I suppose that is why I now support splitting the chain, the alternative chain would simply have alternative clients that support it, solving the replay attack on both networks. I think that you are correct in thinking that a non controversial hard fork is no longer possible unless it is done through Core, who seem unlikely to increase the blocksize limit anytime soon. Therefore the only solution for people like myself who prefer that Bitcoin stays true to the original vision of Satoshi, is splitting the chain, after all Satoshi was a big blockist as well.

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Ethereum presently has the same consensus mechanism as Bitcoin, users can choose to use Ethereum Classic instead, this is what gives people the freedom of choice, that is part of the consensus mechanism of Bitcoin as well and soon this will happen to the Bitcoin network as well.

Exactly, a confused user base does not change the fact that investors are still protected under such a mechanism. Not everything is in the whitepaper, but the consequences and reality of the rules that exists are within the code and the world for all to see. Because this is possible, it should be considered as part of the design of Bitcoin itself and considered inevitable from happening, especially considering the nature of human behavior.

Seems like mindless fear to me, the replay attack has been fixed on all of the proposed Bitcoin forks, it is rather trivial to fix actually. The ethereum foundation purposely decided not to fix this particular issue, I thought that was a mistake. Splitting Bitcoin as a minority would not cause such problems at all, custodians also need to be more responsible in such a situation and take it into account. Some of those custodians simply just did not believe ETC would survive, now we know better.

Splitting the network does not worsen Bitcoins value proposition, since the share of total Bitcoins remains the same across all chains for investors, which means it does not create any type of monetary inflation, it protects the value of investors. Furthermore because it is already relatively easy to do this with a small minority it should already be a part of Bitcoins value proposition, if you are not taking this feature into account you are not truly evaluating the value of Bitcoin, for me it actually improves the value proposition of Bitcoin since I perceive this feature as being a crucial part of the governance mechanism.

I think me and franky1 differ in opinion about this point, I have come to realize that we are past the point where a non controversial hard fork by a client that is not Core is no longer possible without causing a split in the network because of the particular beliefs of certain participants within the network.

I actually agree with you here, which is why splitting the chain is such a graceful solution to this age old problem. It solves the problem of the tyranny of the majority and the tyranny of the minority.

I actually agree with you that there is no such thing as "majority rule consensual hard fork", that is a practical impossibility, unless it can never change, but that can only be achievable by ignoring the splits and attempting to maintain social consensus, that is no guarantee, and in my opinion not a good approach.

However there is such a thing as a non controversial hard fork, where the chain is not split because of there not being any major opposition to the change. I think this is what franky1 is referring to. This is how Ethereum, Monero and Dash have been able to hard fork many times without splitting the chain, Ethereum Classic is the first major split we have seen in cryptocurrency history and Ethereum is doing just fine, it proves to me that this solution is viable. Whether the chain splits or not at least it does give people the freedom of choice over important issues.

You have twisted this analogy into something horribly inaccurate.

It would be more accurate to say that in this breakup the house gets copied and mommy and daddy both got a copy of the same house, the kids (investors) then get to choose where they want to live, they can even spend time in both houses, the value of the house is determined by the proportion of kids (investors) that want to stay in each house.

You do not know what you are talking about, that fork has not even been launched. We did test it on the Bitcoin network, splitting the chain and most people did not even notice, the sky did not fall from the heavens.

That passage in the whitepaper also refers to hard forks, Satoshi even left behind instructions on how to increase the blocksize using a hard fork:


You claim that it will be a "disaster" yet Ethereum has proven not to be a disaster at all.

If it is possible now for any small minority to split the chain now over any reason and you think this would have disastrous consequences for users. I hope you are not invested in Bitcoin. That would seem like a very fragile network if that was true, I do not think it is, I think that this process of splitting the chain should be considered as part of Bitcoins design, a mechanism to resolve disputes within the network by splitting the network, freedom of choice for all of the participants involved, this is the only way to achieve such a real consensus.

Yes I think it is a important difference between our ideologies, we place more weight on the market and the forces of competition, which relates directly to the blocksize limit.

The only way the "market" can truly express itself right now is by moving away from Bitcoin, that is exactly what is happening right now, Bitcoin is losing market share. Splitting the blockchain actually gives the market a much clearer choice, when that happens we will see where the value will flow.

The market can change the rules of the Bitcoin network, that is one of its fundamental and most important principles, I have already explained why I think that is the case in this thread.

We do not need to convince you, you can not stop the hard fork from happening regardless of what you think. You are correct in saying that because of people like you a hard fork by a non Core client would guarantee that the chain will split, I entirely agree, and since nobody can stop a minority from initiating a hard fork the split has become inevitable.

