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It's crazy how currently all kind of "tricks" are being invented that would make Bitcoin more complicated. Great hackers who had a real world impact always exc

by 3dfan 11y ago

It's crazy how currently all kind of "tricks" are being invented that would make Bitcoin more complicated. Great hackers who had a real world impact always excelled at making small, logical systems. And avoided adding complexity to achieve short term fixes. The logical solution to scale up Bitcoin is the new Bitcoin Unlimited client. I would be very surprised if it did not get traction. I expect it to become the new standard client. It will be super interesting to see if other, incompatible solutions get traction at the same time and we will see a real world split of the blockchain. My guess: This will not happen. The pulling power of the most popular client will be so strong that everybody flocks to it. And alternative clients will have close to zero usage.

deftnerd 11y ago
I agree that the Bitcoin Unlimited client is pretty great. In the end, it might not be enough. Ever since BlockStream poached so many Bitcoin developers with commit access and ran off the others, they've decided that their business model will be to change the Bitcoin protocol to be the plumbing of their commercial offerings. Why they didn't fork and just build their own private change like all the other upcoming bank blockchains is beyond me. They've stated that their goal is that Bitcoin become the settlement layer for their "Lightning Network" and drive away all use through increased transaction fees. I'm personally a Bitcoin believer and it's disheartening.
- 3dfan 11y ago
  They've stated that their goal is that Bitcoin become the settlement layer for their "Lightning Network" and drive away all use through increased transaction fees. What is the URL of this statement?
  - deftnerd 11y ago
    "Right now our focus is on building out the base infrastructure so that there is actually a place to build the revenue producing business we'd like to have, and then we hope to circulate that back into building more good technology." - Greg Maxwell (nullc) https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2k3u97/we_are_bitcoin_sidechain_paper_authors_adam_back/clhoo7d https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2k3u97/we_are_bitcoin... "A lot of people think that Lightning is supposed to be some separate thing as well, but that's also planned to be transparently added to Bitcoin Core at some point. " - Michael Marquardt (theymos) "without an effective block limit and a functioning fee market the rational fee level is ~0; since POW security can adapt to any level, difficulty can fall to zero if fees are only paying for cpu and bandwidth, and then the system is left insecure" - Greg Maxwell (nullc) https://np.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/358dz7/a_nondevs_personal_view_of_the_block_limit/cr2d58n https://np.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/358dz7/a_nondevs_pe... "Fees approach zero without block constraints. Therefore, we need a low blocksize limit and layer 2 solutions like Lightning." - Lightning Network dev Joseph Poon https://youtu.be/fst1IK_mrng?t=1h31m29s https://youtu.be/fst1IK_mrng?t=1h31m29s "Some people have called the prospect of limited block space and the development of a fee market a change in policy compared to the past. I respectfully disagree with that. " - Pieter Wuille http://cointelegraph.com/news/114966/garzik-predicts-chaos-if-changes-made-to-both-fee-structure-and-block-size http://cointelegraph.com/news/114966/garzik-predicts-chaos-i... Just a few I found in 10 minutes.
    - 3dfan 11y ago
      Thank you!

by 3dfan 11y ago

deftnerd 11y ago

I agree that the Bitcoin Unlimited client is pretty great. In the end, it might not be enough. Ever since BlockStream poached so many Bitcoin developers with commit access and ran off the others, they've decided that their business model will be to change the Bitcoin protocol to be the plumbing of their commercial offerings. Why they didn't fork and just build their own private change like all the other upcoming bank blockchains is beyond me. They've stated that their goal is that Bitcoin become the settlement layer for their "Lightning Network" and drive away all use through increased transaction fees. I'm personally a Bitcoin believer and it's disheartening.

3dfan 11y ago
They've stated that their goal is that Bitcoin become the settlement layer for their "Lightning Network" and drive away all use through increased transaction fees. What is the URL of this statement?
- deftnerd 11y ago
  "Right now our focus is on building out the base infrastructure so that there is actually a place to build the revenue producing business we'd like to have, and then we hope to circulate that back into building more good technology." - Greg Maxwell (nullc) https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2k3u97/we_are_bitcoin_sidechain_paper_authors_adam_back/clhoo7d https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2k3u97/we_are_bitcoin... "A lot of people think that Lightning is supposed to be some separate thing as well, but that's also planned to be transparently added to Bitcoin Core at some point. " - Michael Marquardt (theymos) "without an effective block limit and a functioning fee market the rational fee level is ~0; since POW security can adapt to any level, difficulty can fall to zero if fees are only paying for cpu and bandwidth, and then the system is left insecure" - Greg Maxwell (nullc) https://np.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/358dz7/a_nondevs_personal_view_of_the_block_limit/cr2d58n https://np.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/358dz7/a_nondevs_pe... "Fees approach zero without block constraints. Therefore, we need a low blocksize limit and layer 2 solutions like Lightning." - Lightning Network dev Joseph Poon https://youtu.be/fst1IK_mrng?t=1h31m29s https://youtu.be/fst1IK_mrng?t=1h31m29s "Some people have called the prospect of limited block space and the development of a fee market a change in policy compared to the past. I respectfully disagree with that. " - Pieter Wuille http://cointelegraph.com/news/114966/garzik-predicts-chaos-if-changes-made-to-both-fee-structure-and-block-size http://cointelegraph.com/news/114966/garzik-predicts-chaos-i... Just a few I found in 10 minutes.
  - 3dfan 11y ago
    Thank you!