Wondering out loud: Which should Chinese miners support - Core, Classic or another? - page 25.

iCEBREAKER

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Crypto is the separation of Power and State.

Quote from: HostFat on January 28, 2016, 04:51:53 PM

Move Core just to 2MB and you will have killed ~~Classic~~ Bitcoin.

^FTFY

It is an engineering requirement that Honey Badger be completely unresponsive and utterly immune to political pressure.

Given any precedent set to the contrary, Satoshi's great experiment is finished.

But don't take my word for it. Try this on for size...

https://medium.com/@PanteraCapital/the-governance-of-anarchists-blockchain-letter-january-2016-798842f468de?source=latest---------1

Quote

Bitcoin Classic: in theory, implementing an immediate 2MB change would immediately alleviate block congestion but would require a hard fork. Hard forking carries with it certain systemic risks:

   Bitcoins received from before the fork can be spent twice, once on both sides of the fork. This creates a high double-spend risk.
   Bitcoins received after the fork are only guaranteed to be spendable on the side of the fork they were received on. This means some
   users will have to lose money to restore Bitcoin to a single chain.

In essence, if a hard fork goes bad, it will likely cause large-scale confusion and make Bitcoin incredibly difficult to use until the situation is resolved. There’s also a very real chance of total system failure if a hard fork’s deployment is not well-coordinated across the entire network.

Dan Morehead
Chief Executive Officer
@Dan_Pantera

canth

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Quote from: Luke-Jr on January 28, 2016, 08:06:04 PM

Quote from: nomnomnom on January 28, 2016, 07:26:08 PM

I think the plan behind bip101 was that the average internet connection will likely keep getting faster with time, even today some people have 1Gbit fiber connection at home, others are probably watching 4k netflix right now.

Average internet connectivity improvements only give about 30% per year optimistically. BIP 101 was far more aggressive than that.

And while some minority of the world has 1 Gbit available, requiring it would be saying nobody else can use Bitcoin.
I'm only slightly rural and I can't get better than 5/0.5 Mbps yet.

A minority of the world has >1Mb/s persistent internet, persistent power and a computing device capable of running Bitcoin. If some people can't run Bitcoin full nodes now, it's not a failure - nor will it be the case if some can't run it in the future.

There are literally hundreds of millions of people that have persistent home broadband sufficient to run with larger blocks. It's not relevant that you aren't one of them.

Luke-Jr

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Quote from: nomnomnom on January 28, 2016, 07:26:08 PM

I think the plan behind bip101 was that the average internet connection will likely keep getting faster with time, even today some people have 1Gbit fiber connection at home, others are probably watching 4k netflix right now.

Average internet connectivity improvements only give about 30% per year optimistically. BIP 101 was far more aggressive than that.

And while some minority of the world has 1 Gbit available, requiring it would be saying nobody else can use Bitcoin.
I'm only slightly rural and I can't get better than 5/0.5 Mbps yet.

PaulCapestany

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Quote from: Eric Mu on January 28, 2016, 12:35:21 AM

I ask because this is the question that we have been asking ourselves a lot recently.
We are a Chinese BTC company that has invested a lot in mining and also runs an off-chain wallet service. So we have a vested interest in Bitcoin not failing. Like many Chinese miners, we believe that a simple and conservative solution to the block size question would be the best, but it seems that neither Core or Classic is willing to offer. I would very much like to hear your views.

Eric, if you and other Chinese miners want to get a better idea for some of the kind of thinking that is behind BitcoinClassic, you should really listen to this interview of Mr. Toomim explaining how BitcoinClassic would like to change Bitcoin's governance model (timestamp to start at would be 42:44).

nomnomnom

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Hi

,

@gmaxwell

I agree mostly with what you wrote, but I think the plan behind bip101 was that the average internet connection will likely keep getting faster with time, even today some people have 1Gbit fiber connection at home, others are probably watching 4k netflix right now. Ofcourse it would be a tradeoff and make it harder to run a node, maybe different values should have been chosen for bip101, I don't know, but I don't think it was Gavin and Mike's intention that it can only run at datacenters.

