Community Directory

Re: Bitcoins And Gravy?

@Rob, I tweeted to him. I linked to this thread, but I didn't specifically mention the episode.

Re: Bitcoins And Gravy?

Nice tribute to John in LTB #252, @adam, and a little bit of what we're all missing from B&G. I'm counting the days to @Rob's next episode.

Re: GETREAL - New Token-Controlled Access forum for Real Names

I'll play. I like real names.

Re: [ANN] SpaceChain.io l FREE MIXING UNTIL THE END OF OCTOBER!

I moved this promotional post to the Crypto Links forum.

WCN Creates Video of Rock Barcellos' Artwork

The World Crypto Network has created a video version of @rockbarcellos LTBN article, "Peer to Peer Since the Beginning," narrated by Chris Ellis.

See the original article here: https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/peer-to-peer-since-the-beginning

Re: LTB Redesign and Upcoming Changes

@jorj_X_mckie We will add a link to the magic word in the main menu again, as soon as we make a new explainer page. It's on our to-do list.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

Re: Crypto Project Vinyl Stickers

I used the Tokenly Pockets wallet to buy the Africoin Report stickers yesterday. The experience was slick! (I'm wondering what else to buy, so I can use it again.)

I'll share a pic of my stickered laptop when my AR ones arrive.

Re: Redesign Let's Talk Bitcoin - Request for Proposals

@deweller This doesn't need to be stickied anymore.

Re: Upcoming Bitcoin Hard Fork & /r/bitcoin censorship

Eli's Reply

First, let’s count our blessings. It’s good that there is no “official” organization that can control Bitcoin. Such an organization would be subject to political pressure and ultimately to political capture. Let’s be grateful that Bitcoin is so capture-resistant.

Second, hard forks allow controversial decisions about the direction of Bitcoin to be made by the market, not by particular developers. They are the method by which we decentralize Bitcoin governance. A policy of never allowing hard forks is tantamount to a policy of letting core developers, not the market, choose how Bitcoin will behave. Consequently, I am unsympathetic to the bitcoin.org policy of forbidding controversial hard forks.

This is how the system is supposed to work. If the big-blockists are able to persuade the majority of miners, exchanges, and users that bigger blocks are better, they will win in the end. If not, the small-blockists will win. Either way, in the end, the shorter chain will be abandoned eventually, and there will be only one Bitcoin again.

The community has several more months during which to debate this issue, since the fork will not occur before 2016. In the meantime, we should focus on improving the quality of arguments and communication so that the fork will be resolved in an informed manner.

All the best,

Eli Dourado

Director, Technology Policy Program

Mercatus Center

George Mason University

This was really helpful for me in understanding how Bitcoin consensus works. Thanks for seeking out and sharing the information, @adam. It shows that conversations like this are absolutely necessary to the future of Bitcoin, even if it all seems like a bunch of craziness sometimes.

This is how the system is supposed to work. If the big-blockists are able to persuade the majority of miners, exchanges, and users

I'm still left wondering, however (as someone who has less of a technical understanding): Where are the nodes in the equation? They are unpaid, run by volunteers, decreasing in number all the time, and not discussed on the same level that miners are discussed. Are they less important, or "becoming less important as it becomes easier to connect to the network" (as one person recently explained to me)? Do they matter in these block-size, hard-fork, consensus decisions?

Re: Upcoming Bitcoin Hard Fork & /r/bitcoin censorship

Another option would be to follow the example of Dash and let those who contribute to the system by running nodes vote on network-impacting decisions. If such a system could work the same for Bitcoin.

I don't disagree with this as a better feedback mechanism but it doesn't seem to solve our problem now. Also important to note that the against-xt camp will argue that XT will decrease the number of participating nodes which reduces to efficacy of the proposed change.

Frankly though I dont think either side is anxious to onboard more stakeholders with opinions unless they're supportive of their desired ends. This isn't really about getting consensus it's about two groups of developers thinking fundamentally the others are wrong, and since the proposals are mutually exclusive there can only be one winning side.

Agreed. When you're in the middle of a conflict, it's not the time to make changes designed to prevent conflict. Such a decision would likely cause another crisis of disagreement. It certainly has been a problem to have decision-making centralized to a few developers. At least with the ability to choose to run a node and vote, people would feel like they have other options besides complaining and raising storms of disagreement.