14 ms·

-Blockstream Playbook- Step 1: Buy off all of the top developers of open-source project. Check. Step 2: Refuse to support/fix basic network operations so that

by ptokb3 10y ago

-Blockstream Playbook- Step 1: Buy off all of the top developers of open-source project. Check. Step 2: Refuse to support/fix basic network operations so that transactions stop confirming just as the network needs to grow. Check. Step 3: Create a 2nd-layer solution for growth that allows the company to siphon Billions of dollars over many years. Check. Step 4: Censor any forum where people alert others about secret get-rich playbook. Check.

sanswork 10y ago
How does Step 3 work? How is Blockstream able to siphon Billions from Lightning?
- ptokb3 10y ago
  Well, they say that "anyone can use" a 2nd layer lightning network but realistically nobody is going to trust any basement-dweller to intermediate their off-chain transaction. This will centralize off-chain scaling to large players like Blockstream. Blockstream will run a Lightning hub and make money off of facilitating transactions before settling them on-chain. Since blockspace is limited they will make (or have made) agreements with miners like BTCC in China - that way they will always be able to settle, but on-chain transactions might get kicked off and be forced to use their centralized system. It's really rather insidious. Lightning is also not the peer-to-peer solution that the Bitcoin Whitepaper promotes in its abstract. The first few sentences describing the reason for Bitcoin to exist in the first place make peer-to-peer the number one priority.
  - josephpoon 10y ago
    Our implementation will not be biased towards Blockstream's hub if they ever make one. In fact, it's designed to work in a scale-free network topology. You can find it at https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd
    - nullc 10y ago
      What the heck Joseph, when you first started talking about lightning I spent considerable effort trying to convince you that "hub" was a bad model for thinking about or describing these things. Blockstream has no intention of ever monetizing lightning on Bitcoin in any way (nor do I have any idea how we could do so); our interests for it in the case of Bitcoin are only to promote and expand the use of Bitcoin. (We also hope to use it to enable other kinds of asset systems).
      - josephpoon 10y ago
        Sorry Greg! I didn't mean it in the sense that Blockstream is planning for a hub at all! I was being sarcastic, but perhaps that wasn't conveyed properly in text. I thought the "if they ever make one" was sufficient, but it didn't properly convey the cultural apprehension towards those types of systems and could be seen as deeply disrespectful. We were definitely in agreement from the start that decentralization in the protocol layer was immensely important. I thought it was obvious that the parent poster was being ridiculous, but should've ended the post with :^)
        nullc 10y ago
        No problem! Understood. It's a bit tough with so much crap being flung to stay clear of it. :)
        ptokb3 10y ago
        nullc, I'll take your word for it that Blockstream will never run a Lightning network hub. We understand how the Lightning network works and you also have to admit that it has the potential to centralize into a few large hubs -- even if they aren't by Blockstream -- that will be able to provide the lowest transaction costs in order to keep track of user transaction data. The problem with Lightning is that it's really far off, and it might not even work. Meanwhile the network is breaking at the edges while we wait for this pie-in-the-sky solution. Increasing the blocksize is the best approach and it's safe to do as a hard-fork. The delay and push back from CoreDevs is what makes people not trust you. We've had enough "my transaction didn't confirm" posts.
  - sanswork 10y ago
    Why do you think Blockstream would capture a large part of that market? They are only known by people who care specifically about the implementation of bitcoin. If you did a survey of just users I doubt more than 50% would know them. Their are much more well known entities in the space that are far more likely to win a battle to be primary hubs. Bitcoin can't scale in a peer to peer way to handle any real kind of volume. It's kind of the downside of distributed systems is that they suck at scaling and throughput. I'm guessing you want them to increase the block size to 2mb but what does that get you? 6tps? So we go to 20mb and you're up to 60tps? You can't scale it on chain and get anywhere near the tps needed for it to be globally successful. So your options are offchain scaling or limiting its uses with fees.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
um_ya 10y ago
You're an idiot. If you actually understood how lightning network works, you would understand what a HUGE leap this is for bitcoin. This solves the problem of miners downloading and transferring too much data, it solves the zero confirmation problem, it solves the micropayment problems, and it solves the scale-ability problem... All this, just by using bitcoin timelocks and transaction channels. It's a pretty cool trick, that's completely secure.
- sneak 10y ago
  It's difficult to convince people with facts when their mind is already made up.
nullc 10y ago
> Step 1: Buy off We founded the company. > all of the top developers A couple people out of a community of around 50-200 depending on the phase of the moon. > Step 2: Refuse to support/fix basic network operations Uh. You know that Bitcoin is a decenteralized system that no one controls; right? We do a lot of fixes, but we're not your personal code monkies. There is a LOT going on in Bitcoin, and it's working pretty darn well at the moment. > Step 4: Censor any forum Via our magical mind control rays, I suppose? Blockstream doesn't control or influence any forums. Wheres your playbook? Which step does "Create throwaway accounts on hacker news to slander people" fit? Is it before "profit" or "suppression of inconvenient technology"?
- wellthissukz 10y ago
  Again, these are lies from Gregory Maxwell (Blockstream CTO). Please provide details on funding. Specifically, how much AXA paid? "A couple people out of a community of around 50-200 depending on the phase of the moon." Again a lie. The top Core devs are Blockstream employees. Blockstream has created a toxic environment and a huge ivory tower. "Uh. You know that Bitcoin is a decenteralized system that no one controls; right? We do a lot of fixes, but we're not your personal code monkies. There is a LOT going on in Bitcoin, and it's working pretty darn well at the moment." Meanwhile 80%+ of the hasrate is concentrated in a single country and in the hands of a handful of entities. Ironically, Blockstream goes graet lengths to exploit this (HK roundtable farce). "Via our magical mind control rays, I suppose? Blockstream doesn't control or influence any forums." People associated with BlockstreamCore support censored and manipulated forums, interestingly owned by a single individual (theymos) Gregory, you are the most pathetic individual in the Bitcoin space.
  - akkad3a 10y ago
    Personal attacks and conspiracy theories really need to stop.
  - nullc 10y ago
    > Please provide details on funding. Specifically, how much AXA paid? Dunno, not enough to be broken out on the reports I have. They're not an investor that I've ever met with-- we have a lot of investors. Though it's a cute technique that y'all have been using where you try asking something that would be confidential, to try to inhibit a response on the long list of leading questions that follows. >> "A couple people out of a community of around 50-200 depending on the phase of the moon." > Again a lie. The top Core devs are Blockstream employees. I gave a breakout in another post; if you want to go by top you end up with three out of the top 10, all of whom were founders of the company. wooo. > Blockstream has created a toxic environment and a huge ivory tower. What does that even mean? or another way, how could someone falsify that claim? > Meanwhile 80%+ of the hasrate is concentrated in a single country and in the hands of a handful of entities Unfortunately, the block size limit was set too large and this created outsized returns for large consolidations. More recent improvements have caught things up a bit but it will take a while for the damage to equalize out. > People associated with BlockstreamCore support censored and manipulated forums, What the @#$@ are you talking about? Citations? Or are you just saying that anyone of the vast majority of people who are supportive of our work is "associated"?

