The only acceptable "compromise" is SegWit NEVER, bigger blocks NOW. SegWit-as-a-soft-fork involves an "anyone-can-spend" hack - which would give Core/Blockstream/AXA a MONOPOLY on Bitcoin development FOREVER. The goal of SegWit is NOT to help Bitcoin. It is to HURT Bitcoin and HELP Blockstream/AXA.
TL;DR: Adding a poison pill like SegWit to Bitcoin would not be a "compromise" - it would be suicide, because SegWit's dangerous "anyone-can-spend" hack would give a permanent monopoly on Bitcoin development to the corrupt, incompetent, toxic dev team of Core/Blockstream/AXA, who are only interested in staying in power and helping themselves at all costs - even if they end up hurting Bitcoin. Most of this post will probably not be new information for many people. It is being provided mainly as a reminder, to counteract the constant flood of lies and propaganda coming from Core/Blocsktream/AXA in their attempt to force this unwanted SegWit poison pill into Bitcoin - in particular, their latest desperate lie: that there could somehow be some kind of "compromise" involving SegWit. But adding a poison pill / trojan horse like SegWit to our code would not be some kind of "compromise". It would be simply be suicide. SegWit-as-a-soft-fork is an existential threat to Bitcoin development - because SegWit's dangerous "anyone-can-spend" hack would give a permanent monopoly on Bitcoin development to the corrupt / incompetent centralized dev team of Core/Blockstream/AXA who are directly to blame for the current mess of Bitcoin's crippled, clogged network and drastically falling market cap. Furthermore, markets don't even do "compromise". They do "winner-takes-all". Any coin adopting SegWit is going to lose, simply because SegWit is such shitty code:
"Compromise is not part of Honey Badger's vocabulary. Such notions are alien to Bitcoin, as it is a creature of the market with no central levers to compromise over. Bitcoin unhampered by hardcoding a 1MB cap is free to optimize itself perfectly to defeat all competition." ~ u/ForkiusMaximus
using SegWit's dangerous Anyone-Can-Spend kludge / hack / poison-pill to permanently "lock in" their centralized, censored, fiat-fueled economically ignorant dev team of liars and sociopaths,
forcing people off the blockchain, off Bitcoin, and into alts or back into fiat and PayPal / MasterCard / VISA.
AXA is trying to sabotage Bitcoin by paying the most ignorant, anti-market devs in Bitcoin: Core/Blockstream This is the direction that Bitcoin has been heading in since late 2014 when Blockstream started spreading their censorship and propaganda and started bribing and corrupting the "Core" devs using $76 million in fiat provided by corrupt, anti-Bitcoin "fantasy fiat" finance firms like the debt-backed, derivatives-addicted insurance mega-giant AXA. Remember: The real goals of Core/Blocsktream/AXA with SegWit are to:
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/6a72vm/purely_coincidental/ Do not judge Core/Blocsktream/AXA by their words. As we have seen, their words have been just an endless stream of lies and propaganda involving changing explanations and shifting goalposts and insane nonsense - including this latest outrageous concept of SegWit as some kind of "compromise" which some people may be "falling for":
Latest Segwit Trickery involves prominent support for "SW Now 2MB Later" which will lead to only half of the deal being honored. Barry Silbert front and center. Of course.
The people we are dealing with are the WORST type of manipulators and liars. There is absolutely NO reason why they should not deliver a 2 MB block size at the same time as SegWit. This is like a dealer saying "hey gimme that $200 now, I just gotta run home and get your weed, I promise I'll be right back".
I agree to immediately support the activation of Segregated Witness and commit to effectuate a block size increase to 2MB within 12 months
[Based] on [their] previous performance [in the Hong Kong agreement - which they already broke], they're going to say, "Segregated Witness was a block size increase, to a total of 4MB, so we have delivered our side of the compromise."
Barry is an investor in Blockstream. What else needs to be said?
