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Here are some interesting facts. -Theymos (Michael Marquardt) controls all the major bitcoin communication channels from r/bitcoin, to bitcointalks, as well as

Here are some interesting facts. -Theymos (Michael Marquardt) controls all the major bitcoin communication channels from r/bitcoin, to bitcointalks, as well as the core slack channel, and the bitcoin mailing list (being the person who sniped bitcoin.org). - Every Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) used to have some specs to follow before being introduced to the community to be discussed and possibly merged in. This is how things have always been since the start. That is, until SegWit (a softfork implementation by Blockstream that fundamentally changes Bitcoin to benefit Blockstream ). - SegWit gets its own website, it's own logo, and if you have been following the news the past 5 or 6 months, you'll also notice its been shoved down the community's throat as if it were god's gift to man. - Segwit is a solution to fit whatever narrative needed at the time. From a "blocksize increase" to the scaling debate, to a "malleability fix" to a "quadratic hash fix" to blah blah blah.. It's a fix for all the things for all the things except the one thing we need right NOW, and that is a scaling fix. - New Users are tricked into believing that the "economic majority" are in support of segwit, but this is due to not being able to speak out against segwit (see point 1 about major communications being controlled ). - All the drama is actually about forcing segwit into bitcoin. - Blockstream owns patents which they claim they have no plans on using offensively. - If Segwit were introduced as a softfork (dangerous), it would be almost impossible to undo in the future versus a hard fork (which requires consensus).

