Topic: "There can be only 21,000,000 bitcoins" is myth => How to secure the blockchain? (Read 8991 times)

Yeah, it would be.  Except that when that order comes up for execution, it gets truncated to the currently available balance.  Also, it hasn't been that way for a long time; now the truncation happens when the order get switched from pending to active.

I just think few steps ahead:

Altcoins die => Bitcoin replaces fiat => World becomes better

OR

Altcoins keep poping up => Bitcoin is a geek currency => Nothing is changed




I would expect better from a hero member, this is total ostrich policy and you know it...

Tinfoil hat moment but...

If I had a printing press, and wanted to kill bitcoin, I theoretically could keep buying them and sending them into oblivion.

i.e. 2.4 trillion went missing said Rumsfeld.

There is more than one Federal Reserve Note too.

C'mon...it is just FRNs with other names, look at the type of paper and ink used.

I would expect better from a hero member, this is total FUD and you know it....

go home short seller.

You do realize miners will keep mining regardless of the block reward because of something called the Miners Fee. People seem to forget that you actually get more than 25 BTC for solving a block.

What are you smoking Come-from-Beyond? It must be good, whatever it is.

For someone with over 1000 posts this is one of the most nonsensical thread's I have read so far here. Spreading this kind of unfounded BS hurts the community

Destroy altcoins? That goes against the core ethos of the Bitcoin protocol. You should be ashamed of yourself for even saying something so ridiculous.

how would any of us know?

If mining isn't profitable due to electricity costs, then miner activity (and therefore difficulty) would decrease mining until the difficulty fell to a new equilibrium that would be profitable.
If mining isn't profitable due to low transaction fees, then transaction times would increase and users would pay increasingly more for transactions until mining became profitable again.

Honestly, people just use this forum to have conversations they should be having in their head while reading the Bitcoin wiki.

While I think your Anti-Fractional Reserve day is a wonderful idea, attacking altcoins in defending bitcoin will sure be the fastest way to alienate the community, because most altcoiners are also bitcoiners.  

Most altcoins have/will go thru a natural selection process, only the fittest will survive.

My guess is the free market will create profit-motivated groups or entities, who will feed on weak coins and profit from killing weaklings; this can be cruel for some, but healthy for the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole.

Edit: OMG, did I just make an excuse for those Wall Street naked shorting bastards? 

As they become more valuable less will disappear.
Someday in the year 2080 we may need to do a 100 to 1 split. Your kids can worry about that one.

This may be happening but it most certainly is not the owners of gox doing it.

Anyone can do this with real bitcoins or dollars. Pressing the lag button is just turning on a botnet.  Sell 1000 BTC, turn on botnet.  Buy back 1500. Repeat.

Once mt gox includes litcoin in a couple of weeks, the stage is set to see whether an altcoin does impact bitcoins value, recently both coins rallied hard at the same time.

If its the case that it's easier to get USD into mt gox than btc-e, then having Litecoin on mt gox is an aid in bringing fresh money into Litecoin rather than converting bitcoins to litecoins.

If tommy bought $1000 worth of Bitcoin in 2012, then he buys $1000 Litecoin in may 2013. Is Tommy guilty of weakening Bitcoin ?

No accusations in theft. But I'm sure they are liars.

[1] Wait for a lot of bid orders
[2] Sell phantom bitcoins
[3] Press [Lag] button
[4] Wait for a lot of ask orders at lower price
[5] Buy phantom bitcoins back
[6] Go to #1

It would be trivial for MtGox to prove that they were not fractional-reserve, and as a community we should demand it from all bank like services. (Unless they explicitly claim to be fractional reserve).   Lets be clear though, right now you're accusing MTGOX of being thieves and liars— substantial claims require substantial evidence.

If coins that are lost disappear forever, how long will it take before the vast majority of the 21 million simply disappear into a huge file of bits and bytes that can't be accessed?

I bet if all MtGox user withdrew their coins MtGox' balance would become negative.

No idea. Somewhere in foreseeble future.

They will jump to another altcoin if

 value ( Fees_altcoin + Reward_altcoin ) > value ( Fees_bitcoin + Reward_bitcoin )



at what block do you expect

value (Fees_bitcoin) > value (Reward_bitcoin) ? 

Are you serious about that?
take a cup herbal tea

No.  It seems like you know what is best for not only yourself but for others.  In this case you are wrong.

I will let the free market decide what is best in the coinspace.  So far it has been working quite well. 

Don't think bitcoin security is good enough?  Don't use it or help make it better in an honest fashion.

They don't.  They merely give people choice.  I stick to bitcoin but if someone wants to switch to an altcoin who am I to think this is wrong?

You're being Procrustean.

Let me explain. We are strong when we united. Altcoins separate us. I propose attacks on altcoins not coz I'm a bad guy. If I were the state I would launch a lot of altcoins and promote them.

