The Bubbly Bitcoin Thread -- Merged Threads

[doomed]

1 minute ago, dugsbody said:

Right, but if you buy into the idea of a decentralised distributed blockchain then this is normal and the technology has a built in solution for this. Simply decrease PoW requirements and more people (ie. me) will start mining again.

Or is it all a farce and crypto is just like anything else, destined to be centrally controlled?

When miners leave in numbers this large it is designed so the chain dies. Miners are essentially saying bitcoincash is bitcoin now.

[evetsm]

53 minutes ago, doomed said:

When miners leave in numbers this large it is designed so the chain dies. Miners are essentially saying bitcoincash is bitcoin now.

In a non consensual, centralized crypto like btrash,  then miners are able to unilaterally dictate the terms and the rest follow. In a a consensual , decentralised system like bitcoin the miners follow the consensus of the network, which includes nodes, users, exchanges, etc. If the miners dont follow network consensus, they're welcome to leave, there are millions of CPUs and GPUs waiting to step in and mine. And if metwork consensus is reached , bitcoin will change the proof of work algorithm and orphan these asic rebels, and move on.

There is a proven demand for a decentralised, secure money system. That is the criteria for ultimate success. Doesn't matter what a bunch of centralized miners think.

[maverick73]

1 hour ago, evetsm said:

The definition of a pump.

The pump & dump ?

[doomed]

1 minute ago, evetsm said:

In a non consensual, centralized crypto like btrash,  then miners are able to unilaterally dictate the terms and the rest follow. In a a consensual , decentralised system like bitcoin the miners follow the consensus of the network, which includes nodes, users, exchanges, etc. If the miners dont follow network consensus, they're welcome to leave, there are millions of CPUs and GPUs waiting to step in and mine. And if metwork consensus is reached , bitcoin will change the proof of work algorithm and orphan these asic rebels, and move on.

There is a proven demand for a decentralised, secure money system. That is the criteria for ultimate success. Doesn't matter what a bunch of centralized miners think.

You are stating what you want bitcoin to be not what it actually is. PoW change is the end for the Core chain.

[Eddie_George]

17 minutes ago, doomed said:

You are stating what you want bitcoin to be not what it actually is. PoW change is the end for the Core chain.

Bitcoin is what its users want, not the scammers you associate with. Look at the price.

Hopefully Ver has sold all his Bitcoin now. The ecosystem is much stronger without his toxic influence.

 

[guest_northshore]

1 hour ago, dugsbody said:

Right, but if you buy into the idea of a decentralised distributed blockchain then this is normal and the technology has a built in solution for this. Simply decrease PoW requirements and more people (ie. me) will start mining again.

Or is it all a farce and crypto is just like anything else, destined to be centrally controlled?

It should now be getting clearer that centralisation was baked into the code from the beginning. Both scaling options (on- & off- chain) tend further towards centralisation, so perhaps the choice is how not if.

It's quite weird that the developers debated and acknowledged this in 2008-10, but critics today get slammed. In general crypto terms, is decentralisation more important than utility, security, scaling, accessibility? Are all even possible? They're reasonable questions. Hopefully a wider community is moving on to addressing them, beyond a focus on price rise/fall.

[evetsm]

22 minutes ago, doomed said:

You are stating what you want bitcoin to be not what it actually is. PoW change is the end for the Core chain

If miners control the network then all crypto has failed. Including btrash.

 

And there are people in the existing money system that want all competition to cease to exist. Are you their rep on this forum ?

 

Edited November 12, 2017 by evetsm

[Eddie_George]

2 minutes ago, guest_northshore said:

It should now be getting clearer that centralisation was baked into the code from the beginning. Both scaling options (on- & off- chain) tend further towards centralisation, so perhaps the choice is how not if.

It's quite weird that the developers debated and acknowledged this in 2008-10, but critics today get slammed. In general crypto terms, is decentralisation more important than utility, security, scaling, accessibility? Are all even possible? They're reasonable questions. Hopefully a wider community is moving on to addressing them, beyond a focus on price rise/fall.

Unfortunately, systems will tend towards centralisation as they're more efficient than decentralised ones. It's the same with politics -- dictatorship is more efficient that democracy, but almost always worse for its population.