~ u/coinlock Nothing involving SegWit is a "compromise". SegWit would basically hijack Bitcoin development forever - giving a permanent monopoly to the centralized, corrupt dev team of Core/Blockstream/AXA.
SegWit would impose a centrally planned blocksize of 1.7MB right now - too little and too late.
Segwit would permanently "cement" Core/Blockstream/AXA as the only people controlling Bitcoin development - forever.
If you are sick and tired of these attempts by Core/Blockstream/AXA to sabotage Bitcoin - then the last thing you should support is SegWit in any way, shape or form - even as some kind of so-called "compromise". This is because SegWit is not primarily a "malleability fix" or a "capacity increase". SegWit is a poison pill / trojan horse which would put the idiots and traitors at Core/Blockstream/AXA permanently and exclusively in control of Bitcoin development - forever and ever. Here are the real problems with SegWit (which Core/Blockstream/AXA is not telling you about):
Initially, I liked SegWit. But then I learned SegWit-as-a-SOFT-fork is dangerous (making transactions "anyone-can-spend"??) & centrally planned (1.7MB blocksize??). Instead, Bitcoin Unlimited is simple & safe, with MARKET-BASED BLOCKSIZE. This is why more & more people have decided to REJECT SEGWIT.
Segwit cannot be rolled back because to non-upgraded clients, ANYONE can spend Segwit txn outputs. If Segwit is rolled back, all funds locked in Segwit outputs can be taken by anyone. As more funds gets locked up in segwit outputs, incentive for miners to collude to claim them grows.
"So, Core wants us to trust miners not to steal Segwit's anyone-can-spends, but will not let them have a say on block size. Weird."~Cornell U Professor and bitcoin researcher Emin Gün Sirer.
Brock Pierce's BLOCKCHAIN CAPITAL is part-owner of Bitcoin's biggest, private, fiat-funded private dev team (Blockstream) & biggest, private, fiat-funded private mining operation (BitFury). Both are pushing SegWit - with its "centrally planned blocksize" & dangerous "anyone-can-spend kludge".
u/Luke-Jr invented SegWit's dangerous "anyone-can-spend" soft-fork kludge. Now he helped kill Bitcoin trading at Circle. He thinks Bitcoin should only hard-fork TO DEAL WITH QUANTUM COMPUTING. Luke-Jr will continue to kill Bitcoin if we continue to let him. To prosper, BITCOIN MUST IGNORE LUKE-JR.
"SegWit encumbers Bitcoin with irreversible technical debt. Miners should reject SWSF. SW is the most radical and irresponsible protocol upgrade Bitcoin has faced in its history. The scale of the code changes are far from trivial - nearly every part of the codebase is affected by SW" Jaqen Hash’ghar
"We had our arms twisted to accept 2MB hardfork + SegWit. We then got a bait and switch 1MB + SegWit with no hardfork, and accounting tricks to make P2SH transactions cheaper (for sidechains and Lightning, which is all Blockstream wants because they can use it to control Bitcoin)." ~ u/URGOVERNMENT
Core/Blockstream & their supporters keep saying that "SegWit has been tested". But this is false. Other software used by miners, exchanges, Bitcoin hardware manufacturers, non-Core software developers/companies, and Bitcoin enthusiasts would all need to be rewritten, to be compatible with SegWit
"SegWit [would] bring unnecessary complexity to the bitcoin blockchain. Huge changes it introduces into the client are a veritable minefield of issues, [with] huge changes needed for all wallets, exchanges, remittance, and virtually all bitcoin software that will use it." ~ u/Bitcoinopoly (self.btc)
3 excellent articles highlighting some of the major problems with SegWit: (1) "Core Segwit – Thinking of upgrading? You need to read this!" by WallStreetTechnologist (2) "SegWit is not great" by Deadalnix (3) "How Software Gets Bloated: From Telephony to Bitcoin" by Emin Gün Sirer
Normal users understand that SegWit-as-a-softfork is dangerous, because it deceives non-upgraded nodes into thinking transactions are valid when actually they're not - turning those nodes into "zombie nodes". Greg Maxwell and Blockstream are jeopardizing Bitcoin - in order to stay in power.