narrator 9y ago
So what's the worst case scenario for Bitcoin if SegWit gets introduced? Please don't give me a one-liner. I want details. Is it that they'd go around suing everyone running a full node for patent infringement?
- 9BillionMistake 9y ago
  1. SegWit contains copyrighted code from the privately funded company BlockStream. 2. Despite CTO Grerg Maxwell making a "Pledge" to only use the patents "defensively" there is nothing stopping the company from trying to monetize their patents on a portion of the Bitcoin code once the Code is implemented. 3. They would begin to sue large US based exchanges for infringement and demand a small percentage of transfer fees from any exchange using Bitcoin or any part of the "SegWit" code. 4. Companies would slow Bitcoin support and the Crypto community would be further segment, delaying adoption overall but making massive amounts of money for BlockStream. 5. Option 2 is that with their code in Bitcoin, they will be able to sell their services for a much higher price and it will give them a huge amount of leverage in the future. 6. The "Soft" forking and the "User Activated" forking mechanisms devised by BlockStream to get their code into Bitcoin is devious to say the least. They both set the stage for further manipulative changes to the code base, this part of the work is mostly done by one user, BS hired hand, Luke Jr. 7. And finally, as users are pushed off the Bitcoin network due to High Fees and Slow Transactions, BlockStream is supporting development of a "2nd layer" network (patented) from which Node owners will earn the transaction fees and not the Miners, the way it is now, this type of setup would be more like a shared Google Doc or SQL file rather than a blockchain as it is not blocked by computing power.
  - mquander 9y ago
    SegWit contains copyrighted code from the privately funded company BlockStream... Despite CTO Grerg Maxwell making a "Pledge" to only use the patents "defensively" there is nothing stopping the company from trying to monetize their patents on a portion of the Bitcoin code once the Code is implemented. Do you have a cite for either of these? Someone mentioned them downthread. It sounds ridiculous that someone would commit code into the Bitcoin client which some third party has copyrighted (what OSS project permits this?) and I can't find any evidence that Blockstream holds any relevant patents. I can only find them saying once that they don't [0]. I downvoted you because saying a bunch of false stuff confidently seems really bad, but I will take it away if it seems like I was wrong. [0]: http://bitcoinist.com/adam-back-no-patents-segwit/ http://bitcoinist.com/adam-back-no-patents-segwit/
  - sanswork 9y ago
    1. Sounds like you don't understand opensource licensing. 2, 3. What patents exist for segwit that Blockstream owns? 4. Why? 5. Their code is already in Bitcoin. They have a bunch of the core developers on their payroll. 6. How does it get around anything? Can you explain the difference between a soft fork and a hard fork and why the later is better?
    - 9BillionMistake 9y ago
      1. That is true, I have 1 patent to my name and 1 pending but I do not understand software/opensouce particulars. 2. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=blockstream+patents http://lmgtfy.com/?q=blockstream+patents 3. If they need to pay more to transact one particular crypto they will be less likely to do so, right? If one item is taxed but an identical one is not, you go with the cheaper one. 4 (your 5). Yes, also true, but this is their pièce de ré·sis·tance, the grand coop we have been building to, copyrighted code in Bitcoin, and they have shown us how to get there through their past actions this last 2 years. 5 (your 6). Yes, a hard fork is simple, once you get more than 50% of the power on the network, you make a transaction that ONLY the upgraded nodes can "see", done. Everyone that "sees the TX" in on the new network, everyone else is no, period. Soft forking is essentially the same except it allows the devs to say that their version is Backward Compatible, and thus does not "force" anyone to switch. This (of course we should know by now) is not true, and anyone one a SewWit network trying to use the classic Bitcoin would be able to spend ANY transaction and it would be pointless. So, it is marketing bottom line.
sanswork 9y ago
>a softfork implementation by Blockstream that fundamentally changes Bitcoin to benefit Blockstream How does it benefit Blockstream?
- stale2002 9y ago
  Blockstream is working on the lightning network, something that greatly benefits from segwit.
  - sanswork 9y ago
    So is just about every large bitcoin company at the moment and AFAIK neither of the lightning network main developers are blockstream employees.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    Blockstream has said that their work on Lightning is purely for the benefit of the community -- they hired a known open source developer and gave him free reign to develop his implementation of Lightning (there are 5 competing implementations from other organizations!) in the open, on github, with public purview and no strings attached. It is not covered by any patents by Blockstream, and written to be compatible with a community agreed upon standard. It is a fully peer-to-peer protocol with no central clearing house. So explain to me how Blockstream benefits?
    - stale2002 9y ago
      Blockstream benefits because the company is doing lightning network consulting. That is their entire business model. If the lightning network doesn't come to fruition, their company is screwed.
      - sanswork 9y ago
        So their entire business model is lightning which came around 2 years after they launched? How did they convince investors to give them $76m prior to their entire business model existing?
hikem 9y ago
Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin XT and Bitcoin Unlimited all have their own websites. SegWit was first proposed by Pieter Wuille, a core developer. And it's supported by many core developers several of which who work at Blockstream. Bitcoin Unlimited is currently running ads on Reddit and elsewhere to encourage people to use it. The two main supporters of Bitcoin Unlimited are Roger Ver and Jihan Wu, who owns Bitmain. Jihan's company manufacturers the most successful ASICs for bitcoin and litecoin. They've invested hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin mining operations. Roger Ver also has recently launched a cloud mining service on Bitcoin.com which many view as a scam. This is weeks after speaking on camera while deleting an old tweet criticizing Bitclub, a similar MLM cloud hashing service. This speaks to Roger's judgement especially after his Mt. Gox video. Several dirty tactics have been employed by both sides. Roger, Jihan and Bitcoin Unlimited proposes to create a President of Bitcoin and some confederation. Jihan on twitter stated he misunderstood the open source community: "I regretted one thing. In China, open source culture is not popular. I did not understand it. We put too less or 0 money into community." Segregated Witness does fix transaction malleability which has been a problem for 3+ years. Nick Szabo, Adam Back (CEO of Blockstream) and 8+ bitcoin core developers support SegWit. Yes Blockstream has taken $65 million in venture capital, which should be questioned, but Bitman has hundreds of millions invested. I am unsure who to trust but it's a much more complicated situation than your comment suggests.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
bdcravens 9y ago
> Theymos (Michael Marquardt) controls all the major bitcoin communication channels from r/bitcoin, to bitcointalks, as well as the core slack channel, and the bitcoin mailing list (being the person who sniped bitcoin.org). Roger Ver, proponent of Bitcoin Unlimited, owns Bitcoin.com. He also runs r/btc. Not as many bullet points as Theymos, but pretty clear that the major channels of communication in Bitcoin are all controlled by parties with specific agendas.
RichardHeart 9y ago
If softforks are the dangerous way, what method would you suggest to improve the bitcoin network? How much less voting should the "economic majority" get on how the network votes on process changes if they don't participate in the processes themselves? Perhaps developers with understanding matter more than any "economic majority" as this is truly cutting edge and screw up once and burn matters of network consensus and in large part computer science. Your statement that we need a scaling fix now, more than other fixes could be biased. Millions of dollars have been lost to malleability, I'm not sure how many millions have been lost to scalability or potentially to the the quadratic hashing or the potential DOS attack vector larger script sizes allows creating transactions that take exponentially longer to confirm. Just thinking scalability is the biggest problem doesn't make it so. It might be, but I'd like to see some numbers on it.

