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Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

laanwj.github.io

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Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#221

Post by CryptoPunk »

tromp wrote: post #219
CryptoPunk wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin Core removed that form of checkpointing, and added in another. Currently it has checkpointing in the form of assumevalid, which by default causes a full node to skip validation of transaction older than the checkpoint when synchronizing. [1] [1] https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/88652/does-assum...

Well, that is depressing to learn. So by default, a bitcoin full node DOESN't fully validate transaction history. If it finds a particular block at a particular height (that a group of developers have signed off on), then all signature validations in prior blocks are assumed to be successful. The reasoning is that you have to trust those developers anyway not to sign off on malicious source code.

Yes, and that is why the alleged initial synchronization concerns surrounding larger blocks are mostly baseless.

As it is, tens of millions of people can easily stream 700 KB/s HD video 24/7, yet Bitcoin is being kept to a throughput of 2 KB/s based on the claim that increasing it to satisfy market demand would lead to Bitcoin becoming centralized, with only large corporate entities left being able to fully validate.

It's pure FUD.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#222

Post by loughnane »

saberience wrote: post #127
yamrzou wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it should seen as more similar to gold than to money. We don't use gold to buy goods either, but it has a value, because people believe it has. The value of Bitcoin is disputed because not everyone believes in it yet. So it's either a gold in the making or nothing, depending on whether those who believe in it will succeed at convincing the others of its merits.

Gold has a value because it can also be used for legitimate industrial applications, plus it has the other physical qualities of being attractive to look at and doesn't corrode (i.e. useful for making jewellery). So yes, while it does have value because people believes it has value. Even if no person wanted gold for its "imagined" value, it would still have value because it's used by many actual companies in actual p…

The industrial uses are real, but the lion’s share of the price of gold is driven by our collective belief in its value rather than some utility.

And bitcoin is more easy to move around than gold, which is a benefit

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#223

Post by ur-whale »

gorgoiler wrote: post #101
ur-whale wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHjYt6Jm5j8

Very good, but — in good faith — it’s hard to tell if this is for or against Bitcoin! At least gold has intrinsic value. Aerospace, electronics, it’s pretty . For me, this skit would make a better illustrative point if the customer showed up wanting to buy tepid lemonade using dodo heads as currency.

> Very good, but — in good faith — it’s hard to tell if this is for or against Bitcoin!

Neither. It's making a point against "old man yells at cloud".

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#224

Post by nullc »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #214
nullc wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW bigger blocks actually mean much much smaller transaction fees, both in theory and practice. Though it's true some miners erroneously believed arguments otherwise. BCash, for example, some loopy "large block" clone of Bitcoin has only rarely had more than $1 in fees in blocks-- and not primarily because it has fewer transactions (though it does), but because there is no cause to pay more than negligible amounts…

>>FWIW bigger blocks actually mean much much smaller transaction fees, both in theory and practice. Ethereum has larger transaction fees than Bitcoin right now, on a larger volume of transactions, so in practice, that is not true. The addressable market will necessarily shrink with too small blocks. Now of course when Bitcoin Cash launches, with most of the world unaware of it, it's not going to get as much as adopti…

Ethereum has a what is effectively a block size limit, which is limiting usage to pretty similarly to Bitcoin's and it is operating hard against it. ('volume' of transactions is not particularly comparable because the average bitcoin transaction now makes multiple payments in a single txn).

Back in the past the issuer of Ethereum stated publicly that online money should not cost more than 5cts/txn... and yet here we are with $50 transactions there.

BCash has not only fewer transaction in spite of tens of millions spent promoting it, but it has vastly lower fees per transaction. If its blocks were half full at 10x the current feerate (and many times larger than bitcoin blocks), its fee income would still be a tiny fraction of Bitcoin's-- and nowhere near enough to support even the extremely low level of security it currently has.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#225

Post by nullc »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #211
nullc wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't any? He _implemented_ the block size limit, nothing forced him to. Had he wanted it to change automatically he could have coded it that way. Instead, he tended to describe the design as being mostly set in stone. When someone tried to remove the limit he urgently yelled at them to stop (and stated if it were ever needed it could be phased in). I'm sure that his, like everyone elses, understanding of the…

Here: "At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to specialists with server farms of specialized hardware. A server farm would only need to have one node on the network and the rest of the LAN connects with that one node." - November, 2008 Here: "The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration f…

The first was discussing mining.

The second is saying not literally every user, similar to the third. (and in fact said it would be best to keep things as small as possible for as long as possible!)

The last was in a message thread that discussed using payment channels.