by ptokb3 10y ago

sanswork 10y ago

How does Step 3 work? How is Blockstream able to siphon Billions from Lightning?

ptokb3 10y ago
Well, they say that "anyone can use" a 2nd layer lightning network but realistically nobody is going to trust any basement-dweller to intermediate their off-chain transaction. This will centralize off-chain scaling to large players like Blockstream. Blockstream will run a Lightning hub and make money off of facilitating transactions before settling them on-chain. Since blockspace is limited they will make (or have made) agreements with miners like BTCC in China - that way they will always be able to settle, but on-chain transactions might get kicked off and be forced to use their centralized system. It's really rather insidious. Lightning is also not the peer-to-peer solution that the Bitcoin Whitepaper promotes in its abstract. The first few sentences describing the reason for Bitcoin to exist in the first place make peer-to-peer the number one priority.
- josephpoon 10y ago
  Our implementation will not be biased towards Blockstream's hub if they ever make one. In fact, it's designed to work in a scale-free network topology. You can find it at https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd
  - nullc 10y ago
    What the heck Joseph, when you first started talking about lightning I spent considerable effort trying to convince you that "hub" was a bad model for thinking about or describing these things. Blockstream has no intention of ever monetizing lightning on Bitcoin in any way (nor do I have any idea how we could do so); our interests for it in the case of Bitcoin are only to promote and expand the use of Bitcoin. (We also hope to use it to enable other kinds of asset systems).
    - josephpoon 10y ago
      Sorry Greg! I didn't mean it in the sense that Blockstream is planning for a hub at all! I was being sarcastic, but perhaps that wasn't conveyed properly in text. I thought the "if they ever make one" was sufficient, but it didn't properly convey the cultural apprehension towards those types of systems and could be seen as deeply disrespectful. We were definitely in agreement from the start that decentralization in the protocol layer was immensely important. I thought it was obvious that the parent poster was being ridiculous, but should've ended the post with :^)
      - nullc 10y ago
        No problem! Understood. It's a bit tough with so much crap being flung to stay clear of it. :)
        ptokb3 10y ago
        nullc, I'll take your word for it that Blockstream will never run a Lightning network hub. We understand how the Lightning network works and you also have to admit that it has the potential to centralize into a few large hubs -- even if they aren't by Blockstream -- that will be able to provide the lowest transaction costs in order to keep track of user transaction data. The problem with Lightning is that it's really far off, and it might not even work. Meanwhile the network is breaking at the edges while we wait for this pie-in-the-sky solution. Increasing the blocksize is the best approach and it's safe to do as a hard-fork. The delay and push back from CoreDevs is what makes people not trust you. We've had enough "my transaction didn't confirm" posts.
- sanswork 10y ago
  Why do you think Blockstream would capture a large part of that market? They are only known by people who care specifically about the implementation of bitcoin. If you did a survey of just users I doubt more than 50% would know them. Their are much more well known entities in the space that are far more likely to win a battle to be primary hubs. Bitcoin can't scale in a peer to peer way to handle any real kind of volume. It's kind of the downside of distributed systems is that they suck at scaling and throughput. I'm guessing you want them to increase the block size to 2mb but what does that get you? 6tps? So we go to 20mb and you're up to 60tps? You can't scale it on chain and get anywhere near the tps needed for it to be globally successful. So your options are offchain scaling or limiting its uses with fees.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

