Author Topic: Does anyone here use Bitcoins? (Read 854,854 times)

Renegade · « **Reply #825 on:** December 14, 2015, 02:41 AM »

I think a few people will rather enjoy this:

http://forklog.net/longread-failcoin-and-proof-or-meaningless/

Renegade · « **Reply #826 on:** December 17, 2015, 04:38 PM »

Looks like Microsoft is offering "Blockchain as a Service" through Azure now:

http://bravenewcoin.com/news/microsoft-now-offering-several-blockchains-as-a-service-at-azure/

Quote

Microsoft now offering several Blockchains as a Service at Azure
Posted by Luke Parker on 17 December 2015 | Comments
Tags: Adoption, Bitcoin, Dapps

Microsoft Azure is a scalable cloud services platform similar to Amazon’s AWS. It offers cloud-based storage, computing, networking, databases, and enterprise-level management, production and deployment environments, along with advanced services such as analytics.

Using it has been likened to having an IT department outsourced to Microsoft services, as it allows customers to spend more time and resources on building applications that benefit their organization, rather than managing hardware and software. Although only a few years old, Azure faces diverse competition from Amazon, Google, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce.com, VMware, and even open source offerings.

More at the link.

Renegade · « **Reply #827 on:** December 22, 2015, 06:44 PM »

Some Bitcoin jokes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3xtxvc/bitcoin_jokes_cmon_its_the_silly_season/

What’s the difference between an average bitcoin miner and an average plumber?

An average plumber can at least solve a block.

------------

What’s the difference between Bitcoin and NASA?

Bitcoin’s actually going to the moon.

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Why won’t the government embrace bitcoin?

They hate the idea of a ‘Proof Of Work’.

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How many miners does it take to change a lightbulb?

A million - One to do it and 999,999 to verify that he did.

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Knock Knock.

Who’s there?

Satoshi!

Satoshi who?

;-)

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What’s the difference between Mt Gox and marriage?

There’s still hope of recovering some of your coins after Gox

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Why won’t the Icelandic government embrace bitcoin?

They don’t trust anything they can’t freeze.

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What’s the difference between bitcoin and marriage?

You only lose the house, kids and *half* your wealth when your marriage turns to shit.

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I paid a hooker with bitcoins once and asked if I’d ever see her again.

She said sure, next week you’ll find me just a few blocks away.

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Why are the Chinese dumping their Bitcoins this week?

Because they were Wong about Wright.

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In Bitcoin news the real Satoshi Namakoto was found and arrested this week.

He was charged with indecent exposure for revealing himself to a minor in the pool.

There were concerns that photo evidence in his trial would be deemed too “cryptographic” for public release.

Satoshi’s miraculous escape from his cell moments later was witnessed by at least 200 of his peers…

but is still yet to be confirmed.

------------

What is an Irish cryptocurrency investor most worried about?

“Forking Bitcoin!”

------------

Why is Santa still struggling to get his shit together this year?

His lists are still capped at 1mb!!!

More at the link with some really good ones. Here's just one:

A boy asked his bitcoin-investing father for $10.
Father: $9.82? What do you need $10.08 for?

Deozaan · « **Reply #828 on:** December 22, 2015, 06:47 PM »

Quote from: Renegade on December 22, 2015, 06:44 PM

A boy asked his bitcoin-investing father for $10.
Father: $9.82? What do you need $10.08 for?

In other news, I'm considering giving away a few dollars worth of bitcoin for a white elephant exchange. I figure it meets the requirement of a "cheap" gift while still possibly being interesting and having the added benefit of helping spread adoption of bitcoin. I found this website which allows you to generate paper wallets you can print off and hand out.

Renegade · « **Reply #829 on:** January 04, 2016, 06:05 PM »

David Cameron seems to think that raiding people's bank accounts is a good thing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/10819885/David-Cameron-Taxes-will-rise-unless-we-can-raid-bank-accounts.html

Quote

David Cameron: Taxes will rise unless we can raid bank accounts

David Cameron claims he will "have to put up taxes" unless tax officials are given draconian powers to raid people's bank accounts

Maybe for Bitcoin, as it's a heck of a lot safer than a UK bank account now.

