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This is a fight for control of Bitcoin. It is business interests on both sides fighting for a position of authority. SegWit2x is an attempt to remove control fr

This is a fight for control of Bitcoin. It is business interests on both sides fighting for a position of authority. SegWit2x is an attempt to remove control from the core dev team, which while technically strong is full of zealots with questionable motives and terrible management skills. Bitcoin ABC and Unlimited have their own parts to play as factions. It's getting tense, but it's been years in the making. Groups unwilling to compromise on the most basic points. I suspect that SegWit2x will end up taking over the network, but I'd rather see a pure large block faction like Bitcoin ABC. Either way the core developers are going to lose control of a 40 billion dollar network, possibly one of the biggest fails in modern technology. They will be left on a minority chain which will have little relevance going forward. I've said it before but anyone who put money into Blockstream has to seriously be wondering what the hell they are doing, there CEO should have been kicked out a long time ago, he has no relevant experience to actually running an organization and has royally messed it up.

jerguismi 9y ago
"I suspect that SegWit2x will end up taking over the network" What? They had first release like yesterday, the project has released one tarball, no packaging, no very good marketing etc. The biggest marketers seem to be the tinfoil hat opponents who fear the fork so much that they speak about it everywhere. I don't think it is at all likely that segwit2x client will gain support. Or if it will gain support, it will take years at this point for it to gain any considerable support. The whole thins is totally exaggerated. People have nothing to talk about, so they will invent tinfoil hat scenarios and discuss those. Bitcoin protocol has staid fundamentally the same for many years and it is pretty likely that it will stay that way.
- mhluongo 9y ago
  They have a huge amount of committed hashpower and the support of most major Bitcoin companies.
  - jerguismi 9y ago
    No major bitcoin company has stated that they will run segwit2x client. If you have conflicting information, please link announcement/blog post about that. As for the hashpower, it doesn't matter what clients miners run. You can't force the nodes to run specific client with hashpower.
    - ChrisClark 9y ago
      I'm not picking a side, just delivering info: You can see the signalling process here: https://coin.dance/blocks https://coin.dance/blocks 90% are signalling the NYA intent to support Segwit2x. Since the software release 20% have signalled with segwit2x blocks. You can see business support here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support#Businesses https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support#Businesses I'm not sure if you consider Coinbase a major bitcoin company yourself, but I think they qualify. If I was to make a prediction, everyone will be running segwit2x or another client faking segwit2x support, to get segwit passed by Aug 1st. Then once October comes along we'll have another fight over the actual blocksize hardfork.
      - jerguismi 9y ago
        > You can see business support here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support#Businesses https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support#Businesses > I'm not sure if you consider Coinbase a major bitcoin company yourself, but I think they qualify. That doesn't look like a very good proof. If coinbase plans to adopt segwit2x, why haven't they released an announcement? I wouldn't trust that wiki list very much.
        ChrisClark 9y ago
        You can click through to see the sources on each one on the table there. And don't trust the wiki, no need to. Trust the hash power. The NYA signal was just a promise, so don't trust that one. But the BIP91 signals are coming in already. Just need to get that over 80% for just over 2 days. Then we'll see the original segwit signals jump to the 95%+ it needs. But the truth is, you don't have to worry about finding any support proof or anything. We'll know what happens over the next week or two for sure. I don't care whatever direction it goes in, I just want it to go smoothly.
- buttershakes 9y ago
  The only support it needs is hash power support. That's it. If enough of the hash power can be pulled into it, then it's game over for a minority chain. Running nodes costs almost nothing which means the network can be flooded with segwit2x supporting nodes, and companies will be motivated to switch over.
  - jerguismi 9y ago
    Miners can mine segwit2x blocks all they wish, but since services/exchanges are running core client, they are just mining invalid blocks from their viewpoint, and those blocks are ignored. That means miners can't sell their mined segwit2x bitcoins on exchanges. Mining blocks that services don't accept would be very, very stupid, essentially throwing good money to trash.
    - buttershakes 9y ago
      So if a huge number of nodes are Segwit2x capable, and the miners are mining Segwit2x blocks with the majority of the hash power, companies are going to stay on a less secure chain that can be attacked by the majority so that they can have a smaller block size and keep the core dev team because they love them? This isn't how that works. Proof-of-work will force those companies onto the dominant chain. Exchanges will probably keep trading the smaller coins also.
      - jerguismi 9y ago
        Bitcoin protocol is defined by bitcoin core client, and I would guess more than 99% percent of the services that process bitcoin transactions use that client. The services don't follow actively the hash rate and they won't change the client based on that - the network automatically adjusts to the hash rate available so that blocks come each 10 minutes. If there would exist some other cryptocurrency with more hash rate doesn't mean that services would start calling that one bitcoin.
