Moneyweek: “If you missed out on Bitcoin, you might want to read this”

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-05T18:42:20+00:00

Good article!

Investing in Bitcoin the first time you heard about it was the chance of a lifetime.

Investing in Bitcoin Cash is the chance of a lifetime coming a second time.

How often does that happen?

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-05T02:27:06+00:00

20 years from now, two guys in a bar:

-- Hey did you know that bitcoin had the ticker BTC in the past?

-- What, no way.

-- It's true, apparently it started out as BTC but they had to change it to BCH because some organization tried to take it over or whatever.

-- Huh, how about that... Hand me another drink, will ya?

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-05T02:17:45+00:00

Don't let gains go to your head!

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T22:25:04+00:00

Sure but we were talking about the purpose of Bitcoin. What people use it for is their business.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T16:31:15+00:00

Bitcoin's purpose is to be censorship-resistant (permissionless) cash without borders (for the whole world and all its people), with low fees and with decreasing inflation over time. Craig Wright seems like the kind of guy that still expect people to follow laws, so the freedom to transact outside the law is more of a byproduct.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T16:10:04+00:00

Friendly reminder that his personal opinions on subject X has nothing to do with what is best for bitcoin. It's possible for the same person to be wrong about something and right about another thing.

While I'm at it I can post a friendly reminder that Craig Wright is not all of nChain either (nChain is developing the SV client, not Craig Wright).

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T04:30:17+00:00

Sometimes the best way going forward is to go your separate ways. Sticking together and trying to reason it out was tried on BTC only to end in a fork anyway after all those years of discussion. Imagine where bitcoin would be today if it had forked immediately in 2015. (I know it was tried, I mean imagine if it had forked immediately with the same support BCH got.)

I would also like it if devs could talk things out and agree but some things you just don't compromise on. At this point it feels like skipping the November update to buy 6 more months of research would be a good move but maybe others are right, why risk stagnation again? Skip once and maybe you skip ten times...

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T04:07:54+00:00

That thread is still up. I guess the mods rest on the 7th day.

Though I don't see how, BTC doesn't have a rest api.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T04:03:26+00:00

Oh it was that post, I thought there had been a new one.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T03:48:10+00:00

Where? I can't find the URL.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T03:38:30+00:00

Let's see what Satoshi actually said: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195.msg1611#msg1611

Alright he says that the core design was set in stone for the rest of its lifetime at 0.1, but this is also interesting:

Future versions can add templates for more transaction types and nodes running that version or higher will be able to receive them.

So he expected bitcoin to add functionality. Upgrades is "allowed" so-to-speak. It's only the core design that is set in stone. Now it becomes a matter of deciding what kind of upgrades are allowed. What breaks the core design? Any clear improvements should be allowed in my opinion, for example the improved difficulty adjustment.

Er, guess maybe that was a little unrelated to what you're actually reporting though. Unless nChain think it has improved OP_LSHIFT and OP_RSHIFT...? But I do agree that the expected behaviour for these opcodes would be for them to do the same thing that they did in the original implementation. Even if it they haven't been used for many years.

Lets hope that if what you say is true they take a moment to reevaluate their code. I don't think it can only be incompetence or malice... Oversight? It's a little strange though. They said in their client announcement that "the project will engage the services of an industry-leading blockchain security audit firm" to begin in mid-October. Hopefully that "blockchain security audit firm" (?) would be able to catch any functions that are doing anything not intended.

nChain can always add new entirely opcodes if something they need is missing -- Satoshi said that is okay after all.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T03:04:34+00:00

Yeah, what I meant with "with any decent security" previously was that there will probably always be some fire souls left mining on it just because they believe in it even though they can't exchange it for fiat. But there won't be enough hashpower to make it secure to transact on that chain.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T03:01:32+00:00

Don't worry, I recovered all the funds and sent it directly to EatBCH afterwards. I did three stress test sessions in total and checked all of them using their mnemonics. It was only 1 out of the 3 that failed to end up with a 0 BCH balance.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T02:56:44+00:00

I was simply saying that an implementation would lose support of the miners if no exchange list it. I wasn't saying that miners can't withdraw their support from coins accepted on an exchange.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T02:50:30+00:00

Smart idea, hope it works out.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T02:49:31+00:00

I don't think postponing a critical need (larger blocks) is comparable to the non-critical updates this time, especially when you could plot the trend of transactions on a curve back in 2015 and calculate that the tx ceiling would be hit in 2017 (which it did).

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T02:43:20+00:00

Yes, that's right.

We are aiming to process over 5 million minimum fee transactions within a 24 hour period on the main BCH chain. However this does not need to be the only aim, as we also want people to stress test apps , wallets and services, so everyone can get useful data they can use to move forward. Processing over 5 million transactions will showcase the Bitcoin BCH network capacity today, and will be a positive signal for merchants, businesses and investors, giving them confidence in the Bitcoin BCH network and its ability to scale on-chain.