narrator 9y ago

So what's the worst case scenario for Bitcoin if SegWit gets introduced? Please don't give me a one-liner. I want details. Is it that they'd go around suing everyone running a full node for patent infringement?

9BillionMistake 9y ago
1. SegWit contains copyrighted code from the privately funded company BlockStream. 2. Despite CTO Grerg Maxwell making a "Pledge" to only use the patents "defensively" there is nothing stopping the company from trying to monetize their patents on a portion of the Bitcoin code once the Code is implemented. 3. They would begin to sue large US based exchanges for infringement and demand a small percentage of transfer fees from any exchange using Bitcoin or any part of the "SegWit" code. 4. Companies would slow Bitcoin support and the Crypto community would be further segment, delaying adoption overall but making massive amounts of money for BlockStream. 5. Option 2 is that with their code in Bitcoin, they will be able to sell their services for a much higher price and it will give them a huge amount of leverage in the future. 6. The "Soft" forking and the "User Activated" forking mechanisms devised by BlockStream to get their code into Bitcoin is devious to say the least. They both set the stage for further manipulative changes to the code base, this part of the work is mostly done by one user, BS hired hand, Luke Jr. 7. And finally, as users are pushed off the Bitcoin network due to High Fees and Slow Transactions, BlockStream is supporting development of a "2nd layer" network (patented) from which Node owners will earn the transaction fees and not the Miners, the way it is now, this type of setup would be more like a shared Google Doc or SQL file rather than a blockchain as it is not blocked by computing power.
- mquander 9y ago
  SegWit contains copyrighted code from the privately funded company BlockStream... Despite CTO Grerg Maxwell making a "Pledge" to only use the patents "defensively" there is nothing stopping the company from trying to monetize their patents on a portion of the Bitcoin code once the Code is implemented. Do you have a cite for either of these? Someone mentioned them downthread. It sounds ridiculous that someone would commit code into the Bitcoin client which some third party has copyrighted (what OSS project permits this?) and I can't find any evidence that Blockstream holds any relevant patents. I can only find them saying once that they don't [0]. I downvoted you because saying a bunch of false stuff confidently seems really bad, but I will take it away if it seems like I was wrong. [0]: http://bitcoinist.com/adam-back-no-patents-segwit/ http://bitcoinist.com/adam-back-no-patents-segwit/
- sanswork 9y ago
  1. Sounds like you don't understand opensource licensing. 2, 3. What patents exist for segwit that Blockstream owns? 4. Why? 5. Their code is already in Bitcoin. They have a bunch of the core developers on their payroll. 6. How does it get around anything? Can you explain the difference between a soft fork and a hard fork and why the later is better?
  - 9BillionMistake 9y ago
    1. That is true, I have 1 patent to my name and 1 pending but I do not understand software/opensouce particulars. 2. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=blockstream+patents http://lmgtfy.com/?q=blockstream+patents 3. If they need to pay more to transact one particular crypto they will be less likely to do so, right? If one item is taxed but an identical one is not, you go with the cheaper one. 4 (your 5). Yes, also true, but this is their pièce de ré·sis·tance, the grand coop we have been building to, copyrighted code in Bitcoin, and they have shown us how to get there through their past actions this last 2 years. 5 (your 6). Yes, a hard fork is simple, once you get more than 50% of the power on the network, you make a transaction that ONLY the upgraded nodes can "see", done. Everyone that "sees the TX" in on the new network, everyone else is no, period. Soft forking is essentially the same except it allows the devs to say that their version is Backward Compatible, and thus does not "force" anyone to switch. This (of course we should know by now) is not true, and anyone one a SewWit network trying to use the classic Bitcoin would be able to spend ANY transaction and it would be pointless. So, it is marketing bottom line.

