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0 sats \ 56 replies \ @sudonaka 18 Sep \ parent \ on: Bitcoin devs cheer block reconstruction stats, ignore security budget concerns bitcoin
The core dev team is too centralized
Paychecks from same company
Work in same office
We need knots and a third major client implementation too
In my perception Bitcoin Core is the most decentralized it has ever been since the Gavin days.
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I don't think that it matters, because the problem isn't actual decentralization, but an accusation of conspiracy. And that's impossible to defend against. All you can do is not be trapped into reacting to it in any way 1
But I don't think that the "3rd fork" idea that has recently been re-popularized (e.g. #1223880) is such a bad idea; it can help lift some of the pressure and spotlight off of current Bitcoin Core contributors.
Footnotes
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I have personally been in that situation - more than once - and I know very well that it truly sucks to have to let the punches land and not hit back in any way. It's also why I am an anon on SN and won't hesitate for a moment to burn and move on if I have to; I don't want to have to deal with that shit ever again on any other project than past ones I still, some days grudgingly, contribute to. ↩
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I don't think that it matters, because the problem isn't actual decentralization, but an accusation of conspiracy. And that's impossible to defend against
The impression I'm starting to get is that many bitcoiners got into it precisely because they're conspiratorially minded, not because of sound evaluation.
You can see this bias towards conspiracy across bitcoiners in big and small ways. Obviously you have Kratter's ranting about chem trails and mental telepathy, but it's evident in smaller ways such as people's reaction to the Kirk assassination.
I am a little conspiratorially minded myself. And there can be advantages to it. But it is a tendency that I recognise in myself and temper with various strategies.
It seems some percentage of bitcoiners don't have this self reflection or the ability to understand the technical big picture.
I imagine eventually this weakness will be exploited and they'll sell their coins cheaply - similar to how the bcashers lost their stacks.
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The impression I'm starting to get is that many bitcoiners got into it precisely because they're conspiratorially minded, not because of sound evaluation.
It's always been a significant subset that perhaps I too am part of myself (though I'd totes stroke ego and add: mildly), and we've seen high agency people (nearly/completely) lose it over the years as further evidence to this.
I imagine eventually this weakness will be exploited
The red-teamer in me says it's extremely likely that it already is being exploited under the radar, and the theorist-red-teamer in me says that this entire drama is an exploit.
I'll probably come back to this later because lots to unpack, but I have a coding gig delivery to do today
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Yeah, don't get me wrong, I am in favour of a future where different clients are in a mad max like standoff, constantly trying to out compete each other, optimising for different use cases and targetting different audiences. It's great to see people seriously thinking about this.
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Yes! That would also be healthier than just all the pressure being on one repo.
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The current core devs have only been there since about 2021 correct?
What are they responsible for in that time from the user’s perspective?
Inscriptions, forcing filter changes and now a 20% rebellion from the repo?
Inscriptions, forcing filter changes and now a 20% rebellion from the repo?
What is the track record that ya’ll are so eager to defend?
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The current core devs have only been there since about 2021 correct?
Of those that have significantly contributed, they've mostly been around far longer than that.
What are they responsible for in that time from the user’s perspective?
It is very sad to me how the people who have fought tooth and nail to make bitcoin sound money, and who continue to do so, have people like you casually throwing around nonsense.
Your idea of what's going on amongst bitcoin devs is completely at odds with reality. That's what happens when you make pronouncements based something you read on social media. And then the devs waste their time refuting people like you one by one instead of actually improving bitcoin.
If you want to know who is attacking bitcoin, it's useful idiots like yourself. You've been successfully weaponised into an attack against bitcoin devs' reputation.
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If you want to know who is attacking bitcoin, it's useful idiots like yourself. You've been successfully weaponised into an attack against bitcoin devs' reputation.
💯
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The current core devs have only been there since about 2021 correct?
No, many from the the 2011-2013 era still remain and are among the most active contributors. glozow is the newest contributor among the maintainers, but the rest have been working on core about a decade plus now and have seen through major changes to core in that time period. There has not been a big generational shift, it is a very gradual process.
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I’m asking you specifically about the chain code labs employees.
No you didn't. Read your own comment: #1227740.
They all are paid by the same company, they work from the same office.
Naw bruh. If you would have clicked the link I gave you (I even put it on blame so you could straight move on to the commit authors for each key and not have to lookup pgp keys) and done some research you would have known the % of maintainers that work for chaincode. Takes... 20 minutes if you manually verify everything like a real Chad.