Quote from: gmaxwell on January 28, 2016, 04:09:48 AM

I think incredible care must be made when rewriting the rules like that: The rules _are_ Bitcoin. The stability of Bitcoin's rules _is_ the soundness of the currency. If the rules can be easily rewritten against the will of some users by others according to political whim then what can be trusted? Is the supply fixed? Will coins be confiscated and awarded to others? If that gate is crossed then there is almost always some excuses which is "good enough"-- as was lamented in some of Bitcoin's earliest announcements. And these changes are controversial -- see, for example, the millions of dollars of Bitcoins backing opposition to things like BIP101 and supporting core over classic. I don't believe that Core has the power to make changes prohibited by the rules of the system while they are opposed by an economically significant portion of Bitcoin's users. If it does, by way of inertia or lazyness, have that power I don't believe it has the moral authority: to rewrite the system out from under people risks walking the thin line of theft. And if the system could really be so easily rewritten against controversy: it may bring into question Bitcoin's ability to uphold any of its properties. This is a dangerous road that should be avoided whenever possible.

The Problem is also that satoshi said, we can just raise the blocksize later if needed at blockheight xyz.

Also if I understand it correctly your roadmap also includes a hardfork later but does not specify a timeframe for it, I think this is a big part of why we have this situation right now, maybe you want to check out my pullrequest to add a rough timeframe: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/website/pull/74 or you need a scaling roadmap part2 or something.

And if you guys have other methods of increasing throughput, like extension blocks or whatever, than you need to communicate this correctly.
We non wizard-people don't know if and how this is possible, but we understand that raising the blocksize archives the goal of more throughput.

BTW: I really like bitpays idea of adaptive scaling, can't you get together with gavin and plan this safely for next year or something. I don't like the 2MB HF, because it is no longterm solution. Also sorry if this sounds angry or so, I have not slept well the last days lol, please don't take it personal.

xDan

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ヽ( ㅇㅅㅇ)ﾉ ~!!

Quote from: Eric Mu on January 28, 2016, 12:35:21 AM

I ask because this is the question that we have been asking ourselves a lot recently.
We are a Chinese BTC company that has invested a lot in mining and also runs an off-chain wallet service. So we have a vested interest in Bitcoin not failing. Like many Chinese miners, we believe that a simple and conservative solution to the block size question would be the best, but it seems that neither Core or Classic is willing to offer. I would very much like to hear your views.

If you really care, you should find large individual holders/investors and Bitcoin companies and ask them, since they are what support the price and will support further price and adoption increases.

Asking sentiment on a public forum so full of trolls and sockpuppets won't give you anything meaningful only vitriol and manipulations from both sides.

RoadStress

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Quote from: Mr Felt on January 28, 2016, 02:22:11 PM

@gmax - I appreciate that you've taken some time today write out these arguments in a different way than you and others have before. You're giving me a lot to think about RE: blocksize limit. Genuinely, thanks.

Same. People need to realize that Bitcoin will never die no matter what is the block size is or how are the fees imposed or any other reason. It will simply adapt. Go Core!

brg444

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Bitcoin replaces central, not commercial, banks

Quote from: HostFat on January 28, 2016, 04:51:53 PM

@gmaxwell
Move Core just to 2MB and you will have killed Classic.
But your team will not do it, even if it was in the proposal of someone directly from Blockstream at the beginning of the debate.
The reason is unknown, but it falls in the conflict of interest hole, that produces many dirty answers.

Anyway, if there will be an hardfork to 2MB, you will still be able to get back the network, by releasing many feature loved by "Network".
Competing team is the best situation.

The reason is simple, they've found a more simple and innovative way to provide for the additional headroom that a 2MB hard fork would give.

LightRider

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I advocate the Zeitgeist Movement & Venus Project.

Nothing is fair in a monetary market system.

HostFat

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I support freedom of choice

@gmaxwell
Move Core just to 2MB and you will have killed Classic.
But your team will not do it, even if it was in the proposal of someone directly from Blockstream at the beginning of the debate.
The reason is unknown, but it falls in the conflict of interest hole, that produces many dirty answers.

Anyway, if there will be an hardfork to 2MB, you will still be able to get back the network, by releasing many features loved by "Network".
Competing teams is the best situation.

I'll be ready to switch back to Core every 10 minutes.

canth

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Quote from: gmaxwell on January 28, 2016, 04:09:48 AM

Some people, like Mike Hearn and Gavin have pitched a future where Bitcoin runs exclusively out of large datacenters and its users are left depending on the trustworthiness of a small number of organizations scattered around the world.

Hearn is out of the picture at this point, so I think it's a bit silly to keep bringing him up. That aside, would you care to back that up your assertion that Gavin sees Bitcoin the way you describe with some evidence? Here's my counter:

http://gavinandresen.ninja/does-more-transactions-necessarily-mean-more-centralized

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I chose 20MB as a reasonable block size to target because 170 gigabytes per month comfortably fits into the typical 250-300 gigabytes per month data cap– so you can run a full node from home on a “pretty good” broadband plan.

