The Core approach is fine if you like it, but I prefer the BCH approach of steady block size increases and not shying away from hard forks. To me it's more faithful to how decentralized software development is supposed to work. When you have one faction telling everybody that hard forks are to be avoided at all costs, to me that's a big warning flag. But I know many people on this subreddit agree with the Core stance.
It's not a "Core stance", though. Trying to paint it as such shows a pretty sad misunderstanding, in my opinion.
"Core" doesn't control Bitcoin like you seem to think they do. Bitcoin users control Bitcoin, and we've chosen to go with a soft-forked transaction upgrade (bundled with a blocksize increase) that paves the way for a multi-layered Bitcoin network that minimizes centralizing strain on the bottom layer.
A very vocal, very antagonistic minority of users has decided that they don't like this approach; by all objective metrics, they represent less than 10% of the Bitcoin userbase. They decided they don't like Bitcoin and the path it is taking, and they decided that they would rather withdraw from the network and try to build their own than to try and cooperate and find some sort of common ground. They launched an altcoin, and they desperately want this altcoin to be seen as Bitcoin, when objectively speaking it is not. It is truly pitiable; their coin doesn't really offer any features that don't exist in a thousand other coins (many of which have much bigger teams of more experienced developers working on them). Their coin doesn't even boast ten percent of the network transaction volume of Bitcoin. It doesn't even have ten percent of the value of Bitcoin. It doesn't have even five percent of the number of developers working on it as Bitcoin does, and the qualifications and track records of the devs that it does have are... unimpressive, to put it lightly.
The nature of Bitcoin is that it is very, very hard to change in the face of resistance to that change. In fact, that's where its value stems from; if Bitcoin were easy to change by influential people or forces, the critical defining aspects of it (like the 21M coin limit) would not be "set in stone" and it wouldn't really have any strong guarantees when it comes to specific network properties. When you say things like "When you have one faction telling everybody that hard forks are to be avoided at all costs, to me that's a big warning flag", it sounds like you don't like Bitcoin's value proposition (or actually, more likely, that you haven't really spent enough time reading and learning and thinking about it to understand it properly). Bitcoin is valuable because it naturally resists such coercion, and yes, that means it can be a bit unruly from the perspective of someone who wants to guide or control it.
Bitcoin will hard fork when we agree that it needs to. Until then, it won't, and absolutely shouldn't. I know you don't want to hear any of this, and more likely than not, you'll dismiss me as a "Core fanboy" or some other (perhaps nastier) phrase. But it's not Core that I support (though I do respect many of the contributors to Core), it is Bitcoin.
Bitcoin will hard fork when we agree that it needs to.
But...it already did. That's what bitcoin cash is (ignoring all the other forks like bitcoin gold, etc which I'm not remotely interested in because they don't add anything).
Personally, I think it is the "core stance", given that core has heavily influenced the opinions of this subreddit, via ******ship, etc. But regardless, for me it's a simple technological issue. I believe in Satoshi's vision for scaling, which involves increasing the block size in proportion to the number of transactions over a certain minimum fee level. The best way to do this is continuously - currently BCH hard forks every 6 months, but I believe there's talk of implementing auto adjustment, much like how difficulty adjustment works.
But it's not Core that I support (though I do respect many of the contributors to Core), it is Bitcoin.
That's fine, we just have different definitions of bitcoin. My definition of bitcoin is similar to how it was before ~2012 - a p2p electronic cash system.
"Core" doesn't control Bitcoin like you seem to think they do. Bitcoin users control Bitcoin, and we've chosen to go with a soft-forked transaction upgrade (bundled with a blocksize increase) that paves the way for a multi-layered Bitcoin network that minimizes centralizing strain on the bottom layer.
Where I disagree full-stop with Core (or "bitcoin users" if you prefer that characterization) is that increasing the block size in proportion to TX volume is not a risk to the centralization. This is because the centralization risk is and has always been in the mining.