As Benjamin Frankline once said: "Given a choice between Liberty (with a few Bugs), and Slavery (with no Bugs), a Free People will choose Liberty every time." Bitcoin Unlimited is liberty: market-based blocksizes. SegWit is slavery: centrally planned 1.7MB blocksize & "anyone-can-spend" transactions
u/Uptrenda on SegWit: "Core is forcing every Bitcoin startup to abandon their entire code base for a Rube Goldberg machine making their products so slow, inconvenient, and confusing that even if they do manage to 'migrate' to this cluster-fuck of technical debt it will kill their businesses anyway."
Just because something is a "soft fork" doesn't mean it isn't a massive change. SegWit is an alt-coin. It would introduce radical and unpredictable changes in Bitcoin's economic parameters and incentives. Just read this thread. Nobody has any idea how the mainnet will react to SegWit in real life.
"They [Core/Blockstream] fear a hard fork will remove them from their dominant position." ... "Hard forks are 'dangerous' because they put the market in charge, and the market might vote against '[the] experts' [at Core/Blockstream]" - ForkiusMaximus
The real reason why Core / Blockstream always favors soft-forks over hard-forks (even though hard-forks are actually safer because hard-forks are explicit) is because soft-forks allow the "incumbent" code to quietly remain incumbent forever (and in this case, the "incumbent" code is Core)
Reminder: Previous posts showing that Blockstream's opposition to hard-forks is dangerous, obstructionist, selfish FUD. As many of us already know, the reason that Blockstream is against hard forks is simple: Hard forks are good for Bitcoin, but bad for the private company Blockstream.
Core/Blockstream is living in a fantasy world. In the real world everyone knows (1) our hardware can support 4-8 MB (even with the Great Firewall), and (2) hard forks are cleaner than soft forks. Core/Blockstream refuses to offer either of these things. Other implementations (eg: BU) can offer both.
If Blockstream were truly "conservative" and wanted to "protect Bitcoin" then they would deploy SegWit AS A HARD FORK. Insisting on deploying SegWit as a soft fork (overly complicated so more dangerous for Bitcoin) exposes that they are LYING about being "conservative" and "protecting Bitcoin".
If some bozo dev team proposed what Core/Blockstream is proposing (Let's deploy a malleability fix as a "soft" fork that dangerously overcomplicates the code and breaks non-upgraded nodes so it's de facto HARD! Let's freeze capacity at 1 MB during a capacity crisis!), they'd be ridiculed and ignored
"Negotiations have failed. BS/Core will never HF - except to fire the miners and create an altcoin. Malleability & quadratic verification time should be fixed - but not via SWSF political/economic trojan horse. CHANGES TO BITCOIN ECONOMICS MUST BE THRU FULL NODE REFERENDUM OF A HF." ~ u/TunaMelt
The proper terminology for a "hard fork" should be a "FULL NODE REFERENDUM" - an open, transparent EXPLICIT process where everyone has the right to vote FOR or AGAINST an upgrade. The proper terminology for a "soft fork" should be a "SNEAKY TROJAN HORSE" - because IT TAKES AWAY YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE.
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/5e4e7d/the_proper_terminology_for_a_hard_fork_should_be/ Here are the real reasons why Core/Blockstream/AXA has been trying to choke the Bitcoin network and suppress Bitcoin's price & adoption. (Hint: Blockstream is controlled by central bankers who hate Bitcoin - because they will go bankrupt if Bitcoin succeeds as a major world currency).
