reminder – Bitcoin News

Friendly Reminder: 1BTC=1BTC. Most of us are here because we ❤ Bitcoin, and while high valuations certainly make us feel warm and fuzzy inside, we care way more about changing the world with an exciting technology.

submitted by /u/Gwerks71
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Bitcoin

Reminder: Congress has no authority to tell you what currency you may use in legal voluntary transactions. You have a right to financial privacy and it is your RESPONSIBILITY to Defend it.

Stop cucking around with this congressional power grab. Instead tell those leeching fucks in D.C. to get the fuck out your biz, they are obsolete and have no authority. GTFO with that bullshit bill.

submitted by /u/CONTROLurKEYS
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Bitcoin

A reminder why BitCoin was even created.

People used to pay each other in gold and silver. Difficult to transport. Difficult to divide.

Paper money was invented. A claim to gold in a bank vault. Easier to transport and divide.

Banks gave out more paper money than they had gold in the vault. They ran “fractional reserves”. A real money maker. But every now and then, banks collapsed because of runs on the bank.

Central banking was invented. Central banks would be lenders of last resort. Runs on the bank were thus mitigated by banks guaranteeing each other’s deposits through a central bank. The risk of a bank run was not lowered. Its frequency was diminished and its impact was increased. After all, banks remained basically insolvent in this fractional reserve scheme.

Banks would still get in trouble. But now, if one bank got in sufficient trouble, they would all be in trouble at the same time. Governments would have to step in to save them.

All ties between the financial system and gold were severed in 1971 when Nixon decided that the USD would no longer be exchangeable for a fixed amount of gold. This exacerbated the problem, because there was now effectively no limit anymore on the amount of paper money that banks could create.

From this moment on, all money was created as credit. Money ceased to be supported by an asset. When you take out a loan, money is created and lent to you. Banks expect this freshly minted money to be returned to them with interest. Sure, banks need to keep adequate reserves. But these reserves basically consist of the same credit-based money. And reserves are much lower than the loans they make.

This led to an explosion in the money supply. The Federal Reserve stopped reporting M3 in 2006. But the ECB currently reports a yearly increase in the supply of the euro of about 5%.

This leads to a yearly increase in prices. The price increase is somewhat lower than the increase in the money supply. This is because of increased productivity. Society gets better at producing stuff cheaper all the time. So, in absence of money creation you would expect prices to drop every year. That they don’t is the effect of money creation.

What remains is an inflation rate in the 2% range. Banks have discovered that they can siphon off all the productivity increase + 2% every year, without people complaining too much. They accomplish this currently by increasing the money supply by 5% per year, getting this money returned to them at an interest.

Apart from this insidious tax on society, banks take society hostage every couple of years. In case of a financial crisis, banks need bailouts or the system will collapse.

Apart from these problems, banks and governments are now striving to do away with cash. This would mean that no two free men would be able to exchange money without intermediation by a bank. If you believe that to transact with others is a fundamental right, this should scare you.

The absence of sound money was at the root of the problem. We were force-fed paper money because there were no good alternatives. Gold and silver remain difficult to use.

When it was tried to launch a private currency backed by precious metals (Liberty dollar), this initiative was shut down because it undermined the U.S. currency system. Apparently, a currency alternative could only thrive if “nobody” launched it and if they was no central point of failure.

What was needed was a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. This was what Satoshi Nakamoto described in 2009. It was a response to all the problems described above. That is why he labeled the genesis block with the text: “03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”. Bitcoin was meant to be an alternative to our current financial system.

So, if you find yourself religiously checking some cryptocurrency’s price, or bogged down in discussions about the “one true bitcoin”, or constantly asking what currency to buy, please at least remember that we have bigger fish to fry.

We are here to fix the financial system.

submitted by /u/increntible
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Bitcoin

Reminder: Hard fork statement by several exchanges from March 2017: ‘We cannot list a contentious hard fork without adequate replay protection’

submitted by /u/apoefjmqdsfls
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Bitcoin

A reminder of some of Jeff Garzik’s greatest insights. We love you Jeff. Please come back. We will welcome you with open arms.

51% hashing power, or even 90%, means nothing if clients collectively refuse to accept and relay your blocks.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93366.msg1031394#msg1031394

It is simple, provable engineering fact that storing data in transaction outputs makes block validation, double-spend checks and other critical consensus operations more expensive. More RAM is used on average. In general, it burdens the entire network. UTXO is our most critical resource currently.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.msg3204526#msg3204526

Bitcoin is only zero trust, if you can verify the entire transaction history.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.msg3992876#msg3992876

Do not premine, or other scamcoin traits.

