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I think he is kind of burying the lead here. The major development in Bitcoin in the past week is that several crucial players came together to form Bitcoin Cl

by pmorici 11y ago

I think he is kind of burying the lead here. The major development in Bitcoin in the past week is that several crucial players came together to form Bitcoin Classic.[0] They have the trifecta of a majority of mining power, two of the largest exchanges, and several key developers on board. More importantly the miners supporting the project are in agreement on increasing the block size. It goes a long way to addressing most of the things Mike brings up in this post. Mike's done a lot of Bitocin particularly by bringing to light the issues with Bitcoin core. At the same time this post strikes me as alarmist. It seems more like a rationalization of his decision than anything else. [0] https://bitcoinclassic.com/ https://bitcoinclassic.com/

RubyPinch 11y ago
Yeah but is there any group/business in bitcoin that doesn't consist of keyboard warriors on reddit? https://www.reddit.com/user/anarchystar https://www.reddit.com/user/anarchystar as a random example that comes to mind. like, yay it fixes a technical issue, but I'm doubtful that a group that acts like children in forums has any long-term sustainability.
- jnbiche 11y ago
  >Yeah but is there any group/business in bitcoin that doesn't consist of keyboard warriors on reddit? This is exactly why I went from being a great champion of Bitcoin in 2011 (came on board late 2010, right after Mike if I recall) to totally disengaging with the project today. For the record, I deeply and vehemently disagreed with Mike about the direction of the project on numerous occasions (e.g., coin "redlists"), but I'd much, much rather spent my time around Mike (an all-around nice guy, by the way) than the idiots and know-nothings than presently have come to form the Bitcoin "community". Things were far, far different back in 2011-2012, before the first big price jumps led the current crown on board. Ironically, their "participation" in the project (mostly screaming, censoring, and belly-aching on Reddit) will only cause the thing their fear most: a Bitcoin bus-plunge and loss of most of their assets. Mike, if you read this, I was only a minor player in Bitcoin core (< 5 commits) but I appreciated your work and particularly your talks about Bitcoin, as well as your work on Bitcoinj, an extremely well-led open source project. I look forward to seeing your next endeavors.
mike_hearn 11y ago
Thanks for reading the article. I mentioned Classic briefly at the end. I did not dwell on it because it is simply repeating the same process as XT went through. When we were preparing for XT, we also went and talked to the Chinese miners. They told us that the original 20mb limit Gavin proposed was too high, but that they could accept 8mb. So we compromised and went with 8 + a growth function. Then after XT was launched they changed their mind and said any growth after 8 at all was totally unacceptable. Now they're telling the Classic guys that 2 is the most they could handle. Did the Chinese internet border really get 4x worse in the span of 3 months? I doubt it. Western miners aren't much better. One told me quite clearly they'd start voting for BIP101 back in November (though: voting in such a way that it wouldn't actually activate!). But they didn't. When I followed up, they again said it was on their todo list and they'd start really soon. But they didn't. The miners have proven over and over again that what they say they will accept and what they actually do accept is not aligned. So right now I'm seeing some excitement (maybe more like desperate hope) that Bitcoin Classic will solve anything. Maybe now the "Scaling Bitcoin" conferences have come and gone and Core's reputation is much worse, they'll have better luck, but even then the best case scenario is that Bitcoin gets a 2mb limit. That isn't nearly enough and big backlogs will still occur. More to the point, even in the best case scenario, the community will essentially accept that Bitcoin is controlled by the Chinese government and grows or shrinks at their whim.
- pmorici 11y ago
  I think the difference is that in the XT case it wasn't clear that this had been done to the casual outside observer. The signed statement on the XT site is mostly companies not in the mining space and only a single mining company. By contrast the classic site publicly lists several miners as supporters of the project and at least two of the developers on board are involved in mining operations. On your point about the current dominance of China in mining. Two years ago people were flipping out that Ghash.io might have the ability to perform a 51% attack and now they barely register a whole number percentage share of the hashrate. Things change. [0] https://blockchain.info/pools https://blockchain.info/pools
- Andrew_Quentin 11y ago
  To be fair, 8mb and 8mb doubling every two years are two very different things. I understand why 8mb with doubling was offered, but I also understand why the chinese miners expressed their concerns, concerns which you were unwilling to address. I supported BIP101, but your unwillingness to compromise - they offered 4mb doubling every 4 years I believe - played a great part in it's eventual failure. The situation now is very much different with almost 100% of miners saying they will support 2mb and some 50% already supporting bitcoin classic with more to come. So, I share your concerns, but unfortunately mistakes were made, some of them grave mistakes, mistakes from which we learned, and are thus now well placed to move forward.