um_ya 10y ago

You're an idiot. If you actually understood how lightning network works, you would understand what a HUGE leap this is for bitcoin. This solves the problem of miners downloading and transferring too much data, it solves the zero confirmation problem, it solves the micropayment problems, and it solves the scale-ability problem... All this, just by using bitcoin timelocks and transaction channels. It's a pretty cool trick, that's completely secure.

sneak 10y ago
It's difficult to convince people with facts when their mind is already made up.

nullc 10y ago

> Step 1: Buy off We founded the company. > all of the top developers A couple people out of a community of around 50-200 depending on the phase of the moon. > Step 2: Refuse to support/fix basic network operations Uh. You know that Bitcoin is a decenteralized system that no one controls; right? We do a lot of fixes, but we're not your personal code monkies. There is a LOT going on in Bitcoin, and it's working pretty darn well at the moment. > Step 4: Censor any forum Via our magical mind control rays, I suppose? Blockstream doesn't control or influence any forums. Wheres your playbook? Which step does "Create throwaway accounts on hacker news to slander people" fit? Is it before "profit" or "suppression of inconvenient technology"?

wellthissukz 10y ago
Again, these are lies from Gregory Maxwell (Blockstream CTO). Please provide details on funding. Specifically, how much AXA paid? "A couple people out of a community of around 50-200 depending on the phase of the moon." Again a lie. The top Core devs are Blockstream employees. Blockstream has created a toxic environment and a huge ivory tower. "Uh. You know that Bitcoin is a decenteralized system that no one controls; right? We do a lot of fixes, but we're not your personal code monkies. There is a LOT going on in Bitcoin, and it's working pretty darn well at the moment." Meanwhile 80%+ of the hasrate is concentrated in a single country and in the hands of a handful of entities. Ironically, Blockstream goes graet lengths to exploit this (HK roundtable farce). "Via our magical mind control rays, I suppose? Blockstream doesn't control or influence any forums." People associated with BlockstreamCore support censored and manipulated forums, interestingly owned by a single individual (theymos) Gregory, you are the most pathetic individual in the Bitcoin space.
- akkad3a 10y ago
  Personal attacks and conspiracy theories really need to stop.
- nullc 10y ago
  > Please provide details on funding. Specifically, how much AXA paid? Dunno, not enough to be broken out on the reports I have. They're not an investor that I've ever met with-- we have a lot of investors. Though it's a cute technique that y'all have been using where you try asking something that would be confidential, to try to inhibit a response on the long list of leading questions that follows. >> "A couple people out of a community of around 50-200 depending on the phase of the moon." > Again a lie. The top Core devs are Blockstream employees. I gave a breakout in another post; if you want to go by top you end up with three out of the top 10, all of whom were founders of the company. wooo. > Blockstream has created a toxic environment and a huge ivory tower. What does that even mean? or another way, how could someone falsify that claim? > Meanwhile 80%+ of the hasrate is concentrated in a single country and in the hands of a handful of entities Unfortunately, the block size limit was set too large and this created outsized returns for large consolidations. More recent improvements have caught things up a bit but it will take a while for the damage to equalize out. > People associated with BlockstreamCore support censored and manipulated forums, What the @#$@ are you talking about? Citations? Or are you just saying that anyone of the vast majority of people who are supportive of our work is "associated"?