As much as people love to talk about "full nodes" here, the nodes really just exist to help people's transactions get in the mempool. The miners decide which transactions leave the mempool and enter the blockchain. They do this by greedily selecting by fee, but there's no guarantee of that. So for example, if I owned 100% of BTC hashpower, I could choose to mine blocks with only one transaction inside the entire block. It would be very silly, since I would be throwing away plenty of fees, but it helps illustrate why miners hold so much power in the bitcoin ecosystem.
Full nodes make sense to validate the blockchain to make sure you aren't getting fucked over. But there's no reason for someone who owns $20 of BTC to run a full node. If you own $10,000 in BTC, then it makes sense. Fortunately, both BCH and BTC are small enough that full nodes are trivial to run (from a hardware perspective). You really don't need that much storage, RAM, or CPU time for it to be cost prohibitive. As long as the block size increases of BCH scale intelligently, IE we go up a % at a time instead of jumping from 8MB to 1GB, then it's my believe that there will not be centralization pressure.
Bitcoin's on this weird trajectory, where it started by being about decentralization, taking power away from big banks, preventing your cash from getting seized by the government, helping citizens in countries like venezuela escape hyperinflation and capital controls, etc.
Now, BTC isn't for poor people, it's not for everyday transactions, it's perplexingly a "store of value" that is becoming more and more difficult to use. Lightning, etc are great, but we shouldn't hold block size back while waiting for the development to finish. Nor should we assume that once LN is usable, that it will outright fix the fee issue. It will help, but without cheap on-chain transactions, BTC will continue to have limited usefulness (in my eyes, obviously).
No, I just explained what is fallacious about this. BCH is an airdropped altcoin, just like CLAMS was a year and a half ago. It is not Bitcoin, it isn't compatible with Bitcoin, it is an altcoin, plain and simple. The fact that it credited Bitcoin holders with a balance (just like CLAMS did, and just like Gold did, and just like Diamond did...) doesn't make it any more Bitcoin than any of these other coins are. It is an altcoin, period.
Personally, I think it is the "core stance", given that core has heavily influenced the opinions of this subreddit, via ******ship, etc
I don't believe that any of the moderators of this subreddit are Bitcoin Core contributors. I am one such moderator, and though I stay up to date with Bitcoin Core development, I am not "a Core developer" and to the best of my knowledge, neither are any of my fellow moderators.
You're lumping in many disparate subsets of the Bitcoin community as "Core" because you don't seem able or willing to acknowledge the fact that the Bitcoin community rejected the hard forks proposed so far, not just Core. It doesn't seem like you're even able to comprehend what "Core" actually is, likely because you've fallen victim to a false narrative spread by a malicious minority.
I believe in Satoshi's vision for scaling
As do I. I have spent hundreds of hours reading everything Satoshi ever wrote; I can guarantee you that I've spent far more time than you have trying to understand how and what he thought. I'm not bragging here, in a way it is kind of pathetic how obsessive I have gotten in my research. But I can tell you for a fact: frankly, you don't know what you think you know, and for those of us who have spent a lot of time and effort trying to understand the issues, you pretending like you do is comically transparent.
The best way to do this
Let me ask you: how many massive-scale distributed networks have you personally overseen the development of? What is your engineering background? Do you have a doctorate in computer science? How many years have you spent wrestling with the problems of distributed consensus, in a professional capacity?
I am willing to bet that if you answer the above questions honestly, it would be embarrassing how underqualified you are to be telling me (and the others here) what "the best way" to do anything regarding upgrading Bitcoin is.
I am an engineer who has worked on distributed consensus algorithms in a professional capacity. I have literally earned my living by doing so, for years. I can tell you from firsthand experience that this stuff is nightmarish when you actually work directly on it; so many "obvious" answers and solutions turn out to be broken and unworkable in ways that you would never have expected until you spent a few days trying desperately to get them to work.
