I want to talk about the Blocksize Wars \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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5754 sats \ 30 comments \ @fiatbad 1 Nov bitcoin

Full disclosure: I am not a big blocker. I only own BTC, in cold storage.

I spend a lot of time on r/btc, r/bitcoincash, and a dozen other shitcoin subreddits. I put myself through this torture because I believe that the best way to know truth is to criticize the shit out of our beliefs and see what's left standing.

Nothing survives the fire except the Bitcoin Cash and Monero communities. Everything else is just fiat focused bullshit disguised as "utility" to enrich the founders and VC's of the project.

But the BCH and XMR communities aren't the crypto-bro, fiat-brains I find everywhere else. They understand the assignment. They want to take down the Creature from Jekyll Island as much as I do.

And they have some very good arguments.

After reading "The Blocksize War" by Jonathan Beir, and "Hijacking Bitcoin" by Roger Ver, I find myself conflicted and in need of further discussion by people closer to it than I.

So, I want to ask this community..... do you know of any good resources for learning more about the block size war? Specifically, I'm interested in Roger's allegations about Blockstream and the Bilderberg connection, and why RBF was implemented instead of the first-seen implementation originally in Bitcoin? It does seem suspicious, but I'm sure there were good reasons.

I'm sure there's a lot of good reading out there on the subject. But it's probly from years ago and needs a recent refresh for BTC holders of today. Especially sense the BCH and XMR community seem to be so certain that BTC has been captured by central banks. I need to know more.

Side note on the central bank capture piece: The Creature from Jekyll Island has nothing but time on its hands. As soon as Bitcoin began to make waves, back around 2012, I have no doubt the creature started scheming about how to nullify its new foe. While the rest of us were working our slave-based fiat day jobs, the creature was busy contriving a way to ensure this new digital money never grew wings. In fact, they had been working on the problem since before the 1990's, and the 1997 book entitled "The Sovereign Individual" gave them everything they needed to ensure they would be ready for the coming threat to their empire. So, when Roger Ver explains the connection between BTC and "the creature", I get tingles in my spine.

My entire networth is tied up in BTC, and my goal is to take down "the creature", even if it impoverishes me. NGU is not my goal. So, please don't chastise me for this post. I'm only interested in having a discussion with people who can teach me or point me to further reading. I've read a lot.... and the big blockers have not convinced me to convert.... but they do have me concerned, and I simply want more conversation.

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115 sats \ 2 replies \ @chungkingexpress 1 Nov

I think these are important questions to ask and I am glad you are exploring them. I have not got any resources for you, but some thoughts:

There was a naivety in the understanding of the nature of money, in particular of the layers required, that the big blockers did not appreciate. The quick growth of on-chain merchants etc in the early days could be thought of as similar to a fast growing sunflower in summer, where as what Bitcoin needed and has become is the slow-growing oak tree. The fundamentals of governance, node decentralisation, etc needed to be established and it was a messy situation that brought these to the fore. Consumer payments are a small part of the fiat world, but because they are obvious in everyday life people assign disproportional to them. It is only a minor % of the world's fiat velocity that is in day-to-day merchant payments compared to international commodity trading, interbank dealing, t-bills etc at the "higher layers".
The nature of the messy situation during the blocksize war was absolutely essential to making Bitcoin anti-fragile and drawing a line in the sand. The outright aggression and unwillingness to relent was needed as Jonathan Beir wrote about, for if Bitcoin could not overcome a few dodgy Chinese miners and charlatans, how could it hope to take down "the creature".
The malice of Bitmain and covert asicboost can not be understated, and they would have said anything to have pushed for the hardfork.
There is no end to the political scheming and intrigue allegations. The idea that Bitcoin has been captured by central banks sits with a kind of vague conspiracy mindset that sees the slightest association with something (e.g. blackrock ETFs) as equal to full capture. I think the reality is messy and gray. Bitcoin is for everyone, the book Decrypting Money briefly mentions this: Bitcoin is a push and pull between three (or more) groups: Cypherpunks, Libertarians, and Speculators. As much as we may consider Blackrock as "the creature", that creature is also pumping bags and adding power to our own "creature". Monero and BCH only have one or another of those groups and so will always be a niche project that cannot survive.
Stablecoins are really the area to watch out for in terms of capture. One timeline could be that we hyper-stabelcoinize with synthetic USD before we go onto a Bitcoin standard. The interplay between stablecoins, T-Bills, and Bitcoin is worth exploring. Tether for example is a total enigma to me and it is not clear how that plays out.

These are just some musings, I would happy to Socratically work through any particular points or questions you have as I am also interested in thoroughly exploring this.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @fiatbad OP 1 Nov

While, I personally love each of your bullet points..... the intelligent individuals from r/btc would tear each of your points apart.