Renegade · « **Reply #830 on:** January 12, 2016, 04:04 PM »

The RAND Corporation is encouraging governments to attack Bitcoin.

http://www.neowin.net/news/us-sponsored-report-says-governments-should-attack-bitcoin-and-undermine-it

Quote

U.S. sponsored report says governments should attack Bitcoin and undermine it

In a world where constant on and offline surveillance by nation states seems to have become the norm, it’s perhaps little wonder that systems aiming to de-centralize services and maintain privacy have become targets.

In a new report, sponsored by the U.S. government, the influential RAND Corporation paints a bleak picture for the future of Bitcoin and other such technologies based around blockchains and encryption. According to this report, Bitcoin and blockchain technologies are actually succeeding in their primary goal of offering de-centralized, anonymized and resilient services to users around the world.

While that may sound like good news for many users, the report goes on to explain that this is in fact “agnostic to the national security interests of the United States”. Another big problem that the advancement of these technologies brings to the table is the dissemination of information regarding online encryption. Apparently, spreading knowledge of means of encryption and security among the general populace is a very bad idea.

The think tank then goes on to suggest that nation-states, particularly the U.S., should attack services like Bitcoin and other blockchain-based systems, through sophisticated technological means, to undermine their key strengths in the public perception: security, stability and privacy.

So why exactly are these systems, including Bitcoin, “agnostic” to the U.S. and other nation states’ interests? The report focuses on the fact that these technologies could be used by groups, maybe terrorists, to set up persistent communications and currencies that could be almost impossible to disrupt. And that sounds bad.

But there’s another argument which comes up again and again in the original report, and that’s simply the fact that nation-states, again particularly focusing on the U.S., would simply be unable to control or interfere in such systems if they’re developed and widespread.

It’s very doubtful that the debate around encryption and privacy will die down anytime soon, and for good reason, as this is perhaps one of the most important issues for human rights at the beginning of this 21st century.

PDF of the RAND report here: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1200/RR1231/RAND_RR1231.pdf

mwb1100 · « **Reply #831 on:** January 15, 2016, 04:59 PM »

I don't use Bitcoin, but I came across this article which has some pretty dire statements about it:

- The resolution of the Bitcoin experiment

I don't know enough about the workings of Bitcoin to know if the article is a good one or not, but it sure sounds like he knows what he's talking about. I'm interested in what you guys think.

mouser · « **Reply #832 on:** January 15, 2016, 05:09 PM »

That looks like a very interesting article -- thanks for sharing!

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #833 on:** January 15, 2016, 05:30 PM »

Quote from: mwb1100 on January 15, 2016, 04:59 PM

I don't use Bitcoin, but I came across this article which has some pretty dire statements about it:

- The resolution of the Bitcoin experiment

I don't know enough about the workings of Bitcoin to know if the article is a good one or not, but it sure sounds like he knows what he's talking about. I'm interested in what you guys think.

Article released ~21 hours ago.
Bitcoin price tanks ~20 hours ago.

Coincidence?? ...I think not.

Personally I wish the Son-of-a-Bitch would have kept his freaking teeth shut. I was about to do a selloff, but now I can't without screwing myself through the floor.

wraith808 · « **Reply #834 on:** January 15, 2016, 05:44 PM »

I want to see what Renegade thinks. Especially in the light of that troubling PDF he directed us to a bit ago.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #835 on:** January 15, 2016, 06:57 PM »

Quote from: wraith808 on January 15, 2016, 05:44 PM

I want to see what Renegade thinks. Especially in the light of that troubling PDF he directed us to a bit ago.