sanswork 9y ago

>a softfork implementation by Blockstream that fundamentally changes Bitcoin to benefit Blockstream How does it benefit Blockstream?

stale2002 9y ago
Blockstream is working on the lightning network, something that greatly benefits from segwit.
- sanswork 9y ago
  So is just about every large bitcoin company at the moment and AFAIK neither of the lightning network main developers are blockstream employees.
- kobeya 9y ago
  Blockstream has said that their work on Lightning is purely for the benefit of the community -- they hired a known open source developer and gave him free reign to develop his implementation of Lightning (there are 5 competing implementations from other organizations!) in the open, on github, with public purview and no strings attached. It is not covered by any patents by Blockstream, and written to be compatible with a community agreed upon standard. It is a fully peer-to-peer protocol with no central clearing house. So explain to me how Blockstream benefits?
  - stale2002 9y ago
    Blockstream benefits because the company is doing lightning network consulting. That is their entire business model. If the lightning network doesn't come to fruition, their company is screwed.
    - sanswork 9y ago
      So their entire business model is lightning which came around 2 years after they launched? How did they convince investors to give them $76m prior to their entire business model existing?

hikem 9y ago

Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin XT and Bitcoin Unlimited all have their own websites. SegWit was first proposed by Pieter Wuille, a core developer. And it's supported by many core developers several of which who work at Blockstream. Bitcoin Unlimited is currently running ads on Reddit and elsewhere to encourage people to use it. The two main supporters of Bitcoin Unlimited are Roger Ver and Jihan Wu, who owns Bitmain. Jihan's company manufacturers the most successful ASICs for bitcoin and litecoin. They've invested hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin mining operations. Roger Ver also has recently launched a cloud mining service on Bitcoin.com which many view as a scam. This is weeks after speaking on camera while deleting an old tweet criticizing Bitclub, a similar MLM cloud hashing service. This speaks to Roger's judgement especially after his Mt. Gox video. Several dirty tactics have been employed by both sides. Roger, Jihan and Bitcoin Unlimited proposes to create a President of Bitcoin and some confederation. Jihan on twitter stated he misunderstood the open source community: "I regretted one thing. In China, open source culture is not popular. I did not understand it. We put too less or 0 money into community." Segregated Witness does fix transaction malleability which has been a problem for 3+ years. Nick Szabo, Adam Back (CEO of Blockstream) and 8+ bitcoin core developers support SegWit. Yes Blockstream has taken $65 million in venture capital, which should be questioned, but Bitman has hundreds of millions invested. I am unsure who to trust but it's a much more complicated situation than your comment suggests.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

bdcravens 9y ago

> Theymos (Michael Marquardt) controls all the major bitcoin communication channels from r/bitcoin, to bitcointalks, as well as the core slack channel, and the bitcoin mailing list (being the person who sniped bitcoin.org). Roger Ver, proponent of Bitcoin Unlimited, owns Bitcoin.com. He also runs r/btc. Not as many bullet points as Theymos, but pretty clear that the major channels of communication in Bitcoin are all controlled by parties with specific agendas.

RichardHeart 9y ago

If softforks are the dangerous way, what method would you suggest to improve the bitcoin network? How much less voting should the "economic majority" get on how the network votes on process changes if they don't participate in the processes themselves? Perhaps developers with understanding matter more than any "economic majority" as this is truly cutting edge and screw up once and burn matters of network consensus and in large part computer science. Your statement that we need a scaling fix now, more than other fixes could be biased. Millions of dollars have been lost to malleability, I'm not sure how many millions have been lost to scalability or potentially to the the quadratic hashing or the potential DOS attack vector larger script sizes allows creating transactions that take exponentially longer to confirm. Just thinking scalability is the biggest problem doesn't make it so. It might be, but I'd like to see some numbers on it.