Not completely on topic but...what would happen if one of these new features came out and somebody found a security flaw in it? For example a buffer overflow that you could use to crash miners? If all the clients are running the same client software and crashing them all can have serious financial implications I can't help but feel it's only a matter of time unless I'm missing something about how miners work.
Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling
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Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling
#32What's a typical btc txn fee nowadays?
Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that's what users that only post in the unbelievably censored r/bitcoin want, and what Blockstream wants. For those of us users that want bitcoin to work as intended, instead of being artificially crippled to push second layer solutions, Segwit is terrible.
I'm an external observer in all of this and I was reading some discussion about this earlier, could you explain your position to those like me who aren't very familiar with this issue? From what I read segwit sounds like a reasonable solution to what seems like a very real practical issue with bitcoin today. So far all the people I've seen arguing against this change seem more interested in fueling conspiracy theorie…
I'm an external observer also (with little knowledge about the BTC internals);
to me it sounds like Segwit is trying to #1 fix a problem and #2 add new features.
Wouldn't it be a lot faster and less risky to first fix the problem (#1) and wait with implementing new features (#2) until all the problems are solved?
Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling
#34I have no horse in this race. I don't own any BTC. What I find fascinating about Bitcoin is how completely unapproachable it is. All of this technical bullshit is too much for a layperson, let alone an uninterested developer. If you want normal people to use this as a meaningful currency, the currency has to just work.
So far Bitcoin has proven to me over and over again that it just doesn't work.
What the fuck is "Emergent Consensus" or "Segregated Witness" or any of this? From the perspective of a regular person, I just don't care. I don't see why anyone else should, either. Why is one Bitcoin worth more than thousands of units of the strongest currencies in the world?
Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling
#35Not completely on topic but...what would happen if one of these new features came out and somebody found a security flaw in it? For example a buffer overflow that you could use to crash miners? If all the clients are running the same client software and crashing them all can have serious financial implications I can't help but feel it's only a matter of time unless I'm missing something about how miners work.
This is why it's important that it's well tested. Segwit is activated on multiple coins already and is being tested in the real world as we speak.
Alternative options such as EC (which uses Xthin blocks) have already proven to have multiple vulnerabilities and there are many instances of large scale crashing of nodes. Of course the miners that are signaling for this option aren't actually using the software (it's not at all stable, they don't actually want EC and are just using it to stall for higher fees) so they were not affected by the crash, if they were 40% of the hashpower would have gone offline which is a pretty big deal.
Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that's what the banks want, the users wants something else.
No, that's what users that only post in the unbelievably censored r/bitcoin want, and what Blockstream wants. For those of us users that want bitcoin to work as intended, instead of being artificially crippled to push second layer solutions, Segwit is terrible.
I don't read r/bitcoin regularly. I think we need both a block size increase and SegWit (or something like it)
It's pretty obvious to me that linearly scaling solutions like simply increasing the block size are not sufficient to achieve global mainstream adoption (at least without further centralizing mining), much less the sort of machine-to-machine / micropayment revolution that a scalable cryptocurrency could unlock.
Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
But isn't that just a temporary workaround? And it doesn't address the other issues SegWit tries to solve, like allowing "instantaneous" transactions? How can Bitcoin ever hope to become a mainstream currency if you have to way dozens of minutes for your transaction to be validated? I also see that some people worry that using bigger and bigger block sizes could end up "concentrating the mining power in the hands of…
I don't see how segwit helps here (how it does "instantaneous" stuff?), more like other way around: by ensuring small block side it grants perma-queue and therefore confirmation delays
Segwit as it is currently implemented removes the fixed block size, and replaces it with a variable block size which is 2-4x larger than current blocks. So it is very much the opposite of what you describe.
Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling
#38Warning for those who are not following this debate closely: This is an incredibly polarizing discussion. Approach all comments and articles posted about this subject carefully. Though I'd like to try and provide a summary for people who don't know what's going on. Bitcoin desperately needs to scale to handle higher transaction demand. It can take multiple hours for transactions to be confirmed, and due to the demand…
Since May 5th the number of unconfirmed transactions have soared to unprecedented heights [0], and the fees are completely out of control.
Last weekend I found out I had a handful of old mBTCs lying around, and while transferring them I made the mistake of only paying a $.35 fee instead of the currently recommended $2. The transaction [1] still hasn't gone through and I expect it will stay in limbo for at least several weeks.
Considering what Bitcoin was supposed to be, this a pretty big step back and the situation doesn't compare very favorably to the big payment networks, to say the least. No matter which side of the User Activated Soft Fork divide you are on, I think everyone already agrees that something needs to be done real soon. If the SegWit switch doesn't go as planned and the community fails to reach consensus once again, things are going to look pretty bleak.
[0] https://blockchain.info/charts/mempool-size?timespan=60days [1] https://blockchain.info/tx/e2456f994910fb40d938d5ebe39b40df6...
Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
But isn't that just a temporary workaround? And it doesn't address the other issues SegWit tries to solve, like allowing "instantaneous" transactions? How can Bitcoin ever hope to become a mainstream currency if you have to way dozens of minutes for your transaction to be validated? I also see that some people worry that using bigger and bigger block sizes could end up "concentrating the mining power in the hands of…
Make it unlimited then, or grow dynamically based on historical block sizes, there's lots of options. The original limit was only added as an anti-spam measure back when anyone could mine blocks. I would rather the core developers focus on the current capacity problems and deal with use cases like instant transactions at another time. Make bitcoin work as it's supposed to and let the community decide on adding featur…
An unbounded block size would bring about a number of attacks. Denial of service attacks would be trivial. There's a reason Satoshi put a limit there in the first place.
Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
But isn't that just a temporary workaround? And it doesn't address the other issues SegWit tries to solve, like allowing "instantaneous" transactions? How can Bitcoin ever hope to become a mainstream currency if you have to way dozens of minutes for your transaction to be validated? I also see that some people worry that using bigger and bigger block sizes could end up "concentrating the mining power in the hands of…
I don't see how segwit helps here (how it does "instantaneous" stuff?), more like other way around: by ensuring small block side it grants perma-queue and therefore confirmation delays
Bitcoin cannot survive without a permanent transaction backlog once the block reward subsidy is gone. Either we move to having inflation or there is a backlog.