        buttershakes 9y ago
- ascendantlogic 9y ago
  90% of the hashing power has signaled their intention to adopt segwit2x as of late June. I assume it will become the dominant chain once it locks in right before August 1st.
  - BenoitP 9y ago
    That's assuming hashing power will determine the outcome. In the exchanges runs will take place. The actual economic users will vote this issue out. In the end spreadsheets will be updated, and miners won't want to spend their electricity on a chain that went unprofitable. Miners may have the software coming from segwit2x, and be the ones who actually provide the technical consensus. But the economic consensus will trump everything else; and late software along with questionable roadmap does not inspire confidence.
    - ascendantlogic 9y ago
      Hashing power is what mines the blocks. There will be no "voting the issue out" if the dominant chain is using Segwit. Just because you buy a few BTC on GDAX or something doesn't somehow give you more say than the miners over what software gets run on their own machines. Vast amounts of hashing power is concentrated in the mining pools that are signaling support for this and 99% of the people speculating on these currencies don't care about the underlying protocol, they just want to make money.
  - rothbardrand 9y ago
    Which do you put more stock in? What they are signaling now or what they promise in a blog post? This makes their opposition to Segwit2X clear: https://blog.bitmain.com/en/uahf-contingency-plan-uasf-bip148/ https://blog.bitmain.com/en/uahf-contingency-plan-uasf-bip14... Its clear the opposition is to Segwit-- and Segwit2X contains Segwit.
    - ascendantlogic 9y ago
      http://bitcoinist.com/antpool-mines-segwit2x-block/ http://bitcoinist.com/antpool-mines-segwit2x-block/ https://twitter.com/BITMAINtech/status/886839997440995328 https://twitter.com/BITMAINtech/status/886839997440995328
- shady5050 9y ago
  Let's assume the segwit2x is being activated, how long long will it take to start trading again?
- shady5050 9y ago
  Let's assume the segwit2x is being activated, how long long will it take to start trading again?
martinko 9y ago
Good luck with that, I for one will be dumping any bitcoin ABC or unlimited coins. If it by some miracle ends up as the dominant chain, I will walk away from bitcoin for good.
- grogenaut 9y ago
  Can you explain why for those of us not following as the bitcoin turns closely.
awt 9y ago
It isn't up to just the above parties, but also to the people who actually hold bitcoin. Those holders who prefer sound money will sell on the chain that isn't.
statoshi 9y ago
Core developers never had control in the first place. No one has control; it's weird to see so many people applying authoritarian concepts to an anti-authoritarian system.
- kanzure 9y ago
  Yeah I don't think the core developers have ever claimed to have control. Isn't this one of the main reasons why they have refused to implement auto-upgrade in Bitcoin Core?
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  Yes. There is no Bitcoin to control. Bitcoin is an idea, and there can be as many variations as people have ideas. There will be a main trunk, centered around the middle of the market, but the whole point of cryptocurrencies is they can be forked and survive. In the new world, everyone has their own universe. The sooner one believes, the stronger their position in the 2030 economy.
  - JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
    Name one that has forked and survived. Ethereum Classic is not "surviving".
    - Taek 9y ago
      Ethereum Classic today has more market cap than Etherum did the month before the split, how is that not surviving? They have grown immensely since the split.
    - erikpukinskis 9y ago
      It's early days my friend. Imagine a "Confederacy Coin" that forks from a "US Federal Coin". You don't think that cold survive?
- jerguismi 9y ago
  They don't control, but they have lots of power in the sense that 99% of people will just run the bitcoin core client without researching too much, what is in the code.
mtgx 9y ago
An article that talks about the purpose of SegWit 2x: https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/the-corporate-takeover-attempt-of-bitcoin-eb87c18fad60 https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/the-corporate-takeover-attemp...
kkleindev 9y ago
I always wonder how people external to an organisation can judge the work of an executive. Are you maybe solely looking at outcomes, that may only slightly be influenced by his decisions and dominated by randomness and other factors anyway?
- ethbro 9y ago
  Yahoo was sold. We need a new dead horse.
- buttershakes 9y ago
  You just need to look at results. We have a fragmented and fractured community. The guy tweets non stop in some ideological holy war. They were even called out by Fred Wilson at Consensus for basically not delivering anything of value, and the leadership is the result of an internal shake up that ousted the previous CEO in favor of someone more in tune with the technology. I don't think it takes divination or insider knowledge to smell when something is going sour.
- kkleindev 9y ago
  I would be interested in hearing why so many people downvoted a fairly neutral question. Please let me know.
knocte 9y ago
> I've said it before but anyone who put money into Blockstream You seem to have taken sides against BitcoinCore team, following the typical conspiracy theories. But FYI, Blockstream is not Core, Core is not Blockstream. More info: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/622bjp/bitcoin_core_blockstream/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/622bjp/bitcoin_cor...