If you read closely what I have been saying in this thread you would know that I accept and embrace the concept of splitting the chain, instead of promoting the victory of one side over the other.

Which is exactly why I think a split has become inevitable, I can respect your position, how come you can not respect mine? We can just go our separate ways, in peace and tolerance.

There is nothing you can do to stop the split from happening except for compromise. You keep asking how come we have waited this long to initiate the hard fork? It is out of courtesy and respect, and it is in the hope that we can find compromise and agreement so that we can move forward together as one, splitting the chain is a measure of last resort. But it has come to this, we have radically different ideologies on what we think Bitcoin is and what it should become. Therefore it does make sense for these different groups of people to go their separate ways.

Can you explain to me why the split in Ethereums chain was such a bad outcome? I am invested in Ethereum myself and from my perspective everything seems just fine. Do you think it would be better if either side did not get their way and would therefore be "forced" to leave Ethereum or stay on a chain they do not agree with? Splitting seems like a better solution since all parties can be happy, both ETH and ETC supporters get to have the chain that they want. This seems much better then either side being able to dictate what the rules of the protocol should be for both sides. This is and should primarily be about freedom first.



Shifting the goal post I see, explain to me how am I cherry picking? As far as this line of argumentation is involved I did respond directly to a part of your statement, which was not directly linked to the second part of your sentence, advancement and development are not necessarily depended upon the security patches from the latest version of Bitcoin, since in the example I used, Monero and Ethereum are not even based on the Bitcoin code at all, therefore I would think that the latest security patches from Bitcoin are actually irrelevant.

Because I am invested in Bitcoin none of my arguments are therefore valid? This is a strange thing to say to me, if anything being invested in Bitcoin aligns my incentives to do what is best for Bitcoin.

Maybe instead of constantly attacking with me ad hominem you should argue rationally with me and not resort to such manipulative tactics.

So to be clear, you think that is a counter argument to this:

So according to you, your counter argument to what I have said here is that Ethereum is a mutable shit coin and that all that matters is "Distance-to-Vitalik". If that is your complete argument we can leave it at that, people reading this can decide for themselves what they think is more correct.

This discussion started off by me saying that both of our positions are just subjective opinions because they are based on ideology, but I suppose that you are still maintaining the position that what you are saying is a objective fact, I obviously still think that is a irrational position to take.

You are saying that I must be either a troll, shill or an idiot. And you are claiming that this is not ad hominem or character assassination and that you are being completely objective and rational by saying this. Instead of proving my irrationality through argumentation and exposing fallacy you are saying that my position is not rational, without even qualifying your position. I hope in the future you will see how twisted you have become Laura, this is literally double speak.

No one is to blame or should be. What has recently happened to Ethereum is not a bad outcome, splitting Bitcoin in the same way should be considered a positive thing. Like dumbfbrankings just said it represents freedom, the analogy of a couple breaking up and finding separate houses is indeed a good analogy.

I was specifically responding to you saying that Bitcoin has the most "advanced and developed protocol". I responded by saying that some altcoins are more innovative then Bitcoin, this is a valid response and it is certainly not a straw man argument.

That was and still is an accurate statement, I said that the Bitcoin market share is at a historic low. If I wanted to say it was at an all time low I would have said so. Furthermore when you look at the chart you can clearly see that the points on the chart you are referring to are just short dips. The period we are in now has been categorized by having a consistently low Bitcoin market share. If we where to take a weighted average of the Bitcoin market share today over the last six months we would be at an all time low now.

If you can look at this chart and not see a downwards trend in Bitcoins market share then you are simply blind to the truth.
http://coinmarketcap.com/charts/#btc-percentage

I find it revealing you are not invested in Bitcoin, people can make their own judgement in that regard. For the record I have a bigger share in Bitcoin compared to any other altcoin, including Dash.

I understand now that most of what you are doing is just attacking my character at this point, it should be obvious to everyone here that I have remained civil, unlike yourself I do not engage in that type of ad hominen and other type of fallacious argumentation since it is not productive towards rational discussion.

Not an argument.

This is also not an argument, I find it ironic that are saying I do not understand fallacies considering you are accusing me of using a straw man argument over a statement in which I do not infer or imply your position at all. Furthermore for me to point towards the decentralization of mining in Ethereum due to an ASIC resistant algorithm in response to you saying Ethereum is not decentralized is a perfectly valid argument. As a matter of fact I am precisely refuting the argument you made to me directly, the very opposite of a straw man argument.