The problem isn't the funding, and you would know that if you would just do your research. Don't take my word for it! Go check it out yourself! Reach your own conclusions! Be a king in the age of retardation!
You have zero concerns about that?
I have serious concerns about the echo chamber I'm perceiving; probably more serious than you can ever imagine. And because of that, and because we know we cannot tell people what to do, I agreed with you above that it would be good to have a third fork. So who are you arguing with?
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How is an “accusation of conspiracy” a problem if it isn’t true?
It's a problem because it makes being a bitcoin dev a horrible experience. If you want to improve bitcoin, you also have to accept death threats and people constantly trying to trash your reputation. This leads to less devs, less improvements to bitcoin, and means the chance that bitcoin achieves its full potential is reduced.
But hey, maybe we just let bitcoin stay as it is, it can enrich the Saylors of the world, and fuck the unbanked.
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Yes, it would be good to have a great, conservative implementation. Maybe libbitcoin can be that, maybe another fork of Core...
but that has literally nothing to do with what I just said.
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What good are other implementations (that are consensus valid-identical) if all they change is relay policy???
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That's what Knots does though. And is what 'all the drama' is about
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That's not true either, it changes some other things too, like for example the decision making process of what gets merged; Bitcoin Core doesn't have a lead anymore. Knots does and the lead has ultimate power; aka BDFL structure. It's about the only thing changed in the Knots contribution guidelines that were forked from Core: https://github.com/bitcoinknots/bitcoin/commit/7d8e16ec7830b00272d18f453711e5f7f229127d
What all the drama is about is people who literally have no clue what the fuck they are talking about forming an echo chamber. The Knots echo chamber is infinitely worse in terms of absolute ignorance than the Core echo chamber (though much less powerful, so I guess they're equally horrendous.)
But, all this doesn't matter. If you don't like it, write your own node software. Or write your own patchset. Removing the word
DEPRECATED from a command line option's help text is hardly worth a patch, but, bringing the option back if it gets removed early might be - though if sipa publicly states that it is unlikely to be removed in the face of controversy, then I expect there to be great restraint on removing it. Time will tell though.I'm not convinced that many people in this shitshow have developed the skills to verify, and actively use those skills in reviewing at the very least release notes and source code linked there. This is probably where they'll have to start, so that they don't have to be gaslit by some clickbaiter on X or YT, but actually know what is going on.
Because
don't trust, verify doesn't mean read more X posts or watch more youtube. It means read code, and change it if you don't like the code (as long as it's not consensus code.)reply
Thanks for your comment. You don't need to tell me...
I have written post after post about, to the best of my knowledge and ability, about why Knots doesn't make any sense.
I don't know what the 'run knots' crowd is going to do after v30 is released (and their nodes download and verify blocks) or after knots were to become a larger percentage of the network... and the same transactions make it into blocks.
Hard fork?
They seem to think that at 51% 'knots' something magical happens which doesn't make any sense.
What all the drama is about is people who literally have no clue what the fuck they are talking about forming an echo chamber. The Knots echo chamber is infinitely worse in terms of absolute ignorance than the Core echo chamber (though much less powerful, so I guess they're equally horrendous.)
I used to run different relay filters, op_return sizes etc as Umbrel makes it really easy to change but honestly it just feels so pointless. The 'run knots' people would be much better off using Bitcoin regularly and frequently than spinning up more nodes which... from what I can tell they never/rarely use. Talk is cheap.
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I think that
maxuploadtarget is a much more useful setting if you're trying to run a node than any filter or otherwise will help, unless you're actually running a watchtower. In that case, you want to disable all filters and know everything, and peer with as a diverse set of other nodes, so that you see ALL, and you won't get rugged by an asshole LN channel partner or other L2 solution where you need to know everything in mempool you can know.reply
Don't we have other implementations? Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision Litecoin, Dogecoin etc etc
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No. They're not the same.
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Obviously. I don't understand then why people say 'we need other implementations'
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I said it. You don't have to ask "people", you can ask me.
What I'm saying is that I think that Bitcoin needs at least one other fully validating, mining and wallet capable implementation of the Bitcoin Protocol per current consensus rules. I will be of that opinion unless the repository
bitcoin/bitcoin recovers from its current transition towards being a "place of work" from previously being "the staging area for the reference implementation".I don't say this lightly because I have great respect for the people that have contributed there, and I have closely followed the work (as in line-by-line often) of many of them, some for over a decade. But the problem is that these people also included some that are now treated as undesirable, and even though I don't agree with much of what many of them say or do, I still think that moderating those people out (or calling them trolls, even if they call you worse names) is not something you'd do on the staging area, or outside of it, if you're the steward of that.
