
How the Bitcoin Community Turned to War - thefuturenow
http://www.blockcy.com/how-bitcoin-community-turned-to-war
======
Hermel
As someone who has been closely following the Bitcoin community since 2011, I
am baffled by the toxicity of the blocksize debate and the resistance even
against a moderate blocksize increase.

~~~
my5thaccount
Wait a minute! Are you telling me that after all this, the supply of bitcoins
is, ultimately, like all fiat currency, controlled by the will of human
beings?

I'm not being sarcastic, I really don't know the answer to that question, but
if, as it sounds, someone or group could just change the blocksize, that,
based on my simple understanding of math, seems to indicate an ability to
alter the supply-demand curve for the commodity.

~~~
pmorici
Block size has nothing to do with the supply of Bitcoin. It has to do with the
transaction throughput of the network. No one has ever proposed a change the
Bitcoin supply. The original Bitcoin release from Satoshi set the block size
at 32MB (it's currently at 1MB) so increasing the block size to 2MB as is
being proposed by classic would bring Bitcoin closer to it's original
implementation.

Perhaps your comment is genuine but when people say stuff like "if we increase
the block size next they will want to increase the money supply!" I feel like
they are trying to hood wink less technically adept Bitcoin users into
supporting their small block view.

~~~
my5thaccount
After reading the article, I get that now, but is there a difference? If there
are 1,000,000 bitcoins and you can only use 100,000 of them per day in
transactions, then there are only 100,000 bitcoins in supply. I understand
there may be more than one bitcoin per transaction, however, the fact remains.
The supply of bitcoins, via the ability to use bitcoins to transfer value, is
controlled by human beings.

The consequence is identical. Is it not? Perhaps, the consequence is the
opposite? If there is no ability to transact with the currency, the currency
has no value?

I'm seriously ignorant, you can tell, but I would like to understand. Perhaps
my questions can help reveal the answer? If not only to me, then to the
community? Is that too scary? The truth? Too scary?

~~~
pmorici
No, the consequence of increasing the block size is not related in any way to
the money supply of Bitcoin. That argument has no merit.

Bitcoin's value is limited by small block size though. A large part of the
value of BTC is the value of the total transactions done through it. Limiting
the number of transactions will severely limit the price in in the long term.
BTC will probably lose out to an alt coin if the transaction back log due to
the small block size continues and is not resolved sooner rather than later.

~~~
my5thaccount
Thanks for clarifying that blocksize controls only transaction volume. I get
that now. I didn't when I made my original post.

I think, still though I'm not articulating my point well enough. Fiat currency
fails 100% of the time because it is controlled by humans. My understanding
thus far was that bitcoin was controlled by physical limits in the real world,
that of electricity, compute power, ultimately: Math.

Now, here, we are not talking about the supply of bitcoins themselves, but
rather, the number of transactions with them that can occur.

That too is a factor in the value of a currency. It's not just the supply of
currency that affects the value, but whether or not the person receiving that
currency believes in its value, in this case, they must believe they can
themselves use that currency to conduct future transactions.

It is this belief, in the case of bitcoin -- transactability for the lack of a
better word, that is controlled by human beings -- and this is the same
failing that has caused the collapse of every fiat currency in history prior
to the US Dollar.

Now I'm learning that bitcoin has not solved this problem and I can't
understand how bitcoin will survive this failure.

For a money to survive, it must be bound by physical laws beyond the reach of
humans to change. It is human fallibility that is the culprit behind all fiat
failures in history. We must invent a currency immune to the decisions of
humans to solve the problem that has plagued fiat throughout history.

~~~
pmorici
The difference between government issued currencies (what you call fiat) and
Bitcoin is that. Policies controlling Government currencies are decided by a
small group of people generally well connected to banks and other wealthy
interests (ie: a central bank with an appointed board of governors)

Bitcoin's governing rules on the other hand are enshrined in software and can
only be changed through a democratic consensus process. It's a big step
forward over fat cats deciding monetary policy in smoke filled back rooms.

~~~
my5thaccount
It's not what _I_ call fiat, it's the definition of fiat. I thought bitcoin
was not a fiat currency, but in fact it is, because it's value is controlled
by supply and demand based on the decisions of humans.

I am now convinced that bitcoin will, like all fiat currencies, inevitably
fail. It doesn't matter if its value is controlled by one human or a
democratic process controlled by humans, it is controlled by humans and humans
are fallible, therefore bitcoin will fail.

There is no question of this. The only question is, When?

~~~
pmorici
Yes, but you created a new account to troll so that conclusion was inevitable.

------
maxander
I'm strongly reminded of "I’m a Former Green Beret and Here’s How I Would
Bring Down Bitcoin"[1] (which I see is so popular it was just re-posted to HN
after a week). Only, instead of "bring down," the objective is control; much
more money to be made that way, I suppose.

I suspect that Bitcoin's lasting value, at this point, will be as an object
lesson in what happens to decentralized, open-source projects (particularly
those that have placed themselves "beyond regulation") once they start to have
direct, and significant, monetary value. I don't think that it will teach
libertarians to love strong government, but perhaps it make the views of such
crowds, overall, more nuanced and less absolutist.

\--
[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11191416](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11191416)

------
fencepost
I took the simple pragmatic approach: I used the tiny amount of Bitcoin I had
for purchases, specifically Namecheap renewals/extensions.

Does it seem to anyone else that among the defining characteristics of people
heavily involved in Bitcoin are "poor social skills" and "does not work well
with others?"

------
ryanmarsh
My grandfather used to say, "when the money gets funny the people get funny".

Blockchain and other advancements aside for many people this has, in fact,
always been about money.

