcoin is by definition the protocol. If some change isn't a change in the protocol then it doesn't really matter. There is no example anyone could of a non-protocol change that would affect the network to to any degree over any real amount of time. Specifically, your original example doesn't matter. If that sort of thing matters, if it's something that works... we'll see other clients adopt it. If not, then we won't. How would having a vendor list pushed by the client... how does that detract from use of btc?

As for the fed being formed: The foundation isn't being granted any power. They're simply filling a need that the see in the community also there is no power enforcing anything they do.

As for who's a supporter of bitcoin: Right, I'm not a supporter of bitcoin... because I want to keep using it. Sure that makes sense, you're supporting it by switching to another currency that adds almost nothing to the base concept. As an aside, LTC offers a single advantage to BTC in its faster block creation times... which means it could be potentially less annoying to use for a consumer/vendor transaction... while at the same time bringing a flawed concept of inflating the overhead associated with block creation (scrypt) to stave off technological advances (because they're somehow 'unfair'). Which is counter intuitive to growing and securing the LTC network.

As for speculation: I hold about BTC20 - just to be sentimental. They are the last 20 from my original buy. Maybe that makes me a speculator, but I don't really think so.

As for the poll: What exactly does it prove? Only that aren't alone in not understanding the ideals behind bitcoin and how it's all supposed to work. So are we talking about truth or public opinion? If we're trying to find the truth you'll need better evidence than 'others agree with me'.

I for one am interested in the truth. And your "Solution to The Bitcoin Foundation (the announcement)" isn't actually a solution. You're simply advising us to stop using btc and use another coin instead. That's avoidance of an (potential) issue rather than a solution.

Yes, deeplink, you have it exactly. Thank you for speaking up

Let me clarify a few points.

I do not hate the foundation, and certainly don't hate Bitcoin. In fact, I think the foundation can do a lot of good. Further, I even admitted that the people forming the foundation did nothing wrong technically.

What I am suggesting is there is inherent danger in concentration of power. That's just a fact of life. Like it or not. Sometimes it's abused and sometimes not, but to not have any concern I think is naive.

The best way to fight against concentration of power, short of directly attacking it, is to offer alternatives. That's all I'm trying to do.

In other news I see the LTC/USD exchange rate is skyrocketing on btc-e.com lately

Apparently it hit .10 briefly, which I think is an all time high. Does anyone know a source of historical LTC prices?

Not that it's relevant to the points I'm making, but I'm not an "armchair developer". I know how to code.


I suggest you re-read my OP. It's not just sitting around and complaining. In fact, the thread title has the word "solution" in it.



Yes, that's right. That's exactly what I'm doing.


I don't know what these businesses have to do with the Bitcoin Foundation. Nobody, that I know of, is suggesting it is a Ponzi scheme, fraudulent, or poorly run service, at least not at the moment.

As I replied earlier, what if the changes made are not to the protocol? I'll repost what I said...

Let me give what I think may be a good example. We're talking literally about money are we not? How many people on earth use money? Almost all of them. That's near 7 billion people.

Now, say TBF becomes powerful, widely popular, and corrupted. Millions, even billions of people download the software client from TBF because that's what's popular (see Windows). What if the Bitcoin client followed the protocol with no changes, but also gave a convenient screen listing businesses that accepted the currency... You click 'restaurants' and a list appears, 'dentists', a list appears, 'wedding photographers', anything. This is just a separate tab on the client so it has nothing to do with BTC operation, but it does have to do with power/influence over what million or billions of people think are the recommended businesses to go to all around the world. You don't think that's too much power for one organization to have?



I guess in 1913 you would have said, sure the Federal Reserve Act could lead to badness... but it hasn't happened yet and I'm not abandoning it just because it could eventually lead to that.


Acutally, you're the one that isn't a true Bitcoin supporter, because you're showing you don't understand it. If you believe in Bitcoin then you believe it is a voluntary currency supported by the free market. This means you believe it should gain value on its own merit, not because of what someone else says, dictates, or enforces. It also means you welcome competition for it, because if the free market picks the competition then that is the way things should be. Otherwise trying to protect a certain position is not what Bitcoin is about, that's what fiat is about.


