912 karma · joined March 1, 2015
From my experience, having majority shareholders don't lead to "deviant behavior" any more than companies with no majority shareholder. In fact, one could argue that many of the ugly collective action problems facing the world today stem from organizations in which nobody has the power to veto unethical policies.
I think the problem here is that Zuck can veto. I think it's that Zuck is unethical.
Bitcoin's version of the lightning network is a Rube Goldberg machine bolted onto a payment network and dressed up to look like a scaling solution.
Lightning network is a super cool technology but BTC's implementation of it suffers from crippling flaws that make it useless for Lightning's most promising use cases. Lightning network was designed to be a micropayment solution built on top of a low-fee base layer. It requires that low-fee base layer to deliver on it's promises. Since it's been built on a high-fee base layer (BTC), transaction routing is now a problem that can only be solved by sending your lightning payment through a large and highly connected lightning node and never closing your payment channels (because re-opening them costs too much). This effectively eliminates the p2p aspect that is required for "lightning bitcoin" to function as cash.
Instead, BTC lightning network has to function more like traditional banks where the node operator is the bank and the payment channel is the user's account. The transactions are like really fast SWIFT/ACH transfers except they only go through if the sender's account meets the necessary liquidity constraints. Those liquidity constraints actually make btc lightning transactions more like purchases made using a secured/prepaid credit card because you must have money tied up so that you can spend money. And like a bank, the lightning node gets to decide if they want to route your transaction to it's final destination.
It's also incredibly likely ( and arguably confirmed based on https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/2019-05/FinCEN%20... ) that BTC lightning nodes will be subject to the same rules and regulations as a traditional bank. If so, it's yet another centralizing force on BTC's version of Lightning. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking banks here. Banks are useful and KYC/AML are often good things. I'm just saying, "lightning btc" couldn't be further from cash.
This is definitely true. Luckily for miners there are two other blockchains their mining equipment can make use of which don't suffer from the slow difficulty adjustment. They are both version of Bitcoin Cash (BCH and BSV) and they both have 10-block adjustment periods. This makes them much more resilient to sustained periods of depreciation.
when it should point to
https://ihodl.com/opinion/2018-11-08/roger-ver-blockchain-li...
There is no d in roger
As much as I love good old BTC, the entire ecosystem seems to have gone stagnant the past few years. Meanwhile, I can't even keep up with all the new stuff being built on Bitcoin Cash.
Apparently BCH now supports tokens too. I just hope the devs don't lose focus and will continue building "peer to peer digital cash" as described in the Bitcoin whitepaper.
The fact that we can even achieve this level of precision from a piece of hardware blows my mind.
My biggest issue with all of this comes down to one word. You keep using the word "decentralized" to describe what BTC is and what BCH has lost. I've seen this word used for a long time now by the BTC camp but none of them can better define it (or are willing to attempt it).
Here are some of the things that I think make a coin decentralized.
1. Distribution of mining. Neither BTC nor BCH have decentralized distribution of mining. The big pools are massive and they can (and do) switch between the two coins.
2. Communication channels. With the small exception of things like Memo.cash for BCH, both BTC and BCH have both built their community on censor-able platforms like Twitter and Reddit.
3. Full node mining clients. BTC has one and it's called Bitcoin Core. Attempts to create more (Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin unlimited, Segwit 2x) were labeled as scams by the r/bitcoin mods and all talk about them was silenced. Meanwhile BCH welcomed them. We now have 6+ full node clients that miners/users can choose from (ABC, Unlimited, Flowee, Bcash, BCHD, Satoshis Vision, and more). Our community encourages them because it makes for a healthy ecosystem.
TLDR: Both coins are pretty damn centralized but if you do compare them you'll find that for the things that matter, BCH is way more decentralized. It's more decentralized while have 32x the transaction capacity and sub-penny fees for the foreseeable future.