------
JBReefer
The Bitcoin community has never been peaceful.

~~~
ajross
Maybe, but now they're flinging DDoS attacks at each other. This is not the
regulation-free utopia everyone was sold on over the past few years.

Frankly, it reminds me of nothing more (to cite a video game in about as
serious a way as I can) than Rapture in Bioshock -- something that seemed like
a good idea only until the first meaningful disagreement, and then fell apart
completely.

~~~
sneak
Nobody was denied service.

People were simply denied service at their previous, exceptionally-cheap rates
they had become accustomed to paying.

This is like saying that you are subject to ddos when a concert you want to
see sells out. You either fork over the premium on the market, or you don't
participate.

~~~
ajross
Um, no. This isn't about block size exhaustion. According to the article (I
didn't do any research of my own to corroborate) proponents of various sides
are throwing _real_ DDoS attacks at bitcoin nodes and/or web content friendly
to the "others".

~~~
replies_to_all
Yes, I am running three Bitcoin Classic node and all three have been attacked
in the last 24 hours. The attack seems to be only uni-directional at this
point, Core trying to shut down Classic nodes.

------
late2part
Good article with good insight! I don't expect every story here to be biased,
and while this one isn't perfect, it's very informative!

------
matt_wulfeck
> We’d think we finally overcame the attack, to then only be hit again.

Here's an interesting difference with digital versus fiat currency. In one you
find counterfeiters (if you can) and generally put them in prison, which
raises the cost of that business. Is it even illegal to hack Bitcoin?

~~~
pmorici
It's illegal to DDOS, commit fraud, steal, etc... One of those laws would
apply to anything you might do to 'hack' Bitcoin.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
I bet you can count on one hand the amount of people ever prosecuted for DDOS.

And would a jury convict someone like this of anything other than a slap on
the wrist? To people my parents age they think of it like kids playing pranks
on each other.

~~~
pmorici
You're question was if it was illegal. It pretty clearly is. People are
prosecuted and convicted of computer crime on an increasingly frequent basis
to think you would be able to get away with disruptive behavior like that in
the long term because you think common people don't view it as real crime is
naive. I also see no evidence this is true.

------
HoopleHead
"Savage War"?

Oh dear. Have many people been killed?

------
LAMike
This war will be settles and ultimately Bitcoin the network will be more
scalable to onboard new members.

This is only an issue because the network is growing at a rapid rate, aka a
"good problem" to have.

------
alfiedotwtf
Does anybody know who the author was?

------
csomar
I flagged the post. The title makes it appear that the blog post is unbiased,
but reading through, it's clearly biased and trying to paint a rosy picture
from the "classic" side.

To give some pointers:

1\. Most bitcoiners still support Bitcoin Core. Bitcoin Core users are
upgrading from 0.11 to 0.12 pretty fast that 0.12 has now more nodes than
classic: [https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/](https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/)

2\. The Classic nodes are mostly new and XT nodes:
[https://coin.dance/nodes](https://coin.dance/nodes) Users are not really
moving from bitcoin core.

3\. Classic has only 3% of hash power. They are even trying to rent hashing
power to generate classic blocks:
[http://nodecounter.com/mining_donation_fund.php](http://nodecounter.com/mining_donation_fund.php)

~~~
pmorici
I'm not sure if you are being serious but all three of your points are bogus
to some extent.

1\. The link you provided clearly shows classic and core 0.12 tied for the
number of nodes. Support for Classic is much higher than reflected in that
chart because there is an ongoing DDOS against classic nodes. Just a few days
ago there was over 2,000 Classic nodes. You are also leaving out all the nodes
that are voting for a block size increase but aren't classic nodes like
Bitcoin Unlimited, and some remaining XT nodes. Once you account for all these
factors support for Classic or a block size increase in general is higher than
core 0.12 by double or more.

2\. Bitcoin Classic has only been out for a week or two of course classic
nodes are 'new'. Further a lot of people running classic are doing it in
parallel with core before making the switch. Several large high profile mining
operations have said as much.

3\. Renting hash power has always been a huge sector of the Bitcoin mining
industry rented hash power is no more or less legitimate than any other kind.
Classic has only been out for a couple weeks and we are just seeing large
miners start to mine classic blocks starting this past week. The likely
scenario is that they will switch to a 50/50 scenario to start before going
100% classic as a mitigation against DDOS attacks.

I think the question any observer should ask themselves is if core has such
massive support as you and others claim then why do they resort to illegal
tactics like DDOSing alternative node implementations and similar dirty
tricks?

~~~
pyre
> why do they resort to illegal tactics like DDOSing

Who is the "they" here? Mining operations that are in support of core? Core
developers that oppose the change?

~~~
pmorici
It's not clear. A reddit comment by one of the self proclaimed perpetrators
says he was paid in order to DDOS nodes with classic in the user agent string.
At the same time employees of Blockstream (aka: members of Bitcoin Core's dev
team) deny that there are any DDOS attacks taking place[1]. It wouldn't
surprise me if Blockstream was somehow behind this but no one is going to
publicly admit to such an obviously illegal act.

[0][http://www.blockcy.com/bitcoin-classic-nodes-under-ddos-
atta...](http://www.blockcy.com/bitcoin-classic-nodes-under-ddos-attack)
[1][https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4835fp/blockstreamgmax...](https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4835fp/blockstreamgmaxwell_will_have_you_believe_there/)

~~~
replies_to_all
Agree, all 3 of my Classic Nodes have been taken offline several times last
night. Everyone BUT Bitcoin Core says this is happening and has evidence. The
only ones denying the crime seem to be most guilty.