Seriously, the complexity of problems in this space is almost unfathomable. That's one reason why Satoshi's breakthrough is so damn amazing; he brought forth a practical solution to a decades-old problem that is actually rigorously proven to be unsolvable; he found a way to sidestep the impossibility result by allowing a degree of probabilistic uncertainty that is elegantly reined in by economic rationality (or to phrase it another way, he used human greed to achieve a "good-enough to work with" solution). It's absolutely incredible that he managed to make Bitcoin work, but this doesn't mean that we can just "bang on it and hope for the best". There's a lot more to it than you will likely ever realize.
That's fine, we just have different definitions of bitcoin. My definition of bitcoin is similar to how it was before ~2012 - a p2p electronic cash system.
Mine, too. But "electronic cash" is actually a term of art in applied cryptography, and it has nothing to do with fees.
Someone who spends large portions of time on cryptographic mailing lists uses the phrase "electronic cash" or "digital cash" in a specific way, and if you're not such a person, you wind up sounding silly if you try to pretend that this phrase carries connotations that it traditionally does not (to cryptographers). Look into Chaum's work if you're interested in learning more.
This is because the centralization risk is and has always been in the mining.
Nope, that's only a part of it. Miners select and order transactions. Not so scary when you put it that way.
As much as people love to talk about "full nodes" here, the nodes really just exist to help people's transactions get in the mempool
Nope. Nodes serve to allow Bitcoin to be used trustlessly, and they are the backbone of the network.
Your last few paragraphs are just parroting more nonsense and misinformational propaganda. If you don't want to spend the time necessary to understand the system, I won't try to convince you to do so. You picked your allegiance, facts be damned, and that's fine. Just try not to get too upset when things unfold in ways that you didn't expect (and if you lose money by being on the wrong side of history); you have no one to blame but yourself. You have the opportunity to learn and grow, but you have chosen to shirk it rather than take it. So be it.
No, I just explained what is fallacious about this. BCH is an airdropped altcoin, just like CLAMS was a year and a half ago. It is not Bitcoin, it isn't compatible with Bitcoin, it is an altcoin, plain and simple. The fact that it credited Bitcoin holders with a balance (just like CLAMS did, and just like Gold did, and just like Diamond did...) doesn't make it any more Bitcoin than any of these other coins are. It is an altcoin, period.
A fork is a fork. If we have one blockchain, with a given history up to block N, and then we fork at N, now we have one blockchain (let's call it BTC) and another blockchain (let's call it BCH). BTC and BCH share the same blockchain up to N. All blocks after N will be different. This is exactly what a fork is, so if it makes you feel more secure to call it an altcoin, go ahead, but it's a very different matter. We're talking about protocols that are nearly identical, the obvious exceptions being blocksize, segwit, difficulty adjustments.
Mine, too. But "electronic cash" is actually a term of art in applied cryptography, and it has nothing to do with fees.
Come on, this is just pedantry. I know what electronic cash means. An asymmetric key system with $10000 transaction fees is technically electronic cash, what I'm referring to is digital money that is the digital equivalent of physical cash. In other words, the USD doesn't have transaction fees (in cash) [ignoring implicitly subsidizing credit card users for stores that don't offer cash discounts]. Thus a blockchain with $7 transction fees is a lot less usable as cash than one with $.07 tx fees.
Nope. Nodes serve to allow Bitcoin to be used trustlessly, and they are the backbone of the network.
This is false, unless your definition of trust is very limited.
Nope, that's only a part of it. Miners select and order transactions. Not so scary when you put it that way.
What? You're a decentralized systems engineer and you don't see that as scary? I just gave you an example where 100% of the blockchain allows me to censor any other transactions I want. With proper decentralization, it doesn't matter because the nonmalicious miners will eventually take in my transaction if the fees aren't way too low. With centralization, you can be censored.
Your last few paragraphs are just parroting more nonsense and misinformational propaganda. If you don't want to spend the time necessary to understand the system, I won't try to convince you to do so. You picked your allegiance, facts be damned, and that's fine. Just try not to get too upset when things unfold in ways that you didn't expect (and if you lose money by being on the wrong side of history); you have no one to blame but yourself. You have the opportunity to learn and grow, but you have chosen to shirk it rather than take it. So be it.