Here's what Adam Back thought about the block size back before Blockstream's agenda took hold of Bitcoin's development. https://i.redd.it/9enseqrfp1v01.png
> Other maintainers made it clear that backward incompatible changes don't happen to the rules without broad consensus (of which there was none).
And this is the fundamental problem. The community had no idea how many people actually wanted blocks bigger than 1mb because everyone who voiced it was kicked out and labeled a scammer. The "bigger block" group was and continues to be massive. The 1mb group continues to be a minority.
A sudden increase in demand for BTC will send the fees through the roof because of it's tiny 1mb blocksize. The same increase in demand will result in ~ 1/32 the increase in fees. This is due to BCH's 32mb block size.
Is that you Theymos?
> ...and has the volition to choose the software they wish to run to interact with the economy they wish to participate in.
How many software choices do BTC users have? I know the answer to this. It's one. You've got one choice to choose from.
> Governance inherently means you want some people to tell other people how to behave.
Governance means if people are willing to talk to each other (and listen), they'll find they have common ground and can make progress and move forward together.
> Maybe so do bigger blocks, for now, but certainly at the cost of decentralization
You seem to think that BTC, a coin with a single client implementation controlled by a handful of devs, some of which are employed by a company who's value proposition is in direct conflict with Bitcoin's success, is decentralized. It is not. It couldn't be further from it.
There is a reason Bitcoin Cash is still around and surrounded by drama in the same ways Bitcoin used to be. It's because everyone who was fighting to make Bitcoin "magic internet money" got tired of being censored and forked off in an attempt to fire those few core devs getting in the way of progress. I would recommend you start by reading about the censorship. The censorship is the only reason Bitcoin Cash exists today.
Bitcoiners are silenced as soon as they start asking questions. Bitcoin Cashers have carried on with the original experiment and are currently trying to figure out governance.
You've clearly never read the whitepaper. Forking is THE fundamental consensus mechanism. That's alright, you'll get the bitcoin you deserve.
> The egomaniacs all left Bitcoin and are now competing for who gets to decide the rules of BCash
The s/egomaniacs/developers/ all left Bitcoin and are now competing for who gets to decide the rules of s/BCash/Bitcoin Cash/
Fixed that for ya.
> It has made a number of subtle but significant changes to distinguish itself from Bitcoin
It has made a number of subtle but significant changes to survive as a minority hard fork until it can attract enough hash power to take the network.
> This has lead to nearly 2,000 Forks of the Bitcoin network
Almost all of the 2000 "forks" referenced here are forks of the codebase. Bitcoin Cash and only a few others are forks of both the codebase AND THE BLOCKCHAIN. When the blockchain is forked, the new coin contains the same transaction history and coin distribution up until the fork point.
> However, the person most directly connected to the currency today is Roger Ver, an early Bitcoin adopter and investor.
This could not be further from the truth. When the censorship started in r/bitcoin, multiple teams started working simultaneously on separate clients to fork the network. The team that was first out of the gate is said to be affiliated with ASIC manufacturers Bitmain. It took months before Roger Ver even spoke about it. It wasn't until the Segwit2x fork failed on the Bitcoin Core network that Ver actually put his resources behind it. He was even criticized for not supporting it immediately.
> A brief history
The history goes much further back. See the following links
- https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6rxw7k/info...
- https://www.reddit.com/r/decred/comments/6wxueo/your_best_pi...
- https://medium.com/@johnblocke/a-brief-and-incomplete-histor...
- https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7hckeb/in_response_to_...
- https://blog.coinbase.com/what-happened-at-the-satoshi-round...
> Because the Bitcoin Cash blocks are significantly larger, that makes them tougher crack, and harder for small miners to solve the blocks.
Block size has nothing to do with difficulty. Difficulty or "how tough to crack" is set by a function called the "difficulty adjustment algorithm" and is completely separate from the code that handles block composition.
Edit: formatting
Of of the few actual debates between the two party's interpretation of the whitepaper is about running full nodes. Core believes that Satoshi expected anyone transacting on the network to run their own full node to validate each blocks even if the person isn't trying to mine (generate coins). The Cash party believes that Satoshi never intended end users to run a full node unless they were also trying to generate coins.