I want to briefly mention that I don't believe Blackrock to be part of "the creature". (apart from it being a slave to it the way the rest of us are)

The creature we're referring to is even deeper than that.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @chungkingexpress 1 Nov

It is also possible that the creature is within.

30 sats \ 2 replies \ @OT 1 Nov

If you've read those books I think thats more than enough info.

The market decided and it was inevitable that wall st and nation states to come in. That has nothing to do with my piece of the pie and doesn't mean that they can change Bitcoin to how they want.

There's no chance for monero to ever become a world reserve currency. Bitcoin needs layers to scale. BCH having larger blocks doesn't mean you can scale the planet on the base layer.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @fiatbad OP 1 Nov

I agree. But I can't shake the feeling that there's more to this story. We know the surface level reasons why BCH doesn't work.

I spent years in an evangelical christian church where they had their reasons for why Buddhism or other religions were trash. Then I went and lived with Buddhists.... and I realized those christians didn't know shit.

So, yea, I understand the surface level reasons for BCH and XMR being trash. But when you try having a conversation with them about it, they seem to have well thought out answers. They understand it just as well as we do, and they think we're wrong. So, obviously, there's more conversation to have here.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 1 Nov

Personally I'm glad there's a monero community that like to argue with bitcoiners. They have pointed out a few flaws in Bitcoin that I hadn't heard of before. In particular the centralization of mining. Monero bugs were telling me about this, then Ocean (and particularly Mechanic) kinda confirmed it. I just think that the flaws in monero are a lot worse than the issues in Bitcoin. None are perfect, but we have a clear winner with BTC.

But for BCH...? I have little time. Roger needs to let it go.

20 sats \ 2 replies \ @kruw 1 Nov

Specifically, I'm interested in Roger's allegations about Blockstream and the Bilderberg connection,

Who cares? Bitcoin is a science project, so even if the Bilderbergs were 100% publicly in support of small blocks, that wouldn't change anything about the engineering properties involved with building a decentralized base layer.

and why RBF was implemented instead of the first-seen implementation originally in Bitcoin?

Miners have an incentive to create the block that awards them the highest fee. Relying on altruism from miners (the idea that they will prefer a lower fee transaction just because they saw it before a conflicting transaction that pays a higher fee) is economically blind reasoning.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @fiatbad OP 1 Nov

Yea, I agree.

But why are there so many people who disagree? People who agree with us all the way up to the very end. They aren't stupid.

22 sats \ 0 replies \ @kruw 1 Nov

They could be stupid or they could be malicious. Some people crave the failure of projects that compete with theirs. It's not like the BCH people are happy about Lightning or the XMR people are happy about coinjoins, they purposely attack these innovative solutions because it makes their investment obsolete.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @Thereal 1 Nov

@DarthCoin

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @fiatbad OP 1 Nov

Ugh. I think fear of DarthCoin's wrath is the reason I haven't posted this until now. Been holding out a while...

I threw away all my collared shirts in anticipation of this conversation.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 1 Nov

I spend a lot of time on r/btc, r/bitcoincash, and a dozen other shitcoin subreddits.

That means you start smelling like shit...

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Thereal 1 Nov

😀😅

51 sats \ 3 replies \ @OriginalSize 1 Nov

Like you I'm always on the lookout for credible attacks on BTC. I listened to the arguments and was not convinced. At a certain point there's diminishing returns to subject yourself to the same old whatever. I mean have they come up with a new argument since say 2020? Clearly there's a cost in terms of time but what's been the benefit?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @fiatbad OP 1 Nov

I agree.

But I'm concerned that, after 1.5 decades, "the creature" is no closer to being destroyed. In fact, it appears to have found a way to benefit from our revolution.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @nikotsla 1 Nov

When we are always talking with the same group of people, we isolate of the real world, it's no easy to destroy "the creature" but the reality is that not too many merchants are accepting bitcoin and that is the first step, it's hard work to onboar people that way but it's the only one.

If we as a society continue to follow "the creature" ways we are playing their game, opt out is the only solution, buy/sell in bitcoin, accept it and replace all your normal fiat behavior with new paths.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatbad OP 1 Nov

Merchant adoption was happening at the fastest rate we've ever seen, back in 2015, during the block size war. It's not hard to imagine a world where the entire globe would have adopted Bitcoin if that had been allowed to continue.

But it was stunted.

I believe it was stunted for good reason. But I want to hear what those reasons were by the people involved at that time. I want a trial. Roger Ver has accused them of treason, let's have a trial.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwapMarket 1 Nov

The ONLY way to learn Bitcoin in general and blocksize wars in particular is to personally study its inner workings. Not reading/watching other people's opinionated propaganda/conspiracy theories. But to study those inner workings takes a lot of time and hard work. I went through three Chaincode seminars to form my skills and opinions. In short: "there is no second best". Bitcoin base layer is perfect as is, and all the scaling and privacy features can be done on layer 2. All other blockchains are scams to enrich the founders.

