Topic: Szabo just tweeted this - page 4. (Read 3978 times)

I'm no expert, I'm far from it. I'm actually a noob.
But how could it reasonably be possible to be both?
The more mainstream it gets, in theory, it should be easier for the governments to exert control over it.
The only reason Bitcoin/bitcoin has survived is, I believe, governments can't actually control a decentralized system.
Who owns it? Who runs it? Where is it maintained?
Because of that, governments have left it alone. Legally, it is hard to control.

So, if it did get gigantic (say 200 million users each with 3-4 daily txs each) how can it also remain immune to gov control?
How can we have our cake and eat it too?

Gavin and Hearn are trying to force consensus in an “Inception” like manner, betting on the fact that if 75% agree with him (whether they are well informed actors or not) then the 25% remaining will be forced to fall in line otherwise risk breaking Bitcoin for everyone.  Why are they doing this?  One can only imagine they feel that Bitcoin needs to grow otherwise risk being overtaken by a competing cryptocurrency. (Or maybe because businesses want bitcoin to scale to scale their operations because core does shit about it?)  Although current transaction volumes are not hitting the limit yet, they believe that adding capacity will stimulate growth. (Maybe because businesses can't do mass marketing even if their products are soon to be ready but can't because bitcoin doesn't scale for years to come?) That sounds more like strategy that Ben Bernanke or Janet Yellen might believe (Like giving choice to the free market?).  What they may end up doing is that they will cause the end of Bitcoin themselves if the 25% minority believe it is better to continue running a reduced (hash power) version of Bitcoin that values consensus (Never gonna happen because of economic incentive), over one that is run by a charismatic leader who is willing to force changes onto the network, or split it off into separate sects if he doesn’t get his way (And what about the Blockstream way?).  If we choose that to be the overriding model of Bitcoin, then Bitcoin as Satoshi envisioned it, (Satoshi himself envisioned hardforks of that nature...) as far as an experiment in “collective consensus building money, free from authority”, has failed.  So just ask yourself one question, given all the unknowns and potential existential risks to Bitcoin, — What is the rush?  Why the urgency? (Maybe because most businesses can't run in a deficit waiting for bitcoin to scale forever?)

Good artical! Read threw it, don't skip to the end.

So with all these scary uncertainties, you may ask why hasn’t Satoshi come out to speak on the behalf of one side or the other in order to settle the dispute?  Indeed it would be akin to him coming out to act as a 3rd party mediator, such as when a parent comes in to break up a fight among siblings.  There has in fact been a post by someone claiming to be Satoshi, from a valid known Satoshi email address, claiming pretty much that the XT fork is unnecessarily dangerous, see here: Satoshi? Despite the many allegations that if this was really Satoshi, he would have signed his message with a known PGP key or perhaps moved some of his coins to prove that it was him, he has not done so.  I for one do not believe that he would.  If you read the message, (ignoring for a second who it is from) he is saying that Bitcoin’s vision is not one where it is subject to the egos of charismatic leaders, including Satoshi Nakamoto.  People who harp on the fact that Satoshi has not made a provably authenticated statement is clearly missing the whole point of this message.  If he were to do so, rest assured the whole of the community will rally with him, but that is exactly what he doesn’t want to happen, a whole community blindly following authority!  Consistently so, the author points out that if it takes a benevolent dictator to pull us out of this mess “deux ex machina” then Bitcoin, as a project in decentralized money resistant to authority, has failed.  That tautological statement, is provably true if you can wrap your head around it.  Therefore, if Satoshi wants it to succeed, he won’t use his ‘God card’ and settle disputes.  If Bitcoin continually needs Satoshi to keep us from going astray, then Bitcoin isn’t worth saving.   Considering that Satoshi has likely the most coins at risk than anyone else, and him coming forward to break the impasse would likely save us (and the value of his own coins) it is truly commendable that he has not done so.  The fact that he hasn’t tells me that he (where ever he or she is) is truly acting in an altruistic manner.  He is more willing to let Bitcoin die, than to let it continue on as a system that does not value consensus as its first and foremost priority.

It is absolutely possible. Impossible is a very bold word. Solving the byzantine generals problem was once considered impossible btw.

This is basically it right here:


The above is the real argument, everything else is FUD and just craziness.

Do we want it to handle all world daily transactions,
or do we want protection from current monetary systems and government involvement?

[XT Supporters] believe that Bitcoin should be able to handle all the transactions on planet earth, from everyone’s daily coffee purchase, to everyone’s house purchase, to how Google cars should be paid for their services.  On the other hand, you have those who believe Bitcoin’s core value is the fact that it is a hedge against fiat currencies, and by extension, governments (in the case they decide to infringe upon your liberties).  Bitcoin CANNOT be both. It’s just not possible.

I'm not sure if you actually read the whole thing.

The attack goes as follows: If blocks were allowed to be ‘too big’ (big enough to add plausible delays to propagate to all nodes) then a miner would be incentivized to stuff the block they are mining full of txns that pay himself (or a cohort), up to the allowable block limit.

It's like Szabo doesn't have any clue on how XT is being implemented. Which I think is very weird.