The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money • Hacker News Board

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#271

Post by DennisP » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

nullc wrote: post #252

DennisP wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't make it much more frequent because the amount of time for the difficulty has to be balanced against propagation time for blocks or else you will have lots of forks. The same problem also limits block size, since large blocks take longer to propagate. But that's why Ethereum went with GHOST, which was originally proposed for Bitcoin. Instead of choosing the block with the most hashpower behind it, you choo…

Ethereum abandoned ghost because of its amplification of selfish mining. Inclusion of 'uncles' does not increase block selection weight there.

Looks like you're right. I found this stackoverflow answer:

https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/38121/why-did-e...

...which says Ethereum actually uses a version of the "Inclusive Protocol," which according to its paper has similar advantages:

https://www.cse.huji.ac.il/~yoni_sompo/pubs/15/inclusive_ful...

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#272

Post by cedivad » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

alwillis wrote: post #232

FreeTrade wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning requires that both sender and receiver be online at the same time to transact. Lightning was not ready when Bitcoin capacity was crippled by the aforementioned tiny cabal of developers in favor of Lightning. Lightning remains unready, forever 18 months away from the promised usable technology.

Lightning remains unready, forever 18 months away from the promised usable technology. This is provably false. Lightning is huge and growing: * more than $6 billion USD in liquidity * nearly 11,000 nodes * tens of thousands of transactions daily * a growing ecosystem ( https://www.lopp.net/lightning-information.html ) You can see the real-time stats at https://1ml.com/

*billion => million.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#273

Post by askmike » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

onesatoshi wrote: post #227

nullc wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be asking a bit much of him, this technology stuff isn't super easy for everyone. In two easy steps: $ ./bitcoin-cli signmessage 1GMaxweLLbo8mdXvnnC19Wt2wigiYUKgEB "Digital signatures are to scammers as garlic is to vampires. I am hn user nullc, but you are not Bitcoin's creator." $ ./bitcoin-cli verifymessage 1GMaxweLLbo8mdXvnnC19Wt2wigiYUKgEB "HJ0VgbIY9BAud6MiZ4Qh0KSwhmA7gwkFm07tjPJeHsYNcj5oIAVlVR2JnKTF7E…

Is that what you call privacy?

No, Satoshi is enjoying privacy right now. But everyone claiming to be Satoshi isn't looking for privacy. If they want to convince tech audiences, proving their claims is the easiest way forward.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#274

Post by scotty79 » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

etherael wrote: post #253

scotty79 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Aim of bitcoin is not to be the fastest cryptocurrency but the most mined one (thus safest?). > Which once again has nothing to do with the artificial useless block limit. It has everything to do with block limit because its whole purpose is to make each block more valuable for the miners so that a lot of hashpower competes to mine that block. Size of mining reward and transaction fees per given amount of kb of tr…

> It has everything to do with block limit because its whole purpose is to make each block more valuable for the miners so that a lot of hashpower competes to mine that block. Wrong, this assumes it is the only way to make each block more valuable, it is not only not the only way, it is the most stupid way imaginable; an artificial production quota completely unhinged from underlying physical reality. > Size of minin…

>> Size of mining reward and transaction fees per given amount of kb of transactions is vital thing for miners. > Transaction fees per given data volume is less important than net profit on actual services provided, a chain that has a thousand times the capacity and a hundred times lower costs is still ten times more profitable than the competition.

That's true but you it's not guaranteed that you'd get 1000 times more transactions when you increase capacity 100 times. It's a gamble and if bitcoin did that it would get unpredictable result but show miners that it is willing to gamble with their profitability.

>> Increasing block size would be same as decreasing payout (of tx fees) for each block.

>Just as stupid as saying that increasing seats on a train decreases the ticket revenue on that train. Completely false.

Increasing number of seats might cause the train to be partially empty and if this one isn't the next one might be. Since people get tickets on auction then non-full trains bring no revenue because tickets for them cost zero. So it might be not sufficiently attractive to participate in the burden of sending more trains.

When there were ton of transactions fees skyrocketed but in weeks they went back to normal and tx fees revenue for miners dropped. Tx fees dropping to too low value in times where they are main income source for miners might be what kills bitcoin. Same way that low traffic might kill a train line if trains are running mostly empty and tickets don't have fixed price and their are auctioned instead.