I hope you can stop accusing me of straw men arguments considering that I have irrefutable proven that you have falsely accused me of a straw man argument in this case. I do not expect you to admit that you where wrong, however if you did I would respect you more for doing so.

To be clear you claimed to know as a fact that Monero would be made illegal if there was greater adoption, you further went on to claim that you had insider knowledge that this was true, first of all your insider knowledge can not be considered as a fact by other people because it can not be publicly verified.

Secondly if I understood your argument correctly, you where saying that Monero can not be a viable alternative to Bitcoin because it will be made illegal, based on your insider knowledge of course. However as far as I understand it, something like Monero could only be stopped by having it made illegal in all jurisdictions, just like Bitcoin, which obviously makes Monero extremely resilient, just like Bitcoin. I did obviously assume that you meant in all jurisdictions since otherwise your reasoning for why Monero can not be a competitor to Bitcoin would be flawed. Since I was using Monero as a counter example to your argument that Bitcoin does not have any competition from the alternative cryptocurrencies.

Not a strawman, you where not that specific in your statement, furthermore such a hand waving statement that most "shitcoins" have lots of security exploits does not carry much weight.

Bitcoin market share is now at 79% a historic low.

It is not a fact, the word shady is highly subjective, and even though I do agree with you in using that term, it still stands that whether this should effect the viability of the currency today is again an opinion, and not a fact.

Blockchains are not protected by precedent or social convention like you might think but hard cryptography and game theory mechanics. In regards to the transactional immutability Bitcoin and Ethereum are mostly identical, it is practically impossible to roll back blocks and therefore also transactions. This is not what happened with the Ethereum hard fork, it involved a state change on the smart contract layer through the "consensus" mechanism. I consider any change to the rules of the protocol legitimate if it is brought about in such a way.

I understand that this is a major difference in our theories on how the governance of these blockchain systems function, I perceive it to be much more of a social construct, a tool for human beings to govern themselves and each other in a better way. It is a good thing that the code can change through this governance mechanisms, "immutability" in the literal sense of the word is not something we should aim for, if something goes wrong the majority of people should be able change the rules of the system, ideas and people also evolve, these blockchain networks need to evolve with our civilizations.

It is wrong to describe the DOA fork as a bail out, since there are no extra taxes, inflation or "haircuts" like there would be in a bailout like we understand it today. Rather I think the analogy of a bank robbery is much better, we are simply intervening, preventing the bank robbery from taking place. I think this is perfectly justifiable. Before you say "code is law" and smart contracts have no value if they are not "immutable". The opposite is actually true, there is a good reason why all law systems today are non-deterministic, it is the intent of the law here that counts, not the letter of the law.

At the same time even though I do not agree with the reosons for Ethereums Classics existence, I do absolutely respect their right to self determination and at the same time they have given Bitcoin a perfectly viable option that we could follow, splitting the chain, resolving this ideological debate.

Again not a straw man, you can clearly see that I am directly responding to what you have said, furthermore it is impossible for this statement to even be a straw man argument because I am not even implying or inferring your position here whatsoever.

Not an argument.

You can not expect a rational person to believe you when you say such a thing, you might have insider knowledge of some sort but I am not in a position to know that, it would be gullible of me to believe you, surely you would agree. Furthermore you claim to have knowledge that Monero is going to be banned in all jurisdictions. What kind of a person are you then? Can we deduct based on this information that you have ties to government? Whatever I am not going to speculate, but this is a rather peculiar statement.

I find this statement rather amusing, I hope you do realize that a clone of Bitcoin is considered not be innovative at all within the altcoin world, that should tell you something, any altcoin that is worth anything improves on Bitcoin in some way.

I suppose you can keep telling your self that 10min block times and a one megabyte blocksize limit with a transparent blockchain are the perfect parameters, this is Bitcoin maximilism I suppose, it would be healthier to at least acknowledge the innovation that is occurring in the altcoin space.

You can joke all you want, but Bitcoin is still losing market share to the alternative cryptocurrencies and that is a fact.

Most of your critisisms of these cryptocurrencies are not facts but opinions, I will prove that you now:

I am familiar with the history of Dash, I do not consider it to fundementally undermine the currency of Dash today. I can agree that the history is "shady" but whether that effects the viability of the currency today is again an opinion.

This statement is just not true, at least not in the way that I suspect you mean it. I supported the ETH hard fork, and I am actually more bullish now then I was before on ETH. First of all in terms of its "immutability" and censorship resistance it is no different to Bitcoin in terms of normal blockchain transactions, it is equally immutable and censorship resistant, it is equally difficult to roll back transactions on Bitcoin compared to Ethereum, a state change to the contract layer is different to actually rolling back transactions on the blockchain, I have noticed many Bitcoiners equate these two things as if they where the same thing, it is not, this is mostly likely because they are thinking of this event in Bitcoin terms when there are some very important differences in the design. It was only possible to return peoples funds because it existed within a smart contract, something that would not even be possible within Bitcoin.