Jeff Garzik (Technology advisor to premined coins PO.ET and Civic)

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=333487.msg3579674#msg3579674

"They are attempting to ride the coattails of the Bitcoin brand"

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=263272.msg2832560#msg2832560

Further, you cannot handwave away the problem that, if transactions is infinitesimally cheap, people will abuse the system by sending non-currency data messages. Lots of them. Gigabytes worth, as other alt-chain field experience has proven. To the point that bitcoin-the-currency transactions are impacted. "I want a system that can process infinite amounts of traffic" is in the land of unicorns. The accusation of dev laziness is particularly rich, given that SatoshiDICE abused the blockchain in this way, by sending informational messages (IM "You lost a bet") via the blockchain. If you want an infinite amount of transactions per 10 minutes, you have just reinvented the Internet… over the blockchain. Poorly.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=196138.msg2568306#msg2568306

one cannot ignore a key attribute conferring by a limit like the 1MB limit: it encourages engineering efficiencies to be sought. Programmers have an incentive to actively seek ways to reduce the number of transactions, or reduce transaction size, when faced with a limited resource. Some business models simply don't care about that part of the equation. It's not a conspiracy by Gavin and the Bitcoin Foundation funders, it is simply one facet of some bitcoin businesses. They make money with increased transaction volume. That's fine, but a key economic counter-point is that these businesses are not bearing the costs of the mining/blockchain impact of a million-TX-per-day policy.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=199947.msg2126381#msg2126381

It's open source. Fork away. Though the consequence is that you remain at a higher, hardcoded fee level, and people will still dump megabytes worth of non-currency data into the blockchain (wikileaks cables etc.).

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=196259.msg2043056#msg2043056

More to the point, zero-conf transactions have been double-spent already. It is proven they are not safe today, ignoring any proposed changes.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=179612.msg1885782#msg1885782

There have been chains of hashes and chains of digital signatures before. What makes bitcoin different is that it is timestamping these digital messages, and protecting those timestamps against being reversed. The currency aspect of bitcoin is simply a layer on top of the distributed timestamping service

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158756.msg1784729#msg1784729

Satoshi also intended the subsidy-free, fee-only future to support bitcoin. He did not describe fancy assurance contracts and infinite block sizes; he cleared indicated that fees would be driven in part by competition for space in the next block.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=157141.msg1753923#msg1753923

Any miner that increases MAX_BLOCK_SIZE beyond 1MB will self-select themselves away from the network, because all other validating nodes would ignore that change. Just like if a miner decides to issue themselves 100 BTC per block. All other validating nodes consider that invalid data, and do not relay or process it further.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.msg1633102#msg1633102

If the users are not voting (validating), then it is trivial for miners to rewrite the rules. If the users are fully validating, then a miner decision to have each block produce 50 BTC again would be instantly rejected.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=153573.msg1630008#msg1630008

In an unfunded open source project, arguing all day about the lack of full-engineering-team rigor is entirely wasted energy. Blame the dev team if that is your favorite target, that will not magically create extra time in the day or extra manpower to accomplish these extra tasks being demanded by non-contributors. The time spent whining about what an unfunded effort fails to do could be better spent, say, creating a test network of full nodes running all known bitcoind versions, 0.3 through present. And test, test, test changes through that.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=134318.msg1621672#msg1621672

It is always entertaining to watch non-contributors opine about completely obvious solutions that the devs are silly to have overlooked.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152027.msg1614822#msg1614822

A hard fork is a significant event that knocks legitimate users off the network, makes coins unspendable, or potentially makes the same coins spendable in two different locations, depending on whether or not you're talking to an updated node. It is, to pick a dramatic term, an Extinction Level Event. If done poorly, a hard fork could make it impossible for reasonable merchants to trust the bitcoins they receive, the very foundation of their economic value. Furthermore, a hard fork is akin to a Constitutional Convention: a hard fork implies the ability to rewrite the ground rules of bitcoin, be it block size, 21M limit, SHA256 hash, or other hard-baked behavior. Thus, there is always the risk of unpredictable miners, users and devs changing more than just the block size precisely because it makes the most engineering sense to change other hard-to-change features at the time of hard-fork. It is a nuclear option with widespread economic consequences for all bitcoin users.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145809.msg1549003#msg1549003

Being the person who actually posted a faux-patch increasing the block size limit, it is important to understand why I disagree with that now… it was erroneously assuming that the block size was the whole-picture, and not a simple, lower layer solution in a bigger picture. The block size is an intentionally limited economic resource, just like the 21,000,000-bitcoin limit.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144895.msg1547919#msg1547919

Boy that's a shortsighted analysis. Bitcoin will grow layers above the base layer — the blockchain — that will enable instant transactions, microtransactions, and other scalable issues. Do not think that the blockchain is the only way to transfer bitcoins. Larger aggregators will easily compensate for current maximum block size in a scalable manner. All nation-state/fiat currencies are multi-layer. Too many people look at what bitcoin does now, and assume that those are the only currency services that will ever exist.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.msg1496142#msg1496142

