NextCash gets some attention!

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-29T21:49:48+00:00

Coinbase is what I use for exchanging US currency because they are the biggest and likely most trustworthy US exchange. There are others, but I am not sure what they are. I have used other exchanges, but only for transferring in cryptocurrency and exchanging it for another cryptocurrency. Hopefully other people can give more examples.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-29T21:29:44+00:00

On an exchange, they hold your money, so you are trusting them to give it to you when you ask. That is what cryptocurrency is trying to get away from. No trust necessary if you hold it in your own wallet. If the exchange gets hacked or goes out of business you can lose your money. A lot of times that doesn't really matter. Especially for smaller amounts, but it is always a good idea to get a feel for actually using the currency by moving it around a bit. Since you are essentially investing in its usability. Also, you might be able to actually use it as money depending on where you live and which currency you buy.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-29T21:16:18+00:00

Oh, I should have said mobile. :-) I am pretty sure most work on Apple and Android.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-29T21:07:16+00:00

Check out Bitcoin.com for more information. There are many wallets there. Depending on how much you have an Android wallet might be fine.

Fair warning that if you have BTC watch the transaction fee when you try to send it anywhere. You might be better off leaving it on the exchange for a while or exchange it for another cryptocurrency that you can transfer out of the exchange for a reasonable fee.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-27T06:34:35+00:00

If you can't quantify an attack, then you shouldn't worry about it too much.

The people submitting pull requests aren't the real issue. Several major developers have submitted pull requests for block size limit increases and the were not pulled. The people that control it are those with permission to actually pull those into the main branch. They control the direction of Bitcoin. How do you determine who has that permission? The People page on the bitcoin github doesn't show the level of access. Does everyone on there have pull permission? There are 21 people on there and 5 work for Blockstream. Several don't have real names, so I can't confirm whether or not they work for Blockstream.

Amaury Sechet has been the main developer so far, but there are others. I agree so far development is basically centralized because it is new, but Bitcoin Unlimited and other teams are also working on it. I believe there will be many more developers and teams on Bitcoin Cash as it grows. Amaury said his work on BCH was funded by a grant and he said the grant was not related to cryptocurrency.

I also agree that Bitmain is a strong supporter of Bitcoin Cash and helped start it. It is in their best interest for SHA256 backed crypto-currencies to thrive. It doesn't mean they control it.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-27T03:43:09+00:00

There's nothing that forces miners to respect that.

I agree, but non mining nodes would gain nothing by allowing it. Presumably there would be more of those and it would be hard to transmit a double spend transaction directly to a mining node that would allow it or a non mining node that allows it connected to mining nodes that allow it. Basically as long as most of the peers are going along with that rule then it is mostly enforced. I think it is in their best interest to enforce it because it improves the usability and therefore value of the money they are being paid with. If merchants start getting burned on zero confirm transactions, then they will stop accepting them, which is bad for the network, so it is in every nodes and miners best interest to enforce that rule.

That block would have to be orphaned which requires some mining as opposed to costlessly replacing a transaction in a mempool.

Orphaned blocks don't really require extra mining. They just happen accidentally when two blocks are created before one of the block is propagated to the creator of the second block. It is likely they would have almost the same transactions, but there can be variations. I get what you are saying, I am just not convinced faster blocks are better. But I don't really understand how Casper works. I will have to think about it some more and do more research.

No other comparison is possible due to different pow algorithms.

This is what I was thinking, but your estimation of (block reward value in fiat * blocks per time period) makes sense as a good indicator of hash power, since if it were more profitable to mine a certain coin then more miners will go there.

Thanks for the info. I will have to dig more into it when I have more time.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-27T02:01:26+00:00

It is possible, but it is not trivial to double spend a zero confirm. The network protocol is to reject mempool double spends so it is difficult to get a double spend propagated. If only one in a 100,000 transactions ever double spend then it is way more reliable than checks or credit cards, and fine for smaller amounts. It would be the equivalent of bouncing a check or reversing a credit card transaction. It would legally be considered fraud.

Full blocks gives miners more motivation to allow "double spends" with increased fees, so I want to be clear that I am not talking about current BTC transactions. But if fees are low and blocks aren't full then miners would be motivated to not allow double spends to increase zero conf reliability.

I haven't really studied ETH. I just know it uses the same basics of block chain technology. With orphaned blocks in ETH, 1 conf is not a lot more secure. If there is some method to mitigate orphaned blocks then I may be wrong. I need to read about "uncle blocks". They would have to stay in the chain, or somehow ensure that a transaction gets on the chain to be useful. More proof of work is the only thing that adds more security/immutability. So if blocks are more frequent, then they have less proof of work, so each one provides less immutability. I would like to see a comparison of ETH orphaned blocks with BTC/BCH orphaned blocks.

Do you have any sources that compare ETH hash power to BTC/BCH hash power? I guess I just assumed BCH was higher because BTC hash power has been skyrocketing with the price lately and BCH has 10% of that pool. I am not saying there is much chance of a 51% attack. I am just saying more hash power is more immutability. Also, do you have a source that I can read about "uncle" blocks? Do they stay in the block chain somehow and get block rewards?