Blockstream is now controlled by the Bilderberg Group - seriously! AXA Strategic Ventures, co-lead investor for Blockstream's $55 million financing round, is the investment arm of French insurance giant AXA Group - whose CEO Henri de Castries has been chairman of the Bilderberg Group since 2012.
If Bitcoin becomes a major currency, then tens of trillions of dollars on the "legacy ledger of fantasy fiat" will evaporate, destroying AXA, whose CEO is head of the Bilderbergers. This is the real reason why AXA bought Blockstream: to artificially suppress Bitcoin volume and price with 1MB blocks.
Who owns the world? (1) Barclays, (2) AXA, (3) State Street Bank. (Infographic in German - but you can understand it without knowing much German: "Wem gehört die Welt?" = "Who owns the world?") AXA is the #2 company with the most economic poweconnections in the world. And AXA owns Blockstream.
The insurance company with the biggest exposure to the 1.2 quadrillion dollar (ie, 1200 TRILLION dollar) derivatives casino is AXA. Yeah, that AXA, the company whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group, and whose "venture capital" arm bought out Bitcoin development by "investing" in Blockstream.
Bilderberg Group -> AXA Strategic Ventures -> funds Blockstream -> Blockstream Core Devs. (The chairman of Bilderberg is Henri de Castries. The CEO of AXA Henri de Castries.)
Why is Blockstream CTO Greg Maxwell u/nullc trying to pretend AXA isn't one of the top 5 "companies that control the world"? AXA relies on debt & derivatives to pretend it's not bankrupt. Million-dollar Bitcoin would destroy AXA's phony balance sheet. How much is AXA paying Greg to cripple Bitcoin?
Core/AXA/Blockstream CTO Greg Maxwell, CEO Adam Back, attack dog Luke-Jr and censor Theymos are sabotaging Bitcoin - but they lack the social skills to even feel guilty for this. Anyone who attempts to overrule the market and limit or hard-code Bitcoin's blocksize must be rejected by the community.
"I'm angry about AXA scraping some counterfeit money out of their fraudulent empire to pay autistic lunatics millions of dollars to stall the biggest sociotechnological phenomenon since the internet and then blame me and people like me for being upset about it." ~ u/dresden_k
Greg Maxwell used to have intelligent, nuanced opinions about "max blocksize", until he started getting paid by AXA, whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group - the legacy financial elite which Bitcoin aims to disintermediate. Greg always refuses to address this massive conflict of interest. Why?
This trader's price & volume graph / model predicted that we should be over $10,000 USD/BTC by now. The model broke in late 2014 - when AXA-funded Blockstream was founded, and started spreading propaganda and crippleware, centrally imposing artificially tiny blocksize to suppress the volume & price.
Just as a reminder: The main funder of Blockstream is Henri de Castries, chairman of French insurance company AXA, and chairman of the Bilderberg Group!
AXA/Blockstream are suppressing Bitcoin price at 1000 bits = 1 USD. If 1 bit = 1 USD, then Bitcoin's market cap would be 15 trillion USD - close to the 82 trillion USD of "money" in the world. With Bitcoin Unlimited, we can get to 1 bit = 1 USD on-chain with 32MB blocksize ("Million-Dollar Bitcoin")
Bitcoin can go to 10,000 USD with 4 MB blocks, so it will go to 10,000 USD with 4 MB blocks. All the censorship & shilling on r\bitcoin & fantasy fiat from AXA can't stop that. BitcoinCORE might STALL at 1,000 USD and 1 MB blocks, but BITCOIN will SCALE to 10,000 USD and 4 MB blocks - and beyond
Bitcoin Original: Reinstate Satoshi's original 32MB max blocksize. If actual blocks grow 54% per year (and price grows 1.542 = 2.37x per year - Metcalfe's Law), then in 8 years we'd have 32MB blocks, 100 txns/sec, 1 BTC = 1 million USD - 100% on-chain P2P cash, without SegWit/Lightning or Unlimited
If Bitcoin becomes a major currency, then tens of trillions of dollars on the "legacy ledger of fantasy fiat" will evaporate, destroying AXA, whose CEO is head of the Bilderbergers. This is the real reason why AXA bought Blockstream: to artificially suppress Bitcoin volume and price with 1MB blocks.
