2 sats \ 7 replies \ @Brunswick 19 Sep 2022
There's a fundamental problem with the cocksize wars, it was premature. If the average storage cost goes down and the average drive size goes up faster than the size of the blockchain, then it makes sense to increase the cocksize (if and only if there is a widespread consensus for such a change). We've actually seen a reduction in the rate of increase of the average drive size on an inexpensive computer due to the switch from hard drives to SSDs. With lightning, the need for a larger cocksize is delayed potentially indefinitely. Those dreaming of a larger cocksize simply don't understand the larger system under which bitcoin needs to fit into, and these design decisions are necessary to keep it decentralized. Its funny to actually witness this buttcoin-trash lover explain how the lightning network is too centralized and 'probematic'. Sorry Luke, you're buttcoin-trashery and dreams about a larger cocksize is showing. We maxis, unlike bigcock lovers, know what eventually emerges from yet another buttcoin. Long story short, the market is always right and this is what bitcoin was designed to take advantage of.
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0 sats \ 6 replies \ @moneroshill OP 19 Sep 2022
I completely agree. I think the real problem of the cocksize war was that it basically forked the community and kicked out the half of the community that was the most accepting of change. So now there is really no hope of making a future cocksize change because everyone that stayed with BTC is implicitly anti-fork.
Hell no. Bitcoin will need both lightning and a larger cocksize to scale. Lightning does not remove the need for a cocksize increase, in fact it may actually make it worse: https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/lightning-limitations/
No actually, blocksize has almost nothing to do with decentralization. It may make it more difficult for individuals to run their own nodes, but the effect of the number of network nodes on decentralization has diminishing returns. What really matters is the distribution of hash-power. The large ASIC mining companies and pools can easily afford the storage space (as it's a fraction of the cost of their hardware), and this is basically what satoshi intended: for only miners to run full nodes and for everyone else to use SPV: https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/287/
I dunno, the market is full of idiots ATM. Is the market right about dogecoin or shiba inu or etherium or ripple?
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Brunswick 19 Sep 2022
This contains valid critiques of LN, however the butthurtedness of an antagonist coder complaining of not feeling herd enough is not constructive. There are well known limitations of LN and it will take time to find solutions to these problems such as channel closures, but the remainder of the article is making allot of assumptions about how LN will take shape in a hyperbitcoinized environment and going to great lengths to knock down these strawmen. The altcoiner's automatic assumption is that if bitcoin won't change now, then it will never change. I similarly held this belief. The orange pill requires one to slow down and let bitcoin's tectonic movement be what it is and trust the code will respond to market forces and not the petulant demand for immediate gratification from every junior csci graduate.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @moneroshill OP 19 Sep 2022
I think you are using the wrong link there. I'm going to assume you meant the truthcoin.org guy and not satoshi
The truthcoin guy is actually a bitcoin maxi and dev, and he spoke out against the cocksize increase: https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/against-the-hard-fork/
His whole angle (which I disagree with) is that both increasing the block size sucks and also LN sucks. He shills his own "sidechains" idea (BIP300/BIP301). I don't know if I would call him an altcoiner, but he does seem to support adding many features from altcoins into bitcoin through soft forks.
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11 sats \ 0 replies \ @Brunswick 19 Sep 2022
Yes I meant the truthcoin link. The side-chain (like liquid) might be a solution, but in the end what people are going to want is the ability to move around bitcoin instantaneously without paying mining fees and waiting for block confirmations. This while still having the option to "cash out" of layer two and move their coins to more secure cold storage. This notion that everyone needs to run their own full lightning node with a dozen channels is ridiculous. There is plenty of room for improvement with LN, and there are already many movements in this direction (like fedimint) but I doubt anyone thinks layer two is as virtually set in stone as layer one should be.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Brunswick 19 Sep 2022
The ability of anyone to easily download and verify the entire blockchain is a necessity. That's not to say it's a necessity that everyone do it, but it's the widespread ability to do so that keeps it from being displaced by other forks with bigger cocksize. To depend on miners to be the only ones vested enough to maintain the entire blockchain is to misplace trust. Mining, as you point out, has a tendency to be dominated by big players and therefore cartelization. The "separation of powers" employed by distributed validation is what gives peace of mind to the HODLer which is where the underlying value rests.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @moneroshill OP 19 Sep 2022
First of all, it is not a necessity, just use SPV.
Secondly, you can download and verify the blockchain without having the whole thing on your hard drive at once. Just keep a running tally of who owns how many bitcoins and store the hashes of the blocks you download. This is basically what is done in light wallets of cryptocurrencies like monero that can't implement bitcoin's SPV.
Basically, the clients can just store the hashes of blocks after they're done verifying. That is sufficient to prevent miners from pulling the wool over their eyes with fake transactions. This is one of the central ideas behind SPV.
It does not matter as nodes that do not mine cannot resist a miner takeover. The only nodes that matter are mining nodes. If there is enough miner collusion to orchestrate a 51% attack, that is sufficient to double spend regardless of what the non-mining nodes do.
There is no separation of powers in bitcoin. The mining nodes have all the power and the non-mining nodes have none. This is the sybil-resistant mechanism
See that satoshi quote I linked. Very few people need to actually download the whole blockchain (miners and large businesses accepting many transactions). The rest can verify without storing it.
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11 sats \ 0 replies \ @Brunswick 19 Sep 2022
SPV isn't for checking the honesty and integrity of the entire blockchain, it's only useful to confirm if YOUR payment was included in a block.
You are trying to have it both ways, on one hand LN wallets are trusting third parties too much and on the other hand you think we should trust the miners more.
What you are missing is that if there is a fork due to miner collusion, and nobody realizes it because only a miner would bother holding the entire blockchain and people are only using SPV with their light wallets, then there is possible all kinds of mischief like arbitrarily changing the miner block reward.
Here is the key: If it's the wallets that hold the verification power, then it's the wallet holders that have the choice of which fork to spend their coins to and therefore which chain the transactions will be submitted to. The "proof of stake" in every HODLer's wallet are what holds the hashpower providers hostage to stay honest.
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