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The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

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Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#71

Post by nadaviv »

pmorici wrote: post #67
nadaviv wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was sure you're talking about the chinese miners as I started reading your comment... The ones who oppose a block-size increase today are the miners and the anti-Core crowd. The rest of the bitcoin community, including its technical and business community, are pushing for an increase to 2MB blocks in the form of SegWit. And I think the "hostile comments" referred to by the OP are the non-stop personal attacks and t…

Your comment is a good example of the double speak and gas lighting I often see in /r/bitcoin

> Your comment is a good example of the double speak and gas lighting I often see in /r/bitcoin

It would be a lot easier if people responded to the actual arguments being made, instead of throwing general accusations at people who're trying to have a rational discussions.

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#72

Post by pmorici »

nadaviv wrote: post #63
pmorici wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean that Lightening has no counter party risk? It's my understanding that you have to constantly monitor the Bitcoin network as long as a payment channel is open to make sure your counter party doesn't try to cheat you. I also don't buy that hubs won't tend to centralize since hubs with channels open with a lot of other peers will naturally be central points.

Yes, you have to watch for cheating attempts, but you get all your money back plus a bonus if you catch someone doing that. If you're doing that properly (and there's no reason you won't), then there's no counterparty risk. Edit: also, you can outsource this task to someone else, who'll take a small fee out of your bonus if he catches the cheating for you (and only if he does).

That sounds horrible. All your counter party has to do is DDOS your node off line then they can steal your lightening network funds. Outsourcing the task to a centralized service also sounds bad. At that point you have to trust that service.

Anyone that looks at lightening can plainly see that it has a number of properties that aren't as nice as pure Bitcoin. With Bitcoin if I get knocked offline there is zero chance of my counter party stealing funds from me and you don't have to put your trust in any centralized monitoring service to prevent your counter party from stealing from you.

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#73

Post by nadaviv »

colordrops wrote: post #70
nadaviv wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But SegWit is a block size increase. It allows twice as many on-chain transactions by making the blocks twice as big. This "SegWit vs block-size increase" talk makes no sense to me. https://segwit.org/is-segwit-a-block-size-increase-705df6a87...

The block size increase with segwit is marginal and a side effect. It's a complicated feature that is meant for purposes other than block size increase. Don't obfuscate the issue. I'm talking about a simple tweaking of a parameter to increase block size.

> The block size increase with segwit is marginal

It's not marginal. According to the mix of current transactions on the bitcoin network, SegWit gives us an effective block size of 2.1MB. Over 2 times more transactions compared to today, which is more than what Bitcoin Classic was pushing for until not too long ago.

https://www.weusecoins.com/eli-segwit/

https://segwit.org/is-segwit-a-block-size-increase-705df6a87...

> and a side effect.

Indeed it is! The main goal of SegWit is fixing the malleability problem, everything else is an bonus.

The other bonuses are pretty awesome themselves, too:

https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/01/26/segwit-benefits/

> I'm talking about a simple tweaking of a parameter to increase block size.

A "simple" block-size increase requires an hard-fork, which is anything but simple. Hardforks requires a network-wide coordinated upgrade where everyone updates on the same time, at the risk of a currency split and old nodes being open to attacks if not everyone upgrades in time. Hardforks are highly risky and very very slow to deploy safely.

I recently presented some slides on this topic, the relevant part starts here:

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

The same slides, shown as a summary image: https://twitter.com/TraceMayer/status/829558034351398916

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#74

Post by nadaviv »

pmorici wrote: post #72
nadaviv wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you have to watch for cheating attempts, but you get all your money back plus a bonus if you catch someone doing that. If you're doing that properly (and there's no reason you won't), then there's no counterparty risk. Edit: also, you can outsource this task to someone else, who'll take a small fee out of your bonus if he catches the cheating for you (and only if he does).

That sounds horrible. All your counter party has to do is DDOS your node off line then they can steal your lightening network funds. Outsourcing the task to a centralized service also sounds bad. At that point you have to trust that service. Anyone that looks at lightening can plainly see that it has a number of properties that aren't as nice as pure Bitcoin. With Bitcoin if I get knocked offline there is zero chance…

> Outsourcing the task to a centralized service also sounds bad. At that point you have to trust that service.