Me too, I'm just afraid by the time he chimes in it'll be under $200. I hate to 'Panic Sale' the coin, but I'm really really tired of the waiting game...and I have other things - being held up by it - that need to get done.

wraith808 · « **Reply #836 on:** January 15, 2016, 08:07 PM »

Quote from: Stoic Joker on January 15, 2016, 06:57 PM

Quote from: wraith808 on January 15, 2016, 05:44 PM
I want to see what Renegade thinks. Especially in the light of that troubling PDF he directed us to a bit ago.

Me too, I'm just afraid by the time he chimes in it'll be under $200. I hate to 'Panic Sale' the coin, but I'm really really tired of the waiting game...and I have other things - being held up by it - that need to get done.

If you read the article, some people ask some really good questions of him... that he doesn't answer.

Quote

Mike, How were you able to sell your coins if your claim “Couldn’t move your existing money” is true?

Quote

I think someone who quits an open source project to work for a company that does basically the same (centralized blockchain) should not comment on their previous “employer”. It’s the lowest thing you can do, you lost all credibility and if I were an employer I would never hire someone who just talks crap about an ex-employer.

Quote

You do realize that these messages are poisonous to Bitcoin… And that, especially coming from you, this might be a nail in the Bitcoin coffin. I mean, it’s a little petty to spread these articles to destroy the confidence in Bitcoin, just because things didn’t go the way you wanted it to go. There would’ve been better solutions… I’m just saying, we all have a problem now… I hope Bitcoin won’t respond too much to this article..

wraith808 · « **Reply #837 on:** January 15, 2016, 08:11 PM »

Other analyses of the article:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10905118

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/410f6b/the_resolution_of_the_bitcoin_experiment/

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/4137uo/the_resolution_of_the_bitcoin_experiment/

I have to wonder if this is TrueCrypt with a little more veracity, but we all know, in order to make a good lie, you put in a modicum of truth...

Renegade · « **Reply #838 on:** January 16, 2016, 05:06 AM »

Quote from: wraith808 on January 15, 2016, 05:44 PM

I want to see what Renegade thinks.

Oh? The death of Bitcoin? Again?

Must be Friday.

Shitstorm will last a while, then it'll go back to normal.

Quote from: Stoic Joker on January 15, 2016, 05:30 PM

Personally I wish the Son-of-a-Bitch would have kept his freaking teeth shut. I was about to do a selloff, but now I can't without screwing myself through the floor.

The SOB is not being paid by the banksters. Yep. Them. Literally.

Proof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0iArSIU0Z8&feature=youtu.be&t=47m16s

Listen for a couple minutes. This was all deliberately orchestrated.

But do listen carefully or you might miss it. He's speaking prior to Mike's post. Deliberate.

Bitcoin is the fastest, safest, cheapest, most reliable payment system on the planet. Period. Nothing beats it.

It's neutral.

It scares people/luddites.

Sigh... it's Friday. Guess we're back to waiting until Tuesday.

Renegade · « **Reply #839 on:** January 16, 2016, 08:33 AM »

I should have posted this before, but here it is:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/413pwp/mike_hearns_latest_blog_post_was_a_strategic_move/

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #840 on:** January 16, 2016, 01:55 PM »

Quote from: Renegade on January 16, 2016, 05:06 AM

Quote from: Stoic Joker on January 15, 2016, 05:30 PM
Personally I wish the Son-of-a-Bitch would have kept his freaking teeth shut. I was about to do a selloff, but now I can't without screwing myself through the floor.

The SOB is ~~not~~ being paid by the banksters. Yep. Them. Literally.

ftfy - Fun and games aside.. I've been working towards something for the past 3 years that I was finally going to pull the trigger on for my birthday Tuesday. I was willing to take a small loss to get the project off the ground, but now it's simply not going to be possible for the foreseeable future - until these idiots finish their petty little pissing contest.

