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charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > Nodes don't do politics. People do, and politics is a lot larger with a = lot more moving parts than just node operation. Node operation is making a stand on what money you will accept. Ie Your local store will only accept US Dollars and not Japanese Yen. Witho= ut being able to run a node, you have no way to independently determine wha= t you are receiving, you could be paid Zimbawe Dollars and wouldn't know an= y better. > Full nodes protect from nothing if the chain they attempt to use is nonfu= nctional. This is highly subjective. Just because it is nonfunctional to you, does not mean it is nonfunctional = to existing users. > This power is far more complicated than just nodes. I never implied otherwise. > You're implying that node operation =3D=3D political participation. Ofcourse it is. Try paying for my goods using BU/Ehtereum/Dash/etc.. or a B= itcoin forked with inflation, you will not get any goods regardless of how = much hashrate those coins have. > Miners being distributed in enough countries and locations to avoid any s= ingle outside attacker group from having enough leverage to prevent transac= tion inclusion, and miners also having enough incentives(philosophical or e= conomic) to refuse to collude towards transaction exclusion. It's good that you see the importance of this. You should also take into co= nsideration the number of independent mining entities it takes to achieve 5= 1% hashrate. It will be of little use to have thousands on independent mine= rs/pools if 3 large pools make up 51% of hash rate and collude to attack t= he network. > If users refused to get on board, exchanges would follow users. If mine= rs refused to get on board, the attempt would be equally dead in the water.= It would require a majority of users, businesses and miners to change the= limit; > Nodes have absolutely no say in the matter if they can't segment the netw= ork, and even if they could their impact could be repaired. Users !=3D Nod= es. Nodes define which network they want to follow. Without a Node, you don't e= ven get to decide which segement you are on. Either miners decide( for SPV = wallets) or your wallet's server decides(Node). You have no control without= a >> What makes transactions irreversible >Nodes have absolutely no say in the matter, they always follow the longest= chain unless a hardfork was applied. My bad here, hashpower decides order. This is the sole reason we have minin= g, to order transactions. > Mutual destruction comes from the market forces on the exchanges, and the= y could give a rats ass whether you run a node or not. Ability to run a node and validate rules =3D> Confidence in currency =3D> H= igher demand =3D> Higher exchange rate I would not be holding any Bitcoins if it was unfeasible for me to run a No= de and instead had to trust some 3rd party that the currency was not being = inflated/censored. Bitcoin has value because of it's trustless properties. = Otherwise, there is no difference between cryptocurrencies and fiat. > Literally the only reason we have 10s of billions of dollars of value is = because speculation, which includes nearly all Bitcoin users/holders and al= most all businesses and miners. While Bitcoin borrows useful features fro= m gold, it has more possible uses, including uses that were never possible = before Bitcoin existed, and we believe that gives it huge potential. > The ability of other systems to do transactions, like visa or cash, come = with the limitations of those systems. Bitcoin was designed to break those= limitations and STILL provide the ability to do transactions. We might al= l agree Bitcoin isn't going to ever solve the microtransaction problem, at = least not on-chain, but saying Bitcoin doesn't need utility is just foolish= . Gold doesn't need utility, gold has 4,000 years of history. We don't. > There's no reason those blocksize increases can't be tied to or related t= o usage increases Blocksize has nothing to do with utility, only cost of on-chain transaction= s. OTOH increasing the blocksize has alot to do with introducing the very limi= tations that Visa/Cash have. Why would you risk destroying Bitcoin's primary proposition (removing limit= ations of Cash/Visa) for insignificant capacity increase? > That's like saying it would be better to do nothing so someone else solve= s our problem for us than it would be for us to do what we can to solve it = ourselves. Someone else solving our problem may very well be Ethereum, and= "solving it for us" is pulling Bitcoin investments, users and nodes away i= nto Ethereum. Who says nothing is being done? Segwit, Lightning, pre-loaded wallets like = Coinbase are all solutions. On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 12:11 AM, Luv Khemani > wrote: >> If home users are not running their own full nodes, then home users have= to trust and rely on other, more powerful nodes to represent them. Of cour= se, the more powerful nodes, simply by nature of having more power, are goi= ng to have different opinions and objectives from the users. >I think you're conflating mining with node operation here. Node users onl= y power is to block the propagation of certain things. Since miners also h= ave a node endpoint, they can cut the node users out of the equation by lin= king with eachother directly - something they already do out of practicalit= y for propagation. Node users do not have the power to arbitrate consensus= , that is why we have blocks and PoW. You are only looking at technical aspects and missing the political aspect. Node users decide what a Bitcoin is. It matters not how much hash power is = behind a inflationary supply chain fork, full nodes protect the user from t= he change of any properties of Bitcoin which they do not agree with. The ab= ility to retain this power for users is of prime importance and is arguably= what gives Bitcoin most of it's value. Any increase in the cost to run a f= ull node is an increase in cost to maintain monetary sovereignty. The abili= ty for a user to run a node is what keeps the miners honest and prevents th= em from rewriting any of Bitcoin's rules. If it's still difficult to grasp the above paragraph, ask yourself the foll= owing questions, - What makes Bitcoin uncensorable - What gives confidence that the 21 million limit will be upheld - What makes transactions irreversible - If hashpower was king as you make it to be, why havn't miners making up m= ajority hashrate who want bigger blocks been able to change the blocksize? The market is not storing 10s of billions of dollars in Bitcoin despite all= it's risks because it is useful for everyday transactions, that is a solve= d problem in every part of the world (Cash/Visa/etc..). Having said that, i fully empathise with your view that increasing transact= ion fees might allow competitors to gain marketshare for low value use case= s. By all means, we should look into ways of solving the problem. But all t= hese debates around blocksize is a total waste of time. Even if we fork to = 2MB, 5MB, 10MB. It is irrelevant in the larger picture, transaction capacit= y will still be too low for global usage in the medium-long term. The addit= ional capacity from blocksize increases are linear improvements with very l= arge systemic costs compared with the userbase and usage which is growing e= xponentially. Lightning potentially offers a couple or orders of magnitude = of scaling and will make blocksize a non-issue for years to come. Even if i= t fails to live up to the hype, you should not discount the market innovati= ng solutions when there is money to be made. --_000_SINPR04MB1949A0AF3AD33B4664417068C2370SINPR04MB1949apcp_ Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