- buttershakes 9y ago
  I have taken sides, but against the general core development process and the corporate interests that are permeating it. Yes, blockstream is not core, but they have exerted a tremendous amount of influence on the team and direction. In addition to directly employing many core developers, sponsoring contractors, and tirelessly advocating for a vision of Bitcoin that frankly differs substantially from anything put forth in Satoshi's paper. It's not a conspiracy theory, I've watched it unfold in person for years.
  - knocte 9y ago
    Even if most of what you say seems to be completely false, I wouldn't even worry a tiny bit even if it was true, in the same way I don't worry by the fact that many Gnome developers are paid by Red Hat.
    - buttershakes 9y ago
      You are making the mistake of equating Bitcoin development with other open source projects. It's just not comparable to Gnome, Linux, or any other open source development. If I don't like the gnome developers I just don't run their code, but if I don't like the consensus driven code of Bitcoin my only choice is to sell. The stickiness of the implementation is extremely important to the overall discussion.
      - knocte 9y ago
        > but if I don't like the consensus driven code of Bitcoin my only choice is to sell Wrong. What's the choice you have when you disagree with what the maintainers of an opensource project do? You can fork. You're welcome to fork at any time. And in fact this is what we're seeing these days: an attempt of a fork. I believe that, as with the majority of the forks in the opensource world, the fork will not succeed, because the alternative developers are less capable.
hudon 9y ago
> SegWit2x is an attempt to remove control from the core dev team I disagree. SegWit2x is a misguided attempt to make Bitcoin "more efficient" without realizing that it puts at risk the core value proposition of Bitcoin: censorship resistance. At the root of this debate is a disagreement about what the blockchain is for. On one side, you have all the developers working on the Core project and activists like Amir Taaki or "crypto-economists" like Paul Sztorc (creator of the decentralized prediction market which Augur is trying to re-implement), who believe the blockchain is for financial sovereignty. Bitcoin mining is a way to decentralize transaction validation, after all, such that no central authority can tell you which transaction is valid or not. Therefore, if you cannot run a full node and validate the mined blockchain yourself, Bitcoin is basically pointless because you have lost your ability to transact with censorship resistance. Increasing the size of blocks makes full blockchain validation more difficult. The risk then is miners mining a blockchain and you are not being able to contest it. The miners can decide not to include your transaction, they can require KYC for you to submit a transaction, etc., and you will have little leverage against this because you won't be able to validate the work they are doing. On the other side, you have businesses and corporations (BitPay, BitMain, etc.) who believe that the blockchain can replace VISA, essentially, so they will do anything to make the system more efficient. This includes sacrificing decentralization and making it more difficult for users to validate the blockchain. They believe that being a full node doesn't matter and all that matters is replacing whatever current financial institutions are running with a blockchain. What the second side of the debate is missing, however, is that the blockchain will never be as efficient as VISA. There is a reason why when over 70 of the world's largest banks got together at R3 and assessed how Bitcoin can help them transact, they came up with a distributed database called Corda and not a blockchain: blockchains are not efficient [1]. They are inefficient but they are useful because they are decentralized and enable permissionless transactions. [1] https://www.corda.net/2016/10/r3-corda-makes-different/ https://www.corda.net/2016/10/r3-corda-makes-different/
- buttershakes 9y ago
  Why do you say it's an attempt to make Bitcoin more efficient? It's essentially exactly the code base of Bitcoin core with some very minor changes including a block size commitment in the future. Seems pretty clear that it is about control of that code base, and not really the technical underpinnings which are almost identical. I think the issue is that people have a vision of what Bitcoin is, that doesn't align with the reality of a proof-of-work system with a computation bound hash. The block size is basically orthogonal to the proof-of-work, and the proof-of-work is distributed in the sense that anyone can do it. There is nothing stopping any entity from doing the proof-of-work if they have the resources and capabilities. So this idea that there will be one company that is the only one doing Bitcoin doesn't really make sense if it's cost competitive for other companies to be involved, regardless of the computation or bandwidth requirements. End users can still validate transactions via SPV, which is completely valid and provable without storing the entire block chain. Consensus relay nodes can do the same thing, although they will start dropping off the network when the bandwidth costs become prohibitive. So in a small block system we have an extremely limited amount of space for transactions, which means the cost will eventually be excessively high and result in settlement between big players. That's the choke point that allows for KYC and AML. You can submit a transaction to the network, but you can't afford to because there isn't enough bandwidth to service your request so you are forced into regulated channels, onto exchanges, or through third party choke points that can be audited. To a certain extent this is already happening. People who want small blocks for Bitcoin really need to be thinking about using an Alt coin, it was never in the plans to have an extremely low bandwidth pipe to keep things decentralized when the proof-of-work is by default a centralizing force.
