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I’m not sure if you’re willfully misinterpreting what happened or just unware, but the debate over how to scale bitcoin (basically, on-chain vs off-chain) is kn

I’m not sure if you’re willfully misinterpreting what happened or just unware, but the debate over how to scale bitcoin (basically, on-chain vs off-chain) is know being played out with Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash. And it’s looking like big blocks is actually a solution for scalability (lower fees, faster transactions), at least in the short term. (For those not aware, Bitcoin Cash is a fork of Bitcoin that removes segwit, the initial groundwork for off-chain scaling solutions, and instead simply increased the blocksize; so far this has proven to greatly reduce network congestion.) Maybe it was the right call for Coinbase to not support many of the forks, but they will be adding support for Bitcoin Cash in 2018 (at least withdrawals). So it’s inaccurate to characterize Brian Armstrong on the “losing” side of these debates.

etr-strike 9y ago
Bitcoin Cash is the brute force solution to scaling. Increasing block size results in longer validation times as well as slower block propagation. Both of these things lead to centralization. The entire purpose of bitcoin is to be as decentralized as possible. Anyways, here's a video released today of a lightning transaction happening on mainnet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a73Gz3Tvx3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a73Gz3Tvx3k Here's a video of Greg Maxwell explaining how slight propagation delays can lead to drastic increases in centralization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHIuuKCm53o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHIuuKCm53o And here's rootstock, an ethereum compatible solution for smart contracts: https://www.rsk.co/ https://www.rsk.co/ Bitcoin Cash is like trying to solve traffic congestion by adding more lanes.
- namelost 9y ago
  > Increasing block size results in longer validation times as well as slower block propagation Processing more transactions requires more resources. That's not a bad thing. One might note that currently Bitcoin Cash is usable as a medium of exchange, whereas Bitcoin is not. They can reduce the bandwidth requirements by implementing e.g. compact blocks.
  - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
    Feel free to implement your code changes on the alt of your choice. Bitcoin node users remain unaffected. It's over right? The whole attempt to sideline the bitcoin development team failed, and now that uncertainty has been removed, the price of bitcoin is skyrocketing. That's because bitcoin is valuable for what it is, not for unproven use-cases that decrease bitcoin security. We will get to those use-cases through layering bitcoin, and will not have to sacrifice security to do it. Accept it. Move on.
    - bufferoverflow 9y ago
      And guess what, businesses are moving on. Steam just dropped Bitcoin as a method of payment. And before that OpenBazaar. And Yours.
      - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
        Using the blockchain for one-off payments between participants is never a viable solution. The establishment of lightning allows commits to be aligned with the long term relationship between two participants. Even after that relationship ends, a completely unrelated payment may be routed through your channel, earning you a micropayment. There was never a solution to that type of functionality with a 10 minute block creation schedule. That went live on main chain two days ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a73Gz3Tvx3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a73Gz3Tvx3k
        bufferoverflow 9y ago
        Blockchains are successfully used for one-off payments, even Bitcoin used to be. Not anymore. And Lightning doesn't solve that problem. Thus other cryptocurrencies will thrive as methods of payment, whereas Bitcoin will remain a settlement layer for recurring payments at best.