I'm going to stop here...before I devolve into a tirade of profanity. because I am currently at a level of anger that can only be adequately described as unhealthy.

wraith808 · « **Reply #841 on:** January 16, 2016, 03:48 PM »

Quote from: Renegade on January 16, 2016, 08:33 AM

I should have posted this before, but here it is:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/413pwp/mike_hearns_latest_blog_post_was_a_strategic_move/

THanks for that. AFter your prior post on the recommendation to attack bitcoin in any way possible, that's what I figured this was. But it still sucks.

Edvard · « **Reply #842 on:** January 18, 2016, 09:24 PM »

OK, so what I get from this is that he's a goon either way, and really shouldn't be spouting off without being prepared to answer the questions arising from his claims, but he raises some himself that I'm not finding good answers for:
1- Is it true that raising the blocksize limit is bad, and more specifically, in the way that Maxwell says it is? [EDIT] Partially answered, see below.
1a - By the way, why the holy-ever-lovin is Maxwell even deving for BTC if he "proved bitcoin impossible"?
2- Are dissenting opinions really being wholesale censored by those who side with Bitcoin Core over those who disagree? Ignoring that which you don't feel like answering is one thing, attempting to answer regardless if the questioner takes it is better, actively killing the conversation with censorship is just... really bad.
3- Any clue as to who systematically DDOS'd XT nodes? If it were banks or governments, I'd think they would go after Core as well. Excuse me for reading things plainly, but it seems like a clear-cut case of killing the competition. Please prove me wrong.

Also, this should improve the temperature of the conversation around scaling and relevant to question #1.
https://medium.com/@ryanshea/the-scaling-announcement-bitcoin-core-should-have-made-146790f755df#.inxhnxuig
To Maxwell's (and other devs) credit, there IS a commitment to incremental capacity increases that has been in place since Dec 7, 2015:
https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/capacity-increases
FWIW, I have read through a few of the commit logs on Bitcoin Core's Github, and for all the criticism that Mike Hearn heaps on Greg Maxwell, he doesn't seem to be JUST an engineer/coder; he actively thinks about how people and developers are going to actually use/abuse the systems as they get implemented. Such as:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2738

Also, the discussion here is better than the actual post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/41ipu0/some_advice_for_everybody_at_this_point_in_time/
IMO, commenters are right in saying that the prime directive of Bitcoin is not as a drop-in replacement for the economic exchange as we know it today (though it may become a large part of it in the foreseeable future), but a system outside/alongside of it, with the primary aims being anonymity and security in financial transactions between people. I agree with Mike Hearn on one point:

Quote

When misinformed investors lose money, government attention frequently follows.

if only to say that in that context, people who use Bitcoin as an investment probably shouldn't be. Yes, I understand the ups and downs of Bitcoin value can be played just like the stock market or other investment venture, and many people have. Some have done well and others have lost their shirts. So far, it seems most of the players involved understand the risks of doing such business with a new system outside of authoritative oversight, but I sincerely believe that doing such should be actively discouraged, as it only takes one idiot with less sense than the amount of money they lost for Bitcoin to come under very unwanted scrutiny. So far it's been fortunate; most of those buying in seem to be in it for the technical and socio-economic merits (even 'investors'), not for any notion of convenience or stability. But I wonder if a "tipping point" may come before it is fully mature; where enough clueless users join up expecting it to be some magically 'better' transaction system with no notion of how the thing actually works, then complain when the value dips.

Of course, IMHO, YMMV, 2c, etc...

Deozaan · « **Reply #843 on:** January 18, 2016, 11:01 PM »

Quote from: wraith808 on January 15, 2016, 08:07 PM

If you read the article, some people ask some really good questions of him... that he doesn't answer.
Quote
Mike, How were you able to sell your coins if your claim “Couldn’t move your existing money” is true?

Simple. Right now, because of the low blocksize limit, transactions with higher fees are accepted/added to the blockchain by miners while transactions with lower fees are delayed/ignored. You can easily move your money if you're willing to pay exorbitant fees.