rothbardrand 9y ago
You're right that this is a fight for control over bitcoin, but you're wrong on who the players are. There's the corporate faction: BitMain plus Bloq and the ones who want to embed KYC and AML into the bitcoin protocol. Their heavy hitter is Jihan Wu who controls %70 of the hash power, via his mining chips and his pools, and his customers being amenable to his wishes (because they want to remain customers). No visible engineering expertise, and has has backed a series of code projects over the past two years all of which have been spectacular failures: BU, XT, Classic, ABC and BTC1-- all have had significant vulnerabilities. Their goal: Very large blocks that cannot cross the Great Firewall of China easily, increasing Chinese centralization. On the other side you have The Engineers: Hundreds of engineers who have contributed to Core, starting with Satoshi Nakamoto and going forward to the present day. They are called "corporate" because Blockstream hired some of them, but the blocksteram engineers are prominent only because of their contributions and smarts, not because they exercise any control. These engineers for the past 8 years have delivered quality software and 2 years ago delivered Segwit-- a misnomer that covers a large number of improvements for bitcoin that require a soft fork to activate. Segwit enables scaling and so many more applications to be built on Bitcoin, including smart contracts and side chains. However, Segwit also reveals an exploit. An exploit that Jihan Wu has been using to give him a competitive advantage and which is in part why he has been able to gain centralized control over bitcoin hashing. This exploit is called ASICBOOST and segwit would put a stop to it. This is why Jihan has opposed it. Worse the corporates have spent millions on a 50-cent army of shills to spread FUD and misinformation and conspiracy theories to discredit core. At the end of the day-- its the engineers who know what they are doing vs the corporate shills who sneer and think it can't be that hard to deliver bitcoin software -- but have so far completely failed to deliver anything that wasn't unmitigated crap. How it's going to play out: Jihan Wu has declared he will hard fork his own coin (and remove Segwit) because the real bitcoin industry and core agreed on Segwit2X .... he has hash power, so he may be able to make his coin dominant... for awhile. But core has solutions to this, and at the end of the day we will likely see chain split with the hash power on one side and the engineering resources on the other. That hash power advantage can be fixed within a few weeks.... the lack of engineering talent can't be fixed for love nor money-- as any engineer worth a damn understands what is at stake and will never join Jihan's Jihad.
- 9y ago
propter_hoc 9y ago
> [Blockstream's] CEO should have been kicked out a long time ago He was. http://www.montrealintechnology.com/austin-hill-out-as-blockstream-ceo-amid-front-office-shake-up/ http://www.montrealintechnology.com/austin-hill-out-as-block...
- buttershakes 9y ago
  Wrong one.
xiphias 9y ago
Core is one of the best managed team I know of: they stay true to the most important feature of bitcoin: decentralization. They do this on many levels. What most people don't realize is that Bitcoin is the best method for storing value even in it's current form, without any protocol update. Also value storage is the reason why Bitcoin is hyped so much, and why it's so emotional for people to talk about it. Any update to the network that is able to take away from it's value storage characteristics is bad, and core deeply understands this, unlike many other teams.
sp821543 9y ago
On the other hand, Bitcoin ABC puts a 40 billion dollar network in the hands of one developer. Nevermind the other dozen or so who have context and expertise from maintaining the codebase for years.
- pmorici 9y ago
  The current Core developers drove the long time developers out with vitriol and petty personal attacks. All those long time developers are now working on the alternative implementations like Unlimited, Classic, ABC, and btc1.
pmorici 9y ago
I completely agree with everything you've said. The only thing I'll add is that Blockstream's CEO was replaced. It was originally Austin Hill and the current CEO Adam Back replaced him. Not an improvement, but it was a change.
gabridome 9y ago
> I've said it before but anyone who put money into Blockstream has to seriously be wondering what the hell they are doing Thank you! As someone who has put money into Blockstream, I can assure you I'm following the situation very close. Blockstream has few developers contributing to Core and associating with it is a very partial and poor view. It is not a conventional company and the actual CEO (recently nominated) has the ability to keep such a group of talented minds together. I humbly consider Blockstream the best investment I have done in my life under many aspects but the main one is the quality of the people working in it.
gabridome 9y ago
Thank you! As someone who has put money into Blockstream I must say: 1. I follow the situation very close 2. The CEO was nominated not long ago 3. He has got the ability to keep such a group of talented minds together 4. Blockstream is not a conventional company 5. Core is an independent group of talented developers and FEW of Blockstream founders are part of it 6. I humbly admit that Blockstream is the best investments of my life under many aspects the main of which being the quality of the people working in it.