-Gavin

btc2016

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Nothing really new here, but a note for readers of this thread, that do not yet know the people in the ecosystem well:

A note about Blockstream:
There is no good reason to believe, that Blockstream wants to make profit by crippling bitcoin, like some believe. One can argue that they (Blockstream and Core) are a little conservative for not even wanting to announce a (perliminary) date for a 2-4-8 increase in their roadmap (and not even a 2 MB increase). But being too conservative and trying hard to make sure that Bitcoin can not be easily gamed by a bad player is safer (in the long run) than wanting it to scale fast (and having 10% chance that bad players game the incentive system).

It is true, that scaling fast has probably the advantage of faster user adoption. And user adoption is also important for a couple of reasons. But at this stage, it can also be a disadvantage to have a very fast user adoption, specially very "untechnical" users. The Software-Eco-system is not yet mature enough. If very nontechnical user adoption were to grow very fast, some compromises might need to be done, to not harm them (in systems like linux it is easier to discard their needs when regarded as not important, because another distribution might look at the needs of some users, but in bitcoin concensus-parts can not be changed by one part of the eco-system alone without affecting others, and when millions of users have invested in your currency, it gets a lot harder to say "Bitcoin can not change feature A and B even in the risk of loosing some new users and thus short-term marketcapitalization and maybe part of your short-term investment because decentralization is of paramount importance, so your opinion is simply not important to us"). So faster adoption could slow down the process of finding consensus (even more than the problems we have now, even though know all people know each other pretty well, and most people agree that everyone wants the best, just different ways to get there) or lead to centralized services gaining too much weight in decisions making process by having the majority of users behind them.
A note about Gavin:
- Gavin is pretty pragmatic.
- Of course Gavin acknowledges, that the Core-Team (an important part being Blockstream-devs) is doing world-class work.
- Gavin has another view on the way to move the Bitcoin protocol forward
- some do criticize Gavin for not being more careful about scaling, but in the end Gavin is not stubborn. He does not try to win people by posting nonsense like other might do. He has NOT posted comments that Blockstream is trying to develop bitcoin only in a way that will make them profit in the future. Gavin has another view, but highly probably know that Gregory Maxwell and Pieter Wuille also want just the best. There is only a disagreement on how to make bitcoin succeed in the long run.
- Even though Gavin and Mike Hearn have had some common view in the past, I think people (and some Blockstream devs) should not put those two always in the same bag. These are two different people, and might have (or have had) common views on some topics, but have some different views on other topics. Or even on the common viewed topics, the might diverge in the detail if you look close enough. It can often be damaging to put two people in the same pot, when in reality opinions still diverge.
- Gavin is much more pragmatic than Mike Hearn, he seems to listen what other say, and readjusts, and keep trying to find the right balance.

Edit: link

antanst

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@gmaxwell Your posts are insightful, thank you. May I suggest putting your essays/musings in a personal blog in order for them be more accessible?

DaveJones

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Quote from: Eric Mu on January 28, 2016, 12:35:21 AM

..
We are a Chinese BTC company that has invested a lot in mining..
..I would very much like to hear your views.

One CPU one vote.

Having 'a lot invested' means nothing, other than you are part of the problem that makes this issue more complicated than it needs to be. So, please don't try to influence others by saying you have a lot invested and expect everyone else to help with your 'investment' decisions.

One CPU one vote: Viva Vis in Numeris

Mr Felt

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@gmax - I appreciate that you've taken some time today write out these arguments in a different way than you and others have before. You're giving me a lot to think about RE: blocksize limit. Genuinely, thanks.

newb4now

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Quote from: Cconvert2G36 on January 28, 2016, 05:24:32 AM

Quote from: gmaxwell on January 28, 2016, 04:57:33 AM

Quote from: Cconvert2G36 on January 28, 2016, 04:38:42 AM

How does Blockstream plan on ensuring an ROI for its investors? I understand there is some time-locked bitcoin involved... but this is a business, right?