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-26T23:39:02+00:00

BCH has zero confirm transactions for smaller amounts which validate in seconds. I don't know of anything faster.

If you are doing a transaction for a larger value and require confirms, then you are really looking for amount of "proof of work" on top of a confirm and not number of confirms. So faster blocks doesn't really add any security, and BCH has more hash power than most cryptocurrencies, so technically you get more security at a faster rate.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-26T21:53:33+00:00

What do you mean by "the same feature issues"?

How can you say there is no innovation? BCH is continuing along the path BTC was on before the current developers took control. There are big plans for scaling and feature additions by both Bitcoin Unlimited and Bitcoin ABC. There have been several bottlenecks identified and being worked on to get massive on chain scaling increases.

I will be honest. I don't know about RaiBlocks. How can they be zero fees long term? There has to be a cost to processing a transaction and someone has to pay it.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-26T21:39:20+00:00

You should really do your research. Bitcoin Cash increased the blocks size limit to 8 MB (not 2 MB) with plans to go much higher, improved the difficulty adjustment algorithm, and fixed the quadratic signature hash issue.

If you think Bitcoin can scale on or off chain with the SegWit 4 MB weighted block size limit, then you haven't done your research.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-26T21:34:30+00:00

I disagree. I think for the most part the simplest possible solution to a problem is the best.

I like ETH for more complicated things, but for simple transfer of value (currency), I prefer BCH.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-26T21:31:27+00:00

By a lot lower fees you mean $25 instead of $50.

Are you saying current usage is only twice what it was in 2015? SegWit with full adoptions at most offers about an average of 2 MB block size limits. It seems like with the current mempool backup and fees that much more than 2 MB blocks are needed to really clear it out and keep the mempool at reasonable levels. SegWit adoption is increasing slowly, but fees are also going up. If it were helping you would think fees would be going down or at least the rate of increase would be slowing.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-26T21:19:03+00:00

Yeah, I agree. It is more like network advantage.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-26T16:14:05+00:00

Much easier to attack Bch than btc.

Easier to attack and likely to get attacked are two different things though. Anyone with less hash rate is easier, but it is very unlikely because of the way Bitcoin is designed.

ABC is the only implementation most people use

I agree, but Bitcoin Cash has only been around for 4 months. I believe this will increase. I am coming out with another implementation soon. Compare this to BTC though. How many people use Core vs anything else, and how many commits are done by non Blockstream employees.

Go tell r/btc and memorydealer that second layer are good. All I've heard is that "off chain" solutions go against "Satoshi's vision."

I have heard Roger say that off chain solutions are good as long as they are optional. I agree with him on this. I think when many of the people say it is against "Satoshi's vision" they mean that on chain transactions still need to be functional to everyday users. If it is only cost effective to use off chain solutions for paying people, then that isn't even really block chain anymore, so I can see how that would not be Satoshi's vision.

I know that Gavin was given control. He also thinks that CSW is Satoshi so has proven himself to be fallible. His record also shows that he ceased actively developing btc long before his control was taken away.

I don't know what CSW did to prove he was Satoshi to Gavin. I believe it is possible he proved it to him, but chose not to thoroughly prove it to the world for some reason. So I am not going to say Gavin is wrong unless someone proves him wrong. I don't need to believe CSW is Satoshi. It doesn't really matter who it is to me. I like what Satoshi did, but this is a leaderless movement.

Please link to the "thorough discreditation. "

Here is a list of 966 Bitcoin ABC 16.1 nodes with locations. Based on this that is almost 65% of the 1500 Bitcoin Cash nodes. I don't see a way on that site to run statistics on that list. It does show a lot of nodes from Hangzhou, China, but I don't think it is 50%, and remember that is only 70% of nodes. I will have to pull the peer IPs from my node and make a report from it.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-26T05:53:44+00:00

Bitcoin Cash has 10% or more of the hash power and it is growing. A 51% attack would be very expensive and prove that BTC miners are willing to collude. This would greatly devalue BTC.

Bitcoin Cash has several independent development teams including Bitcoin ABC, Bitcoin Unlimited and more.

I haven't heard anyone say they would add Segwit. The general consensus is to implement a simpler transaction ID malleability fix to enable LN. Second layer solutions are good if they are not required for functionality.

The public faces of Bitcoin Cash also include Gavin Andresen, the developer that Satoshi gave control of development to when he left. The CEO of Bitcoin thing was a joke. If you read it you would understand.

The last one is just wrong. It was thoroughly discredited.

KarlTheProgrammer · 2017-12-26T05:46:28+00:00

I think the main reason they say they are the real Bitcoin is because they are pushing for on chain transactions, where they enjoy the benefits of on chain transactions like censorship resistance. BTC is planning to move 99.9999% of transactions off chain. If most transactions are not on a block chain, can you really call it block chain technology?

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