Just a couple of months ago I could make transactions for a couple of cents. Now I've heard the average transaction fee is about 10 cents. While still relatively low, there is no reason for artificially increasing the fees by keeping the blocksize limit small as the miner reward of 25BTC is still pretty significant! Even when it halves to 12.5BTC (scheduled to happen in about 6 months) that's ~$4,750 every ten minutes at the current exchange rate.

Quote from: wraith808 on January 15, 2016, 08:07 PM

Quote
I think someone who quits an open source project to work for a company that does basically the same (centralized blockchain) should not comment on their previous "employer". It’s the lowest thing you can do, you lost all credibility and if I were an employer I would never hire someone who just talks crap about an ex-employer.

This isn't a question.

Quote from: wraith808 on January 15, 2016, 08:07 PM

Quote
You do realize that these messages are poisonous to Bitcoin… And that, especially coming from you, this might be a nail in the Bitcoin coffin. I mean, it’s a little petty to spread these articles to destroy the confidence in Bitcoin, just because things didn’t go the way you wanted it to go. There would’ve been better solutions… I’m just saying, we all have a problem now… I hope Bitcoin won’t respond too much to this article..

This also isn't a question.

That said, I read Mike's post not as being harmful to nor as a condemnation of Bitcoin, but as a condemnation of the Bitcoin Core developers who, it appears, are doing their very best to bring down Bitcoin from within. People who believe in Bitcoin still believe in Bitcoin. They just have very little to no confidence in the Bitcoin Core devs.

My opinion is that I agree with a lot of what Mike Hearn stated about the current problems with Bitcoin (Core). However, I disagree with his final conclusion that BTC is dead/failed.

People got sick of the Bitcoin Core devs strong-arming their ideas on the entirety of Bitcoin through ignoring the community at best and censoring/silencing opposing viewpoints at worst. It's the Core devs who are/were "killing" BTC, but the beauty of an open source project and a distributed blockchain is that you don't have to stick with a tyrannical leadership. Finally, a group of people organized a fork called Bitcoin Classic which is rapidly gaining traction/popularity/acceptance and looks like it will be the dominant fork of BTC relatively soon.

Quote from: http://bitcoinclassic.com/

The data show consensus amongst miners for an immediate 2 MB increase, and demand amongst users for 8 MB or more. We are writing the software that miners and users say they want. We will make sure that it solves their needs, help them deploy it, and gracefully upgrade the bitcoin network’s capacity together.

We call our code repository Bitcoin Classic. It starts as a one-feature patch to bitcoin-core that increases the blocksize limit to 2 MB.

As stated, they're taking action to double the blocksize limit ASAP (within a few months) and then gradually increase it on an ongoing basis thereafter.

There's also strong community opposition to Replace By Fee (RBF) which makes it incredibly easier for people to rip other people off and basically cripples the ability for BTC to be used in commercial transactions (i.e., paying for goods in brick & mortar stores). Core is trying to ramrod this into the client despite the strong opposition to it, and has already committed some RBF code to the repository. Classic may remove this "feature" (though at this time AFAIK they will not commit to anything until they've finished the one-feature patch to increase the blocksize limit). For an explanation of what RBF is and why it's a bad idea, see the long description below:

Long explanation of RBF

To explain what RBF is, I have to explain a bit about how BTC transactions work (which I'm sure many of you already know, but just to cover all the bases...)

The gist of it is that when accepting BTC payments, to be sure someone doesn't "double-spend" the money, you should wait for at least 1 confirmation (meaning the transaction is on the most recent entry in the blockchain ledger) which takes about 5-10 minutes at best or much, much longer given the current issue with high fees and the blocksize limit being nearly reached. To be "ultra-safe" it is recommended to wait for 6 confirmations which takes about an hour (~50 minutes) longer than the first confirmation.

To backtrack slightly, a "double-spend" is when someone makes a transaction paying one person, and then almost immediately (before the first confirmation) makes another transaction paying another person (possibly even themselves). In such a scenario, only one of these transaction will come out the victor and be added to the blockchain (i.e., only one will be confirmed). Typically the first transaction, chronologically speaking, is the one that is confirmed. But there are ways to make the 2nd transaction the one that confirms. I may be wrong about this, but I think you would basically have to send the transactions to two different miners and hope the miner who got the 2nd transaction is the first one to confirm it.