You don't have to trust that service. He can't steal your money, you don't lose any privacy if the other party doesn't cheat, you don't pay anything to the service if there's no cheating attempt, and the 3rd-party service is financially incentivized to help you prevent cheating.

So, no, you don't "trust" anyone in any more meaningful sense than saying that you're "trusting" the miners.

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#75

Post by pmorici »

nadaviv wrote: post #71
pmorici wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is a good example of the double speak and gas lighting I often see in /r/bitcoin

> Your comment is a good example of the double speak and gas lighting I often see in /r/bitcoin It would be a lot easier if people responded to the actual arguments being made, instead of throwing general accusations at people who're trying to have a rational discussions.

I have responded to your actual arguments in other comments here. I just don't know where to start with this one. Your comment fundamentally misrepresents the position of what you term the "anti core crowd" and so it is hard to have a rational discussion when you can't even acknowledge the position of the other side of the argument.

Miners want a hard fork block size increase. You claiming they don't is gas lighting. Core isn't providing it. Segwit is not a block size increase but it's supporters started branding it as one to better market it. That's the double speak part. It's false to call it a block size increase because it isn't. It isn't even guaranteed to increase transaction throughput which is the larger reason for wanting a block size increase. It actually encourages some types of large transaction by discounting the witness data.

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#76

Post by pmorici »

nadaviv wrote: post #68
pmorici wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't deny that censorship is taking place you are just rationalizing it by calling it "moderation". Lets be clear what is going on there goes way beyond what is commonly understood as moderation. They are systematically silencing a large segment of the Bitcoin community. If your side really had the support you claim the censorship wouldn't be needed.

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. Clearly something is different about /r/biticon censorship vs. HN moderation.

The simple fact that some of my comments even have the word "censorship" in them means they will be automatically deleted from /r/bitcion.

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#77

Post by Laforet »

juskrey wrote: post #47

Pretty funny to see that SEPA money transfer from Kraken to EU bank account costs just €0.09 for any amount. Arrival is guaranteed (though can be late too of course). So the cheapness of bitcoin and high cost of modern fiat transactions are both overstated.

The same way Uber was/is cheaper than Taxi, the cost is subsidised by someone else (Uber's investors, or in this case miners and speculators of Bitcoin)

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#78

Post by Laforet »

nadaviv wrote: post #49
pmorici wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The link I provided in my first response to you clearly shows that segwit can result in much lower transaction throughput.

The comment you linked to refers to blocks that were specifically made to be big using non-standard scripts that are larger than usual. For the current mix of transactions happening on the bitcoin network, SegWit will give us an effective block size of 2.1MB (or 2.1x transactions compared to today), and a bit more over time as people start using more advanced scripts.

According to the video below SegWit creates 4x effective transaction space in the same 1MB block. I assume that is a theoretical ceiling unlikely to be achievable in reality?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzBAG2Jp4bg

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#79

Post by pmorici »

nadaviv wrote: post #74
pmorici wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds horrible. All your counter party has to do is DDOS your node off line then they can steal your lightening network funds. Outsourcing the task to a centralized service also sounds bad. At that point you have to trust that service. Anyone that looks at lightening can plainly see that it has a number of properties that aren't as nice as pure Bitcoin. With Bitcoin if I get knocked offline there is zero chance…

> Outsourcing the task to a centralized service also sounds bad. At that point you have to trust that service. You don't have to trust that service. He can't steal your money, you don't lose any privacy if the other party doesn't cheat, you don't pay anything to the service if there's no cheating attempt, and the 3rd-party service is financially incentivized to help you prevent cheating. So, no, you don't "trust" any…

Yes, you absolutely have to trust the service.

If I have a channel open with Alice and she wants to cheat me but I've out sourced my monitoring to Bob Alice only needs to pay off Bob to go along with her cheating me. I have to trust Bob not to collude with Alice. In Bitcoin I don't have to trust anyone. Surely you can see that there is a difference in the two models.

Re: The True Cost of Bitcoin Transactions

#80

Post by zump »

SwellJoe wrote: post #64
zump wrote: post #52

What they did to Mike Hearn was a disgrace.

Who is "they" and what did they do to Mike Hearn? (I know Hearn left the Bitcoin community and pronounced it a failed experiment, and I know there was some harsh criticism for that assertion...but, did it go beyond that?)

Bitcoin core team. Ostracized him for forking BitcoinXT, impugned his reputation, etc.
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