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The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

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Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#111

Post by joshontheweb »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #23
joshontheweb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expound on why? I'm interested in hearing both sides of this.

I've been an outside observer of the block size debate for a while now, so here is my naive take on it: The anti-block size increase camp says that increasing the block size is only a temporary fix, and that no blockchain can accommodate Visa levels of throughput. They also posit that any increase in the block size will make running a full node more difficult, meaning Bitcoin will become more and more centralized and…

Thank you for the concise rundown.

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#112

Post by checksauce »

pmorici wrote: post #105
checksauce wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is very limited technical documentation on xthin so it is hard for the community to accept and test it. If Bitcoin were to implement xthin (or an alternative proposal such as compact blocks) it would be much better to release outside of the block increase. again the main contention is the mechanism for change that the Bitcoin unlimited enthusiasts want to impose, a contentious hard fork And to clarify, the soft…

You are just spouting false propaganda now. The Core equivalent to Xthin, "Compact Blocks", has been released in Bitcoin Core since version 13.0.0

Please point out where I am spouting false propaganda.... You previously conflated xthin and compact blocks as if they were the same thing. Xthin is not being used by the network. And there are developers who have reasons to believe that increasing the block size will have a centralizing effect on mining. This is not "fixed" as you stated before.

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#113

Post by brokenmachine »

decker wrote: post #40
pmorici wrote: post #2

There is a small faction of the Bitcoin community working exceptionally hard to prevent any block size increase. I find their motives really baffling. They had some legitimate arguments a few years ago when discussion of this issue first started but those have all since been superseded by improvements in the protocol like xthin. They now resort to distasteful tactics by running anyone out of town that even so much as…

Follow the money, it's not baffling at all.

Can you explain better? How does changing the blocksize affect the amount of money?

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#114

Post by pmorici »

checksauce wrote: post #112
pmorici wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just spouting false propaganda now. The Core equivalent to Xthin, "Compact Blocks", has been released in Bitcoin Core since version 13.0.0

Please point out where I am spouting false propaganda.... You previously conflated xthin and compact blocks as if they were the same thing. Xthin is not being used by the network. And there are developers who have reasons to believe that increasing the block size will have a centralizing effect on mining. This is not "fixed" as you stated before.

You said: "If Bitcoin were to implement xthin (or an alternative proposal such as compact blocks) it would be much better to release outside of the block increase."

Fact: Both xthin and compact blocks are different implementations of the same idea. Both have already been implemented and released and are in active production.

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#115

Post by nadaviv »

lawn wrote: post #103
nadaviv wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Comments promoting non-core clients are [being removed]. No, they are not. Promoting alternative client software that is compatible with the Bitcoin protocol is definitely allowed. btcd, NBitcoin, Bitcoin Knots, Toshi, Haskoin, bcoin, Bitcoin-S and pynode are all allowed, because they're all compatible with the protocol are not trying to forcefully deploy an hardfork that has no consensus. > how are you supposed to…

> trying to forcefully deploy an hardfork that has no consensus. This doesn't make any sense. By definition a hardfork can only be successful if it has consensus. > Discussion of ideas and proposals is not censored. Keep deceiving yourself. > All in all, people seem to agree with the moderation policy of r/bitcoin. Everyone are well aware of these policies, yet it is still the most popular bitcoin forum. The logical…

> By definition a hardfork can only be successful if it has consensus.

What? No. Splitting the currency and payment network in two is a very realistic outcome following an hardfork.

I recently made some slides that go into details about the hard- vs hard- fork dynamics:

https://www.docdroid.net/TouvFPl/embassy-future-politics-feb...

> Wrong again, that's the whole point.

No, miners do not decide no the validity of blocks. It is the whole network who does so. If the miners ever try to cheat the system (creating more coins than they should, steal money that doesn't belong to them, etc) their blocks would be rejected by the rest of the network as invalid.

> Why am I arguing with someone who obviously doesn't understand how bitcoin works.

I actually happen to be a software developer that founded a bitcoin startup, so I think I'm at least somewhat qualified for this. https://www.bitrated.com/

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#116

Post by simulx »

nadaviv wrote: post #58
pmorici wrote: post #2

There is a small faction of the Bitcoin community working exceptionally hard to prevent any block size increase. I find their motives really baffling. They had some legitimate arguments a few years ago when discussion of this issue first started but those have all since been superseded by improvements in the protocol like xthin. They now resort to distasteful tactics by running anyone out of town that even so much as…

You're painting a very unbalanced picture. > There is a small faction of the Bitcoin community working exceptionally hard to prevent any block size increase. This small faction is composed of nearly ~all the technical experts we have in the Bitcoin space, over 100 businesses and projects that support SegWit, the majority of bitcoin users that I'm personally familiar with, the majority of full-nodes on the network (~8…

Segwit is a block size increase. After activation blocks on the block chain will be up to a max of 4MB, with an average of 2.1MB There is no meaningful definition of a block size increase that does not include segwit, which increases the size of blocks on the chain.