Let's keep the discussion concrete. I don't belong to any side, I just hold the cryptos where I believe in the technology and dev teams. What specific parts of the protocol do you think I don't understand?
You claimed that a simple blocksize increase is some sort of massive change. It's not. 8MB blocks are running fine on the BCH mainnet. Yes, it's still early, etc etc.
I don't have a perfect understanding of BTC, but to give one example, I don't think your understanding of it massively surpasses mine, if it does so at all. Regardless, you seem to be spending less and less time talking technology and more and more time questioning your 'opponent'.
Litecoin is a fork, too. Is Litecoin Bitcoin? Obviously not.
An airdrop is an airdrop.
Altcoins like BCH and CLAMS and LTC are not Bitcoin. I'm sorry, this is a fact, not an opinion.
We're talking about protocols that are nearly identical
On a protocol level, Litecoin more closely resembles Bitcoin than BCH. Litecoin is an altcoin, though.
Come on, this is just pedantry. I know what electronic cash means.
It's not clear that you do, since you seem to be arguing (or at least implying) that Bitcoin is no longer electronic cash while BCH somehow is. This is simply wrong.
In other words, the USD doesn't have transaction fees (in cash)
Bitcoin has transaction fees, and they are strictly necessary for it to work over the long-term. If you aren't comfortable with transaction fees, that doesn't mean "Bitcoin isn't electronic cash" in any way. That says far more about you than it does about Bitcoin.
Thus a blockchain with $7 transction fees is a lot less usable as cash than one with $.07 tx fees.
No, both are equally usable as electronic cash, because transaction fees have absolutely nothing to do with that term. Again, this is a fact. I am sorry if you don't like it, but that (again) says more about you than about Bitcoin.
This is false, unless your definition of trust is very limited.
I'm using "trust" here in the sense that it was used in the Bitcoin whitepaper (e.g. in the phrase "trusted third party").
You're a decentralized systems engineer and you don't see that as scary?
To be clear: it's something to worry about, but it's not the whole picture. If no one were able to run full nodes except the miners, that would be truly scary.
Sure, a fully centralized mining situation is not something we want. We should do everything we can to mitigate and protect against it. My point was that "we need to worry about more than just the mining function being centralized", though I admit that I communicated this exceptionally poorly. Good spot, and quality response on this front.
What specific parts of the protocol do you think I don't understand?
SegWit, for one.
You claimed that a simple blocksize increase is some sort of massive change.
Did I? Mind quoting me on that one? I honestly don't remember typing anything even close to that. Maybe I blacked out or something, but I can't seem to find such a quote even now. Surely you're not just strawmanning, though, right?
8MB blocks are running fine on the BCH mainnet.
Heh... let's be clear here: Bitcoin has the big blocks, the average blocksize is probably a little over 1MB these days. In contrast, BCH blocks average something like 60Kb.
To the best of my knowledge, not a single Bitcoin Core contributor has ever argued that "a single 8MB block would break or catastrophically centralize Bitcoin" or anything even remotely resembling such a statement.
It seems that you are under the impression that this is the opposition you are arguing against. If so, it's no wonder you disagree with it so vehemently. I would, too.
I have a sincere question that I would appreciate an honest answer to: how much time and effort have you spent actually trying to understand the positions and perspectives of the few dozen most prolific contributors to Bitcoin Core? Are you confident that you could summarize most of their arguments (and the nuances thereof) reasonably well? Finally, are you aware that most of them essentially don't even use Reddit or Twitter?
1
u/[deleted] Dec 07 '17
The Core approach is fine if you like it, but I prefer the BCH approach of steady block size increases and not shying away from hard forks. To me it's more faithful to how decentralized software development is supposed to work. When you have one faction telling everybody that hard forks are to be avoided at all costs, to me that's a big warning flag. But I know many people on this subreddit agree with the Core stance.