Sure, discussed at some length in posts here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2k3u97/we_are_bitcoin_sidechain_paper_authors_adam_back/clhn1hl

If you look out there, there are major technical problems in using Bitcoin and applying Bitcoin-like technology to broader industry-- for an example that couldn't be included in the above write-up, though it's surprising to many the #1 cited complain is the lack of commercial privacy in Bitcoin: No one wants their competitors tracking their books, or their customers criticizing their margins. So, Adam Back and I went out and created confidential transactions; which specifically solved that (currently for private sidechains, but hopefully someday its successors will be available in Bitcoin proper). Who else is going to do that kind of original powerful work? If you don't see the business case for solving the hardest problems in this space, and or enabling the reach of Bitcoin more broadly, then you may be underestimating how powerful and world changing cryptocurrency can be. Fortunately, our investors aren't. And _ensuring_? There are no guarantees in investment.

But even ignoring all that... lets just assume for a moment that Blockstream is really malevolent, and that the protections we built into it (described on that Reddit thread) all failed. What then? We're just a part of Bitcoin Core; and the message I'm giving you is also held by the vast majority of the non-blockstream contributors. I applaud paranoia, but it wouldn't make sense to dismiss the work of the hardest working independent people in the space because of an unsubstantiated maybe about a generous contributor they have collaborated with. If you're going to go down that route, you'll find yourself jumping at every shadow. After all, blockstream could have been kept completely secret-- why would you assume someone really out to serve a private interest wouldn't do so. It is, sadly, not unheard of for people working on Bitcoin to fail to disclose their affiliations. Ironic that some would attack those who disclose them without asking any questions of the rest.

In terms of revenue, you've mentioned private side chains, I assume either by subscription or fee? Some would infer that a somewhat expensive and crowded main chain environment might incubate such services, for transactions generally, not just those seeking confidentiality. Why are they wrong?

Gregory, I'm not trying to diminish the work you've done, which is much more than I will ever do. Some people just have some questions, and I sincerely appreciate your responses.

To me the important Confidential Transactions work of Greg Maxwell is a separate issue than scaling. If you are somehow suggesting that Blockstream wants to drive demand for such innovation by encouraging an "expensive and crowded main chain environment" I think you are misguided.

Confidential Transactions will find important uses whether or not they are ever implemented in side chains. CT testing is happening already: https://github.com/ShenNoether/RingCT

Bitcoin Core will be ready to increase block size when necessary. Segregated Witness is "a solution that could provide a fourfold increase in capacity to the network in a "short time frame" http://www.coindesk.com/segregated-witness-bitcoin-block-size-debate/

To me Bitcoin Classic and BitcoinXT are noting but scare tactics meant to sneak in other controversial changes not solely related to legitimate block size concerns.

gmaxwell

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Quote from: YarkoL on January 28, 2016, 06:30:44 AM

That is why miners should be depending on full nodes for their relaying
needs, so it will be the nodes whose mempools matter.

That isn't how the system works, and it's not possible to make it work that way.

You can implement whatever rules you want; but miners don't care, they'll receive transactions around you. Even if every other node implemented some mempool policy; miners can just set up their own and people would send transactions directly to it.

Quote

Which leads to a question, why isn't Corallo's fast relay protocol in Bitcoin Core?

Because it has been under constant, rapid development. It's also only of limited interest to non-miners. I recommend adding it to contrib a while back, but the pace of development precluded it. Perhaps now that it's pretty mature he'll change his mind.

watashi-kokoto

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If team corruption is a problem, all developers can become anonymous under the names Satoshi Nakamoto, Satoshi Nakamoto, ....

This way developers give up their influence and stop being a trusted leaders, in favor of the actual ideas they're developing.

EDIT: just one name: Satoshi Nakamoto

YarkoL

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Quote from: gmaxwell on January 28, 2016, 06:21:47 AM

Quote from: YarkoL on January 28, 2016, 06:10:21 AM

there is a balance (or conflict) of power

Yes, but it does not play out equally in all respects: When it comes to mempool policy, miners have almost absolute power; no one else has almost any influence except via highly inefficient mechanisms like selling our coins and adopting a new cryptocurrency or hardforking the POW to fire the set of miners. The remedies are so costly that non-miners are basically deprived a voice, at least in any strong sense, on things related to mempool policy. Even a single moderate size miner has huge influence on mempool policy behavior, the action of a majority of miners isn't required.

That is why miners should be depending on full nodes for their relaying
needs, so it will be the nodes whose mempools matter. Which leads to a question,
why isn't Corallo's fast relay protocol in Bitcoin Core?

watashi-kokoto

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Just ideas:

You can say you support Core team because it's the best qualified team.

When coup team is created, stop support teams but individual developers.

When most developers are bribed, you can put your own Chinese developers, or expose the bribes.

Topic: Wondering out loud: Which should Chinese miners support - Core, Classic or another? - page 25. (Read 38062 times)