Bitcoin and crypto currencies

Malibuflyer wrote:

The “Hashcheck” is a piece of code that runs on the client. If the majority of clients decide that the result of the hashcheck for this specific transaction is positive, it is. The maths do not matter.

Are you talking about miners here or bitcoin nodes? As I pointed out beforehand. The node distribution globally is pretty decent.

Malibuflyer wrote:

What is “the clone” and what is “the original” is defined by the majority. If the majority of miners would have gone for the btc-cash protocol, we would no call btc-cash “the original” and the remainders of the original protocol “the clone”.

Could you please explain why to get taproot agreed to be implemented it required 90% to signal approval? By your reasoning it must only be 51%

Malibuflyer wrote:

nd there is not a single solution to handle btc on mobile devices w/o an intermediary..

I run a node, can access it through my phone and transfer btc if I wish. No intermediary.

Off_Field wrote:

Could you please explain why to get taproot agreed to be implemented it required 90% to signal approval? By your reasoning it must only be 51%

Because the people who proposed taproot arbitrarily set the bar to 90%. They basically did not ask the miners „do you implement taproot?“ but they asked „do you implement taproot if 90% of all miners do so?“. This approach makes sense if your overarching goal is to avoid a fork preserve the integrity of bitcoin. Because obviously there is a pressure on the remaining max 10% to also implement it – but they don‘t have to but can fork into a btc w/o taproot (well, technically the other 90+% would fork…).

But this follows a completely different target. The initiators of taproot want that you bitcoin actually preserves its value. In this situation it is just wise to not do a change just with 50+% but with a vast majority.
A party which has criminal, political or economic (e.g. being short in btc) reasons to take away the value from your btc. doesn‘t need that broad alignment – it would actually beneficial for such an actor to create conflict amongst the miners.

Peter wrote:

What amazes me is the lack of consensus on what must be a basic fact

I think it is more a misunderstanding. One thing is to have 51% of hash power so you can control the blockchain within the current ruleset. That is a fully automatic machine interaction. The other thing is to have some kind of majority among users (very important this does also include the coin owners, node operators etc. and not only the miners) to change the protocol which could also involve taking coins away from somebody. That is outside the protocol and usually called a fork. That is a human interaction so involves “marketing” etc. Both might sound very similar but mean very different things.

Like in real life, having the majority of votes in the system is one thing but having enough followers for a revolution is another ;-) In Germany doing new laws usually takes 51%, changing the constitution to some degree takes 67% and changing the constitution completely takes a revolution…

Peter wrote:

What amazes me is the lack of consensus on what must be a basic fact. Somebody must have wires totally crossed.

Time will tell I guess.

We might see China mount the 51% attack and destroy confidence.

Or we might see more adoption by individuals, countries and institutions.

Sebastian_G wrote:

The other thing is to have some kind of majority among users (very important this does also include the coin owners, node operators etc. and not only the miners) to change the protocol which could also involve taking coins away from somebody. …
Like in real life, having the majority of votes in the system is one thing but having enough followers for a revolution is another

In real life – as in Bitcoin – the question is what happens if more than half of the “citizens” just act as if the revolution happens. What happens if the majority of the population (IRL) just no longer accepts the concept that a dollar bill (or a gold bar or a car, etc.) does belong to somebody but just act as property doesn’t exist and take what they want.

In real life – and this is exactly the blockchain discussion we are having – you could (with certain right) still argue, that it takes a 2/3rd (or something different depending on country) to change the constitution and therefore as long as this 2/3 do not agree to the “no property economy”, private property still exists – and formally they are right. Same with blockchain.
On the other hand, however, if really 51% of the population simply ignores property, there is little the other 49% can actually do. There is no practical use of the abstract constitutional and legal right to put someone in jail that takes away your property, because no state can put 51% of it’s population into prison.

And in that sense one could even go further: The vast majority of revolutions in history started with much less than 50% of the population. The same way it would require even much less than 51% of the miners to destroy trust in bitcoin and therefore the whole scheme.

And given the power that China has on bitcoin (doesn’t even matter if it is > or < 50%) what the bitcoin followers actually belief that it is more likely that FED, BoA and ECB want to take away their money than that the Chinese government does that.

“In real life – as in Bitcoin – the question is what happens if more than half of the “citizens” just act as if the revolution happens. What happens if the majority of the population (IRL) just no longer accepts the concept that a dollar bill (or a gold bar or a car, etc.) does belong to somebody but just act as property doesn’t exist and take what they want.”
In real life, it doesn’t need even half the citizens. Just enough with the arms and motivation.
Maybe after the police are refunded we’ll have the answer. Minneapolis?
But history has recorded surprises.
Sweyn Asliefson, change from a peaceful farmer to a Viking leader in the Orkneyinga Saga for one.

Maoraigh wrote:

What happens if the majority of the population (IRL) just no longer accepts the concept that a dollar bill (or a gold bar or a car, etc.) does belong to somebody but just act as property doesn’t exist and take what they want.”

Isn’t this happening in San Francisco? Steal less than $1’000 bucks at a time and you’re OK.

what the bitcoin followers actually believe is that it is more likely that FED, BoA and ECB want to take away their money than that the Chinese government does that.

Sure. And of course these Crypto-nutters just can’t do arithmetic. They don’t even understand that “money printing” by the ECB through Target 2, QE etc. will preserve the value of the Euros in their pockets.

These dumb-ass Bitcoin disciples think that because a Scottish hill farm now costs >10x more fiat currency than it did 30 years ago, the central banks have taken away 90% of the value of their “money”.

Jacko wrote:

They don’t even understand that “money printing” by the ECB through Target 2, QE etc. will preserve the value of the Euros in their pockets

Perhaps they don’t even fully understand Target 2, QE, etc. and how they contribute to “money printing”. The net target balance, e.g. is always (nearly) zero. If countries (more precisely national central banks) have “target debt”, then there is other countries that have matching credit. Therefore target balances do not significantly contribute to broad money in circulation (M3) and hence not to inflation.

Second: M3 in Eurozone has a long term growth rate of 5-6% p.a. and a last year growth rate of 10%. That is far less than the growth of btc in circulation over the last 10 years.