        spookthesunset 9y ago
        Ah lightning network, the vaporware that is always just around the corner...
- RexetBlell 9y ago
  Why would anyone ever use rsk? They created a centralized clone of Ethereum and charge 20% fees, or something like that. Here's a truly revolutionary scaling solution by the inventor of Bitcoin's Lightning network and Vitalik Buterin: https://plasma.io/ https://plasma.io/ Also here is an Ethereum's equivalent of the Lightning network, which was deployed on main net recently: https://raiden.network/ https://raiden.network/
  - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
    I don't mind eth. I hope they can solve their problems. But they have problems, and they are running out of time to work them out. Their blockchain is out of control size. Nodes are dropping and they aren't coming back up. I've heard about sharding and pos, but i haven't seen anything approaching a solution yet. It's an issue. Edit: > Why would anyone ever use rsk? ICO. Share offer.
Frogolocalypse 9y ago
Nothing wrong with my memory http://bitcoinist.com/coinbase-ceo-brian-armstrong-announces-switch-to-bitcoin-classic/ http://bitcoinist.com/coinbase-ceo-brian-armstrong-announces... Not to mention being a signatory to the nya, being the attempted hostile takeover of bitcoin via 2x that crashed one block before the fork. And let's not forget : http://www.coinfox.info/news/persons/5012-brian-armstrong-calls-core-team-as-biggest-risk-to-bitcoin http://www.coinfox.info/news/persons/5012-brian-armstrong-ca... Losing side. Every time. And no one is interested in a centralized alt like bch, which is why it has virtually no traffic. If people were interested in that use case, they'd be using litecoin, having double the capacity of bch, as well as having segwit, and atomic swaps with bitcoin.
- mrb 9y ago
  I dislike it when people like you try to paint segwit2x as a "hostile" attempt to take over Bitcoin. It was not. A few confrontational segwit2x supporters made it look this way, but in reality the people at the center of the movement genuinely cared about simply making Bitcoin scale. See also a longer explanation I wrote at: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7508mh/comment/do7umhy https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7508mh/comment/do7umhy
  - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
    Is Armstrong involved in it? It's an attack. I have nothing against the business of coinbase. They provide a service and are compensated for it. He needs to just butt his head out of technology governance.
  - makomk 9y ago
    Segwit2x attempted to replace the existing Bitcoin software and network with something the entire current development team thought was a terrible idea. It relied on the premise that the reason almost every person who had experience deploying changes to Bitcoin opposed it was because they were part of a secret conspiracy to cripple Bitcoin. The software was developed by a single guy, was to be deployed on a ludicrously tight schedule with no real code review, and had bugs that would've caused chaos if t wasn't cancelled at the last minute due to opposition. Hostile takeover seems accurate. Oh, and BitPay (the payment provider Steam used) tried to trick users into switching to it via a blog post telling them they needed to upgrade to it because of Segwit and their money was at risk if they didn't. Every user who followed their advice will now have a client that doesn't work.
cloakandswagger 9y ago
Coinbase is only supporting Bitcoin Cash because there was a large and very legitimate class action lawsuit headed their way if they didn't.
- twayamznacct 9y ago
  Just out of curiosity, why only BCash and not the other "big" forks of BTC (like Gold)?
VMG 9y ago
> so far this has proven to greatly reduce network congestion. their main stroke of genius was not having any transactions on their chain
xorcist 9y ago
Bitcoin Cash has a much lower blocksize, not larger. It is the maximum limit that is larger. They regularly have < 100 kB blocks. Of course there is no congestion. Nobody uses it.

