Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

lightning.network

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 115 posts

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#101

Post by nullc »

wellthissukz wrote: post #70
nullc wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Step 1: Buy off We founded the company. > all of the top developers A couple people out of a community of around 50-200 depending on the phase of the moon. > Step 2: Refuse to support/fix basic network operations Uh. You know that Bitcoin is a decenteralized system that no one controls; right? We do a lot of fixes, but we're not your personal code monkies. There is a LOT going on in Bitcoin, and it's working pretty…

Again, these are lies from Gregory Maxwell (Blockstream CTO). Please provide details on funding. Specifically, how much AXA paid? "A couple people out of a community of around 50-200 depending on the phase of the moon." Again a lie. The top Core devs are Blockstream employees. Blockstream has created a toxic environment and a huge ivory tower. "Uh. You know that Bitcoin is a decenteralized system that no one controls…

> Please provide details on funding. Specifically, how much AXA paid?

Dunno, not enough to be broken out on the reports I have. They're not an investor that I've ever met with-- we have a lot of investors. Though it's a cute technique that y'all have been using where you try asking something that would be confidential, to try to inhibit a response on the long list of leading questions that follows.

>> "A couple people out of a community of around 50-200 depending on the phase of the moon."

> Again a lie. The top Core devs are Blockstream employees.

I gave a breakout in another post; if you want to go by top you end up with three out of the top 10, all of whom were founders of the company. wooo.

> Blockstream has created a toxic environment and a huge ivory tower.

What does that even mean? or another way, how could someone falsify that claim?

> Meanwhile 80%+ of the hasrate is concentrated in a single country and in the hands of a handful of entities

Unfortunately, the block size limit was set too large and this created outsized returns for large consolidations. More recent improvements have caught things up a bit but it will take a while for the damage to equalize out.

> People associated with BlockstreamCore support censored and manipulated forums,

What the @#$@ are you talking about? Citations? Or are you just saying that anyone of the vast majority of people who are supportive of our work is "associated"?

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#102

Post by cypherdoc »

ptokb3 wrote: post #92
nullc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No problem! Understood. It's a bit tough with so much crap being flung to stay clear of it. :)

nullc, I'll take your word for it that Blockstream will never run a Lightning network hub. We understand how the Lightning network works and you also have to admit that it has the potential to centralize into a few large hubs -- even if they aren't by Blockstream -- that will be able to provide the lowest transaction costs in order to keep track of user transaction data. The problem with Lightning is that it's really…

you should ask him why Blockstream charges for running Liquid, a federated sidechains hub. sidechains was supposed to be p2p based on an SPV Proof model, but alas.

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#103

Post by ptokb3 »

nullc wrote: post #98
ptokb3 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for answering Greg. This isn't a throw-away account. I've lurked for years without needing to become involved. The larger public needs to know that: > We founded the company. Obviously you're the CTO but not all of the other 'employees' paid by your company founded it with you. > You know that Bitcoin is a decentralized system that no one controls; right? Actually you've locked down the codebase. Any one devel…

> but not all of the other 'employees' paid by your company founded it with you The "top developers of Bitcoin" you were referring to did. > Actually you've locked down the codebase. So, there is a concrete claim of an action. But you're not specific. Locked down how? What are you referring to? Please provide hyperlinks for clarity. > We need decentralized development Every developer has their own codebase, the commu…

Thanks again for the reply.

By the expression "locked down" I mean that no reasonable change can happen if any one of the main core devs don't want it to. Some of the core devs think the max-blocksize is too large. I won't name names, but a modest larger blocksize is reasonable.

Additionally hard-forks are the safest way to make large important changes. They are safer than soft-forks (limbo) and for the blocksize one would be required. I'm sure you know all of this, but the reason for a hard fork was because it's an important and critical change. At one point it was on the core scaling roadmap I believe (or promised by your CEO to Chinese miners in Hong Kong).