If you hold bitcoins and don't spend them you are a speculator too. You are speculating your bitcoins will have the same or higher value in the future.


The following poll shows I'm not alone in my concern:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/poll-whats-your-opinion-on-bitcoin-foundation-115388

What is your point saying that the foundation discussion starts us on a slippery slope and isn't enjoyable? Maybe, but does that mean we shouldn't talk about it? Discussing every possible outcome makes the community stronger and aware. Of course we should discuss it.

Back on topic, I think most replies miss the point the OP is trying to make.

It has nothing to do with fear nor with being a Bitcoin or Litecoin supporter nor with being a nay-sayer or foundation hater.

It does not matter how likely or unlikely you think it is that Bitcoin can be comprimised. I think we can agree that it is possible and that scenarios exist where "refuse to update your client" is not an option. You would either have to join your enemy or you loose.

If I understand it correctly the main point he makes (OP correct me if I'm wrong) is that competition between working and tested crypto-currencies is a good thing and to an extend may prevent development going bad, because users now have an option to abandon coins that are comprimised. Nothing more, nothing less.

Think of it as the decentralisation of decentralised crypto-currencies.

We can argue if Litecoin is an alternativ at this moment or if it ever could be, but I don't think we can argue that it is impossible for Bitcoin to be compromised. Unlikely yes, impossible no.

I think this has been blown out of proportion. The nay-sayers and armchair developers have a million opinions and want to just sit around and complain.

If someone thinks there is a better way, you're free to do it. This isn't a slippery slope- BST, GLBSE, Bitcoinica,PIRATE, and the list goes on- these are slippery slopes. Poorly secured or run services, or outright frauds that destroy our credibility. This is the slippery slope to a cesspool of inaction and ponzi schemes.

If anyone has a better foundation, stop complaining and build it.

 

I think the whole foundation discussion is starting us (the community) on a slippery slope. The idea that it eventually turns into a corrupt regulatory entity isn't an enjoyable conversation.

That being said, I think the 'refuse to update' crowd has it right - if Gavin & other developers go off the deep end and make changes that are bad for the network - I simply won't use it. That may mean getting off the train entirely if the version I'm using loses popularity and becomes worthless. I know Gavin does what he does for love of the ideals bitcoin embodies. That's the same reason I (and some other portion of the community) are involved in it. I see bitcoin as having the potential to incite political change in the world at large.

I for one refuse to make decisions based on fear. Yes, I can see how the foundation could lead to badness... but it hasn't happened yet - and I'm not abandoning bitcoin just because it could eventually lead to that. To even suggest a pre-emptive more to an altcoin... shows everyone that you aren't a supporter of bitcoin... but merely a speculator trying to make a quick/easy gain. Nothing wrong with that, use the network however you like - but please don't run around pretending the sky is falling when it isn't.

Geez, I've got a lot of work to do.

DeathAndTaxes, I consider you one of the smartest people on this forum (and that's saying something) yet you completely miss the point. Let me try to explain.


I know exactly why metals evolved as currency. (And note some are quite valuable, like platinum, but not used as currency) The comparison of litecoins to bitcoins has nothing to do with the comparison of gold to silver except that a person would expect these cryptocurrencies to be "joined at the hip" price wise where one always leads the way, just as happens with gold and silver.

General consensus is gold rates higher than silver for aesthetics, while both are used for jewelry and similar application. There is also about 10 times as much silver mined annually as gold. These factors, among others, result in gold maintaining a significant price lead over silver. Central banks hold gold as a reserve, because people have valued it as money for thousands of years. For this reason it's often helpful to compare the value of a thing, anything, to gold to determine its true value. Silver exchange rates rise and fall in relative lockstep with gold with little variance.

So how does this relate to Litcoin/Bitecoin? Simple, the comparison is both cryptocurrencies are essentially the same thing with slight differences. Litecoin is comparable to Bitcoin in every way in terms of usage, but there will be about 4 times as many of them total. That means whatever price the market assigns to bitcoins could also be assigned to litecoin, but divided by 4.