Transactions will not always be free. Any time there are a lot of transactions being sent, free transactions get the lowest priority and might have to wait to make it into a block. If blocks are often full, you will need to pay a transaction fee to get priority.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128171.msg1370918#msg1370918

It is not as good when obviously-still-learning people are billing their project as the "future of bitcoin" and misleading people into thinking they are a bitcoin expert, and are misleading people into thinking they are producing high quality, proven code (and potentially taking thousands of dollars for it). Those who are not coders lack the skills to judge this sort of thing, and only have hype from this thread to go on.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=123488.msg1337894#msg1337894

Miners only select (or ignore) transactions provided to them. The bitcoin client you run chooses what transactions and blocks to validate and relay. Miners cannot change the rules without bitcoin user agreement.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=115554.msg1251016#msg1251016

I think users with older clients, holders of older bitcoins quite appreciate the struggle to maintain backwards compat. Nobody wants to wake up in the morning, to discover that their money is unspendable outside of a required upgrade.

Jeff Garzik

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=114064.msg1231866#msg1231866

EDIT: In this post I am trying to be positive, its a genuine look back at great comments that taught me a lot. I am not trying to do character assassination.

submitted by /u/jonny1000
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Bitcoin

Reminder: don’t bite the newcomers!

This post is directed towards the seasoned bitcoiners here.

Now that the price has gone up quickly, we've gotten a lot more attention. You're used to – for the last few years – arguing with a high percentage of trolls and shills. Those aren't the same types of people joining the discussion now.

So when you see a poor argument about why bitcoin is bad, treat it as a teachable moment. Don't be combative, even if the person to whom you're responding acts like they know everything that's wrong with this thing they can't believe people are still using. Smart people can be impolite sometimes, and even get upset when a long-held belief is challenged. They can learn more about the protocol, the economics, and the movement behind it. You can learn more about the practical concerns and common misconceptions you may have forgotten.

We already know bitcoin is awesome, but for everyone else it's intimidating. By responding to condescension with patience, you can help Bitcoin adoption.

submitted by /u/Explodicle
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Bitcoin

Just a quick reminder why Bitcoin was invented in the first place. This used to be preaching to the choir. But these days I am not so sure.

People used to pay each other in gold and silver. Difficult to transport. Difficult to divide.
Paper money was invented. A claim to gold in a bank vault. Easier to transport and divide.
Banks gave out more paper money than they had gold in the vault. They ran “fractional reserves”. A real money maker. But every now and then, banks collapsed because of runs on the bank.
Central banking was invented. Central banks would be lenders of last resort. Runs on the bank were thus mitigated by banks guaranteeing each other’s deposits through a central bank. The risk of a bank run was not lowered. Its frequency was diminished and its impact was increased. After all, banks remained basically insolvent in this fractional reserve scheme.
Banks would still get in trouble. But now, if one bank got in sufficient trouble, they would all be in trouble at the same time. Governments would have to step in to save them.
All ties between the financial system and gold were severed in 1971 when Nixon decided that the USD would no longer be exchangeable for a fixed amount of gold. This exacerbated the problem, because there was now effectively no limit anymore on the amount of paper money that banks could create.
From this moment on, all money was created as credit. Money ceased to be supported by an asset. When you take out a loan, money is created and leant to you. Banks expect this freshly minted money to be returned to them with interest. Sure, banks need to keep adequate reserves. But these reserves basically consist of the same credit-based money. And reserves are much lower than the loans they make.
This led to an explosion in the money supply. The Federal Reserve stopped reporting M3 in 2006. But the ECB currently reports a yearly increase in the supply of the euro of about 5%.
This leads to a yearly increase in prices. The price increase is somewhat lower than the increase in the money supply. This is because of increased productivity. Society gets better at producing stuff cheaper all the time. So, in absence of money creation you would expect prices to drop every year. That they don’t is the effect of money creation.
What remains is an inflation rate in the 2% range.
Banks have discovered that they can siphon off all the productivity increase + 2% every year, without people complaining too much. They accomplish this currently by increasing the money supply by 5% per year, getting this money returned to them at an interest.
Apart from this insidious tax on society, banks take society hostage every couple of years. In case of a financial crisis, banks need bailouts or the system will collapse.
Apart from these problems, banks and governments are now striving to do away with cash. This would mean that no two free men would be able to exchange money without intermediation by a bank. If you believe that to transact with others is a fundamental right, this should scare you.
The absence of sound money was at the root of the problem. We were force-fed paper money because there were no good alternatives. Gold and silver remain difficult to use.
When it was tried to launch a private currency backed by precious metals (Liberty dollar), this initiative was shut down because it undermined the U.S. currency system. Apparently, a currency alternative could only thrive if “nobody” launched it and if they was no central point of failure.
What was needed was a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. This was what Satoshi Nakamoto described in 2009. It was a response to all the problems described above. That is why he labeled the genesis block with the text: “03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”. Bitcoin was meant to be an alternative to our current financial system.