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Is Bitcoin breaking up?

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Re: Is Bitcoin breaking up?

#71
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way XT seems to have failed yet Classic seems to be suceeding seems odd to me. Is all it took really just to have a developer fly out to China and talk to a hanful of people? Seems like there's a lot more politics going on behind the scenes. In any case, fixing the blocksize limit will be good, but I think the real value in Classic is breaking the perceived monopoly Core has and moving to a healthier political se…

No. It took a sharp fall in the BTC price. This narrative that Gavin and I were unwilling to compromise is deeply unfortunate. BIP 101 originally started with a 20mb limit+growth. That was based on some calculations Gavin did. At that point the Chinese miners started saying they couldn't accept 20 because of the firewall, but eight would be OK. They put announcements of their support for eight megabyte blocks in thei…

I find your writings very clear and refreshing to read. Regardless of what happens with BTC, thanks for your efforts!

Re: Is Bitcoin breaking up?

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser among users worldwide. Chrome is the most popular browser among certain techies. Chrome is also popular among users tricked into installing it via forced bundleware with Java updates, free antivirus engine updates, and (ironically) Flash plugin downloads for Firefox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Su...

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Re: Is Bitcoin breaking up?

#73
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Su...

[deleted]

Wikimedia and US Gov I'd expect to be pretty representative of web users in the USA as a whole. They both show Chrome with a considerable lead.

However I purposefully didn't try to interpret the stats there to allow people to make their own mind up.

If the "Net Applications" stats are correct then any insight as to why IE users visit Wikimedia sites so seldom?

Re: Is Bitcoin breaking up?

#74
post #32

The block size issue is missing the point. The use case that matters for Bitcoin right now is converting yuan to Bitcoins, then Bitcoins to dollars. That's one way people in China get around China's exchange controls. (Note that mining in China also is used to move yuan to dollars.) Those are big transactions. They'll get through regardless of the block size. Bitcoin as a retail currency doesn't seem to be going anyw…

Bitcoin's appeal as an alternative value store only grows the longer the network continues to keep chugging along, and as the price grows less volatile (year to year). It is still very unique as an asset in terms of the properties it offers.

Have you looked at the price drop in the last 72 hours?

Re: Is Bitcoin breaking up?

#75
post #21

The current situation reminds me a lot of the time when Firefox replaced Internet Explorer as the most popular browser. And of the time when Chrome replaced Firefox as the most popular browser. Currently there is only one Bitcoin implementation. And the developers a) refuse to implement what users want. And b) implement bloat that users dont't want. So Bitcoin will "break up" in a similar way the WWW "broke up" when…

Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser among users worldwide. Chrome is the most popular browser among certain techies. Chrome is also popular among users tricked into installing it via forced bundleware with Java updates, free antivirus engine updates, and (ironically) Flash plugin downloads for Firefox.

Apologies. I'd skimmed this earlier and thought we were only talking about desktop browser share instead of overall.

Re: Is Bitcoin breaking up?

#76
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Wikimedia and US Gov I'd expect to be pretty representative of web users in the USA as a whole. They both show Chrome with a considerable lead. However I purposefully didn't try to interpret the stats there to allow people to make their own mind up. If the "Net Applications" stats are correct then any insight as to why IE users visit Wikimedia sites so seldom?

I removed the post as I thought we were talking about desktop only.

IE is used far more at work whereas Chrome, safari, Firefox et al are used more on personal devices. You'll actually see a rise in ie use during the business day if you track hourly on many sites.

Re: Is Bitcoin breaking up?

#77
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way XT seems to have failed yet Classic seems to be suceeding seems odd to me. Is all it took really just to have a developer fly out to China and talk to a hanful of people? Seems like there's a lot more politics going on behind the scenes. In any case, fixing the blocksize limit will be good, but I think the real value in Classic is breaking the perceived monopoly Core has and moving to a healthier political se…

No. It took a sharp fall in the BTC price. This narrative that Gavin and I were unwilling to compromise is deeply unfortunate. BIP 101 originally started with a 20mb limit+growth. That was based on some calculations Gavin did. At that point the Chinese miners started saying they couldn't accept 20 because of the firewall, but eight would be OK. They put announcements of their support for eight megabyte blocks in thei…

Ah, now that makes sense. ...well, as much as anything in the Bitcoin world makes sense, which isn't much. :)

Re: Is Bitcoin breaking up?

#78

I think these are very exciting problems. The bigger the problem the more creative the solution. It took us two thousand years or so to go from using the weight of a bale of barley to represent the value of silver, bronze, copper to eventually actual coinage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money Maybe digital currency takes 15-years or so to work out the problems much like they did with barley to coins but…

[deleted]

Re: Is Bitcoin breaking up?

#79

What is the downside to moving from 1MB to 2MB blocksizes, instead of moving up to 8MB or 20MB? If the reasonable maximum number of trades per minutes is 3 at the moment, does a doubling of the blocksize merely double the allowable number of trades per minute, or is it somehow a logarithmic change?

Many people have said the same thing. Right now a group of people has gone to a lot of trouble to control the main repository and forums. At the same time, many algorithms have been proposed. The most pressing problem at the moment is making sure there is room to grow, proving that a fork can happen, and getting the software out of the control of the people who have incentives that are opposing the vast majority of a…

Ah, okay. So it's a matter of getting the ball rolling for now. And then XT-type changes may occur in the future?

Re: Is Bitcoin breaking up?

#80
post #50

What is the downside to moving from 1MB to 2MB blocksizes, instead of moving up to 8MB or 20MB? If the reasonable maximum number of trades per minutes is 3 at the moment, does a doubling of the blocksize merely double the allowable number of trades per minute, or is it somehow a logarithmic change?

That was my first thought. Why go through all this hassle to just put off the problem until the traffic merely doubles? This seems like when you see something silly in code like: // const MAX_SIZE = 1; // make it bigger to fix crash const MAX_SIZE = 2;

fantastic analogy!
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