Wrong, sorry. It's not hypothetical; it has already happened, many times in fact. Alt-coins have already developed and it's arguable that any of them solve a deficiency in Bitcoin.

What I believe you meant to express is that alt-coins in the future might launch and garner real market value. However, this is also off the mark. Alt-coins exist right now with real market value. It's measured in the low cent range, but it's value nonetheless. (remember early Bitcoin)



True.


I didn't suggest that it would, and it doesn't have to. I guess I haven't considered that most people are only familiar with one currency dominating a market since this is what most of the world is familiar with.

However, a better market actually involves one with competing currencies where market participants can hold one or more and use one(s) that suit them best in ways that suit them best, whether as a store of value, for transactions, special use cases, or even political reasons (what I suggest for litecoin, and how some view gold vs fiat). This doesn't mean any currency must uproot any other, but rather that they exist simultaneously and have fluctuating values relative to one another.


Real utility does equal value, but what you fail to consider is there are various forms of utility, not all of which are technical. Value can come about various ways. The value I suggest Litecoin could have has nothing to do with technical superiority to Bitcoin. In fact, it would serve the purpose I suggest if it was identical in every way to Bitcoin except its name and the fact that it's a different coin/network.

Bitcoin is "Bitcoin's silver" learn about how/why multiple metals evolved as currency and you will see Litecoin isn't silver to anything.  

Now hypothetically niche alt-coins "could" develop in the future however they would need to solve some deficiency in Bitcoin (no the method of mining isn't a deficiency).  It is also possible some future alt-coin will replace Bitcoin (becoming a superior "gold") by providing a superior protocol.  However litecoin isn't going to accomplish either of those goals.

One example:  Bitcoin likely will be increasingly difficult to use in micro transactions.  The cost of securing the chain, combined with the perpetual cost of storing tx forever makes it ill suited for small tx (say $0.01 to $1.00).  A chain developed which can be merge mined and use a ledger type system which allows the transaction "tail" to be dropped after tx are deep enough in the chain would be useful.  By focusing on the aspects that would be optimal for micro tx the alt-chain could present REAL UTILITY =VALUE over the competing Bitcoin protocol.

Litecoin doesn't present any increased UTILITY.  It is a technological dead end.

Interestingly enough I hadn't given alt-coins to Bitcoin much thought before now. I had a neutral to slightly unfavorable view of alt-coins which I described in an eBook I wrote called How to Grow Bitcoin. I said such spinoffs were inevitable and okay, but warned against anyone duping non-technical users into thinking a valueless spinoff was a coin with value, like Bitcoin.

When IOCoin launched, which I think was the first one, I barely read the forum post. I knew no alt-coin would really go anywhere because it would have to pull users/resources from Bitcoin, which being first to market had natural momentum.

Other alt-coins launched and I gave them the same disregard. I think that was true of most of the community, as evidenced by the near zero exchange rates.

What I hadn't really paid attention to was that later alt-coins actually tried to improve upon Bitcoin in some way. I knew there were differences, but in my opinion the properties Bitcoin already has are good enough to gain widespread mainstream adoption. For something to pose a serious challenge it would have to have a significant improvement over Bitcoin, something Bitcoin didn't or couldn't offer. Surely something with that kind of technology, I thought, wouldn't come for a long time.

I heard about the launch of SolidCoin, but didn't bother to look into them. As I understand them now they attempt to obtain value based on power consumption without a hard limit on total coins. I don't see how that would be a significant advantage.

Litecoins, however, seem to be more interesting. Litecoins do everything the same as Bitcoin with a few changes.  First, they are optimized for CPU mining, meaning more people might participate since everyone has a CPU but not everyone has or will invest in GPUs. Next, the blocks are mined faster resulting in faster confirmation times than Bitcoin. Last, there are about 4 times as many coins in total than Bitcoin, probably meaning better overall distribution.

There are already about as many Litecoins as Bitcoins due to their faster block creation rate. Their exchange rate from my understanding was in the $.03 range, more recently in the $.04-.05 range, and within the last couple days in the $.05-.06 range, leading to talk of bubbles on btc-e.com chat.