etr-strike 9y ago

Bitcoin Cash is the brute force solution to scaling. Increasing block size results in longer validation times as well as slower block propagation. Both of these things lead to centralization. The entire purpose of bitcoin is to be as decentralized as possible. Anyways, here's a video released today of a lightning transaction happening on mainnet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a73Gz3Tvx3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a73Gz3Tvx3k Here's a video of Greg Maxwell explaining how slight propagation delays can lead to drastic increases in centralization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHIuuKCm53o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHIuuKCm53o And here's rootstock, an ethereum compatible solution for smart contracts: https://www.rsk.co/ https://www.rsk.co/ Bitcoin Cash is like trying to solve traffic congestion by adding more lanes.

namelost 9y ago
> Increasing block size results in longer validation times as well as slower block propagation Processing more transactions requires more resources. That's not a bad thing. One might note that currently Bitcoin Cash is usable as a medium of exchange, whereas Bitcoin is not. They can reduce the bandwidth requirements by implementing e.g. compact blocks.
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  Feel free to implement your code changes on the alt of your choice. Bitcoin node users remain unaffected. It's over right? The whole attempt to sideline the bitcoin development team failed, and now that uncertainty has been removed, the price of bitcoin is skyrocketing. That's because bitcoin is valuable for what it is, not for unproven use-cases that decrease bitcoin security. We will get to those use-cases through layering bitcoin, and will not have to sacrifice security to do it. Accept it. Move on.
  - bufferoverflow 9y ago
    And guess what, businesses are moving on. Steam just dropped Bitcoin as a method of payment. And before that OpenBazaar. And Yours.
    - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
      Using the blockchain for one-off payments between participants is never a viable solution. The establishment of lightning allows commits to be aligned with the long term relationship between two participants. Even after that relationship ends, a completely unrelated payment may be routed through your channel, earning you a micropayment. There was never a solution to that type of functionality with a 10 minute block creation schedule. That went live on main chain two days ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a73Gz3Tvx3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a73Gz3Tvx3k
      - bufferoverflow 9y ago
        Blockchains are successfully used for one-off payments, even Bitcoin used to be. Not anymore. And Lightning doesn't solve that problem. Thus other cryptocurrencies will thrive as methods of payment, whereas Bitcoin will remain a settlement layer for recurring payments at best.
      - spookthesunset 9y ago
        Ah lightning network, the vaporware that is always just around the corner...
RexetBlell 9y ago
Why would anyone ever use rsk? They created a centralized clone of Ethereum and charge 20% fees, or something like that. Here's a truly revolutionary scaling solution by the inventor of Bitcoin's Lightning network and Vitalik Buterin: https://plasma.io/ https://plasma.io/ Also here is an Ethereum's equivalent of the Lightning network, which was deployed on main net recently: https://raiden.network/ https://raiden.network/
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  I don't mind eth. I hope they can solve their problems. But they have problems, and they are running out of time to work them out. Their blockchain is out of control size. Nodes are dropping and they aren't coming back up. I've heard about sharding and pos, but i haven't seen anything approaching a solution yet. It's an issue. Edit: > Why would anyone ever use rsk? ICO. Share offer.

Frogolocalypse 9y ago

Nothing wrong with my memory http://bitcoinist.com/coinbase-ceo-brian-armstrong-announces-switch-to-bitcoin-classic/ http://bitcoinist.com/coinbase-ceo-brian-armstrong-announces... Not to mention being a signatory to the nya, being the attempted hostile takeover of bitcoin via 2x that crashed one block before the fork. And let's not forget : http://www.coinfox.info/news/persons/5012-brian-armstrong-calls-core-team-as-biggest-risk-to-bitcoin http://www.coinfox.info/news/persons/5012-brian-armstrong-ca... Losing side. Every time. And no one is interested in a centralized alt like bch, which is why it has virtually no traffic. If people were interested in that use case, they'd be using litecoin, having double the capacity of bch, as well as having segwit, and atomic swaps with bitcoin.

mrb 9y ago
I dislike it when people like you try to paint segwit2x as a "hostile" attempt to take over Bitcoin. It was not. A few confrontational segwit2x supporters made it look this way, but in reality the people at the center of the movement genuinely cared about simply making Bitcoin scale. See also a longer explanation I wrote at: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7508mh/comment/do7umhy https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7508mh/comment/do7umhy
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  Is Armstrong involved in it? It's an attack. I have nothing against the business of coinbase. They provide a service and are compensated for it. He needs to just butt his head out of technology governance.
- makomk 9y ago
  Segwit2x attempted to replace the existing Bitcoin software and network with something the entire current development team thought was a terrible idea. It relied on the premise that the reason almost every person who had experience deploying changes to Bitcoin opposed it was because they were part of a secret conspiracy to cripple Bitcoin. The software was developed by a single guy, was to be deployed on a ludicrously tight schedule with no real code review, and had bugs that would've caused chaos if t wasn't cancelled at the last minute due to opposition. Hostile takeover seems accurate. Oh, and BitPay (the payment provider Steam used) tried to trick users into switching to it via a blog post telling them they needed to upgrade to it because of Segwit and their money was at risk if they didn't. Every user who followed their advice will now have a client that doesn't work.

cloakandswagger 9y ago

Coinbase is only supporting Bitcoin Cash because there was a large and very legitimate class action lawsuit headed their way if they didn't.

twayamznacct 9y ago
Just out of curiosity, why only BCash and not the other "big" forks of BTC (like Gold)?

VMG 9y ago

> so far this has proven to greatly reduce network congestion. their main stroke of genius was not having any transactions on their chain

xorcist 9y ago

Bitcoin Cash has a much lower blocksize, not larger. It is the maximum limit that is larger. They regularly have < 100 kB blocks. Of course there is no congestion. Nobody uses it.