Arguably Ethereum is presently more decentralized then Bitcoin because it uses an ASIC resistant mining algorithm.

Maybe it is best not to get into a full discussion of the pros and cons of these events and of the design of Ethereum and Bitcoin, but as proof of work blockchains their governance, and transaction immutability are actually identical on a technical level at least. So my point is that your opinion on these altcoins are an opinion and not a fact.

Monero will become illegal if it picks up, and you know this as a fact? Again I would argue that this is just an opinion, this is classic Bitcoin maximalism, completely disregarding and not taking the competition into account at all, even being dismissive of their achievements and innovations.

The transaction volume on these chains is obviously much lower, but the transactional capacity of these chains is much much higher. It seems like a strange argument to use against these altcoins when Bitcoins transaction volume is presently restricted, which means one of these altcoins could easily overtake the transaction volume of Bitcoin one day, as long as Bitcoins transaction volume remains restricted.

First of all, the transaction rate of Bitcoin has historicly been increasing, untill it hit the blocksize limit, I do not consider that to be a positive thing, literal stagnation because of a restriction in the code.

Secondly, Bitcoin is stagnating technologically, when compared to the alternative cryptocurrencies.

Thirdly as I proved earlier in this thread Bitcoin has been losing market share steadily over the last two years, while the altcoin market share is growing consistently.

I can give you many examples, and I support all three of the projects I just mentioned, I could go into defending each of them on their merits, but I am busy enough attempting to defend the original principles of Bitcoin here on this forum.

One of the main reasons I am holding Bitcoin now is because I am interested in the cryptocurrencies that will be spawned from Bitcoin, the spin off chains or genesis chains. Or in the unlikely event that Core sees reason and increases the blocksize limit, but I suppose we can both now agree that this is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Diversifying our investments at such a time does seem wise to me. Maybe when enough people leave Bitcoin, the small blockists might then finally be able to reach consensus.

EDIT. I misread your message, I have rewritten it

I actually got the information about backwards compatiblity from the github. It says it right there in the wiki:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0142.mediawiki

It started with leading questions, I obviously also do not consider what I say to be lies either. Which you seem to keep accusing me off.

Of course it is possible but whether something is practically attainable within a reasonable time frame is a different question. I understand the difference between a consensus based hard fork and a controversial hard fork. My point is that is that this entire subject has become controversial and there are some very staunch defenders of the blocksize limit, even within the Core development team itself. It would only take one of these developers to veto the code in order to block the change. Since any code that does not come from core would be regarded as controversial? I could see this taking years if any change is even achieved at all, there is a good reason why large democracies vote by a simple majority and not consensus, consensus in the literal sense of the word is almost impossible to achieve among large groups of people.

I can see Bitcoin easily being overtaken during this period, this is one of the reasons I am also invested in the altcoins. Bitcoin truly seems stagnant in comparison to me, the alternatives are able to innovate much faster and already have much greater transactional capacity then Bitcoin.

I think it is ridiclous for you to say that 2MB is not safe. We have discussed the reosons for this extensivly already, for anyone intrested just look at our post histories.

I am presently mining 17MB blocks on the testnet using Bitcoin Unlimited.

So one year from the time that it is announced, and it has not even been announced yet and probably will not be any time soon. Great, lots of luck with that, I would advise you and everyone here to diversify their investments, this is the reason why Bitcoin has become stagnant.

Fortunately there are many alternatives to Bitcoin out there, I personally like Dash, and its solutions to governance, Ethereum and Monero are also both good cryptocurrencies, all of these cryptocurrencies do not have problems with scaling, Dash has a second tier, incentivized and collateralized voting full nodes that can handle a much greater load, because of the build in incentive. Ethereum already has far greater capacity then Bitcoin and it will have even more in following releases. Monero simply has an adaptive blocksize, with some very interesting incentive structures to keep the blocks from becoming to large.

I am pointing this out, because I think that you are underestimating the competition and overestimating the network effect of Bitcoin. Waiting several years for a simple capacity increase while the network is congested with all of its negative consequences is terrible for mass adoption, meanwhile the market share of Bitcoin is now 79.6%, there is a good reason for that and the trend will most likely continue as Bitcoin will continue to lose market cap to its competition.