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/4r1jwk/maxwells_boss_and_christine_lagarde/ The man in the picture in the link above is Henri de Castries - chairman of the Bilderberg Group, and CEO of AXA, an insurance giant which has over half a trillion dollars in exposure to dangerous derivatives, and whose "investment arm" AXA Strategic Ventures is one of the main owners of Blockstream (ie, Gregory Maxwell is literally getting paid by the masters of the legacy ledger of fantasy fiat). If the new counterparty-free hard asset Bitcoin becomes a major world currency, then companies like AXA (and most other members of the Bilderberg Group) will lose tens of trillions of dollars since they will no longer be able to rule the world with their "legacy ledger" of debt-based "fantasy fiat" which they ninja-mine quantitatively-ease (QE) into existence out of thin air (which is why the fiat in your pocket and your bank account is worth less and less every year). This is the real reason why AXA is trying to quietly destroy Bitcoin, by "investing" in Blockstream and strangling the Bitcoin network with artificially tiny 1 MB blocks. As long as miners continue to use code with a tiny hard-coded artificial 1 MB "max blocksize" limit, imposed by the corrupt / incompetent Gregory Maxwell who is CTO of the AXA/Bilderberg-owned private company Blockstream, then Bitcoin volume and price will continue to be artificially suppressed. We need to liberate Bitcoin from the centralized control of Gregory Maxwell and AXA/Bilderberg/Blockstream/Core - which will remove the artificial 1 MB "max blocksize" - and then Bitcoin volume and price will again be free to rise to their natural levels, allowing Bitcoin to become a major world currency. The old posts below may be interesting for people who want to explore this further. Sorry for all these re-posts but there's not much new to say, and we've been saying it for months. And sorry for the tinfoil - but the people who "own" you (see this 3-minute George Carlin clip on YouTube) are probably never going to openly admit to you exactly how they manage to own you - so it makes sense that you might have to do a little digging to connect the dots yourself, perhaps along the following lines:
Blockstream is now controlled by the Bilderberg Group - seriously! AXA Strategic Ventures, co-lead investor for Blockstream's $55 million financing round, is the investment arm of French insurance giant AXA Group - whose CEO Henri de Castries has been chairman of the Bilderberg Group since 2012.
The insurance company with the biggest exposure to the 1.2 quadrillion dollar (ie, 1200 TRILLION dollar) derivatives casino is AXA. Yeah, that AXA, the company whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group, and whose "venture capital" arm bought out Bitcoin development by "investing" in Blockstream.
Greg Maxwell used to have intelligent, nuanced opinions about "max blocksize", until he started getting paid by AXA, whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group - the legacy financial elite which Bitcoin aims to disintermediate. Greg always refuses to address this massive conflict of interest. Why?
So... The insurer whose "solvency" is most dependent on maintaining the fiction that the riskiest assets in Exter's Inverted Pyramid (derivatives) are actually worth something - is now paying the devs who write the code for the solidest asset in that pyramid (Bitcoin). What could possibly go wrong?
The owners of Blockstream are spending $75 million to do a "controlled demolition" of Bitcoin by manipulating the Core devs & the Chinese miners. This is cheap compared to the $ trillions spent on the wars on Iraq & Libya - who also defied the Fed / PetroDollar / BIS private central banking cartel.
The day when the Bitcoin community realizes that Greg Maxwell and Core/Blockstream are the main thing holding us back (due to their dictatorship and censorship - and also due to being trapped in the procedural paradigm) - that will be the day when Bitcoin will start growing and prospering again.
