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Regardless of the merits of this proposal, why write a blog post about it instead of submitting it to the Bitcoin developer mailing list? These authors have wr

Regardless of the merits of this proposal, why write a blog post about it instead of submitting it to the Bitcoin developer mailing list? These authors have written a lot about the mining pool problem in recent days, but don't appear to have engaged in any discussion on bitcoin-development. It feels like a very passive-aggressive way of proposing a solution to a problem, by publicly announcing it instead of engaging the current dev team directly.

Retric 12y ago
Bitcoin is only one of a wide range of digital currency's and seems likely to fail long term. Not for any specific reason just the odds of a first mover winning long term have historically been low. Which suggests the most useful discussions are going to occure with the designers of a new currency. PS: I can't think of a single technology over 20 years old where the first mover is still the leader. Bell telephone company is the longest run I an think of.
- weavejester 12y ago
  With respect, that's an extremely bizarre attitude to take toward a software project. Even if it were true, which mailing list do you think has the greatest concentration of cryptocurrency expertise? (And regarding your postscript, are you suggesting that developers shouldn't contribute to open source software projects because in twenty years they might fail?!)
  - Retric 12y ago
    The point is blog posts can have a wider and more relevent audence than a specilized mailing list.
    - weavejester 12y ago
      Given that the blog post is advocating technical change to Bitcoin, I'm not certain how there could be any audience more relevant than the mailing list of Bitcoin developers.
      - Retric 12y ago
        Sure, but the idea goes beyond Bitcoin. "A Plan For Spam" is a great example of the same sort of post being far better served as a blog post than any mailing list. http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html Why? because a simple edit and you can link to any refinements and the idea goes beyond email to any kink of SPAM.
        weavejester 12y ago
        Even if that were true, the post is very clearly advocating a change to Bitcoin itself. Don't you think it's just a little weird to suggest a technical change to a software project on a random blog, rather than discussing it first with the people who actually manage the project you're trying to change? Cryptocurrencies are also a far more specialised field than spam prevention. The blog post outlines a strategy for dealing with large mining cartels in a widely-used cryptocurrency. I'd suggest that maintaining a serious crypto-currency is something that very few people in the world have the expertise to do reliably. When your intended audience is, at most, a few thousand, or maybe even a few hundred cryptographers, I really don't see the point in putting it on a blog to a general audience.
- moe 12y ago
  PS: I can't think of a single technology over 20 years old where the first mover is still the leader. Popular internet protocols tend to evolve rather than get replaced (cf. nearly every protocol ever).
  - Retric 12y ago
    Sort of. Email, IP, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, HTTPS, etc are all improvements and often minor ones on existing technology. The difference is really that computers where getting far more common in the early stages of the Internet which confuses the issue. EX: few people know about SGML even if all those ML languages use it's formatting. Gopher vs WWW. Hell even DNS is derivative the ARPANET used a HOSTS.TXT file.
- avmich 12y ago
  >I can't think of a single technology over 20 years old where the first mover is still the leader. Russian rockets, to an extent. Big(gest) share of world launches, hardware inheritance from world first ICBM, first launched in 1957.

Retric 12y ago

Bitcoin is only one of a wide range of digital currency's and seems likely to fail long term. Not for any specific reason just the odds of a first mover winning long term have historically been low. Which suggests the most useful discussions are going to occure with the designers of a new currency. PS: I can't think of a single technology over 20 years old where the first mover is still the leader. Bell telephone company is the longest run I an think of.

weavejester 12y ago
With respect, that's an extremely bizarre attitude to take toward a software project. Even if it were true, which mailing list do you think has the greatest concentration of cryptocurrency expertise? (And regarding your postscript, are you suggesting that developers shouldn't contribute to open source software projects because in twenty years they might fail?!)
- Retric 12y ago
  The point is blog posts can have a wider and more relevent audence than a specilized mailing list.
  - weavejester 12y ago
    Given that the blog post is advocating technical change to Bitcoin, I'm not certain how there could be any audience more relevant than the mailing list of Bitcoin developers.
    - Retric 12y ago
      Sure, but the idea goes beyond Bitcoin. "A Plan For Spam" is a great example of the same sort of post being far better served as a blog post than any mailing list. http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html Why? because a simple edit and you can link to any refinements and the idea goes beyond email to any kink of SPAM.
      - weavejester 12y ago
        Even if that were true, the post is very clearly advocating a change to Bitcoin itself. Don't you think it's just a little weird to suggest a technical change to a software project on a random blog, rather than discussing it first with the people who actually manage the project you're trying to change? Cryptocurrencies are also a far more specialised field than spam prevention. The blog post outlines a strategy for dealing with large mining cartels in a widely-used cryptocurrency. I'd suggest that maintaining a serious crypto-currency is something that very few people in the world have the expertise to do reliably. When your intended audience is, at most, a few thousand, or maybe even a few hundred cryptographers, I really don't see the point in putting it on a blog to a general audience.
moe 12y ago
PS: I can't think of a single technology over 20 years old where the first mover is still the leader. Popular internet protocols tend to evolve rather than get replaced (cf. nearly every protocol ever).
- Retric 12y ago
  Sort of. Email, IP, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, HTTPS, etc are all improvements and often minor ones on existing technology. The difference is really that computers where getting far more common in the early stages of the Internet which confuses the issue. EX: few people know about SGML even if all those ML languages use it's formatting. Gopher vs WWW. Hell even DNS is derivative the ARPANET used a HOSTS.TXT file.
avmich 12y ago
>I can't think of a single technology over 20 years old where the first mover is still the leader. Russian rockets, to an extent. Big(gest) share of world launches, hardware inheritance from world first ICBM, first launched in 1957.