I have not used any strawman arguments, you are saying that I am using fear because according to Hearn and Andresen, Bitcoin should have imploded by now. To be clear I did not say that at all, you are literally using a strawmen argument, this should be obvious to you and everyone here.


You are just attacking me here, you can not prove I am deceitful or that I am lying.

I did not realize that particular vulnerability has been fixed, this was less then a month ago, it does not exactly inspire confidence in the code so close to when it is supposed to be released on the Bitcoin network.

You are actually just confirming what I am saying here, I was correct in saying that the first version of segwit that will be rolled out on the Bitcoin network if Core gets its way will make transactions less efficient, I am also correct in saying that doing segwit as a hardfork makes it much more efficient. Since this P2WPKH and P2WSH will require a hard fork in order to implement as far as I understand it, since it is not backwards compatible.

If that was your objective you have failed, you have repeated many times that I am deceptive and manipulative supposedly,

I have not attacked you a single time and it seems like you are the one employing the Ad Hominem here continuously. Rather ironic really considering what you are accusing me of doing. Thanks for describing me as "honest and straightforward" I guess, I did not mind the other insult either of using a mixture of reason and "debating tactics".

I think that are specifically wrong in saying that you are anti controversial hard forks, I think that increasing the blocksize will always be controversial because of the culture of believe that has now been build up in the Bitcoin community, according to that reasoning we should therefore never increase the blocksize limit? I think this is fundamentally flawed, especially considering how important a parameter this blocksize limit actually is. I think part of the difference in our opinion is that you are also not taking the competition into account.

I think that both sides suspect each other of being part of a psychological operation by a possible a government agency in order to disrupt the Bitcoin community, historically this does not even seem that unlikely. There is a long history of infiltration and disruption by government agencies in order to counter organizations and communities they see as threatening.

Though personally I would find it much more likely that their goal would be to restrict and disrupt the original plan of Bitcoin by restricting the blocksize limit. Since from their perspective an unrestricted Bitcoin would be more threatening, I could get into where the blockstream funding actually comes from. Then again maybe there are spyop agents on both sides of the debate, further inflaming and widening the gulf. Though I think it would be more productive to stick to the issues compared to pointlessly accuse each other of being double agents, that is just more ad hominen after all.

My argument stands on its own, if Core simply increased the blocksize limit to two megabytes it would reunite much of the community and Bitcoin would not be currently suffering from a congested network, which is currently causing transaction delays, increased fees and unreliability. This is not good for adoption, I understand that you think lighting network and sidechains should replace most Bitcoin transactions and that therefore we do not need to increase the blocksize limit. However I propose that we increase the blocksize limit now so that we do not need suffer from a congested network without actually having any layer two solutions ready, and then when the lighting network and sidechains are finally ready and deployed we can see whether people choose to move their activities off chain, or whether people prefer transacting on chain with all of the advantages and disadvantages that brings, or more likely something in between, then we will know whether we need to increase the blocksize limit again or not, instead of radically changing the fundamental design of Bitcoin now and betting the future of Bitcoin on what is essentially still vaporware.

I know you like to paint me as being an extremely unreasonable person, however what I am proposing here is very reasonable, most people outside of this field would recognize that the small blockist are taking an extreme and fundamentalist position. Most big blockist are applying pragmatic rationalism. Ideally I would just remove the blocksize limit completely or use an adaptive blocksize. However as a compromise we proposed the mechanism within Classic, for an increase to two megabytes, originally we went from 20MB to 8MB and finally to 2MB, and I could argue using Bitcoin Unlimited we could even agree to a 1.1MB blocksize limit. There has been zero compromise from the small block camp, after 18 months. There is not even a blocksize limit increase on the Core road map.

Which is why at this point we will just split Bitcoin, it is our right to maintain and continue the original Bitcoin blockchain as it was intended. We have the freedom and capability to do this, if the small blockist could just compromise a small amount this would not happen and they could avoid the split from happening at all, I know many of you fear the split. I have nothing to fear from it, at this point I see it as progress and an opportunity for further evolution. Bring on the intentional minority splits I say, let the chips fall and allow people to put their money where their mouth is, that way we will really see over the long term what people value more, at this point it could even be an alternative cryptocurrency that overtakes Bitcoin.

So according to you I use a mixture of reason and debating tactics, well thank you I guess, but that is not a complement from you as far as I understand it because you think this is a fundamental problem? Our beliefs certainly have drifted far.

Yet you are the one employing ad hominem.

It is accurate what you are saying about the "debating tactics" I deploy, however the objective is not to irritate. A Socratic dialogue has been known to irritate certain people however, this has happened throughout history.