So I do not agree with your claim that they unambiguously supported your position, moreover they were made much earlier-- before there was much practical experience. I already pointed out his last comment on the subject...

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#226

Post by CryptoPunk »

nullc wrote: post #225
CryptoPunk wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here: "At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to specialists with server farms of specialized hardware. A server farm would only need to have one node on the network and the rest of the LAN connects with that one node." - November, 2008 Here: "The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration f…

The first was discussing mining. The second is saying not literally every user, similar to the third. (and in fact said it would be best to keep things as small as possible for as long as possible!) The last was in a message thread that discussed using payment channels. So I do not agree with your claim that they unambiguously supported your position, moreover they were made much earlier-- before there was much pract…

>>The first was discussing mining.

There's no evidence to suggest it's discussing mining. It's directly in response to a criticism of the Bitcoin design, where a correspondent argues that everyone validating everything to ensure the transactions they receive are valid will get too costly in computing resources. This is the email that the quoted statement was responding to:

http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2008-November...

>To detect and reject a double spending event in a timely manner, one must have most past transactions of the coins in the transaction, which, naively implemented, requires each peer to have most past transactions, or most past transactions that occurred recently. If hundreds of millions of people are doing transactions, that is a lot of bandwidth - each must know all, or a substantial part thereof.

So it's unambiguously about validation. Why would you claim otherwise?

And the last known statements Satoshi made on it were in emails to Mike Hearn, like this one, from December 29 2010:

>>A higher limit can be phased in once we have actual use closer to the limit and make sure it's working OK.

>>Eventually when we have client-only implementations, the block chain size won't matter much. Until then, while all users still have to download the entire block chain to start, it's nice if we can keep it down to a reasonable size.

>>With very high transaction volume, network nodes would consolidate and there would be more pooled mining and GPU farms, and users would run client-only. With dev work on optimising and parallelising, it can keep scaling up.

>>Whatever the current capacity of the software is, it automatically grows at the rate of Moore's Law, about 60% per year.

That is much more clearly his preference/vision than the brief reference to the community turning tyrannical about block sizes, and it was more recent.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#227

Post by 317070 »

forgotmypw77 wrote: post #209
317070 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is basically what the book is telling. You are probably not tit-for-tat bartering, but taking on debts and returning things you owe in some more vague approach. History went through multiple cycles where currency went in disuse in favor of just tracking and settling debts.

actually, i,m gifting without asking for anything in return. when i need something, it is offered or i ask.

Exactly, that is the alternative system which was the default. It has gone through a number of cycles in history and is not always thought of the same way across different cultures (which is why there is a whole book on the topic).

But it is a recurring theme in history, and most (all?) monetary systems were traded for this alternative within 1000 years. For me, in Western Europe, this was 500 years ago between roughly 1000-1500. The churches were fitted with gold roofs, and because of the lack of coinage and currency, most people lived their lives with this alternative approach, only rarely coming across money, currency, accounting and debt.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#228

Post by leadingthenet »

crumbshot wrote: post #102
leadingthenet wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. It’s not entirely clear to me how that could possibly be the case, when pasture raised animals often graze land that is completely unsuitable for agriculture. They also eat tons of byproducts of agriculture that are not suitable for human consumption. This thing about how vegetarianism is sooooo much better for the environment is such a meme. Especially when you take into account what a tragedy moder…

This is a decent, well-cited article on the subject: https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local It summarises the differences in global greenhouse emissions between various types of food, and the contributions of the different sources of these emissions - farming, transport, land use change, and so on.

Even without going into the details, I can already see a major mistake that is made here.

They cite emissions per kilogram, but that’s completely nonsensical. A kilo of meat does not equal a kilo of spinach in terms of calories or macro-/micro-nutrients.

This is a mistake that I see very often when these kinds of comparisons are made.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#229

Post by heckerhut »

Kinrany wrote: post #70
gorgoiler wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the reference, and I look forward to understanding what you mean by myth . Barter is literally my life. I teach other people’s children about life and Computer Science in order to buy potatoes. The children’s parents make medicine and build houses to pay for their children’s education. Is your point that barter is about goods, whereas most people provide services (time, labour?) Or perhaps you mean that…

I'm not sure it's relevant, although the book is fantastic. The first few chapters show that historically money predates barter, not the other way around. And that money was born as "I owe you" notes issued by the government. I know of only one comment [1] Graeber made about bitcoin, and it's too late to ask him now. [1]: https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/990857460176089088

Thanks you expressed it much better than I did.
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