Quote from: cypherdoc on October 24, 2014, 05:03:31 PM

Quote from: cbeast on October 24, 2014, 04:39:19 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on October 24, 2014, 04:19:15 PM

Quote from: cbeast on October 24, 2014, 04:15:13 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on October 24, 2014, 04:05:10 PM

Quote from: HeliKopterBen on October 24, 2014, 03:49:45 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on October 24, 2014, 01:05:50 PM

I still haven't heard a good excuse for core dev concentration in one for profit company other than "trust us".

These are two perfectly good reasons and really the only reasons you need:
1) open source code
2) consensus execution of that code by miners voting with their processing power

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Again, why wouldn't we expect a SC fork of bitcoin with perfect anonymity to take over?

This is not so black and white. I suppose there could be a real threat of a side chain taking over if there is little to no perceived risk by the market to move from chain to chain, but if the market perceives little to no risk then maybe there is little to no risk. Savers will likely park their money in the safest chain, i.e. the chain with the highest hashrate and bitcoin could cease to be the dominant chain at some point. I don't see why it couldn't happen.

Neither do I. And it would be very disruptive to hodlers who make up most of bitcoin today. And it could be a never ending transition add new innovations take place. Some of us would rather just leave our coins in cold storage for a few decades.

brg444, I'm past the part about core dev altcoin implementations. I do see how it would be a hard sell for them although not impossible to sell to noobs. You forget that we are witnessing the power of what they can do RIGHT NOW with this SC proposal. They've banded together precisely to push this proposal through as a for profit company which requires a fork for them to be successful. It's not a wild thought imagining them trying to implement a new currency some day. LukeJr has talked about demurrage coin on reddit. Why? I could see a day where he starts one on his own and claims its just him personally, not Blockstream. Unlikely but possible.

On planes all day so in and out

Altcoins can be created as an easy way for governments to create a Bitcoin backed fractional reserve coin. Perhaps Blockstreams's customer base will be governments that can force their acceptance. At least with a guaranteed percentage fractional reserve in Bitcoin it will appease their largest stakeholders. If they are trying to deceive the general public, then they will be exposed. Only governments are allowed to do that and get away with it.

I could go for that.

Smooth is right. SC'S are just sophisticated forms of altcoins.

They can be. BTW, the white paper lays it out pretty simply if you ignore the fallacious arguments. I mean, the paper is highly defensive and biased. The core idea is okay, but too vague to glean much useful information. It's nothing that hasn't been discussed for years. The idea of replacing Bitcoin by merge mining and legacy support has been around for years. I just can't wait to see a truly 1:1 SC coin that is able to magically convert bitcoins back and forth.

well hey, devs gotta dev and devs gotta get paid. so in that sense, we've made some progress. but as i said, my concern is trying to figure out if there is some edge case that can hurt Bitcoin.

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Quote from: cypherdoc on October 24, 2014, 04:31:35 PM

I think in this situation, the price of BTC would be zero, assuming all miners have left the bitcoin main chain for the SC and all the BTC have been converted to scBTC. and that's because there would be no miners left to perform the proof to get from BTC to scBTC. And even if so, the tx cost would be prohibitive.

What about the coins not converted? If miners abandon them then what makes you think they won't abandon your coin? No. Miners want to preserve the coin integrity they built. They will hold your coin hostage and deny it's existence if you try to break Bitcoin because you will give them 51% control by your abandonment. Then you will have an orphaned altcoin with no more security than any other altcoin.

miners could abandon my SC that offers perfect anonymity. and that would be for another SC that takes my SC with perfect anonymity and adds even better functionality on top of that. then i'd have to move my SC coins yet again! what a hassle and potential security risk.

if the SC tech is in fact better, BTC hodlers would have to defect. as they defect, miners would have to follow. no?

money always seeks the place that treats it best.

I really doubt anything will come along that is considered "better" for everyone. Anonymity, for example, is well below scarcity, security, and historical record on my list of priorities. But the thing with SC as opposed to altcoins is that bitcoin the currency stays the same. It is only bitcoin the blockchain that is in danger of being replaced. And even if it is replaced, bitcoin the blockchain will still be mined heavily at least until the subsidy dries up because new coins can be moved to whatever chain is successful.

SC also provides a way forward scalablilty wise that doesn't require a VERY controversial hard fork.

In the end, any opposition is irrelevant. This is a soft fork change, which means any single miner can choose to adopt it and remain compatible with the existing infrastructure. Other miners won't add the new transactions since they are "nonstandard", but they will validate blocks containing them. If use increases to the point that they are missing out on fees, you bet your ass they will jump on board.