I think the market was already giving some traction to Litecoin as it attempted to fulfill its stated mission to become the silver to Bitcoin's gold. However, I think such progression was going to be slow, because there still wasn't a good enough reason for mainstream Bitcoin users to adopt litecoins over bitcoins. And obviously nobody else in the world knows of any of these cryptocurrencies.

But I think this "Bitcoin Foundation" event can be a catalyst for litecoin adoption. Litecoins can now offer a clear and significant reason for mainstream Bitcoin users to adopt it which Bitcoin can't offer, which is the ability to diminish market power overall of a power-consolidating Bitcoin foundation. It offers a choice. It's an entirely different system incompatible with Bitcoins, but with all the same desirable properties. There is no reason LTC couldn't be used everywhere BTC could. There is no disadvantage to using them, yet they offer tremendous wealth opportunity - as Bitcoin does - due to the fact most of the market that would eventually adopt them hasn't yet.

Although I consider myself a Bitcoin fan, I do see some points being made by the OP. There are too many arguments in my head but to sum things up I'd say: Alternate cryptocurrencies can't hurt Bitcoin if the Foundation is run smoothly; if it's not and major problems arise then those cryptocurrencies will save the day. I think it's good to have them around as this would also be a major reason for the Foundation not to fail.

/offtopic
I was very tempted to hit the magic button beside posts with big letters and single word replies, providing nothing at all in the discussion.

Lol...I sold 1k solid coins right before the tiny market folded...I think I got a whopping 6 or 8 bitcoins for it.

As has been repeatedly stated, Bitcoin Foundation will not be directing the dev team to work on specific projects.

More likely the reverse is true:  the community and dev team will suggest things that need funding (like Gavin's salary).  If the Foundation's members agree, it happens.  Otherwise, it doesn't.

What if the changes are not to the protocol?

Let me give what I think may be a good example. We're talking literally about money are we not? How many people on earth use money? Almost all of them. That's near 7 billion people.

Now, say TBF becomes powerful, widely popular, and corrupted. Millions, even billions of people download the software client from TBF because that's what's popular (see Windows). What if the Bitcoin client followed the protocol with no changes, but also gave a convenient screen listing businesses that accepted the currency... You click 'restaurants' and a list appears, 'dentists', a list appears, 'wedding photographers', anything, but what order is the list in? And how are listings shown? This is just a separate tab on the client so it has nothing to do with BTC operation, but it does have to do with power/influence over what million or billions of people think are the recommended businesses to go to all around the world. You don't think that's too much power for one organization to have?

some of the OP comments i agree with but this one i do not


kinda sounded like if u dont like TBF u cant use bitcoin..

i use litecoin and BTC.. i certainly wont drop BTC if i in future disagree with TBF. its not like they are the police saying.. if u dont like our laws F**k off to a different country.

if i do not like them i just dont become a member and continue using bitcoin. i have seen no advantages a member personally gets/receives apart from deciding what the programmers next projects are.

so i do not see any major things against TBF, but i dont see big advantages to being a member either.

Well, no cryptocurrency really dies as long as at least two or more people use it. What can happen is it can become less likely people ever adopt it, though. For example, if a cryptocurrency had only 2 people with 70% of the coins it would be unlikely anyone else would adopt it.

I only recently looked into Litecoin, but quickly realized it had the most traction of all the other alt-coins presently. It has the highest market exchange rate after Bitcoin. It was in the $.04-.05 range when I looked into it 2 days ago, but it's now in the $.05-.06 range, about a 20% increase. Apparently it was once $.03. The alt-coin section of this forum is dominated mostly by Litecoin discussion/projects, as is the trading chat on btc-e.com. So I would say no it's not dying, but growing and of course that can speed up or even explode anytime.

Regarding a LTC foundation how DARE you even suggest it  

J/K   Of course that thought had crossed my mind. Yes, any alt-coin might gain a foundation just as Bitcoin has, but it wouldn't matter because concentration of power would be divided; and the more alt-coins with market prominence the more chance to escape from and/or divide centralized power.