> when they activate they will not operate on the same blockchain

Hard-forks have happened twice before and people aren't calling the current version an altcoin of the original Bitcoin. Bitcoin Classic's change has safety mechanisms like a 30 day grace period before activation, it wouldn't disrupt time-locked coins, and it has other checks that prevent attacks on hard to process transactions. It also only changes if there is overwhelming miner consensus well above the regular 51% 'Nakamoto' consensus. Unanimous consensus works for trivial matters but the big stuff, the important stuff should go with a large majority and not be held back by a stubborn minority. Classic also removes the hard-fork if it doesn't happen by a certain date.

> I tried to convince him to not use a fairly restrictive moderation policy in /r/bitcoin I failed.

I'm glad your being vocal about the censorship and expressed your opinion to Theymos. An entire sub of 19,000+ users arose out of those policies. On /r/bitcoin most of the posts are positive white-washed pump the price news rather than genuine discussions. A big genuine thanks for talking to him about it, and I hope you can keep that process moving towards non-censorship.

You mentioned: > stream of brand new sockpuppet accounts

People created new accounts because their main accounts were being banned for talking about the benefits of on-chain scaling. Sure some of those were FUD, but a lot of them were also genuine.

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#104

Post by ptokb3 »

nullc wrote: post #99
ptokb3 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey nullc, I'm a software consultant for my own developing firm. I don't have a conflict of interest. As I've said before, this is a new account and my only account here. I've read HN for some 5-7 years now as a morning news source and have not gotten involved in the conversation until this point. To the issue: MIT would probably be happy to support more Core developers and that would definitely lessen the current co…

> MIT would probably be happy to support more MIT doesn't support _any_ developers. MIT DCI pays MIT and is funded by undisclosed parties, but you never even care to ask about that. (And not that MIT is magically benevolent, in any case...) We've tried for _years_ to get sustainable funding for development; but the Bitcoin 'industry' is just not interested. > paying most of the top developers Why do you keep repeatin…

It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll.

> you never even care to ask about that

Honestly, I don't know where that would be public information to know to ask about it.

> to own not much (to zero) Bitcoins;

That is not the case. Most people who have been very vocal pushing for larger blocks have significant Bitcoin investments.

> segwit which roughly doubles block transaction capacity

This only happens if all wallets adopt it, which makes them write/fix their wallet software upstream. That takes time. It's not a quick enough solution for an urgent problem.

Last, if you're taking money from someone there is a conflict of interest there.

"It's hard to get a man to understand something if his job depends on him not understanding it" - Upton Sinclair

Large investors usually want something back for their investments. Maybe you don't know what that is right now, but it's legitimate for regular users to be weary of it.

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#105

Post by petertodd »

ptokb3 wrote: post #104
nullc wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MIT would probably be happy to support more MIT doesn't support _any_ developers. MIT DCI pays MIT and is funded by undisclosed parties, but you never even care to ask about that. (And not that MIT is magically benevolent, in any case...) We've tried for _years_ to get sustainable funding for development; but the Bitcoin 'industry' is just not interested. > paying most of the top developers Why do you keep repeatin…

It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll. > you never even care to ask about that Honestly, I don't know where that would be public information to know to ask about it. > to own not much (to zero) Bitcoins; That is not the case. Most people who have been very vocal pushing for larger blocks have significant Bitcoin investments. > segwit which roughly doubles block transac…

> It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll.

They aren't. The Digital Currency Inititive (DCI) != MIT. Rather, it's a separate entity that's effectively paying MIT for use of the MIT name and administrative infrastructure; we do not know who is actually funding DCI.

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#106

Post by sanswork »

stale2002 wrote: post #100
sanswork wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think 5-10% of the mining power matter? Why would changing the proof of work algorithm on their branch matter if everyone is using the other branch? All that would do is force the 5-10% of miners above to switch to the other branch to stop their equipment from becoming worthless. If there is one fork with 5-10% of the hashing power why do you think anyone would care about it? What do you mean by dump their…

"Have you considered that the real reason there hasn't been a change is that because the people that want it aren't actually in the majority?" Are you actually for real? This is the current mining pool distribution: https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools Antpool, which represents 17% is in favor of 2MB, and has threatened to NOT include any Core changes until it happens. Proof: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments…

What I see is a whole bunch of miners who say they'd like a change but won't make the very small effort to actually make one.