jerguismi 9y ago

"I suspect that SegWit2x will end up taking over the network" What? They had first release like yesterday, the project has released one tarball, no packaging, no very good marketing etc. The biggest marketers seem to be the tinfoil hat opponents who fear the fork so much that they speak about it everywhere. I don't think it is at all likely that segwit2x client will gain support. Or if it will gain support, it will take years at this point for it to gain any considerable support. The whole thins is totally exaggerated. People have nothing to talk about, so they will invent tinfoil hat scenarios and discuss those. Bitcoin protocol has staid fundamentally the same for many years and it is pretty likely that it will stay that way.

mhluongo 9y ago
They have a huge amount of committed hashpower and the support of most major Bitcoin companies.
- jerguismi 9y ago
  No major bitcoin company has stated that they will run segwit2x client. If you have conflicting information, please link announcement/blog post about that. As for the hashpower, it doesn't matter what clients miners run. You can't force the nodes to run specific client with hashpower.
  - ChrisClark 9y ago
    I'm not picking a side, just delivering info: You can see the signalling process here: https://coin.dance/blocks https://coin.dance/blocks 90% are signalling the NYA intent to support Segwit2x. Since the software release 20% have signalled with segwit2x blocks. You can see business support here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support#Businesses https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support#Businesses I'm not sure if you consider Coinbase a major bitcoin company yourself, but I think they qualify. If I was to make a prediction, everyone will be running segwit2x or another client faking segwit2x support, to get segwit passed by Aug 1st. Then once October comes along we'll have another fight over the actual blocksize hardfork.
    - jerguismi 9y ago
      > You can see business support here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support#Businesses https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support#Businesses > I'm not sure if you consider Coinbase a major bitcoin company yourself, but I think they qualify. That doesn't look like a very good proof. If coinbase plans to adopt segwit2x, why haven't they released an announcement? I wouldn't trust that wiki list very much.
      - ChrisClark 9y ago
        You can click through to see the sources on each one on the table there. And don't trust the wiki, no need to. Trust the hash power. The NYA signal was just a promise, so don't trust that one. But the BIP91 signals are coming in already. Just need to get that over 80% for just over 2 days. Then we'll see the original segwit signals jump to the 95%+ it needs. But the truth is, you don't have to worry about finding any support proof or anything. We'll know what happens over the next week or two for sure. I don't care whatever direction it goes in, I just want it to go smoothly.
buttershakes 9y ago
The only support it needs is hash power support. That's it. If enough of the hash power can be pulled into it, then it's game over for a minority chain. Running nodes costs almost nothing which means the network can be flooded with segwit2x supporting nodes, and companies will be motivated to switch over.
- jerguismi 9y ago
  Miners can mine segwit2x blocks all they wish, but since services/exchanges are running core client, they are just mining invalid blocks from their viewpoint, and those blocks are ignored. That means miners can't sell their mined segwit2x bitcoins on exchanges. Mining blocks that services don't accept would be very, very stupid, essentially throwing good money to trash.
  - buttershakes 9y ago
    So if a huge number of nodes are Segwit2x capable, and the miners are mining Segwit2x blocks with the majority of the hash power, companies are going to stay on a less secure chain that can be attacked by the majority so that they can have a smaller block size and keep the core dev team because they love them? This isn't how that works. Proof-of-work will force those companies onto the dominant chain. Exchanges will probably keep trading the smaller coins also.
    - jerguismi 9y ago
      Bitcoin protocol is defined by bitcoin core client, and I would guess more than 99% percent of the services that process bitcoin transactions use that client. The services don't follow actively the hash rate and they won't change the client based on that - the network automatically adjusts to the hash rate available so that blocks come each 10 minutes. If there would exist some other cryptocurrency with more hash rate doesn't mean that services would start calling that one bitcoin.
      - buttershakes 9y ago
ascendantlogic 9y ago
90% of the hashing power has signaled their intention to adopt segwit2x as of late June. I assume it will become the dominant chain once it locks in right before August 1st.
- BenoitP 9y ago
  That's assuming hashing power will determine the outcome. In the exchanges runs will take place. The actual economic users will vote this issue out. In the end spreadsheets will be updated, and miners won't want to spend their electricity on a chain that went unprofitable. Miners may have the software coming from segwit2x, and be the ones who actually provide the technical consensus. But the economic consensus will trump everything else; and late software along with questionable roadmap does not inspire confidence.
  - ascendantlogic 9y ago
    Hashing power is what mines the blocks. There will be no "voting the issue out" if the dominant chain is using Segwit. Just because you buy a few BTC on GDAX or something doesn't somehow give you more say than the miners over what software gets run on their own machines. Vast amounts of hashing power is concentrated in the mining pools that are signaling support for this and 99% of the people speculating on these currencies don't care about the underlying protocol, they just want to make money.
- rothbardrand 9y ago
  Which do you put more stock in? What they are signaling now or what they promise in a blog post? This makes their opposition to Segwit2X clear: https://blog.bitmain.com/en/uahf-contingency-plan-uasf-bip148/ https://blog.bitmain.com/en/uahf-contingency-plan-uasf-bip14... Its clear the opposition is to Segwit-- and Segwit2X contains Segwit.
  - ascendantlogic 9y ago
    http://bitcoinist.com/antpool-mines-segwit2x-block/ http://bitcoinist.com/antpool-mines-segwit2x-block/ https://twitter.com/BITMAINtech/status/886839997440995328 https://twitter.com/BITMAINtech/status/886839997440995328
shady5050 9y ago
Let's assume the segwit2x is being activated, how long long will it take to start trading again?
shady5050 9y ago
Let's assume the segwit2x is being activated, how long long will it take to start trading again?