This is part of what I think is part of the problem, you are not acknowledging and therefore not accounting for the human elements in this system. You say that there is no politics in code, there are multiple implementations of the Bitcoin code, ask the question what code, and who decides? According to Wikipedia the simple definition of politics is:


You claim that there is no politics in Bitcoin, I think you are blatantly wrong in this point. Bitcoin relies on the game theory incentives of its human participants, there even is a voting mechanism where certain human beings have to make decisions about the future of the network, Bitcoins entire value and therefore security is predicated on its price, which comes from the believe of human beings again. Like I said before, Bitcoin is a cyborg and we are all a part of the machine and politics certainly does have a role to play within such a leviathan. If you do not acknowledge that or take it into account you are not seeing the whole picture.

I have never claimed that was my objective and it is not. I think there should ideally be multiple viable competing development teams for Bitcoin, I am fine with Core contributing code to the protocol I just do not think they should be making all of the decisions, in this case I think they are wrong about restricting the blocksize limit.

I remember we have debated before who the "real" bitcoiners really are, since last time I checked Satoshi did support on chain scaling and this ideology of small blockism is actually a relatively new development. Not that I really care who you think the real Bitcoiners are, its just from my perspective it has a touch of irony.

The primary reason for my return has been to discuss and promote the idea of splitting the chain intentionally as a minority. I am certain that this will happen, it is one of the main reasons I am still holding the ratio of Bitcoin to altcoins that I am today, since I am very interested in the eventual genesis forks that will spawn from Bitcoin itself.

You are correct that under this extremely unlikely scenario this principle does not hold, a slightly modified statement would though: "I hold the position that the longest SHA256 chain that also contains the Bitcoin genesis block should be defined as Bitcoin". Another exception might be if the hashing algorithm is ever changed for legitimate reasons, thanks for pointing this out, you are keeping me sharp!

Good to hear that Lauda, the possibility exist that we might one day be in agreement then.

I could always be proven wrong in the future as well, and I would have to admit the fault and continue learning.

Point taken about consecutive posts, I will do my best to avoid that. I can lump them together now actually.

I have always argued using reason, so you are still building those strawmen I see Carlton. My predictions are holding true, just look at the chart I posted earlier on this thread. I have always said that this debate has primarily been about politics, to discuss the politics of the code we must also understand the code however.

I really just came back because I missed you guys.

To be clear BU is compatible with all implementations of Bitcoin under all conditions, depending on the configuration that is used, though out of the box this is certainly true. It is the only client that has this characteristic. Therefore this accusation by Greg is unfounded, you can absolutely fork the network using BIP109 using BU, and I do not see anything wrong with that.

Bitcoin Unlimited is presently my favorite implementation of Bitcoin, it has the most elegant solution to the scaling debate in my opinion. Solving it once and for all, it can be forever tweaked to be made more efficient but it should never be a problem like it is now if there was wider adoption of Bitcoin Unlimited. The blocksize limit should be determined by true supply and demand, not arbitrarily decided by a centralized technocratic elite.

I hold the position that the longest SHA256 chain should be defined as Bitcoin. Whether that will be the network you favor or not will remain to be seen. However the most likely scenario is that we will split of as a minority to begin with which means we will take a new name, to avoid confusion, I can agree with you on that Lauda.

I actually think that what we will be creating will be something new, if it becomes the longest chain, it will simply be the continued evolution of Bitcoin. However these splits create a new type of "altcoin" I am referring to them as "genesis forks", since they contain the original genesis block by Satoshi and all of the same blocks up to the point of the split. Another term that I have seen being used is "spin off".

You are indeed correct in your recommendation Lauda to fork off, that is exactly what I think will happen soon. Though there is a chance that in the future you might regret not being more compromising on this issue.

At this point I suspect a controversial split will be the only way forward, keep in mind it only takes a very small minority of people to disagree to cause a split to happen in the first place. Which is definitely the case now, it is not unfair to think that some of these small blockist will simply never change their mind, and these two opposing ideologies can not exist on the same network since these differing visions also have very different road maps and projected outcomes for Bitcoin, which is why a split has most likely become inevitable.

I do agree that in principle consensual forks are not scary, but this has become a controversial topic for better or worse, no matter how long we wait or how good our arguments might be, this might not change, this is in part why splitting the network has indeed become the best possible solution to this impasse.

I would argue if peer review and testing has been minimal then it has not been finalised, it has not even been finished.