> Nodes don't do politics.  People do,= and politics is a lot larger with a lot more moving parts than just node o= peration.


Node operation is making a stand on what money you = will accept. 

Ie Your local store will only accept US Dollars and= not Japanese Yen. Without being able to run a node, you have no way to ind= ependently determine what you are receiving, you could be paid Zimbawe Dollars and wouldn't know any better.


> Full nodes protect from no= thing if the chain they attempt to use is nonfunctional.

This is highly = subjective.
Just because it is nonfunctional to = you, does not mean it is nonfunctional to existing users. 

> This power is far more com= plicated than just nodes.  

I never implied otherwise.

> You're implying that node = operation =3D=3D political participation.  

Ofcourse it is. Try paying for my go= ods using BU/Ehtereum/Dash/etc.. or a Bitcoin forked with inflation, you wi= ll not get any goods regardless of how much hashrate those coins have.

> Miners being distributed i= n enough countries and locations to avoid any single outside attacker group= from having enough leverage to prevent transaction inclusion, and miners also having enough incentives(philosophical or econo= mic) to refuse to collude towards transaction exclusion.

It's good that you see the importanc= e of this. You should also take into consideration the number of independen= t mining entities it takes to achieve 51% hashrate. It will be of little use to have thousands on independent miners/pools &nb= sp;if 3 large pools make up 51% of hash rate and collude to attack the netw= ork.

>  If users refused to get on board, exch= anges would follow users.  If miners refused to get on board, the atte= mpt would be equally dead in the water.  It would require a majority of users, businesses and miners to change the limit; 

> Nodes have absolutely no s= ay in the matter if they can't segment the network, and even if they could = their impact could be repaired.  Users !=3D Nodes.

Nodes define which network they want= to follow. Without a Node, you don't even get to decide which segement you= are on. Either miners decide( for SPV wallets) or your wallet's server decides(Node). You have no control without a

>> What makes transactions irreversible
>Nodes have absolutely no say in the matter, they always follow the longest chain= unless a hardfork was applied.  

My bad here, hashpower decides order= . This is the sole reason we have mining, to order transactions.

> Mutual destruction comes f= rom the market forces on the exchanges, and they could give a rats ass whet= her you run a node or not.