The good thing about Bitcoin is that those that hold it choose its destiny. If they are concerned about centralisation, they will leave.

Decentralisation is paramount for money, otherwise just use existing fiat currencies. A centralised blockchain with proof-of-work is pointless.

[ThePrufeshanul]

On 11/11/2017 at 12:50 AM, dugsbody said:

No, this is not correct. When I say evidence, I'm not meaning a debate on an internet forum, I'm meaning the real use of the word evidence. Evidence shows that almost no-one uses bitcoin as a currency. This matches my theory that the protocol as it stands is unsuited to bitcoin being a currency and more suited to it being a speculation / sentiment based store of wealth.

This isn't even up for debate. If something changes in the future and for some bizarre reason you decide to start spending your bitcoins instead of your devaluing fiat, I'll change my mind, based on evidence. But for the moment, the evidence agrees with my view, not yours.

The evidence shows that billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies are bring bought and sold using Bitcoin which is functioning as a currency by any conceivable definition.

As you say this isn't up for debate it's fact. A fact that repeats itself on a daily basis.

Your counterargument to this is that you dont like cryptocurrencies but that's beside the point, Bitcoin is still being used as a currency in greater volumes than many existing fiat currencies.

 

Hence my post. You're throwing terms around but they don't stand up to any logical scrutiny.

[doomed]

22 minutes ago, evetsm said:

If miners control the network then all crypto has failed. Including btrash.

 

And there are people in the existing money system that want all competition to cease to exist. Are you their rep on this forum ?

 

Back to slander I see. I am having an open discussion about what is currently happening in the space but it seems you are incapable of this.  

I have obviously picked my side but do not feel the need to slander those that disagree.

[evetsm]

33 minutes ago, doomed said:

Back to slander I see. I am having an open discussion about what is currently happening in the space but it seems you are incapable of this.  

I have obviously picked my side but do not feel the need to slander those that disagree.

I asked a question. Bit sensitive ?

[guest_northshore]

39 minutes ago, Eddie_George said:

Unfortunately, systems will tend towards centralisation as they're more efficient than decentralised ones. It's the same with politics -- dictatorship is more efficient that democracy, but almost always worse for its population.

The good thing about Bitcoin is that those that hold it choose its destiny. If they are concerned about centralisation, they will leave.

Decentralisation is paramount for money, otherwise just use existing fiat currencies. A centralised blockchain with proof-of-work is pointless.

Not sure about efficiency, but I agree on incentives & choice.

We all have our biases. Mine is an interest in progressing transactional utility, transfer mechanisms, alternatives to measurement by $. And frustration at the money, time and effort wasted on fighting coded inevitabilities. (Which I recognise is probably effected by already being fairly well off, with a reasonable idea how price focus and appealing to financiers generally works out for the commons).

I may criticise method, interests or narrative but I'm very interested in cryptos. I think you're wrong on Bitcoin and decentralisation, but I don't write to forecast price or plug any particular other option.

[Darby Ram]

Bitcoin plus Bitcoin Cash is barely below the BTC all-time high, so what really seems to be happening is that the relative shift in power between the two has sent the maximalists over the edge, once-and-for-all. Surely if this year should have taught people anything, it's that hedging your investment makes sense? Early in the year, the hedge that mattered was owning the bigger alts while Bitcoin was flailing around in search of a scaling solution; since then the risk has been forks of the original Bitcoin chain.  

My only comment is that the reaction to the rise in price of Bitcoin Cash from the Bitcoin Core camp is indicative of why those risks existed and why those hedges were important. Bitcoin maximalists, and more specifically the Core team that they support uncritically, are part of a system that is unable to build technical solutions and community consensus quickly enough. Worse, when people point out those shortcomings or come up with alternative solutions, they are attacked as paid shills or conmen. It's a bizarre and dysfunctional community that, as things stand, is stuck in a negative feedback loop.

The world is rapidly moving on while Bitcoiners are paying $7 for transactions to get stuck in the mempool. See, e.g., based on Bitcoin-NG:

https://twitter.com/wavesplatform/status/928357895921692672

(No position or particular interest in Waves but it's one of multiple blockchains with a scaling plan in place right now.)