My other points that you skipped over all still stand. If the majority truely wanted change they could do it painlessly. But they don't so the minority that does has to find something to blame besides lack of support so you come up with a ridiculous dream in which a handful of developers are holding everything up.

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#107

Post by ptokb3 »

petertodd wrote: post #105
ptokb3 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll. > you never even care to ask about that Honestly, I don't know where that would be public information to know to ask about it. > to own not much (to zero) Bitcoins; That is not the case. Most people who have been very vocal pushing for larger blocks have significant Bitcoin investments. > segwit which roughly doubles block transac…

> It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll. They aren't. The Digital Currency Inititive (DCI) != MIT. Rather, it's a separate entity that's effectively paying MIT for use of the MIT name and administrative infrastructure; we do not know who is actually funding DCI.

Thanks for clarifying. Perhaps the DCI could fund more developers.

https://www.media.mit.edu/research/highlights/media-lab-digi...

It's clearly part of MIT's infrastructure. What you're saying is that the money is not coming directly from MIT.

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#108

Post by miles_c »

nullc wrote: post #101
wellthissukz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, these are lies from Gregory Maxwell (Blockstream CTO). Please provide details on funding. Specifically, how much AXA paid? "A couple people out of a community of around 50-200 depending on the phase of the moon." Again a lie. The top Core devs are Blockstream employees. Blockstream has created a toxic environment and a huge ivory tower. "Uh. You know that Bitcoin is a decenteralized system that no one controls…

> Please provide details on funding. Specifically, how much AXA paid? Dunno, not enough to be broken out on the reports I have. They're not an investor that I've ever met with-- we have a lot of investors. Though it's a cute technique that y'all have been using where you try asking something that would be confidential, to try to inhibit a response on the long list of leading questions that follows. >> "A couple peopl…

> Unfortunately, the block size limit was set too large and this created outsized returns for large consolidations.

Can you expand on this? What did the limit have to do with returns? Wouldn't a smaller limit increase returns (fees)?

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#109

Post by nullc »

ptokb3 wrote: post #107
petertodd wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll. They aren't. The Digital Currency Inititive (DCI) != MIT. Rather, it's a separate entity that's effectively paying MIT for use of the MIT name and administrative infrastructure; we do not know who is actually funding DCI.

Thanks for clarifying. Perhaps the DCI could fund more developers. https://www.media.mit.edu/research/highlights/media-lab-digi... It's clearly part of MIT's infrastructure. What you're saying is that the money is not coming directly from MIT.

The money is not coming from MIT. (Though, if it were, I would expect the next complaint would be about the military funding it. :) )

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#110

Post by nullc »

ptokb3 wrote: post #104
nullc wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MIT would probably be happy to support more MIT doesn't support _any_ developers. MIT DCI pays MIT and is funded by undisclosed parties, but you never even care to ask about that. (And not that MIT is magically benevolent, in any case...) We've tried for _years_ to get sustainable funding for development; but the Bitcoin 'industry' is just not interested. > paying most of the top developers Why do you keep repeatin…

It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll. > you never even care to ask about that Honestly, I don't know where that would be public information to know to ask about it. > to own not much (to zero) Bitcoins; That is not the case. Most people who have been very vocal pushing for larger blocks have significant Bitcoin investments. > segwit which roughly doubles block transac…

> That is not the case. Most people who have been very vocal pushing for larger blocks have significant Bitcoin investments.

Some claim it, but like that guy pretending to be Bitcoin's creator. They fail to prove it. People opposing politically adjusting Bitcoin rules have proved that they own Bitcoin. http://bitcoinocracy.com/arguments/if-non-core-hard-fork-win...

> That takes time. It's not a quick enough solution for an urgent problem.

Wallets have already had half a year to catch up already, and you say it's urgent. You think a completely incompatible, forced, and highly controversial change that virtually all the engineers working on the system say is very risky would be faster? Besides, a few large producers of transactions upgrading would make room for others.

Post reply on HN