Bitcoin's market price is trying to rally, but it is currently constrained by Core/Blockstream's artificial blocksize limit. Chinese miners can only win big by following the market - not by following Core/Blockstream. The market will always win - either with or without the Chinese miners.
Bitcoin has its own E = mc2 law: Market capitalization is proportional to the square of the number of transactions. But, since the number of transactions is proportional to the (actual) blocksize, then Blockstream's artificial blocksize limit is creating an artificial market capitalization limit!
Why is Blockstream CTO Greg Maxwell u/nullc trying to pretend AXA isn't one of the top 5 "companies that control the world"? AXA relies on debt & derivatives to pretend it's not bankrupt. Million-dollar Bitcoin would destroy AXA's phony balance sheet. How much is AXA paying Greg to cripple Bitcoin?
Typical semantics games and hair-splitting and bullshitting from Greg. But I guess we shouldn't expect too much honesty or even understanding from someone like Greg who thinks that miners don't control Bitcoin. AXA-owned Blockstream CTO Greg Maxwell u/nullc doesn't understand how Bitcoin mining works
Mining is how you vote for rule changes. Greg's comments on BU revealed he has no idea how Bitcoin works. He thought "honest" meant "plays by Core rules." [But] there is no "honesty" involved. There is only the assumption that the majority of miners are INTELLIGENTLY PROFIT-SEEKING. - ForkiusMaximus
Adam Back & Greg Maxwell are experts in mathematics and engineering, but not in markets and economics. They should not be in charge of "central planning" for things like "max blocksize". They're desperately attempting to prevent the market from deciding on this. But it will, despite their efforts.
Gregory Maxwell nullc has evidently never heard of terms like "the 1%", "TPTB", "oligarchy", or "plutocracy", revealing a childlike naïveté when he says: "‘Majority sets the rules regardless of what some minority thinks’ is the governing principle behind the fiats of major democracies."
People are starting to realize how toxic Gregory Maxwell is to Bitcoin, saying there are plenty of other coders who could do crypto and networking, and "he drives away more talent than he can attract." Plus, he has a 10-year record of damaging open-source projects, going back to Wikipedia in 2006.
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/4klqtg/people_are_starting_to_realize_how_toxic_gregory/ So here we have Greg this week, desperately engaging in his usual little "semantics" games - claiming that AXA isn't technically a bank - when the real point is that: AXA is clearly one of the most powerful fiat finance firms in the world. Maybe when he's talking about the hairball of C++ spaghetti code that him and his fellow devs at Core/Blockstream are slowing turning their version of Bitcoin's codebase into... in that arcane (and increasingly irrelevant :) area maybe he still can dazzle some people with his usual meaningless technically correct but essentially erroneous bullshit. But when it comes to finance and economics, Greg is in way over his head - and in those areas, he can't bullshit anyone. In fact, pretty much everything Greg ever says about finance or economics or banks is simply wrong. He thinks he's proved some point by claiming that AXA isn't technically a bank. But AXA is far worse than a mere "bank" or a mere "French multinational insurance company". AXA is one of the top-five "companies that control the world" - and now (some people think) AXA is in charge of paying for Bitcoin "development". A recent infographic published in the German Magazine "Die Zeit" showed that AXA is indeed the second-most-connected finance company in the world - right at the rotten "core" of the "fantasy fiat" financial system that runs our world today.
Who owns the world? (1) Barclays, (2) AXA, (3) State Street Bank. (Infographic in German - but you can understand it without knowing much German: "Wem gehört die Welt?" = "Who owns the world?") AXA is the #2 company with the most economic poweconnections in the world. And AXA owns Blockstream.
Blockstream is now controlled by the Bilderberg Group - seriously! AXA Strategic Ventures, co-lead investor for Blockstream's $55 million financing round, is the investment arm of French insurance giant AXA Group - whose CEO Henri de Castries has been chairman of the Bilderberg Group since 2012.