Either way, this means the transaction that didn't go through is effectively void and the recipient didn't actually get paid. I've heard that this is relatively easy to do if you know what you're doing, but probably it's beyond the ability of the casual/usual BTC user. This is why it's recommended to wait for at least 1 confirmation, to assure that you get your BTC. On the other hand, imagine going to the drive-through and having to wait 10 minutes or longer after you paid to get your coffee. Nobody would do that! Thus, some businesses accept the relatively small risk of double-spends by delivering the goods without waiting for the first confirmation. This is called zero confirmation (or some variation of 0-conf). It makes more business sense to accept the risk of the occasional double-spend (losing money on the sale) because the convenience of 0-conf brings much more business in than it loses to double-spends.

Enter RBF: Replace By Fee allows a person to easily replace a 0-conf transaction with a NEW transaction, and as long as it has a higher fee than the old transaction the miner's software would be instructed to ignore the first transaction and only accept the second transaction. This sounds like and is proposed as a great idea if your transaction gets stuck in limbo forever because your initial transaction didn't include a high enough fee, but this is wrong for two reasons:

1. Transactions shouldn't be getting stuck due to low fees. There's no reason for fees to be so high. The only reason the fees are so high is because Core won't increase the blocksize limit. Increasing the limit will allow more transactions to go into the block, reducing the amount of fees required to be included. Core is artificially increasing the fees and then proposing RBF as a solution to the problem they're creating.

2. The even bigger problem is that the new RBF transaction could be to anyone, including the person making the payment. So with RBF a person could go into a shop, buy something, walk out with the goods, then make a new RBF transaction paying the money back to themselves, and basically get things for free.

In my opinion, a much better solution to the problem of transactions getting stuck in limbo forever is the following:

1. Increase the blocksize limit. As stated before, a higher blocksize limit means miners can fit more transactions into a single block, thereby reducing the artificial limitation on supply and therefore reducing the fees required to be included in a block.

2. Child Pays for Parent (CPFP).

A quick explanation of CPFP: If a transaction gets stuck due to a low fee, another transaction (made by the recipient of the "stuck" coins) which spends the "stuck" coins--and has a high enough fee to be included in the block--will pay for the stuck transaction to go through.

Deozaan · « **Reply #844 on:** January 18, 2016, 11:46 PM »

Quote from: Edvard on January 18, 2016, 09:24 PM

1- Is it true that raising the blocksize limit is bad, and more specifically, in the way that Maxwell says it is? [EDIT] Partially answered, see below.

It's true you don't want to increase the limit by too much. Too large of a blocksize can result in DDOS of the blockchain (which is why the 1MB limit was added in the first place). It can also mean that miners with low internet speeds will have a hard time propagating the blockchain. It might take so long to download the latest transactions/blockchain that by the time a miner gets it and is ready to start mining a new block, there's already been another block added to the blockchain which needs to be downloaded and verified before work can begin on a new block. This way the miner is always trying to catch up to the latest version and never gets a chance to actually mine anything. Or another possibility is if a miner has solved a block and then has to upload a large amount of data on a slow connection, this could result in someone else solving the block independently before the miner's block propagates over the network.

That said, there's no reason why raising the blocksize limit at all is bad. This is why Bitcoin Classic is immediately increasing the limit to a conservative 2MB, and gradually increasing it thereafter.

Quote from: Edvard on January 18, 2016, 09:24 PM

2- Are dissenting opinions really being wholesale censored by those who side with Bitcoin Core over those who disagree? Ignoring that which you don't feel like answering is one thing, attempting to answer regardless if the questioner takes it is better, actively killing the conversation with censorship is just... really bad.