I think taking a directional bet on the forks - either by holding all Bitcoin or all Bitcoin Cash - is pretty brave. Personally, I'm going to stick with my existing forked holdings but, if I was going to bet, then I'd back @doomed's position as the likely winner. Either way, I'm glad that we are now heading towards a future where multiple well-funded technical solutions are on the table, rather than one sclerotic team that spends a disproportionate amount of time mud-slinging on Twitter.

 

       

[Bloo Loo]

What I see time and again in the safe bitcoin space is fraud, loss and dissappointment after the hype.

[doomed]

20 minutes ago, Bloo Loo said:

What I see time and again in the safe bitcoin space is fraud, loss and dissappointment after the hype.

Not really disappointment. It has made a lot of people rich.

[dugsbody]

2 hours ago, ThePrufeshanul said:

The evidence shows that billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies are bring bought and sold using Bitcoin which is functioning as a currency by any conceivable definition.

As you say this isn't up for debate it's fact. A fact that repeats itself on a daily basis.

Your counterargument to this is that you dont like cryptocurrencies but that's beside the point, Bitcoin is still being used as a currency in greater volumes than many existing fiat currencies.

 

Hence my post. You're throwing terms around but they don't stand up to any logical scrutiny.

Nope again, you're just incorrect. Buying and selling cryptocurrencies using another cryptocurrency in no way meets the intention of a monetary system. You know how you can prove I'm wrong and you're right? Show me people using bitcoin in significant volumes to buy every day goods and services. You know, like groceries or paying bills. You can't because it doesn't happen and the reason it doesn't happen has been stated here many times. The design isn't suited for this purpose.

And another thing you're wrong about is me not liking cryptocurrencies. I do like the idea of it but I'm detached enough to make an objective assessment of the current tech. There may very well come a time when some cryptocurrency is used as a currency but that's not going to be bitcoin unless it morphs. It might be some other coin, we'll just have to wait and see.

I own bitcoin and I'm open enough to admit that the reason is just as a speculative gamble for wealth reasons. I feel there are enough people like you around who will back it no matter what which will keep pushing the price up.

So it's probably not in my own interest to be typing all of this 

[Darby Ram]

43 minutes ago, dugsbody said:

Nope again, you're just incorrect. Buying and selling cryptocurrencies using another cryptocurrency in no way meets the intention of a monetary system. You know how you can prove I'm wrong and you're right? Show me people using bitcoin in significant volumes to buy every day goods and services. You know, like groceries or paying bills. You can't because it doesn't happen and the reason it doesn't happen has been stated here many times. The design isn't suited for this purpose.

Agree, mostly. The Bitcoin Cash CEO's statement has some interesting quotes in it:

Quote

This better offering can be faster, cheaper, more reliable, or more flexible, but in the end, it must translate into more profit for the would-be new user. It’s important for people from the United States here to realize that the banking services the average American is used to are considered a laughingstock when it comes to financial services: in the rest of the first world, banks offer free instant transfers between private accounts using mobile phones, and charge 15 cents for instant transfers to merchant accounts using mobile phones. This is what we’re competing against, and this is what we need to beat by at least an order of magnitude for people to justify the cost of switching to our offer.

(There is a psychological effect here to our network’s transaction fees: they should ideally be less than 1/20 of a USD cent / Eurocent / Swiss centime. That way, those fees will show up as “0.00” on people’s statements, even in lesser currencies like the Danish Krona, and be perceived as free. We should also consider Satoshi’s original vision of some transactions always being actually free.)

One of our advantages can be that banking regulations force these instant transfers only to exist within countries at present – international transfers generally take a day or more, or would require using the credit card system, which charges a few percent. There’s an opening for us to provide a profit motive, just as one example of a potential front bowling pin to strike the whole corrupt banking system down. There’s also the example of interbank transfers generally taking at least a day: the quickest way to move money between banks is still to withdraw cash from the first bank, walk on two feet to the second bank, stand in line, and deposit it there. That’s another potential exploitable weakness of the old system.