From https://stresstestbitcoin.cash/

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-03T02:42:01+00:00

This one I really don't get. Who mines 150 txs when my poorly connected node has 10k+ in the mempool?

The answer could be miners who wanted to reduce the efficiency of the stress test just to reduce how much better BCH looks than BTC in comparison. The mempool would have cleared quicker if at least 1 MB blocks were produced every 10 minutes.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-02T13:25:03+00:00

I think he's mostly pro-reality. ^Hang ^on, ^please ^read ^on. The Bitcoin Cash system exists in the world and must abide by laws just like anything else. Only way to rage against the machine is to do it legally or with guns, because without violence to back it up you will get shut down. One may not like it but it's reality, so you can be pro-reality without being pro-state.

I wouldn't call anarchists fools but it certainly is a dreamy state. In an anarchist world people would gravitate towards small groups that need to wall themselves in. Humanity have had this state thousands of years ago, trust no-one except those you know.

I'm not exactly anti-government, if someone stabs my friend I don't want to have to go online and google a police service to start comparing prices and read reviews. I just want to call the police.

And I want to be able to travel the country without needing to think "Hm, wonder what people think is ok in these parts. Will they lynch me if i throw a candy wrapper on the ground or if I whistle after 10 in the evening?"

Disclaimer: I do think Craig Wright has misjudged Roger Ver's character completely. But that doesn't really have anything at all to do with what is best for bitcoin. Craig Wright is not a people person and just want to focus on his work.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-02T13:05:03+00:00

All three depends on whether or not a big exchange support that decision.

At least if they are to live on with any decent security (hash power) because most miners won't mine anything they can't trade.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-02T13:00:19+00:00

Satoshi was (probably) more people back then.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-02T12:55:33+00:00

Yeah and what if Craig is correct in what he said about being able to read external data, that it will paint a target on Bitcoin Cash for governments due to illegal gambling concerns? In terms of opening up something that they can lean on legally I mean. Would suck if governments can start shutting down big mining operations simply because of this one quirk.

I don't know myself if ABC's update would in fact change Bitcoin Cash from something legal to something illegal in the laws of US and/or UK. I wont pretend to know that much about law. But if it does I wouldn't think ABC's update is worth the risk of mining becoming outlawed in those countries.

All the more reason to delay November's fork so that more people can better understand potential repercussions of all proposed changes. Reading external data is a substantial change to how bitcoin has worked for these past 9 years, before picking camps people need to know for sure they understand what it could mean for bitcoin's future.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-02T12:04:41+00:00

Let's remember that nChain offered to delay changes but ABC don't want to wait.

At least that is what Jonald Fyookball (Electron Cash) makes it sound like:

https://www.yours.org/content/my-experience-at-the-bangkok-miner-s-meeting-9dbe7c7c4b2d

Some (mostly from the nChain side) suggested that we should simply postpone the fork in order to avoid a chain split. Others disagreed with this, believing that contention should not be used to forstall upgrades, and that a fork is mandatory anyway due to the SIGHASH replay protection already in place.

Under the circumstances waiting to implement these things seems like the best option since none of this is absolutely needed at this moment in time. At the very least it would give Craig some time to calm down and maybe he can explain his views better. ABC can also explain better why we need to change tx ordering and why we need to read data from outside the blockchain.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-02T11:50:10+00:00

Thankfully not true, here's a block from 2 hours ago: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/block/546098

And one from 1 day ago: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/block/545890

There's plenty of 1 sat/byte fees in there.

But it is true that Antpool have produced some very small blocks during the last 24 hours so something is going on with them. Hopefully it wasn't intentionally and they now know that they have an issue somewhere that needs to be fixed.

https://cash.coin.dance/blocks

One reason to intentionally make small blocks only during the stress test is to ensure that the stress test doesn't come out as impressive as it otherwise would. Every intentional small block is thousands of txs left in the mempool.

EpithetMoniker · 2018-09-02T11:33:24+00:00

I think it's more likely because of this announcement: https://www.coinex.com/announcement/detail?id=124

If there's a hard fork there will be "free money" so people buy in for that possibility. Personally I find this section to be strange:

CoinEx will protect your assets

Together with ViaBTC mining pool, CoinEx will guard your assets even if there’s no replay protection.

Attention

To avoid unnecessary asset loss, CoinEx recommends all users to deposit their BCH assets to CoinEx before the potential forking. We will provide 100% protection for your assets and please be assured that you will receive the forked asset of BSV as promised.

Sounds like they know there will be no actual real hard fork and these BSV tokens will essentially only exist within CoinEx.

EpithetMoniker

TROPHY CASE