Most of those devs and businesses are vocally advocating for segwit - a block size increase.

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#117

Post by simulx »

pmorici wrote: post #76
nadaviv wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think HN has no moderation? Every online community has moderation to some degree. The manipulation, voting bots and endless stream of sockpuppet accounts made it impossible for people like me to discuss ideas and proposals, the signal-the-noise ratio was unbearable to the point of stopping productive discussions to an halt. Yes, moderation sucks. But no moderation sucks harder. I don't really see a better appr…

Again, people aren't taking issue with simple moderation. They are taking issue with the fact that certain view points are totally censored from the forum. I would be willing to bet 100% of the comments I've made in this thread would be deleted by moderators in /r/bitcoin simply for the fact that I'm expressing views counter to those they want to promote. I have high confidence they won't be moderated here though. Cl…

Bleh. There is no automatic deletion. I've tested this multiple times. Also I've mentioned altcoins, bitcoin unlimited in a positive light, and everything else people say is moderated away. I've never been censored once. Downvoted - sure. Censored... nope.

The only way to guarantee censorship is to make 100 fake accounts and then upvote an article that promotes a hard fork or alt coin.

Spam, fake upvoted articles, and personal attacks are attempted to be moderated. There is, no doubt, a bias that moderators have for certain topics.

But without moderation, any forum would be overrun with spew.

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#118

Post by simulx »

lawn wrote: post #103
nadaviv wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Comments promoting non-core clients are [being removed]. No, they are not. Promoting alternative client software that is compatible with the Bitcoin protocol is definitely allowed. btcd, NBitcoin, Bitcoin Knots, Toshi, Haskoin, bcoin, Bitcoin-S and pynode are all allowed, because they're all compatible with the protocol are not trying to forcefully deploy an hardfork that has no consensus. > how are you supposed to…

> trying to forcefully deploy an hardfork that has no consensus. This doesn't make any sense. By definition a hardfork can only be successful if it has consensus. > Discussion of ideas and proposals is not censored. Keep deceiving yourself. > All in all, people seem to agree with the moderation policy of r/bitcoin. Everyone are well aware of these policies, yet it is still the most popular bitcoin forum. The logical…

> By definition a hardfork can only be successful if it has consensus.

Nope. BU has no threshold in place. If it had a 95% or even 80% consensus level built in, the resistance to it would be 1/10th of what it is now.

> Keep deceiving yourself.

Try it. Try posting something promoting BU, and don't go and try to pump it up with fake votes. Sure it will be unpopular - because BU is broken software - but it won't get moderated away.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5u6d6j/i_am_new_to...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5rreaj/is_bu_rapid...

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#119

Post by simulx »

ac29 wrote: post #13

This article completely ignores the block reward -- the real cost per transaction is more like $7 [0]. The blocksize really needs to change too, last time I did a bitcoin transaction, every recent block was 95%+ full. Its an arbitrary limit, but its contentious and political to change. It really made me want to avoid Bitcoin in the future. [0] https://blockchain.info/charts/cost-per-transaction

Blocks are supposed to be full, otherwise fees are zero. The question is what fees should be, and what the minimum reasonably transaction amount should be for it to be included on the chain... not what blocksize should be. "Fullness" is not a thing.

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#120

Post by simulx »

jerguismi wrote: post #98
nadaviv wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 105 businesses and projects from the Bitcoin space support SegWit and are working on implementing it in their products: https://bitcoincore.org/en/segwit_adoption/ - 54 bitcoin developers signed the "capacity increase roadmap" published by Bitcoin Core: https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/capacity-increases - 45 companies and individuals signed in support of Bitcoin Core: https://bitcoincore.org/en/supporters/ - 85…

Impressive numbers! Bad luck the only metric that happens to matters, miner vote, is still below 25% and seems to be going slightly down... http://bitcoin.sipa.be/ver9-10k.png

No, actually, it's not safe to vote for a fork until a large percentage of nodes are on board. Miners are doing their job and waiting for the community first. It took me 4 months to upgrade my nodes because I'm not really "in the business" like I used to be. Probably a lot of other people are just slow too.
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