The thing is that he's sort of correct in identifying where Bitcoin Core is going wrong but he hasn't caught up with what's happening in fintech right now. So it reads like an internal battle rather than an understanding of the actual marketplace they are competing in. While Bitcoiners were bickering, Revolut released a fintech product that makes Bitcoin's cost problem much harder to overcome. I can use a Revolut card to do a bank transfer to 120 countries, for free, at interbank rates, using an app; that is what Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are competing with now, not old-style legacy banks that charge a fortune and make you fill in forms.  

43 minutes ago, dugsbody said:

I own bitcoin and I'm open enough to admit that the reason is just as a speculative gamble for wealth reasons. I feel there are enough people like you around who will back it no matter what which will keep pushing the price up.

So it's probably not in my own interest to be typing all of this 

Nah, I think in the long-term it's better to point out the flaws. My view is that 'digital gold' has a relatively small market cap in comparison to 'a secure, distributed ledger that people use for interesting, productive purposes'. The former has less need to scale for transaction throughput, which is why (in my opinion) Bitcoin Core supporters think that all technological progress post-2013 suddenly becomes uninteresting 

[Bloo Loo]

2 hours ago, doomed said:

Not really disappointment. It has made a lot of people rich.

So did Mr Ponzi.  And many many others who thought they were rich and lost it all on a scam exchange.

Not only that, having just one Bitcoin IF the world accepts the currency as THE World currency, would make the holder one of the richest 0.01percent...and that aint going to happen.

Edited November 12, 2017 by Bloo Loo

[adamLancs]

Current BTC transaction fee is $18 for 1 hour or $15 for 4 hours. That's a pretty big bite.

Can't be good for confidence.

Litecoin is a nice option to use (not necessarily to buy, it's been going down in the alt death spiral).

[goldbug9999]

1 hour ago, adamLancs said:

Current BTC transaction fee is $18 for 1 hour or $15 for 4 hours. That's a pretty big bite.

Can't be good for confidence.

Litecoin is a nice option to use (not necessarily to buy, it's been going down in the alt death spiral).

Bitcoins current transaction woes are because noone envisaged it having to compete in real time for mining resource with another blockchain, its all down to the delay in the difficulty adjustment. Essentially the miners are gaming the difficulty adjustment delay of both bitcoin and bitcoin cash. I dont know much about the intricacies of PoW difficulty adjustment but probably needs to change to be faster acting.

Edited November 12, 2017 by goldbug9999

[ChumpusRex]

11 minutes ago, goldbug9999 said:

Bitcoins current transaction woes are because noone envisaged it having to compete in real time for mining resource with another blockchain, its all down to the delay in the difficulty adjustment. Essentially the miners are gaming the difficulty adjustment delay of both bitcoin and bitcoin cash. I dont enough about the intricacies of PoW difficulty adjustment but probably needs to change to be faster acting.

Indeed. Close to 60% of hash power left mining BTC to move to BCH during the pump, leaving the BTC starved for capacity.

The proximate problem with the BTC difficulty adjustment, is that it is very slow to respond (2016 blocks, 2 weeks under normal conditions, much longer under hash rate starved conditions). This is made worse because the BTC chain is running very close to capacity. Over the last 6 weeks, blockchain capacity has averaged about 91%. Due to the vagaries of mining and transaction/block propagation, absolute peak blockchain utilisation averages at about 95%. With hash power, and therefore blockchain capacity, down to about 40% of normal due to the abrupt shift in mining, the transaction backlog has grown extremely rapidly.

BCH uses the same algorithm, but modified to provide a dramatic and rapid difficulty reduction under severe hash rate starved conditions. This has been widely gamed over the last couple of months: as soon as BCH becomes unprofitable to mine, everyone stops, the rapid difficulty reduction kicks in, the mining becomes super easy, everyone jumps on, and mines 2 weeks worth of blocks in 24 hours, at which point the difficulty increases makes it unprofitable, everyone leaves, and the cycle repeats.

However, the most recent shift has not been because of this modification, but due to the dramatic rise in price of BCH. This phenomenon of miners switching rapidly was discovered pretty quickly among altcoin developers as auto-switching mining pools were developed. These algorithms varied, but in general, they responded rapidly with smooth rises and falls in difficulty as hash rate appeared or disappeared.

BCH is switching to a moving average type system tomorrow with a new hard fork, this bases the difficulty of the next block on the average hash rate of the preceding 144 blocks (24 hours). While not a perfect solution, this is likely to be significantly less disruptive for both BCH and BTC. 