About Blockstream/Bilderberg I heard for the first time from you today, and quick googling got me this explanation, which makes sense: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WNH4kwXNvY0

It is no secret that VC-funded Lightning Labs, Blockstream and many others are trying to make money from building Bitcoin layer 2 infrastructure. But they do so openly as FOSS projects, and the code they produce is free for all to run and modify. The incentive is there to collaborate on some aspects and compete on others, to make Bitcoin better for all.

One example is our project taking advantage of Boltz open source code.

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @south_korea_ln 1 Nov

Don't give too much credit to the creature. The creature only got interested in this when they realised there was money to be made. If the market had decided BCH to be the real bitcoin, they would have come for BCH. Wall street coming in was bound to happen. Only BTC has value to that's where they're at. The only thing to do is to make sure BTC keeps its core values and increase it's adoption in daily life beyond the NGU obsession, the etfs and Michael saylors of the world. No need to think about the past, only thing to do is think about the present. Even if BCH were to be right about BTC being captured, reversing the outcome of the blockwars is pointless. BCH is a thing of the past. Focus on BTC to make sure the creature is just a participant in it and not its leader. As long as you can use BTC without anyone telling you when and how to do it, BTC is doing what it's supposed to do. Who cares if wall street is playing games with it. It does not affect you. They don't have control over your coins.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatbad OP 1 Nov

In Roger's book, he claims that their first goal was to prevent Bitcoin from gaining too much traction before they could counter with their own digital money movements such as Venmo. It was a 2 part plan to ensure Bitcoin adoption didn't take off, while increasing the ability to use fiat digitally and seamlessly.

Part 1, ramp up the ability to send fiat money over phone apps. Remove the friction to send fiat.

Part 2, stop the institutional usage of Bitcoin as a way to move money, at least until they've finished development of Part 1.

Ultimately, this doesn't matter, and I think that's your point. Who cares about the details... BTC wins in every scenario, right?

The problem comes in when it becomes clear that they succeeded. Perhaps without their influence, the community would have figured out a better solution. For example, a small block size increase, followed by a long term L2 plan. Lightning with 6MB blocks would probably be the perfect risk/reward play. But LN on 2MB is tough.

I'm playing devil's advocate, though. I don't think any of us can decide to increase the blocksize. That's the whole point.... who has the power to decide? No one, and that's what makes Bitcoin special.

However, I think it's probably true that Satoshi did not mean to keep the 1MB block size. He hoped we would increase it. Increasing it around 2016 would have been perfect to help maintain momentum of adoption. Ossifying after that, and moving to layer 2's would be the correct choice. I'm afraid the central banks applied their influence to ensure we never increased the block size..... especially when they didn't have their shit, like Venmo, in place yet.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nym 1 Nov

This and the others are good answers.

500 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 1 Nov

I spend a lot of time on r/btc, r/bitcoincash Nothing survives the fire except the Bitcoin Cash and Monero communities.

You are fucked up in your brains if in 2024 you still feed your brain with that GARBAGE. There's NOTHING to discuss more about block size war, is done, is just history of bitcoin.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan 1 Nov

Don't hold back, sir. Tell is what you really think

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 1 Nov

There's no debate with shitcoiners. Period. FUCK'EM'ALL

1 sat \ 2 replies \ @fiatbad OP 1 Nov

To add some clarity to my post:

The big blockers have not convinced me to convert. I think their implementation of Bitcoin will fail over time. BCH relies on mass adoption in order to keep miners in business. It doesn't allow for a slow adoption over time.... a Trojan horse. It cuts corners and makes tradeoffs I'm not okay with.

However, they have convinced me that BTC has been captured. Central banks.... the creature..... have found a way to ensure Bitcoin doesn't threaten the creature's reign.

I don't think BCH or XMR is the solution, due to technical reasons and social ones around forking etc.... I almost think we're back at square one... where Satoshi began. Can we ever beat them when they are always one step ahead of us?

(even with these newfound beliefs, I'm fully allocated to Bitcoin. So don't hate me bro. It's just the cleanest shirt in the dirty laundry pile.)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 1 Nov

The big blockers have not convinced me to convert.

LOL you are just bargaining with shit. You play with shit, you smell like shit. period.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @southside263 1 Nov

you seem concerned that banks are controlling bitcoin?
you seem to want to take down banks?

If I’m wrong, please correct me as I’m not sure if what questions you want answered…??

bitcoin is money technology, it’s not that deep. 😅

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 4 Nov

BCH has the same privacy issues as bitcoin but without solidness, hashrate, network effect and credibility.

Monero on the other hand is the best electronic cash we have and works great in tandem with bitcoin. Bitcoin is to store value, monero is cash for the internet. Just like cash you want to have some lying around but don't want to have all your savings in it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Cotton 1 Nov

Interesting!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @dcef57e080 1 Nov freebie

Wao