I think you are playing semantic games here and skirting around the issue, I am not saying that you are not being sincere however. "Consensus" is the term we give to the governance mechanism in the Bitcoin protocol, there is also a technical feature in the Bitcoin protocol that is also called "consensus". To make this even more confusing the term "consensus" can not even be taken literally except for in the technical sense, however the rules of the protocol can still be changed through the governance mechanisms of Bitcoin, therefore even the technical understanding of "consensus" can not be taken completely literally. That is in the literal sense of the word "consensus".

I recently explained my theory on Bitcoin governance and what I think is the present state of affairs here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1612347.0

I perceive hard forks to be a critical feature of the Bitcoin governance mechanism. Soft forks in some cases can contribute to circumventing this governance mechanism, since it makes splitting away more difficult, it makes it more difficult to protest in other words, which actually makes it easier to change the protocol through soft forks. Which is not necessarily a good thing from a humanist perspective.

Almost any change can be introduced as a soft fork, we could even increase the blocksize with a soft fork, there are multiple ways in which to do this. Whether something is a hard fork or a soft fork does not actually matter in terms of whether it should be implemented or not, what matters is the content of that change itself.

I suppose you know my view on soft forks, consensus and segwit by now. Segwit does not fix malleability last I checked, that particular feature has not been introduced, I am not sure whether it will be finished by the time Core wants segwit to go onto the main net.

It also makes Bitcoin less "scalable" that is in the IT/Engineering sense of the word, again a word that carries different meanings within different fields of knowledge. Since segwit transactions are still slightly larger then normal transactions, making them less efficient. Segwit actually also makes Bitcoin less expensive to attack because segwit allows an attacker to fill up the witness data at a rate 1/4 of the normal fee price, which means spam attacks on the network become easier, by flooding the network with these spam transactions an attacker can fill up the blocks preventing other people from being able to transact, actually exploiting the existence of the blocksize limit which was first introduced as a temporary anti spam fix, ironically. This reduced fee is actually for a specific type of transaction that the lighting network relies on. I do not support this type of economic favoritism, it is one of the many reasons why I do not like this version of Segwit that Core is planning to release. I would not be against Segwit if it came out as a hard fork with a few minor changes, it actually would make segwit transactions more efficient then normal transactions, such a hard fork could also fix malleability. Such a hardfork version of segwit would also introduce a lot less technical debt.

I actually agree with you on this, except for that anyone is free to contribute to Core, you can not have it both ways, which is why there have to be multiple viable implementations of Bitcoin, otherwise the governance mechanism would just not work since people would not have the freedom of choice between these implementations, since you have already said that Core should not provide that choice within their organization and implementation. This is in part why I consider Core to be the biggest point of centralization within Bitcoin right now, even the name we use "Core" is inappropriate for a decentralized protocol.

That is an opinion, and the facts do not back up this sentiment at all. Ethereum investors have not even lost money especially if you include their holdings in ETC. The two networks are doing just fine, especially ETH. The sky has not fallen after the hard fork, the recent Ethereum split proves that such hard forks are viable and they are not the "disasters" that some people claimed it would be. It is actually a good thing, a graceful solution to an age old problem.

I think the same will happen to Bitcoin within the next six months, whether we like it or not. I am an advocate of this action if that has not been made clear already, unless "consensus" is found within the Bitcoin network, the network will split. Allowing both sides of this debate to have the Bitcoin they want, true freedom of choice.

I think I actually agree with you here exstasie and not franky1. Though I also think that you two are having a misunderstanding, franky1 is very clearly referring to the case where "consensus" is reached and the network does not split, like XT, Classic and maybe Unlimited for example, or even if Core released a hard fork with a simple blocksize limit increase, that might be a better example since there is less chance to this leading to a split.

I do not think this will happen though which is why I think that actually splitting the chain is now a better option for users who are not happy with the direction that Core is taking Bitcoin into.

But you are correct extasie in that you can never be sure whether a split will occur, since it only takes a small minority to decide to stay behind, I consider this to be a good thing however, not something to be feared. This governance structure protects everyone and even protects people against the tyranny of the majority and minority.

You are again jumbling the meaning of words, since they mean different things within different fields. Technically XT, Classic and Unlimited are forks of Core, since they have taken Core code and have made slight changes. However when I run a Bitcoin Unlimited node for example I am running it on the Bitcoin protocol and I am compatible with the Bitcoin protocol and I am not forking the network at all, the same is true for XT or Classic. Do you see the subtle difference in meanings that exist in these words, by using this type of language you are drumming up fear, one of the very defining features of propaganda as is commonly understood.

It is strange for you to say that any fork attempts to leverage miners is against users. That is not in theory how this is supposed to work, the miners are supposed to follow what they think the users want, however by promoting such an ideology we are making the miners more conservative against any change, especially if a considerable amount of the user base have such beliefs, this is in part why I think that Bitcoin is becoming stagnant and losing its competitive edge, much of that energy is now spilling over into the alternatives.