These links might answer your question:

Quote from: Edvard on January 18, 2016, 09:24 PM

Also, this should improve the temperature of the conversation around scaling and relevant to question #1.
https://medium.com/@ryanshea/the-scaling-announcement-bitcoin-core-should-have-made-146790f755df#.inxhnxuig
To Maxwell's (and other devs) credit, there IS a commitment to incremental capacity increases that has been in place since Dec 7, 2015:
https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/capacity-increases

Their plan for "scaling Bitcoin" is to implement a feature called Segregated Witness (SegWit). But SegWit isn't all it's advertised to be. It's really just an accounting trick, or perhaps better described as a subsidy. It uses up just as much data as before (more, actually!) they just don't count it the same way under certain circumstances. Here's an explanation from someone who understands it far greater than I do:

Quote from: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/3zuhnu/summary_of_major_blocksize_proposals/cypcobn

> The size of of a Seg-Wit transaction is counted as 25% hence resulting in just under 4x the 1MB hard limit. Non witness data is counted the same as usual at 100% of it's size.

No, the size of the witness portion of a SegWit transaction is counted 25%. A SegWit transaction can be split into two parts: the transaction data (i.e. where the coins come from, how many coins, where they go to), and the witness data (the signatures and scripts you use to prove that you're allowed to spend the coins). It's only the second half of the transaction, the witness data, that gets the 75% discount. This means that transactions that have a lot of signatures (e.g. large multisig) benefit much more than typical transactions.

> Deploy segregated witness soft-fork April 2016 (tentative) resulting in a maximum blocksize just under 4MB if only segregated witness is used for transactions.... Reaching 4MB is unlikely as blocks are a mixture of both seg-wit and non seg-wit transactions.

Segregated witness is nearly 4 MB if only 15-of-15 multisig segwit transactions are used. If only segregated witness p2pkh transactions are used, the limit is 1.6 MB. if 100% 2-of-2 multisig with SW, then 2 MB. If a mix of SW transactions that resembles the current mix in terms of the amount of multisig is used, then 1.75 MB. If the current mix is used but only 50% are SW, then 1.375 MB.

Additionally, it's looking like SegWit is really complicated and changes things so much that "many reasonable people are skeptical that this roll-out can be accomplished in 9-12 months" yet the demand/need for a larger blocksize limit is here right now.

wraith808 · « **Reply #845 on:** January 20, 2016, 09:31 PM »

Quote from: Deozaan on January 18, 2016, 11:01 PM

Quote from: wraith808 on January 15, 2016, 08:07 PM
If you read the article, some people ask some really good questions of him... that he doesn't answer.
Quote
Mike, How were you able to sell your coins if your claim “Couldn’t move your existing money” is true?

Simple. Right now, because of the low blocksize limit, transactions with higher fees are accepted/added to the blockchain by miners while transactions with lower fees are delayed/ignored. You can easily move your money if you're willing to pay exorbitant fees.

Just a couple of months ago I could make transactions for a couple of cents. Now I've heard the average transaction fee is about 10 cents. While still relatively low, there is no reason for artificially increasing the fees by keeping the blocksize limit small as the miner reward of 25BTC is still pretty significant! Even when it halves to 12.5BTC (scheduled to happen in about 6 months) that's ~$4,750 every ten minutes at the current exchange rate.

Quote from: wraith808 on January 15, 2016, 08:07 PM
Quote
I think someone who quits an open source project to work for a company that does basically the same (centralized blockchain) should not comment on their previous "employer". It’s the lowest thing you can do, you lost all credibility and if I were an employer I would never hire someone who just talks crap about an ex-employer.

This isn't a question.

Quote from: wraith808 on January 15, 2016, 08:07 PM
Quote
You do realize that these messages are poisonous to Bitcoin… And that, especially coming from you, this might be a nail in the Bitcoin coffin. I mean, it’s a little petty to spread these articles to destroy the confidence in Bitcoin, just because things didn’t go the way you wanted it to go. There would’ve been better solutions… I’m just saying, we all have a problem now… I hope Bitcoin won’t respond too much to this article..