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/47zfzt/blockstream_is_now_controlled_by_the_bilderberg/ So, let's get a few things straight here. "AXA" might not be a household name to many people. And Greg was "technically right" when he denied that AXA is a "bank" (which is basically the only kind of "right" that Greg ever is these days: "technically" :-) But AXA is one of the most powerful finance companies in the world. AXA was started as a French insurance company. And now it's a French multinational insurance company. But if you study up a bit on AXA, you'll see that they're not just any old "insurance" company. AXA has their fingers in just about everything around the world - including a certain team of toxic Bitcoin devs who are radically trying to change Bitcoin:
And ever since AXA started throwing tens of millions of dollars in filthy fantasy fiat at a certain toxic dev named Gregory Maxwell, CTO of Blockstream, suddenly he started saying that we can't have nice things like the gradually increasing blocksizes (and gradually increasing Bitcoin prices - which fortunately tend to increase proportional to the square of the blocksize because of Metcalfe's law :-) which were some of the main reasons most of us invested in Bitcoin in the first place. My, my, my - how some people have changed!
Greg Maxwell used to have intelligent, nuanced opinions about "max blocksize", until he started getting paid by AXA, whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group - the legacy financial elite which Bitcoin aims to disintermediate. Greg always refuses to address this massive conflict of interest. Why?
Previously, Greg Maxwell u/nullc (CTO of Blockstream), Adam Back u/adam3us (CEO of Blockstream), and u/theymos (owner of r\bitcoin) all said that bigger blocks would be fine. Now they prefer to risk splitting the community & the network, instead of upgrading to bigger blocks. What happened to them?
"Even a year ago I said I though we could probably survive 2MB" - nullc
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/43mond/even_a_year_ago_i_said_i_though_we_could_probably/ Core/Blockstream supporters like to tiptoe around the facts a lot - hoping we won't pay attention to the fact that they're getting paid by a company like AXA, or hoping we'll get confused if Greg says that AXA isn't a bank but rather an insurance firm. But the facts are the facts, whether AXA is an insurance giant or a bank:
AXA would be exposed as bankrupt in a world dominated by a "counterparty-free" asset class like Bitcoin.
AXA pays Greg's salary - and Greg is one of the major forces who has been actively attempting to block Bitcoin's on-chain scaling - and there's no way getting around the fact that artificially small blocksizes do lead to artificially low prices.
AXA kinda reminds me of AIG If anyone here was paying attention when the cracks first started showing in the world fiat finance system around 2008, you may recall the name of another mega-insurance company, that was also one of the most connected finance companies in the world: AIG.
Falling Giant: A Case Study Of AIG What was once the unthinkable occurred on September 16, 2008. On that date, the federal government gave the American International Group - better known as AIG (NYSE:AIG) - a bailout of $85 billion. In exchange, the U.S. government received nearly 80% of the firm's equity. For decades, AIG was the world's biggest insurer, a company known around the world for providing protection for individuals, companies and others. But in September, the company would have gone under if it were not for government assistance.
Bernanke did say he believed an AIG failure would be "catastrophic," and that the heavy use of derivatives made the AIG problem potentially more explosive. An AIG failure, thanks to the firm's size and its vast web of trading partners, "would have triggered an intensification of the general run on international banking institutions," Bernanke said.
