3 ms·

It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll. > you never even care to ask about that Honestly, I don't know where t

by ptokb3 10y ago

It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll. > you never even care to ask about that Honestly, I don't know where that would be public information to know to ask about it. > to own not much (to zero) Bitcoins; That is not the case. Most people who have been very vocal pushing for larger blocks have significant Bitcoin investments. > segwit which roughly doubles block transaction capacity This only happens if all wallets adopt it, which makes them write/fix their wallet software upstream. That takes time. It's not a quick enough solution for an urgent problem. Last, if you're taking money from someone there is a conflict of interest there. "It's hard to get a man to understand something if his job depends on him not understanding it" - Upton Sinclair Large investors usually want something back for their investments. Maybe you don't know what that is right now, but it's legitimate for regular users to be weary of it.

petertodd 10y ago
> It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll. They aren't. The Digital Currency Inititive (DCI) != MIT. Rather, it's a separate entity that's effectively paying MIT for use of the MIT name and administrative infrastructure; we do not know who is actually funding DCI.
- ptokb3 10y ago
  Thanks for clarifying. Perhaps the DCI could fund more developers. https://www.media.mit.edu/research/highlights/media-lab-digital-currency-initiative https://www.media.mit.edu/research/highlights/media-lab-digi... It's clearly part of MIT's infrastructure. What you're saying is that the money is not coming directly from MIT.
  - nullc 10y ago
    The money is not coming from MIT. (Though, if it were, I would expect the next complaint would be about the military funding it. :) )
- sk55 10y ago
  https://medium.com/mit-media-lab-digital-currency-initiative/announcing-a-900-000-bitcoin-developer-fund-6e8b7e8b0861#.eychwbpd5 https://medium.com/mit-media-lab-digital-currency-initiative... "Together, we’ve raised $900,000. Donors include companies (BitFury, Bitmain, Chain, Circle and Nasdaq) and individuals (Jim Breyer, Jim Pallotta, Jeff Tarrant, Reid Hoffman and Fred Wilson)...while the funds will be limited to support Bitcoin protocol development, the donors do not have any influence over the developers."
  - petertodd 10y ago
    Ah good, they finally published part of the list (I was discussing that with them in early march in person at MIT). That said, I believe that list is incomplete.
nullc 10y ago
> That is not the case. Most people who have been very vocal pushing for larger blocks have significant Bitcoin investments. Some claim it, but like that guy pretending to be Bitcoin's creator. They fail to prove it. People opposing politically adjusting Bitcoin rules have proved that they own Bitcoin. http://bitcoinocracy.com/arguments/if-non-core-hard-fork-wins-major-holders-will-sell-btc-driving-price-into-the-ground http://bitcoinocracy.com/arguments/if-non-core-hard-fork-win... > That takes time. It's not a quick enough solution for an urgent problem. Wallets have already had half a year to catch up already, and you say it's urgent. You think a completely incompatible, forced, and highly controversial change that virtually all the engineers working on the system say is very risky would be faster? Besides, a few large producers of transactions upgrading would make room for others.
- ptokb3 10y ago
  On the homepage,"I believe that If non-Core hard fork wins, major holders will sell BTC, driving price into the ground". That's the most small-block biased question I've ever seen. I wonder who owns that site; probably some small-block nutcase. If we could vote in some other way to prove our funds outside of this site I will be glad to take part.
  - dooglus 10y ago
    The site was created by a big-block "nutcase", presumably to demonstrate how the economic majority is in favor of bigger blocks. Unfortunately for him it demonstrated exactly the opposite. Here he is advocating for increasing the blocksize limit to 8MB as soon as possible: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1238605.msg12897706#msg12897706 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1238605.msg12897706#... And here's his post announcing the launch of the service: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1133634 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1133634 The site allows anyone to propose statements which all Bitcoin holders can then support or oppose by signing messages with their coins. The anti-small-block question wasn't written by the site owner, but is currently the most supported statement on the site.

by ptokb3 10y ago

petertodd 10y ago

> It was my understanding that Gavin and Wladimir were part of the MIT Media Lab payroll. They aren't. The Digital Currency Inititive (DCI) != MIT. Rather, it's a separate entity that's effectively paying MIT for use of the MIT name and administrative infrastructure; we do not know who is actually funding DCI.

ptokb3 10y ago
Thanks for clarifying. Perhaps the DCI could fund more developers. https://www.media.mit.edu/research/highlights/media-lab-digital-currency-initiative https://www.media.mit.edu/research/highlights/media-lab-digi... It's clearly part of MIT's infrastructure. What you're saying is that the money is not coming directly from MIT.
- nullc 10y ago
  The money is not coming from MIT. (Though, if it were, I would expect the next complaint would be about the military funding it. :) )
sk55 10y ago
https://medium.com/mit-media-lab-digital-currency-initiative/announcing-a-900-000-bitcoin-developer-fund-6e8b7e8b0861#.eychwbpd5 https://medium.com/mit-media-lab-digital-currency-initiative... "Together, we’ve raised $900,000. Donors include companies (BitFury, Bitmain, Chain, Circle and Nasdaq) and individuals (Jim Breyer, Jim Pallotta, Jeff Tarrant, Reid Hoffman and Fred Wilson)...while the funds will be limited to support Bitcoin protocol development, the donors do not have any influence over the developers."
- petertodd 10y ago
  Ah good, they finally published part of the list (I was discussing that with them in early march in person at MIT). That said, I believe that list is incomplete.

nullc 10y ago

> That is not the case. Most people who have been very vocal pushing for larger blocks have significant Bitcoin investments. Some claim it, but like that guy pretending to be Bitcoin's creator. They fail to prove it. People opposing politically adjusting Bitcoin rules have proved that they own Bitcoin. http://bitcoinocracy.com/arguments/if-non-core-hard-fork-wins-major-holders-will-sell-btc-driving-price-into-the-ground http://bitcoinocracy.com/arguments/if-non-core-hard-fork-win... > That takes time. It's not a quick enough solution for an urgent problem. Wallets have already had half a year to catch up already, and you say it's urgent. You think a completely incompatible, forced, and highly controversial change that virtually all the engineers working on the system say is very risky would be faster? Besides, a few large producers of transactions upgrading would make room for others.

ptokb3 10y ago
On the homepage,"I believe that If non-Core hard fork wins, major holders will sell BTC, driving price into the ground". That's the most small-block biased question I've ever seen. I wonder who owns that site; probably some small-block nutcase. If we could vote in some other way to prove our funds outside of this site I will be glad to take part.
- dooglus 10y ago
  The site was created by a big-block "nutcase", presumably to demonstrate how the economic majority is in favor of bigger blocks. Unfortunately for him it demonstrated exactly the opposite. Here he is advocating for increasing the blocksize limit to 8MB as soon as possible: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1238605.msg12897706#msg12897706 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1238605.msg12897706#... And here's his post announcing the launch of the service: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1133634 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1133634 The site allows anyone to propose statements which all Bitcoin holders can then support or oppose by signing messages with their coins. The anti-small-block question wasn't written by the site owner, but is currently the most supported statement on the site.