 

 

[jiltedjen]

got my GPU churning away a bit to do my bit for BTC against the attack. 

[Eddie_George]

5 hours ago, Darby Ram said:

Agree, mostly. The Bitcoin Cash CEO's statement has some interesting quotes in it:

The thing is that he's sort of correct in identifying where Bitcoin Core is going wrong but he hasn't caught up with what's happening in fintech right now. So it reads like an internal battle rather than an understanding of the actual marketplace they are competing in. While Bitcoiners were bickering, Revolut released a fintech product that makes Bitcoin's cost problem much harder to overcome. I can use a Revolut card to do a bank transfer to 120 countries, for free, at interbank rates, using an app; that is what Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are competing with now, not old-style legacy banks that charge a fortune and make you fill in forms.  

Nah, I think in the long-term it's better to point out the flaws. My view is that 'digital gold' has a relatively small market cap in comparison to 'a secure, distributed ledger that people use for interesting, productive purposes'. The former has less need to scale for transaction throughput, which is why (in my opinion) Bitcoin Core supporters think that all technological progress post-2013 suddenly becomes uninteresting 

You've got this the wrong way around. Bitcoin or any other blockchain can't compete with VISA or Revolut with on-chain transactions, to serve the entire world population you would need multi-gigabyte blocks which could only be processed by companies with data-centres. These companies could easily be shut-down by governments using legislation, or infiltrated to censor transactions, so you may as well just use the centralised banking system we have now -- it's more efficient.

Therefore, Bitcoin is better off competing with gold, which is a $8 trillion market and we have an 80x potential for growth. What's more, with payment channels, which have been improved with the Lightning Network, you can come closer to VISA's transaction rate (with very low fees) whilst maintaining decentralisation and ensuring uncensorable value transfer for the entire world.

Bitcoin Core and associated projects are at the forefront of financial technology. Not only have they improved the Core client's efficiency manifold, they have introduced powerful smart contracts such as multi-sig and time-locks, better privacy in the form of HD wallets, malleability fixes to name but a few, and propose improved privacy, efficiency gains, and smart contracts that will be implemented in the coming years.

[jiltedjen]

the whole BTC and BCH market is falling.

Next year should see some bargain bitcoin to be had. Was all just a bubble. Next one should be pretty epic. 

Im going to start putting some aside for the end of next year to increase my bitcoin (BTC) holding when its 'cheap' (on a 5 year horizon that is).

all the civil war will sort itself out over time. Nothing like a big crash to sober up bad-actors. Bitcoin will act like gold, a gold, which is strangely more gold than gold.

all those asking me about buying recently (bubble peak), will probably not listen to me when its under-bought as usual. Humans are strange creatures. 

as always be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. 

[ThePrufeshanul]

14 hours ago, dugsbody said:

Nope again, you're just incorrect. Buying and selling cryptocurrencies using another cryptocurrency in no way meets the intention of a monetary system. You know how you can prove I'm wrong and you're right? Show me people using bitcoin in significant volumes to buy every day goods and services. You know, like groceries or paying bills. You can't because it doesn't happen and the reason it doesn't happen has been stated here many times. The design isn't suited for this purpose.

And another thing you're wrong about is me not liking cryptocurrencies. I do like the idea of it but I'm detached enough to make an objective assessment of the current tech. There may very well come a time when some cryptocurrency is used as a currency but that's not going to be bitcoin unless it morphs. It might be some other coin, we'll just have to wait and see.

I own bitcoin and I'm open enough to admit that the reason is just as a speculative gamble for wealth reasons. I feel there are enough people like you around who will back it no matter what which will keep pushing the price up.

So it's probably not in my own interest to be typing all of this 

Irrelevant.

Its being used as a currency; you know how to prove you are right and im wrong?

Look up what the characteristics of a currency are from any reputable source and show how Bitcoin is failing to meet those characteristics in the way that has been described.

Additional scaling solutions and settling of volatility through introduction of futures options will eventually lead to using Bitcoin for everyday domestic purchases again but that doesnt detract from the point that it is being used as a viable currency now.

No point going round in circles further - good luck with your investment.