by pmorici 11y ago

RubyPinch 11y ago

Yeah but is there any group/business in bitcoin that doesn't consist of keyboard warriors on reddit? https://www.reddit.com/user/anarchystar https://www.reddit.com/user/anarchystar as a random example that comes to mind. like, yay it fixes a technical issue, but I'm doubtful that a group that acts like children in forums has any long-term sustainability.

jnbiche 11y ago
>Yeah but is there any group/business in bitcoin that doesn't consist of keyboard warriors on reddit? This is exactly why I went from being a great champion of Bitcoin in 2011 (came on board late 2010, right after Mike if I recall) to totally disengaging with the project today. For the record, I deeply and vehemently disagreed with Mike about the direction of the project on numerous occasions (e.g., coin "redlists"), but I'd much, much rather spent my time around Mike (an all-around nice guy, by the way) than the idiots and know-nothings than presently have come to form the Bitcoin "community". Things were far, far different back in 2011-2012, before the first big price jumps led the current crown on board. Ironically, their "participation" in the project (mostly screaming, censoring, and belly-aching on Reddit) will only cause the thing their fear most: a Bitcoin bus-plunge and loss of most of their assets. Mike, if you read this, I was only a minor player in Bitcoin core (< 5 commits) but I appreciated your work and particularly your talks about Bitcoin, as well as your work on Bitcoinj, an extremely well-led open source project. I look forward to seeing your next endeavors.

mike_hearn 11y ago

Thanks for reading the article. I mentioned Classic briefly at the end. I did not dwell on it because it is simply repeating the same process as XT went through. When we were preparing for XT, we also went and talked to the Chinese miners. They told us that the original 20mb limit Gavin proposed was too high, but that they could accept 8mb. So we compromised and went with 8 + a growth function. Then after XT was launched they changed their mind and said any growth after 8 at all was totally unacceptable. Now they're telling the Classic guys that 2 is the most they could handle. Did the Chinese internet border really get 4x worse in the span of 3 months? I doubt it. Western miners aren't much better. One told me quite clearly they'd start voting for BIP101 back in November (though: voting in such a way that it wouldn't actually activate!). But they didn't. When I followed up, they again said it was on their todo list and they'd start really soon. But they didn't. The miners have proven over and over again that what they say they will accept and what they actually do accept is not aligned. So right now I'm seeing some excitement (maybe more like desperate hope) that Bitcoin Classic will solve anything. Maybe now the "Scaling Bitcoin" conferences have come and gone and Core's reputation is much worse, they'll have better luck, but even then the best case scenario is that Bitcoin gets a 2mb limit. That isn't nearly enough and big backlogs will still occur. More to the point, even in the best case scenario, the community will essentially accept that Bitcoin is controlled by the Chinese government and grows or shrinks at their whim.

pmorici 11y ago
I think the difference is that in the XT case it wasn't clear that this had been done to the casual outside observer. The signed statement on the XT site is mostly companies not in the mining space and only a single mining company. By contrast the classic site publicly lists several miners as supporters of the project and at least two of the developers on board are involved in mining operations. On your point about the current dominance of China in mining. Two years ago people were flipping out that Ghash.io might have the ability to perform a 51% attack and now they barely register a whole number percentage share of the hashrate. Things change. [0] https://blockchain.info/pools https://blockchain.info/pools
Andrew_Quentin 11y ago
To be fair, 8mb and 8mb doubling every two years are two very different things. I understand why 8mb with doubling was offered, but I also understand why the chinese miners expressed their concerns, concerns which you were unwilling to address. I supported BIP101, but your unwillingness to compromise - they offered 4mb doubling every 4 years I believe - played a great part in it's eventual failure. The situation now is very much different with almost 100% of miners saying they will support 2mb and some 50% already supporting bitcoin classic with more to come. So, I share your concerns, but unfortunately mistakes were made, some of them grave mistakes, mistakes from which we learned, and are thus now well placed to move forward.