martinko 9y ago

Good luck with that, I for one will be dumping any bitcoin ABC or unlimited coins. If it by some miracle ends up as the dominant chain, I will walk away from bitcoin for good.

grogenaut 9y ago
Can you explain why for those of us not following as the bitcoin turns closely.

awt 9y ago

It isn't up to just the above parties, but also to the people who actually hold bitcoin. Those holders who prefer sound money will sell on the chain that isn't.

statoshi 9y ago

Core developers never had control in the first place. No one has control; it's weird to see so many people applying authoritarian concepts to an anti-authoritarian system.

kanzure 9y ago
Yeah I don't think the core developers have ever claimed to have control. Isn't this one of the main reasons why they have refused to implement auto-upgrade in Bitcoin Core?
erikpukinskis 9y ago
Yes. There is no Bitcoin to control. Bitcoin is an idea, and there can be as many variations as people have ideas. There will be a main trunk, centered around the middle of the market, but the whole point of cryptocurrencies is they can be forked and survive. In the new world, everyone has their own universe. The sooner one believes, the stronger their position in the 2030 economy.
- JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
  Name one that has forked and survived. Ethereum Classic is not "surviving".
  - Taek 9y ago
    Ethereum Classic today has more market cap than Etherum did the month before the split, how is that not surviving? They have grown immensely since the split.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    It's early days my friend. Imagine a "Confederacy Coin" that forks from a "US Federal Coin". You don't think that cold survive?
jerguismi 9y ago
They don't control, but they have lots of power in the sense that 99% of people will just run the bitcoin core client without researching too much, what is in the code.

mtgx 9y ago

An article that talks about the purpose of SegWit 2x: https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/the-corporate-takeover-attempt-of-bitcoin-eb87c18fad60 https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/the-corporate-takeover-attemp...

kkleindev 9y ago

I always wonder how people external to an organisation can judge the work of an executive. Are you maybe solely looking at outcomes, that may only slightly be influenced by his decisions and dominated by randomness and other factors anyway?

ethbro 9y ago
Yahoo was sold. We need a new dead horse.
buttershakes 9y ago
You just need to look at results. We have a fragmented and fractured community. The guy tweets non stop in some ideological holy war. They were even called out by Fred Wilson at Consensus for basically not delivering anything of value, and the leadership is the result of an internal shake up that ousted the previous CEO in favor of someone more in tune with the technology. I don't think it takes divination or insider knowledge to smell when something is going sour.
kkleindev 9y ago
I would be interested in hearing why so many people downvoted a fairly neutral question. Please let me know.

knocte 9y ago

> I've said it before but anyone who put money into Blockstream You seem to have taken sides against BitcoinCore team, following the typical conspiracy theories. But FYI, Blockstream is not Core, Core is not Blockstream. More info: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/622bjp/bitcoin_core_blockstream/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/622bjp/bitcoin_cor...