Again. Bitcoin is built and governed for survivability first. You can do it differently with other cryptos. You can even fork bitcoin. People did. Miners voted with their legs on which solution they prefer. It's really miners that decide everything.

I don't get where you were going with federal reserve tangent. I'm just getting a vibe that you overestimate politics and underestimate economy.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#275

Post by nighthawk24 » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

nullc wrote: post #270

nighthawk24 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, the real attack was by the group led by Adam Back who himself dismissed Bitcoin initially before having a VC fund him to cater to his plan http://cashbleed.com/ Following which scare tactics ensued which broke the block size increase agreements of 8MB Hong Kong Agreement when Adam himself flew to the meeting overnight(as an individual) to attack the agreement, then when a 2MB NYA agreement was finalized and si…

> led by Adam Back Adam, the only person who's name is mentioned in the body of the bitcoin whitepaper, was happily using Bitcoin long before creating a company to support it. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=225463.msg2371674#ms... though Adam has never been actively involved with the bitcoin software project itself-- beyond some mailing list discussions and such. Aside, the numbers on the website you linked…

> was happily using Bitcoin long before creating a company to support it.

His public comments would say otherwise and many doubt that his company is supporting Bitcoin vs handicapping it for private interests.

> Gavin loudly endorsing an obvious scammer

Classic nullc way of putting it.. Gavin simply said that CSW was able to sign a message from one of the keys he had interacted with Satoshi's account. The signing itself has be debunked many a times, Gavin did not endorse CSW as Satoshi himself, like giving bitcoin repo access to CSW..

The entire drama created a path for new folks like Adam who showed up in 2013(from your bitcointalk article) to see opportunity to gain control of the core client.

Bitcoin Cash handles this by making sure to have multiple implementations.

CompatBlocks is just one of the developments that BCH has completed and released https://cash.coin.dance/development#completed

Overall, only time will tell how the Bitcoin story will play out. For a fact though, we have 2 chains developed centrally planned (BTC & BSV) while BCH keeps the checks & balances of power with distributed teams.

If you are feeling like going on a debunking spree, I'd like to see you refute the sources here https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/ekykl9/bitcoin_cash_th...

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#276

Post by nullc » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

nighthawk24 wrote: post #275

nullc wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> led by Adam Back Adam, the only person who's name is mentioned in the body of the bitcoin whitepaper, was happily using Bitcoin long before creating a company to support it. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=225463.msg2371674#ms... though Adam has never been actively involved with the bitcoin software project itself-- beyond some mailing list discussions and such. Aside, the numbers on the website you linked…

> was happily using Bitcoin long before creating a company to support it. His public comments would say otherwise and many doubt that his company is supporting Bitcoin vs handicapping it for private interests. > Gavin loudly endorsing an obvious scammer Classic nullc way of putting it.. Gavin simply said that CSW was able to sign a message from one of the keys he had interacted with Satoshi's account. The signing its…

> CompatBlocks is just one of the developments that BCH has completed and released

wtf. man, stop taking credit for other people's work. Compact blocks were completed and released by Matt Corallo, myself, and the other Bitcoin developers at the time long before BCH existed. It had absolutely no involvement from any BCH developer.

> many doubt that his company is supporting Bitcoin vs handicapping it

When your link in the earlier post is an article ranting about how much money blockstream employees are making because it pays its employees partially denominated in Bitcoin and Bitcoin has increased a lot in value.

> Gavin did not endorse CSW as Satoshi himself

In fact Gavin stated that he was convinced Wright was Satoshi long before he ever met him or witnessed any signing.

> folks like Adam [...] to gain control of the core client.

Adam doesn't have any control over Bitcoin Core and never has. I don't think anything he's ever proposed has ended up in in it, in fact.

