What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us? • Hacker News Board

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#81

Post by SkyMarshal » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 6:03 AM UTC

fpgaminer wrote: post #11

SkyMarshal wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A meme has developed among some in Bitcoin - "Fire Core", aka fire the core dev team who have contributed most of the code to the canonical Bitcoin repo ( http://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin ) and stewarded Bitcoin for the last few years ( https://bitcoincore.org ). The argument is that they've moved too slow on important things like scalability, blocked a simple blocksize increase hard fork that would have added capac…

> The counterargument is that there's no other technically credible team in Bitcoin You forgot the most important counterargument. That they _did_ move extremely fast on scalability. They released a masterpiece of engineering, SegWit, which doubles the blocksize, improves efficiency, enables future efficiency gains, and a laundry list of other improvements ... all while being a softfork. And, IIRC, that was all devel…

True. Core's website has two good reads on SegWit for anyone interested:

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

https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/10/28/segwit-costs/

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#82

Post by apeace » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 6:09 AM UTC

petertodd wrote: post #79

apeace wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your reply. I'm a fan of your work and consider myself to be a neutral observer in these debates. Regarding your first contestation, I think as another commenter said, you are cherry-picking. He explains soft forks well and isn't attempting to mislead. That's why I refer folks to the article. > This is why at present, Bitcoin Core nodes/wallets loudly warn you that unknown rules may be in effect... Hearn m…

> Hearn mentions this mechanism three times in the article. He even discusses the tradeoffs of ignoring this versus rejecting the block. Hardly misleading. Hearn mentions the nVersion mechanism? Specifically in https://medium.com/@octskyward/on-consensus-and-forks-c6a050... ? Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any mention of the word "version" > He said "essentially tricked", and I think his explanation is…

Hey, thanks again! Educational to hear your perspective.

After re-reading it, I was absolutely mistaken. Hearn did mention a functionality to alert you when your node detects an invalid block. But he was trying to make the point that this was only possible with hard forks. It looks like the nVersion mechanism you mentioned negates his point.

Glad you mentioned that, you made it very clear to me that he was indeed being misleading there! I will edit my parent comments to indicate that.

For reference, here are the quotes I was referring to (again, his claim is that this is only possible with a hard fork):

> ...you will be alerted in some way, like via SMS or email if you configured that, and you get to decide what to do.

> ...if a user complains that their payment didn’t go through that’s a signal that you’re out of date, even if you forgot to configure your full node to email/SMS/phone you. But if you prefer to take the chance you can always configure your full node to act as if there was a soft fork whilst simultaneously trying to get your attention as best it can.

> ...a hard fork is still better. Firstly, it’s detectable, so a properly configured node can email/SMS/phone you to let you know it’s out of date.

Regarding your second point, you have not convinced me that I misunderstand. However you've been gracious enough to discuss it on HN thus far, so I won't press :) Perhaps point me to a link or start a convo with me through my contact info in my profile?

Thanks again!

EDIT

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Did not realize I could no longer edit my parent comments. Hope everyone who is interested reads all the way down.

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#83

Post by SkyMarshal » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 6:16 AM UTC

jnordwick wrote: post #7

Why do people seem to assume that those most capable of implementing the cryptography, networking, or other code are also those most capable of understanding the economics of cryptocurrencies or determining their future? Most of the arguments against the core team revolve around the economics and future of the coin, but the tech team seems to think that somehow their coding experience gives them insight into that. Bi…

>Why do people seem to assume that those most capable of implementing the cryptography, networking, or other code are also those most capable of understanding the economics of cryptocurrencies or determining their future?

Imho on average it's easier for computer scientists and engineers trained and practiced at algorithmic/systems/recursive thinking to learn (and invent) the relevant economics than it is for economists to learn computer science. The emerging field of cryptoeconomics is an amalgamation of high-assurance systems engineering and mechanism design (applied game theory), and computer scientists and engineers are on average better equipped to understand both parts of it than most economists are.

There's also an invaluable degree of street smarts and intuition in people who build and work on complex systems of varying non-/determinism and value-at-risk on a daily basis than in folks who just study/model them.

>Bitcoin seems like technically great but it fails on many of the economic aspects (e.g. making a currency with a fixed amount basically ensures it can never be used to write long term counteracts in).

Fwiw Bitcoin's issuance model is what it is b/c Satoshi wanted a strong incentive for people to bootstrap Bitcoin in the early days via mining, and a scarce deflationary currency was a simple and effective means of achieving that. He succeeded obviously. Any problems down the road resulting from that can theoretically be fixed with some kinds of derivatives, or worst case-scenario with a non-contentious hard fork to change the issuance model. But that would require a clear crisis affecting the value of the currency that everyone could agree would need solving, which likely won't be the case for as long as there are non-trivial mining rewards.

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#84

Post by flyingfences » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

omarchowdhury wrote: post #68

honestlyreally wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The blockchain is an interesting technical achievement, and so are smart contracts, but they are not a replacement for laws and governments. A lot of Venezuelans would disagree with you there. History clearly shows governments fail to act responisbly with currency. In the last 25 years, 21 countries experienced hyperinflation. What do you propose people in those counties do? Your comment was big on problems but off…

> And this is not just poor countries, a woman in Saudi Arabia cannot open a bank account without a mans permission. That same woman can create a bitcoin wallet in one minute. But when she needs to turn it back into fiat, guess what, she's going to need a bank account to receive the funds from the exchange.

> But when she needs to turn it back into fiat

The whole idea is to create a new financial ecosystem that doesn't rely on old fiat currencies.

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#85

Post by beaner » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 7:01 PM UTC

omarchowdhury wrote: post #75

beaner wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one example, maybe we would have an alternative to ACH, which would allow money to be settled in seconds, instead of several business days. Maybe we could have this at the protocol level (banks) instead of having to use private 3rd party software (Venmo) which emulates this feature but reduces our privacy.

https://www.zellepay.com/ https://www.zellepay.com/participating-banks-and-credit-unio...

"1 Transactions made between financial institutions in the Zelle NetworkSM typically complete within minutes. If your recipient does not have access to Zelle through their bank or credit union, transactions could take between 1 and 3 days to complete.

Zelle is available to U.S. bank account holders only."

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#86

Post by omarchowdhury » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 8:02 PM UTC

beaner wrote: post #85

omarchowdhury wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.zellepay.com/ https://www.zellepay.com/participating-banks-and-credit-unio...

"1 Transactions made between financial institutions in the Zelle NetworkSM typically complete within minutes. If your recipient does not have access to Zelle through their bank or credit union, transactions could take between 1 and 3 days to complete. Zelle is available to U.S. bank account holders only."

The participating banks count for a majority share of US bank accounts.