Ability to run a node and validate rules =3D> Confidence in currency =3D= > Higher demand =3D> Higher exchange rate

I would not be holding any Bitcoins = if it was unfeasible for me to run a Node and instead had to trust som= e 3rd party that the currency was not being inflated/censored. Bitcoin has value because of it's trustless properties. Otherwise, there i= s no difference between cryptocurrencies and fiat.

> Literally the only reason w= e have 10s of billions of dollars of value is because speculation, which in= cludes nearly all Bitcoin users/holders and almost all businesses and miner= s.  While  Bitcoin borrows useful features from gold, it has more possible uses, including uses that were never possi= ble before Bitcoin existed, and we believe that gives it huge potential. > The ability of other systems to do transactions, like visa or cas= h, come with the limitations of those systems.  Bitcoin was designed t= o break those limitations and STILL provide the ability to do transact= ions.  We might all agree Bitcoin isn't going to ever solve the microtransaction problem, at least not on-chain, but saying Bitc= oin doesn't need utility is just foolish.  Gold doesn't need utility, = gold has 4,000 years of history.  We don't.
> There'= s no reason those blocksize increases can't be tied to or related to usage = increases

Blocksize has no= thing to do with utility, only cost of on-chain transactions. <= /span>
OTOH increasi= ng the blocksize has alot to do with introducing the very limitations that = Visa/Cash have. 
Why would you= risk destroying Bitcoin's primary proposition (removing limitations of Cas= h/Visa) for insignificant capacity increase?

> That's like saying it would be better t= o do nothing so someone else solves our problem for us than it would be for= us to do what we can to solve it ourselves.  Someone else solving our problem may very well be Ethereum, and "solving it f= or us" is pulling Bitcoin investments, users and nodes away into Ether= eum.

Who says nothing is being done? Segwit, Lightning= , pre-loaded wallets like Coinbase are all solutions.




On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 12:11 AM, Luv Khemani <luvb@hotmail.com<= /a>> wrote:


>> If home users are n= ot running their own full nodes, then home users have to trust and rely on = other, more powerful nodes to represent them. Of course, the more powerful nodes, simply by nature of having more power, are going = to have different opinions and objectives from the users.

>I think you're conflating mining with node operation here.  Node u= sers only power is to block the propagation of certain things.  Since = miners also have a node endpoint, they can cut the node users out of the eq= uation by linking with eachother directly - something they already do out of practicality for propagation.  Node users do n= ot have the power to arbitrate consensus, that is why we have blocks and Po= W.
You are only looking= at technical aspects and missing the political aspect.

Node users decide wh= at a Bitcoin is. It matters not how much hash power is behind a inflat= ionary supply chain fork, full nodes protect the user from the change of any properties of Bitcoin which they do not agree with.= The ability to retain this power for users is of prime importance and is a= rguably what gives Bitcoin most of it's value. Any increase in the cost to = run a full node is an increase in cost to maintain monetary sovereignty. The ability for a user to run a nod= e is what keeps the miners honest and prevents them from rewriting any of B= itcoin's rules.

If it's still diffic= ult to grasp the above paragraph, ask yourself the following questions,
- What makes Bitcoin= uncensorable
- What gives confide= nce that the 21 million limit will be upheld
- What makes transac= tions irreversible
- If hashpower was king as you make it to be, why havn't miners making up majority hashrate who want bigger blocks= been able to change the blocksize?

The market is not stori= ng 10s of billions of dollars in Bitcoin despite all it's risks becaus= e it is useful for everyday transactions, that is a solved problem in every part of the world (Cash/Visa/etc..). 

Having said that, i ful= ly empathise with your view that increasing transaction fees might allow co= mpetitors to gain marketshare for low value use cases. By all means, we should look into ways of solving the prob= lem. But all these debates around blocksize is a total waste of time. = Even if we fork to 2MB, 5MB, 10MB. It is irrelevant in the larger picture, = transaction capacity will still be too low for global usage in the medium-long term. The additional capacity from blo= cksize increases are linear improvements with very large systemic cost= s compared with the userbase and usage which is growing exponentially. Ligh= tning potentially offers a couple or orders of magnitude of scaling and will make blocksize a non-issue for yea= rs to come. Even if it fails to live up to the hype, you should not discoun= t the market innovating solutions when there is money to be made.


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