You are indeed tripping up here exstasie, not all orphans are in fact invalid blocks, most orphans are actually valid blocks that where found at a similar time by different pools, they are only considered invalid after they are rejected only because the same block already exists and just got propagated faster. It is one of the fundamental aspects of how Bitcoin works, franky1 one is correct in pointing out the importance of this feature since it also allows for there to be no blocksize limit at all since the pools themselves can best determine their own technological limits, instead of this arbitrary limit being centrally controlled by the "reference implementation".

Miners do indeed have power over the "consensus" of the Bitcoin network, however because they have so much at stake they have a strong game theory incentives to do what is best for the network, this is how Bitcoin works, I realize that some people are not comfortable with this, but it is how Bitcoin actually functions. I even think some of the Core developers are skeptics of this idea, as technologists it might be hard for them to see the virtue in a system that relies on the economic self interest of the masses to govern the network. Ideas of immutability and an unchanging network where we are governed by machines taking human beings out of the picture completely ending politics might seem like a romantic idea but it is just not the reality of how these cryptocurrencies actually function.

Bitcoin is more like a cyborg, human beings are part of the machine and are actually one of the key components that allow it to function successfully in our world. Which means that politics are part of the equation here and the mechanism is that miners do have the vote, because their incentives are best aligned, this is not necessarily a bad thing. It can almost be seen as a form or representative democracy, however where the incentives of the representatives are not perverted unlike what we often see in state democracies. In this case the users have all the power, since that is where the value comes from, splitting Bitcoin will allow users to better express this choice when there are strong diverting ideologies within a single protocol, like what we are seeing today within Bitcoin. Which is why a split could also be such a positive thing, both sides would be more likely to be able to innovate much faster when there is a greater general agreement on what Bitcoin is and where it should go. Splitting the network would allow for a more cohesive and less toxic community, while also allowing for greater freedom of choice for Bitcoin users.

Technically you are correct here exstasie, strictly speaking that is. But the idea that Bitcoin actually splits every day, in some cases even for several blocks is at least poetically interesting, since when Bitcoin splits it would not be that different to an orphan initially, it is just that we will give the orphan life and extend that chain where otherwise it would have just died. You have to admit that poetically it is at least a good analogy.

I think that the term valid here is completely subjective, valid is dependent on the client you run, I think that Bitcoin ideally should be defined as being the longest chain, not the longest valid chain, since otherwise it would become a completely subjective position to take.

I do not think that most of the community supports Core, I think it is actually very difficult to measure such a thing especially when there are people on both sides of the debate who can be very loud. It creates a situation where the "consensus" is not clear which is maybe why many miners are presently still siding with caution and sticking with the incumbents. This is also why splitting the network has become a better option for users to express their opinion, miners will simply just follow the value after all.

Hard forking is how most important changes should be made, before Ethereum split there were multiple hard forks where the network did not split. This is an example of how this mechanism works, if enough people are unhappy with the change they can simply choose to stay behind, the sooner we embrace this mechanism the sooner Bitcoin will be able to continue to evolve.

The consensus rules are subject to democratic vote, that is exactly what Bitcoin is, I understand that you are part of a group of people that rejects this and have therefore constructed a flawed understanding of how Bitcoin works. I do not think there even is a cryptocurrency out there that works that way at all, it might presently even be a technological impossibility also for practical reasons. I am not a technologist myself, I have a background in humanism, maybe a fellow technologist/technocrat will be able to explain this to you better:


In a few words this is how I would describe my theory on Bitcoin governance:


In the words of Satoshi Nakamoto himself, from the Bitcoin whitepaper:


I also explained my theory on Bitcoin governance in more depth in the thread I also linked earlier in this post.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1612347.0

I agree with you franky1, but I do agree with exstasie that you do come across a bit angry and it does get in the way of the message I support as well. I am a bit angry myself at the injustice that is occurring, Bitcoin being changed in such a radical way, is something I never signed up for and it is a shame to see that this issue might even delay mass adoption of this technology at such a critical time. Understand that not changing the blocksize limit fundamentally changes the economics of Bitcoin. I also think that the alternative economic model developed by Core is fundamentally flawed.

It is better to keep a cool head franky1, that way we can argue more rationally, I can argue rationally for this different perspective, and I have a solid understand of the theory. Based on experience I know I will not be censored here, unlike r/bitcoin.

I know it has become a very long post, I was simply replying to your singular message, I suppose the ideological split has become so wide, that we have started to see most things very differently.