This also isn't a question.

We see that pedantry hasn't helped the situation. However, his answers to those non questions but definitely queries could go a lot towards his reasons behind posting the article at this point, and engagement with the community that he dropped this load on would be a good measure towards showing that the reasons for such are not self-serving nor self-aggrandizing. If you're going to drop an article like this and not engage, it becomes an open letter, and you shouldn't even open up the comments section, IMO.

Deozaan · « **Reply #846 on:** January 20, 2016, 10:40 PM »

Quote from: wraith808 on January 20, 2016, 09:31 PM

We see that pedantry hasn't helped the situation. However, his answers to those non questions but definitely queries could go a lot towards his reasons behind posting the article at this point, and engagement with the community that he dropped this load on would be a good measure towards showing that the reasons for such are not self-serving nor self-aggrandizing. If you're going to drop an article like this and not engage, it becomes an open letter, and you shouldn't even open up the comments section, IMO.

I'm not sure if you were calling me pedantic or not, but it wasn't my intent to be so. I don't see those non-questions as even queries. I see the first one as an accusation/conspiracy theory and the second one as someone who doesn't seem to have much belief of their own in Bitcoin expressing their opinion about Mike's opinion.

My opinion on both "queries" is:

Baseless accusations are most often best ignored.
The creator of Bitcoin (Satoshi Nakamoto) disappeared, and Bitcoin kept going just fine. Why would the departure of a prominent developer kill it?

Either way, Mike Hearn didn't necessarily respond in the comments section (which I'm not sure you can disable on Medium) but he did write a follow up article that addresses the accusations/conspiracy theories:

Quote from: https://medium.com/@octskyward/a-small-followup-aa399a83acbb#.7oncywoh1

I sold the last batch of my coins in December, a few days after the second “Scaling Bitcoin” conference. Since that time I haven’t had any positions in any cryptocurrencies, long or short, and no way to make profit or loss off anything that is happening to Bitcoin.

Some people suggested that there is some sort of banker conspiracy, because after I privately concluded Bitcoin wasn’t working I took a job with a startup that’s looking at how to apply distributed ledger technology in the existing financial system (R3 CEV). This isn’t a secret: there were stories in the press about it in November. It was also mentioned in the New York Times article. I didn’t mention this in my post because R3 is not a Bitcoin company, or even a cryptocurrency company, and there is no “BankCoin” or “R3Coin”. So this is really nothing to do with them and conspiracy theories are just a waste of time when there are more serious issues to consider.

wraith808 · « **Reply #847 on:** January 20, 2016, 11:45 PM »

Thanks for the response. And that's why I didn't respond for so long... didn't really know how exactly to respond, but it was more an engagement, especially after leaving a piece like this in the community- which it seems he did, to remove the cloud over the disparities.

Renegade · « **Reply #848 on:** January 21, 2016, 03:25 AM »

Mission to moon resumed. People realising MH's rage-quit for what it is. And that he's in bed with the banks. And that his response to that is silly given the evidence.

tl;dr - Mission to moon resumed.

Deozaan · « **Reply #849 on:** January 23, 2016, 12:19 AM »

I discovered Copay (a Bitcoin wallet) last night.

After trying Bitcoin (Core) Wallet, Electrum, and some other wallets I don't remember their names of, I really like Copay for the following reasons:

Lightweight SPV wallet (on all your devices).
You control your private keys.
Supports as many wallets as you want.
Nice UI!
Desktop and mobile apps, and even a Chrome extension.
Easily backup/import your wallet across multiple devices with the keywords (hierarchical-deterministic (HD) wallets).
Easily create/join shared (multisig) wallets.
Open source

I really like it. The UI is clean and simple, but still allows me to easily figure out how to do the stuff I want to do. All the other wallets I've tried were either obtuse/confusing or lacking in security (i.e. other parties had access to my private key(s)).