> Cash handles this by making sure to have multiple implementations

Actually, BCH's constant hardforks have killed many of those multiple implementations. "Bitcoin XT", "Bitcoin Classic", "Bcoin" to name some of those. Ironically the old BitcoinXT from back when it was Bitcoin software ... happily still works on Bitcoin. So you have it backwards: it's bitcoin that preserves people's freedom to use different implementations.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#277

Post by IndustrialRev4 » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

nullc wrote: post #112

mathiasrw wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never forget: The original protocol did not have the restrictions you are feeling. Letting volume be the main driver for payments to the network instead of fees (as it is today) scales much better. By that, I am stating that the hostage situation (as you describe it) has been introduced commit per commit. Well, in the end, its a battle of opinion because smaller blocks give other features to the chain, so it will be…

For readers, BSV is an Bitcoin clone created and promoted by Craig Wright. An austrialian man who fraudulently and without any evidence claims to be Bitcoin's creator and that BSV is his (Satoshi's) Vision (thus the name). Well not just 'not any evidence' -- he claimed to provide a cornucopia of "evidence" all of which turned out to be easily proven to be forgeries. Things like editing his old blog posts to insert me…

I think I just saw Greg wet himself

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#278

Post by nullc » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #271

nullc wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum abandoned ghost because of its amplification of selfish mining. Inclusion of 'uncles' does not increase block selection weight there.

Looks like you're right. I found this stackoverflow answer: https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/38121/why-did-e... ...which says Ethereum actually uses a version of the "Inclusive Protocol," which according to its paper has similar advantages: https://www.cse.huji.ac.il/~yoni_sompo/pubs/15/inclusive_ful...

> non-conflicting transactions of blocks outside the main chain are included in the ledger

I am pretty sure that isn't true. I'm looking at the code, and the only thing I see included for 'uncles' is the header. This has the beneficial property that higher orphan rates increase difficulty which should lower orphan rates.

OTOH, it doesn't appear that including other people's orphans is incentive compatible without the rest of ghost (because it lowers your own future income).

"a version of" -- there is no close in cryptography. :) Security analysis usually do not apply well to approximations.

Edit: See also this answer, https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/a/41647

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#279

Post by nighthawk24 » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 10:38 PM UTC

nullc wrote: post #270

nighthawk24 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, the real attack was by the group led by Adam Back who himself dismissed Bitcoin initially before having a VC fund him to cater to his plan http://cashbleed.com/ Following which scare tactics ensued which broke the block size increase agreements of 8MB Hong Kong Agreement when Adam himself flew to the meeting overnight(as an individual) to attack the agreement, then when a 2MB NYA agreement was finalized and si…

> led by Adam Back Adam, the only person who's name is mentioned in the body of the bitcoin whitepaper, was happily using Bitcoin long before creating a company to support it. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=225463.msg2371674#ms... though Adam has never been actively involved with the bitcoin software project itself-- beyond some mailing list discussions and such. Aside, the numbers on the website you linked…

> wtf. man, stop taking credit for other people's work. Compact blocks were completed and released by Matt Corallo, myself, and the other Bitcoin developers at the time. It had absolutely no involvement from any BCH developer.

Sorry, I did not say or mean to take any credit, all I'm pointing out is that BCH was able to get that tech out in prod.

> BCH's constant hardforks have killed many of those multiple implementations. "Bitcoin XT", "Bitcoin Classic", "Bcoin" to name some of those. Ironically the old BitcoinXT from back when it was Bitcoin software ... happily still works on Bitcoin. So you have it backwards: it's bitcoin that preserves people's freedom to use different implementations.

This is flat out wrong, the BCH developers meet monthly to review roadmap and sync up on development in a decentralized fashion. The clients that were not maintained were deprecated as expected, nothing out of the ordinary here. The Bitcoin XT client was compatible with BCH chain when Core activated the SegWit.

The bi-annual BCH client upgrade actually helps keeping users empowered as to which ruleset they accept, a choice which is not available for Bitcoin Core users as they are held hostage to the code that governs their money.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#280

Post by parkinspace » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

nullc wrote: post #255

cryptowizard wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what's wrong with it?

It's difficult to do an analysis of a paper I cannot access, so my response was related to your description. I talk some about why people who write Bitcoin software don't control anything this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21978934

Hi Greg, I'd be happy to send you a copy and would appreciate your input. My email can be found on my staff profile: https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/ics/people/adjunct_research...