Quote from: brg444 on November 20, 2014, 05:27:54 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on November 20, 2014, 05:14:03 PM

Quote from: brg444 on November 20, 2014, 05:06:56 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on November 20, 2014, 05:00:26 PM

Quote from: brg444 on November 20, 2014, 04:52:29 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on November 20, 2014, 04:44:32 PM

the integrity of the ledger depends on the currency unit riding on it. the greed to obtain the unit is what drives the mining incentive. w/o the unit, the ledger dies. which is why allowing the units an offramp to an unrelated speculative SC will kill Bitcoin.

ZB doesn't quite agree with you and made a very logical demonstration of why you are likely wrong, maybe you missed it

Quote from: Zangelbert Bingledack on November 19, 2014, 04:43:11 PM

It seems to me that, assuming the 2wp is perfect and permanent, if everyone moves to the sidechain, the ledger remains perfectly preserved as long as the sidechain continues working. Bitcoin is no longer serving the memory function (Bitcoin the protocol/chain is dead), but the memory function is being served by another chain (and Bitcoin the ledger lives on). The store of value function has been maintained, but not by what we'd usually want to call "Bitcoin."

There are some definitional ambiguities making this difficult to pin down. The word Bitcoin is used to mean:

Bitcoin the protocol
- Bitcoin the protocol maintained by the people now known as the core devs
- Bitcoin the protocol adopted by the economic majority, or the majority of mining power
Bitcoin the blockchain
Bitcoin the ecosystem
Bitcoin the ledger (who owns what percentage of the ledger)

The most notable thing about this list, I think, is that the first meanings are the most commonly used, but the last meanings are what really matter from an investor's perspective. Especially Bitcoin the ledger. A sidechain takeover threatens the protocol and the blockchain, but not necessarily the ecosystem, and not the ledger insofar as the peg is ensured and the sidechain is as sound as Bitcoin.

Now whether the sidechain will be as sound as Bitcoin is up in the air. I am skeptical for now, but again in a scenario where everyone is moving to the sidechain that condition has presumably been met in a most credible fashion.

To me, spin-offs are a safer and more elegant way to add functionality to Bitcoin the ledger. Perhaps if Bitcoin the ledger was recognized as the real essence of Bitcoin, rather than the protocol used for updating that ledger, spin-offs would be recognized by everyone as the obvious choice. What do you think?

i don't miss anything. that doesn't mean i understand everything.

sorry, but i don't agree with his assessment. precisely b/c it leaves out an understanding that the money function will get deprecated in deference to the speculative assets riding on the SC's which distract from the mechanism which has brought us to where we are today. the BTC price will drop if SC's are implemented, imo.

A depreciation of someone's wealth on the ledger due to speculative assets is the gain of someone else. The ledger stays intact.

SC's carrying speculative asset will be different and separate ledgers to Bitcoin. attaching these less secure ledgers to Bitcoin will devalue the entire system. remember that the Bitcoin miners will probably only be able to MM a couple of the thousands of speculative SC's that will be bolted onto Bitcoin.

Absolutely wrong once again. Remember that Bitcoin miners will NOT mine speculative SCs as they can only command marginal use in the market and therefore not obtain the necessary adoption for miners to validate them with their work.

Can you even provide an example of these speculative SCs ?

anything not BTC. like stocks, bonds, insurance, contracts, etc. you yourself say this is the goal, to decentralize and incorporate into the Bitcoin protocol all manner of these things enabled by spvp.

Quote from: brg444 on November 19, 2014, 05:30:02 AM

In that sense, you are right that SPVP is crucial to their success because it is the only way they can create these ambitious extensions of Bitcoin I'm sure they have in mind.