Other than that though, there doesn't seem to be much debate coming from the "Bitcoin Core" side. They seem to be of the opinion that the whitepaper describes a system that simply cannot work in it's original form. It's hard to know what people really think though because of the censorship (or strict moderation if you prefer) in r/bitcoin.
> Cryptocurrency's regulatory problems will be solved by the IRS designating all of it as a religion.
Does that mean they can apply for tax exempt status? ;)
Only the multiple accountings from people inside the country. There are graphic photos and videos being collected and shared inside a google drive (link included in the Reddit thread) that claim to substantiate claims.
> Is this confirmed?
This has been publicly denied by govt. I updated the title to reflect that no mainstream news source has confirmed this . The photos, videos, and first hand accounting strongly suggest that it's true. It's worth noting that a media blackout has been issued and mobile internet access has been turned off.
EDIT: The rape accusation seems to now be confirmed by a news source inside the country ( http://www.banglatribune.com/others/news/350887 ). I don't know Bangala but the word করা is referenced in the article in an appropriate context and Google Translate shows the word in it's Bangala translation for rape.
Also see https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/94ivyd/school_st...
None of the major US news outlets seems to be covering this story. It's incredibly brutal.
Sadly this innovation won't work near as well on the BTC chain unless usage continues to plummet. As we've seen in the past, the slightest short term increase in transaction demand results in fees so high that most outputs in the utxo set become unrecoverable (the fee becomes greater than the value of the output). This leaves the BTC utxo set unmanageable and unpredictable.
Although the utxo set on BCH grows at a much greater rate, the 32mb block size makes it so that outputs can be inexpensively consolidated, regardless of short term transaction demand.
That being said, Lightning Network could potentially allow this innovation on BTC if it's able to successfully move transactions off chain. With the trouble they've been having with regards to routing and payment channel requirements, I wouldn't be HODLing my breath.
It's a consequence of hooking up all world's information before people understand how to safely digest it. It will fix itself if we can find an equilibrium before we all destroy each other.
I sincerely hope you don't think that meeting with government agencies and/or adhering to regulations means they can't be doing evil.
I'd say this fairly accurately described early Facebook
https://blog.coinbase.com/what-happened-at-the-satoshi-round...
It's a question of when. Not if.
I use it because I can go from idea to functional prototype in just a few hours. I don't need to spend a bunch of time deciding how to best structure my projects because it's obvious where things go.
When I have to work on a product that wasn't built on Sails, it's either a complete mess or it's clean but only because they've burned a ton of development time creating many of the same abstractions that Sails comes with out of the box.
I'll admit, the ORM hasn't always been great when you need to integrate with an existing data store. It's absolutely perfect for simple CRUD apps though and you always have the option to run native queries.
The only other semi-valid complaint I'm seeing is that the docs are bad. Well, they've been bad in the past. The new docs for v1 are loads better. I've referenced them quite a bit over the last few months.
I just launched my second product this year built on Sails and I'll soon start my third. The new features in v1 are absolutely worth giving it a shot if you haven't already.
There's a great use case in suckering honest people into holding your bags using the promise of instant wealth.
EDIT: Added quote
Sadly, the only property it shares with gold is that it's hard to move. In fact, Bitcoin Cash is functionally identical to Bitcoin and it's easy to move.
That's ignoring the hundreds of other digital currencies not named Bitcoin which make a better "digital gold".
I just read it for the first time last year. I found the book incredibly frightening. It wasn't because the ideas discussed painted a scary picture of the future. It was because the ideas painted a picture of the present.
Because Orwell's dystopian vision has progressed so quickly, I'm worried we're too late to fix things. In the future, I think I'll look back and see my reading of Orwell's 1984 as a milestone that changed the course of my life. I've never in my life felt so empowered while also feeling so incredibly helpless.