You're getting excited about nothing.  The "problem" you mention won't occur (if it does) until a few decades, and yet you want to "attack" honest monetary competition *now*.   Chill out.

I have a solution. We should attack the other altcoins. And keep attacking if any new alt pops up. Not sure most of bitcoiners will support this though.

EDIT: After we sort out altcoins we should switch to https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/anti-fractional-reserve-day-108411

Right.  When I no longer make profit I shut down or upgrade.  Free market.  More efficient miners provide the security. 

Well, Satoshi gave us one (transaction fees), but you are not convinced it will work.  Or worse: you seem convinced it won't work.

That's fair enough, but we have nothing else to give you, I'm afraid.

I need a solution. Stop feeding me with "relax, there is no problem".

Everyone, their mom, and their mom's watch do not all have to be Bticoin miners. Bitcoin only needs enough security to protect against attackers, and no more, to be "secure".

Well, I doubt the difficulty will decrease that much as to make bitcoin being weak.  But that's a fair concern, I give you that.

The truth is that nobody really knows if the fee-model will be enough to replace the subsidy model.  But that's no big news.  That's part of the reason why bitcoin is still considered as an experiment, I guess.

Then the difficulty will decrease, and someone will attack Bitcoin.   Problem solved (no Bitcoin - no problem).

Then the difficulty will decrease, and other people will mine.   Problem solved.  Also, you seem very sure of what will happen.  It's not so obvious at all.  We'll see.

We need a plan to secure the blockchain. Miners won't do it when we switch to fees instead of subsidy, they'll just jump to other altcoin. That's what I'm talking about.

And here I don't understand at all what you are talking about.

The correct analogy is:  gold is superior to silver because it's shiny.  And it is.  The fact that gold is yellow matters a lot for the value of gold as a currency.  That's why gold is still more important a currency than platinum, for instance.  Yet platinum is more precious.

I don't compare bitcoin to gold on such a criterium because it would not make sense.  I compare bitcoin to gold by the fact that bitcoin can be transferred directly via internet, while gold can't.

I agree. Anyway we should think about ways to secure the blockchain.

but isn't that exactly like saying 'bitcoin is inferior to gold because it's not shiny'?

Of course, but if you add more altcoins, then your reasoning applies to previously created altcoins as well (not just bitcoins).  So it's not proportional.   Basically, you can indeed add as many altcoins as you want, but they won't have as many supporters and their price will therefore not be infinite.

Indeed when people prefer to use altcoins rather than bitcoins, it does reduce the value of bitcoin, but same as when people prefer to use gold, silver, freshly printed dollars or whatever.  Just creating altcoins does not ensure any success selling those altcoins.   And I doubt PR is that effective in making people think as you would like them to think.

Again, there is a convention in bitcoin which states that the valid chain is the one which has the most enclosed proof-of-work (I simplify).  All altcoins have lower proof-of-work and are therefore dissmissed as inferior by all true bitcoiners.   You can create as many altcoins as you want, this will not change.

And now imagine that EVERYONE has an ASIC. How much coins will u get? I'm not sure it will be enough to cover the electricity.

Bitcoin does not need to be $1,000,000 to cover electricity.  Right now mining with GPU's most peoples electricity is only 25% of cost.  Far less for people with ASIC and FPGA.  Enough mining for security would happen with a block reward of 6 right now.  As the value of BTC rises this number will drop.  

SATOSHI GOT IT RIGHT.

Let's count together. There are only 1000 USD in the world. And 10 BTC. If BTC replaces USD then 1 BTC = 100 USD.

Now imagine there not only 10 BTC but 40 LTC as well. LTCs are traded at 1/4 of BTCs. There we get 1 BTC = 50 USD.

Let's check it:
10 BTC * 50 USD/BTC + 40 LTC * 12.5 USD/ LTC = 500 USD + 500 USD = 1000 USD.

See? When we add altcoins into the scenario we see that "price" of BTC becomes lower. And we can add infinite number of altcoins. We just need some PR to get people involved.

I do not pretend my prediction is necessarily better than others.  It's just mine.   Also FYI, I'm a former goldbug.


Not sure I get your point.  Could people decide to start an other blockchain because they think bitcoins are just too expensive?  Of course it's possible.  It's basically happening with altcoins, if you ask me.  I just don't think it's a threat in any way.  It's even healthy, imho.  As far as I'm concerned, I'll just stick to bitcoins.

hi grondilu. we had this argument two years ago, but i still don't understand the basis of your abstract prediction. traditionalists (say, goldbugs) who oppose bitcoin say the same thing of bitcoin as you say of other cryptocurrencies. how are you necessarily right and they necessarily wrong?

one of the amateur bloggers covering bitcoin asked a good question recently: why is any nonzero value a better prediction of bitcoin's value than any other? my own instinct is to answer that question by observing that it's easy to see why relatively small amounts of money would flow into bitcoin. (remember, the 'market cap' figure is just marketing bullshit that nobody in the press seems to have called out. orders of magnitude less have been 'invested' into bitcoin or are in any way involved with bitcoin.) after all, not everyone can easily set up a new block chain, people can benefit from our early efforts and partly pay for the privilege, etc.