Inherently, Bitcoin Core downgrades from being
the reference implementation to being an implementation. And although that sounds like semantics, the difference is huge from a protocol development point of view. In lieu of a full consensus spec, there needs to be a reference implementation, and this needs to be free of politics. It needs to be much more about the code and less about the people. And honestly, I've felt it used to be that way ever since Gavin's exit. But it's changing in the wrong direction and that sucks, even though I understand the motivation (see earlier discussion with Murch #966323.)So if that development doesn't correct, there's imho a need for a repository that can host both Core and Knots devs and that can function as a place where the protocol is staged, for everyone; even the retards, trolls, elitists and sociopaths.
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Its possible. But "as it is now" is basically people copying core.
Either directly, like Knots, or as a reference, like btcd and libbitcoin
If Core goes further down the path of restriction, and people keep being banned from the bips repo, it would be good to have some place where they can be heard. Maybe that place is nostr. Or... Op_returns. Lol
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So if that development doesn't correct, there imho a need for a repository that can host both Core and Knots devs and that can function as a place where the protocol is staged, for everyone; even the retards, trolls, elitists and sociopaths.
Knots people (and by that I mean people who think "knots is the answer") by their own voices cannot co-exist with core.
The way to approach this I've seen echoed elsewhere is 'run what you want' 'your software your node etc'... and Knots users want total domination of who runs what.
I was in a 'monetary maximalist' group a few years ago with some people I agreed with, some I disagreed with. When the arguments about 'arbitrary data' were just getting going in 2023... I spoke my mind, because Bitcoin is supposed to be a free speech zone, right?
Well the group kicked me out. They couldn't articulate their views effectively. They couldn't answer my basic questions. They resorted to 'namecalling' and personal attacks... as if that would somehow do something. And when I asked them about it, asked them about their 'solutions' to the spam issue?
They kicked me out calling me a 'spy' or 'someone who hates Bitcoin' who 'attacks' it which is ridiculous.
They could not answer my questions and my questioning (beyond namecalling of certain runes/ordinals developers) got me kicked out quite quickly.
All of this energy isn't being channeled constructively and eventually there will be a fork into 'bitcoin pure' or 'bitcoin knots' by people who cannot make technical arguments or are persuaded by influencers.
I think Core is doing the right thing, and the vast majority of the loudest voices cannot articulate what they want. 'Knots voices' don't really accept that.
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Yeah I know you've been panicking about that fork for over a month now. Honestly, a fork is a better outcome than the status quo. But you know too that there is no majority of developers, hashpower, or coins backing such a fork. So they'll be doomed the moment everyone got their freshly forked coins out.
The best outcome is averting a fork and ending the drama. I laid out above how that could be done, with 2 alternatives.
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Yeah I know you've been panicking about that fork for over a month now.
Why do you think I'm panicking? I have mentioned the fork issue... because I think the issue at heart isn't technical, it's political. And there seems to be a 'tone-deafness' with regard to what will likely happen... and people should be ready for it. In that sense the fork is predictable.
I'm not interested in Knots and if there is a fork I get free 'forked' coins to sell so what's wrong with that?
Honestly, a fork is a better outcome than the status quo.
I agree.
But you know too that there is no majority of developers, hashpower, or coins backing such a fork. So they'll be doomed the moment everyone got their freshly forked coins out.
You should tell the podcasters (that are pushing knots on their followers) because this sounds a lot like Bitcoin Cash for which there is still a Reddit subreddit...
The best outcome is averting a fork and ending the drama. I laid out above how that could be done, with 2 alternatives.
Knots will never accept it. They want total domination of the mempool (without paying fees) which of course is impossible.
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Why do you think I'm panicking?
Because you boosted your post about it with 150k sats or so and you keep on talking about it. If you don't care then whatever... let them fork. At least then they will shut the fuck up until they get listed on any exchange and see how fast one's forked sats can be worth near-0. Real mfs will laugh their butts off though, because they be the ones rugging the fork while encouraging it even now.
Knots will never accept it. They want total domination of the mempool
You do realize how dumb it sounds to say that someone wants "total domination of the mempool", if you understood that a mempool is a node-local thing, right? Even if someone is truly uttering this nonsense other than you, it's still retarded.
My mempool, no consensus needed. I will have in there whatever the fuck I want. Come and take it.