buttershakes 9y ago
I have taken sides, but against the general core development process and the corporate interests that are permeating it. Yes, blockstream is not core, but they have exerted a tremendous amount of influence on the team and direction. In addition to directly employing many core developers, sponsoring contractors, and tirelessly advocating for a vision of Bitcoin that frankly differs substantially from anything put forth in Satoshi's paper. It's not a conspiracy theory, I've watched it unfold in person for years.
- knocte 9y ago
  Even if most of what you say seems to be completely false, I wouldn't even worry a tiny bit even if it was true, in the same way I don't worry by the fact that many Gnome developers are paid by Red Hat.
  - buttershakes 9y ago
    You are making the mistake of equating Bitcoin development with other open source projects. It's just not comparable to Gnome, Linux, or any other open source development. If I don't like the gnome developers I just don't run their code, but if I don't like the consensus driven code of Bitcoin my only choice is to sell. The stickiness of the implementation is extremely important to the overall discussion.
    - knocte 9y ago
      > but if I don't like the consensus driven code of Bitcoin my only choice is to sell Wrong. What's the choice you have when you disagree with what the maintainers of an opensource project do? You can fork. You're welcome to fork at any time. And in fact this is what we're seeing these days: an attempt of a fork. I believe that, as with the majority of the forks in the opensource world, the fork will not succeed, because the alternative developers are less capable.

hudon 9y ago

> SegWit2x is an attempt to remove control from the core dev team I disagree. SegWit2x is a misguided attempt to make Bitcoin "more efficient" without realizing that it puts at risk the core value proposition of Bitcoin: censorship resistance. At the root of this debate is a disagreement about what the blockchain is for. On one side, you have all the developers working on the Core project and activists like Amir Taaki or "crypto-economists" like Paul Sztorc (creator of the decentralized prediction market which Augur is trying to re-implement), who believe the blockchain is for financial sovereignty. Bitcoin mining is a way to decentralize transaction validation, after all, such that no central authority can tell you which transaction is valid or not. Therefore, if you cannot run a full node and validate the mined blockchain yourself, Bitcoin is basically pointless because you have lost your ability to transact with censorship resistance. Increasing the size of blocks makes full blockchain validation more difficult. The risk then is miners mining a blockchain and you are not being able to contest it. The miners can decide not to include your transaction, they can require KYC for you to submit a transaction, etc., and you will have little leverage against this because you won't be able to validate the work they are doing. On the other side, you have businesses and corporations (BitPay, BitMain, etc.) who believe that the blockchain can replace VISA, essentially, so they will do anything to make the system more efficient. This includes sacrificing decentralization and making it more difficult for users to validate the blockchain. They believe that being a full node doesn't matter and all that matters is replacing whatever current financial institutions are running with a blockchain. What the second side of the debate is missing, however, is that the blockchain will never be as efficient as VISA. There is a reason why when over 70 of the world's largest banks got together at R3 and assessed how Bitcoin can help them transact, they came up with a distributed database called Corda and not a blockchain: blockchains are not efficient [1]. They are inefficient but they are useful because they are decentralized and enable permissionless transactions. [1] https://www.corda.net/2016/10/r3-corda-makes-different/ https://www.corda.net/2016/10/r3-corda-makes-different/

buttershakes 9y ago
Why do you say it's an attempt to make Bitcoin more efficient? It's essentially exactly the code base of Bitcoin core with some very minor changes including a block size commitment in the future. Seems pretty clear that it is about control of that code base, and not really the technical underpinnings which are almost identical. I think the issue is that people have a vision of what Bitcoin is, that doesn't align with the reality of a proof-of-work system with a computation bound hash. The block size is basically orthogonal to the proof-of-work, and the proof-of-work is distributed in the sense that anyone can do it. There is nothing stopping any entity from doing the proof-of-work if they have the resources and capabilities. So this idea that there will be one company that is the only one doing Bitcoin doesn't really make sense if it's cost competitive for other companies to be involved, regardless of the computation or bandwidth requirements. End users can still validate transactions via SPV, which is completely valid and provable without storing the entire block chain. Consensus relay nodes can do the same thing, although they will start dropping off the network when the bandwidth costs become prohibitive. So in a small block system we have an extremely limited amount of space for transactions, which means the cost will eventually be excessively high and result in settlement between big players. That's the choke point that allows for KYC and AML. You can submit a transaction to the network, but you can't afford to because there isn't enough bandwidth to service your request so you are forced into regulated channels, onto exchanges, or through third party choke points that can be audited. To a certain extent this is already happening. People who want small blocks for Bitcoin really need to be thinking about using an Alt coin, it was never in the plans to have an extremely low bandwidth pipe to keep things decentralized when the proof-of-work is by default a centralizing force.