but to imagine that a bitcoin could ever be worth $100,000 is to imagine that people (currently bitcoin outsiders) would be willing to transfer billions of dollars to us early adopters instead of setting up an alternative. i'm not saying that's impossible, but in all the posts i've read since 2009 2010 in the forum, nobody has ever given a rational reason for thinking it's remotely plausible. it seems irresponsible, and bordering on fraud, to entice people to buy bitcoins on the thought that it could skyrocket to $10,000 or $100,000, even if that is a technical possibility. (it's also a technical possibility for a single ounce of gold, or a single share of google stock, or anything else).

I don't understand why I should count this as an extra.  It's not the same currency.  Otherwise, should I consider that Bernanke also debase bitcoin whenever he prints dollars?  Does not make sense.

It's a test chain. Don't count it.


It's irrelevant to what I wrote.


Look at Litecoin. At 0.025 BTC for 1 LTC it's extra 417,000 BTC added to existing 12,000,000 BTC.

Bitcoins have been evolving aside with an altcoin ever since the very beginning:  the test chain is the oldest altcoin, and I don't fear it hurting bitcoin in anyway.

Also, every time the blockchain forks (here I'm talking about the "normal" forks, due to simultaneity of block discovery from different miners), some kind of an alt coin is created.  Yet it does not matter because we all agree to consider only the longest chain.

What I mean is that for the same reasons that people agree to consider only the longest chain as valid, people will agree on considering only bitcoin and not altcoins.  Well, at least I will, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Altcoins are fine though.  If people prefer them to bitcoin, I have no problem with it.  I just don't share their preference.  And that's all good.

Altcoins entice miners from Bitcoin. Need proof? After BTC had dropped below $100 hashrate of BTE became much higher.
Altcoins entice fiat from Bitcoin. Need proof? Look at LTC price.


Sorry, I disagree. Some guys use [BTC-e/MtGox] redeemable codes as medium of exchange. I can't prove these exchanges do FRB though.

Sorry. I used to write TL;DR versions only as noone reads anything with 100+ words.

I mean that we should think what to do in 5-10 years. Should we kill all altcoins to secure Bitcoin? Should we increase fees 10-100 times?

The blockchain needs to be secured by design. This doesn't need to be explained.

Altcoins aren't Bitcoins.  If I launched quadrilla-a-coin which mints 1 quadrillion coins a day forever with no block reward reduction do you think it would massively drop Bitcoin price?  Gold is a store of value, so is silver, and to a lesser extend a handful of other metals.  If people started hoarding uranium it doesn't increase the amount of gold that has been mined.

Fractional reserve "credits" (and you have shown no proof MtGox isn't engaged in it) doesn't increase the supply.  One can also "opt out" by not keeping funds on MtGox (or other hypotehtical fractional reserve bitcoin banks).  Without a central bank (and the ability to print unlimited amounts of funds) any significant fractional reserve bank will eventually fail and when they fail the number of Bitcoin will still be <= 21M.

Transaction fees as a % of miner compensation have increased by a factor of 10x in the past two years.  While still small at ~2% we have a lot of halvings before the reward goes to zero.  It isn't incocievable that fees and transaction volume will slowly rise to fully compensate miners.   Right now if miners received no subsidy the fee would be ~1% of transaction volume.

http://blockchain.info/charts/cost-per-transaction-percent

The blocks (looking at last 2016) are roughly 20% of the 1MB limit so even with no subsidy and only 1MB blocks it seems likely Bitcoin could reach an equilibrium with fees being ~0.2% of transaction volume.  I doubt that is the end game but Bitcoin would still be an impressive value transfer system under those metrics.  Worst case scenario Bitcoin becomes a sort of reserve currency for other lower cost day to day transaction systems.

This is a horribly formatted argument.

I don't know what you're trying to say. Include some facts to back up what you're presenting, and maybe clarify your question at the end (are you actually looking for an answer? Do you have an idea of your own? You didn't even explain why the block chain needs to be "secured")

Everyone who thinks that there will be not more than 21,000,000 bitcoins IS WRONG.

1. Fractional Reserve Banking. For example, MtGox, they do FRB. (I'm wrong? They don't do it? C'mon, even small kids know that MtGox loves FRB.)
2. Altcoins. Litecoin, Bytecoin, whatever. (I'm wrong? These are other currencies? C'mon, it's Bitcoin with other names, look at their source code.)

What do these 2 points mean?

Bitcoin is not deflationary  =>  One BTC will never be $1,000,000  =>  When the block reward becomes too low, miners will switch to other currency, because fees won't cover burnt electricity

So, how are we going to secure the blockchain in the future?