rothbardrand 9y ago

You're right that this is a fight for control over bitcoin, but you're wrong on who the players are. There's the corporate faction: BitMain plus Bloq and the ones who want to embed KYC and AML into the bitcoin protocol. Their heavy hitter is Jihan Wu who controls %70 of the hash power, via his mining chips and his pools, and his customers being amenable to his wishes (because they want to remain customers). No visible engineering expertise, and has has backed a series of code projects over the past two years all of which have been spectacular failures: BU, XT, Classic, ABC and BTC1-- all have had significant vulnerabilities. Their goal: Very large blocks that cannot cross the Great Firewall of China easily, increasing Chinese centralization. On the other side you have The Engineers: Hundreds of engineers who have contributed to Core, starting with Satoshi Nakamoto and going forward to the present day. They are called "corporate" because Blockstream hired some of them, but the blocksteram engineers are prominent only because of their contributions and smarts, not because they exercise any control. These engineers for the past 8 years have delivered quality software and 2 years ago delivered Segwit-- a misnomer that covers a large number of improvements for bitcoin that require a soft fork to activate. Segwit enables scaling and so many more applications to be built on Bitcoin, including smart contracts and side chains. However, Segwit also reveals an exploit. An exploit that Jihan Wu has been using to give him a competitive advantage and which is in part why he has been able to gain centralized control over bitcoin hashing. This exploit is called ASICBOOST and segwit would put a stop to it. This is why Jihan has opposed it. Worse the corporates have spent millions on a 50-cent army of shills to spread FUD and misinformation and conspiracy theories to discredit core. At the end of the day-- its the engineers who know what they are doing vs the corporate shills who sneer and think it can't be that hard to deliver bitcoin software -- but have so far completely failed to deliver anything that wasn't unmitigated crap. How it's going to play out: Jihan Wu has declared he will hard fork his own coin (and remove Segwit) because the real bitcoin industry and core agreed on Segwit2X .... he has hash power, so he may be able to make his coin dominant... for awhile. But core has solutions to this, and at the end of the day we will likely see chain split with the hash power on one side and the engineering resources on the other. That hash power advantage can be fixed within a few weeks.... the lack of engineering talent can't be fixed for love nor money-- as any engineer worth a damn understands what is at stake and will never join Jihan's Jihad.

9y ago

propter_hoc 9y ago

> [Blockstream's] CEO should have been kicked out a long time ago He was. http://www.montrealintechnology.com/austin-hill-out-as-blockstream-ceo-amid-front-office-shake-up/ http://www.montrealintechnology.com/austin-hill-out-as-block...

buttershakes 9y ago
Wrong one.

xiphias 9y ago

Core is one of the best managed team I know of: they stay true to the most important feature of bitcoin: decentralization. They do this on many levels. What most people don't realize is that Bitcoin is the best method for storing value even in it's current form, without any protocol update. Also value storage is the reason why Bitcoin is hyped so much, and why it's so emotional for people to talk about it. Any update to the network that is able to take away from it's value storage characteristics is bad, and core deeply understands this, unlike many other teams.

sp821543 9y ago

On the other hand, Bitcoin ABC puts a 40 billion dollar network in the hands of one developer. Nevermind the other dozen or so who have context and expertise from maintaining the codebase for years.

pmorici 9y ago
The current Core developers drove the long time developers out with vitriol and petty personal attacks. All those long time developers are now working on the alternative implementations like Unlimited, Classic, ABC, and btc1.

pmorici 9y ago

I completely agree with everything you've said. The only thing I'll add is that Blockstream's CEO was replaced. It was originally Austin Hill and the current CEO Adam Back replaced him. Not an improvement, but it was a change.

gabridome 9y ago

> I've said it before but anyone who put money into Blockstream has to seriously be wondering what the hell they are doing Thank you! As someone who has put money into Blockstream, I can assure you I'm following the situation very close. Blockstream has few developers contributing to Core and associating with it is a very partial and poor view. It is not a conventional company and the actual CEO (recently nominated) has the ability to keep such a group of talented minds together. I humbly consider Blockstream the best investment I have done in my life under many aspects but the main one is the quality of the people working in it.

gabridome 9y ago

Thank you! As someone who has put money into Blockstream I must say: 1. I follow the situation very close 2. The CEO was nominated not long ago 3. He has got the ability to keep such a group of talented minds together 4. Blockstream is not a conventional company 5. Core is an independent group of talented developers and FEW of Blockstream founders are part of it 6. I humbly admit that Blockstream is the best investments of my life under many aspects the main of which being the quality of the people working in it.