http://fortune.com/2010/09/02/why-the-fed-saved-aig-and-not-lehman/ Just like AIG, AXA is a "systemically important" finance company - one of the biggest insurance companies in the world. And (like all major banks and insurance firms), AXA is drowning in worthless debt and bets (derivatives). Most of AXA's balance sheet would go up in a puff of smoke if they actually did "mark-to-market" (ie, if they actually factored in the probability of the counterparties of their debts and bets actually coming through and paying AXA the full amount it says on the pretty little spreadsheets on everyone's computer screens). In other words: Like most giant banks and insurers, AXA has mainly debt and bets. They rely on counterparties to pay them - maybe, someday, if the whole system doesn't go tits-up by then. In other words: Like most giant banks and insurers, AXA does not hold the "private keys" to their so-called wealth :-) So, like most giant multinational banks and insurers who spend all their time playing with debts and bets, AXA has been teetering on the edge of the abyss since 2008 - held together by chewing gum and paper clips and the miracle of Quantitative Easing - and also by all the clever accounting tricks that instantly become possible when money can go from being a gleam in a banker's eye to a pixel on a screen with just a few keystrokes - that wonderful world of "fantasy fiat" where central bankers ninja-mine billions of dollars in worthless paper and pixels into existence every month - and then for some reason every other month they have to hold a special "emergency central bankers meeting" to deal with the latest financial crisis du jour which "nobody could have seen coming". AIG back in 2008 - much like AXA today - was another "systemically important" worldwide mega-insurance giant - with most of its net worth merely a pure fantasy on a spreadsheet and in a four-color annual report - glossing over the ugly reality that it's all based on toxic debts and derivatives which will never ever be paid off. Mega-banks Mega-insurers like AXA are addicted to the never-ending "fantasy fiat" being injected into the casino of musical chairs involving bets upon bets upon bets upon bets upon bets - counterparty against counterparty against counterparty against counterparty - going 'round and 'round on the big beautiful carroussel where everyone is waiting on the next guy to pay up - and meanwhile everyone's cooking their books and sweeping their losses "under the rug", offshore or onto the taxpayers or into special-purpose vehicles - while the central banks keep printing up a trillion more here and a trillion more there in worthless debt-backed paper and pixels - while entire nations slowly sink into the toxic financial sludge of ever-increasing upayable debt and lower productivity and higher inflation, dragging down everyone's economies, enslaving everyone to increasing worktime and decreasing paychecks and unaffordable healthcare and education, corrupting our institutions and our leaders, distorting our investment and "capital allocation" decisions, inflating housing and healthcare and education beyond everyone's reach - and sending people off to die in endless wars to prop up the deadly failing Saudi-American oil-for-arms Petrodollar ninja-mined currency cartel. In 2008, when the multinational insurance company AIG (along with their fellow gambling buddies at the multinational investment banks Bear Stearns and Lehmans) almost went down the drain due to all their toxic gambling debts, they also almost took the rest of the world with them. And that's when the "core" dev team working for the miners central banks (the Fed, ECB, BoE, BoJ - who all report to the "central bank of central banks" BIS in Basel) - started cranking up their mining rigs printing presses and keyboards and pixels to the max, unilaterally manipulating the "issuance schedule" of their shitcoins and flooding the world with tens of trillions in their worthless phoney fiat to save their sorry asses after all their toxic debts and bad bets. AXA is at the very rotten "core" of this system - like AIG, a "systemically important" (ie, "too big to fail") mega-gigantic multinational insurance company - a fantasy fiat finance firm quietly sitting at the rotten core of our current corrupt financial system, basically impacting everything and everybody on this planet. The "masters of the universe" from AXA are the people who go to Davos every year wining and dining on lobster and champagne - part of that elite circle that prints up endless money which they hand out to their friends while they continue to enslave everyone else - and then of course they always turn around and tell us we can't have nice things like roads and schools and healthcare because "austerity". (But somehow we always can have plenty of wars and prisons and climate change and terrorism because for some weird reason our "leaders" seem to love creating disasters.) The smart people at AXA are probably all having nightmares - and the smart people at all the other companies in that circle of "too-big-to-fail" "fantasy fiat finance firms" are probably also having nightmares - about the following very possible scenario: If Bitcoin succeeds, debt-and-derivatives-dependent financial "giants" like AXA will probably be exposed as having been bankrupt this entire time. All their debts and bets will be exposed as not being worth the paper and pixels they were printed on - and at that point, in a cryptocurrency world, the only real money in the world will be "counterparty-free" assets ie cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin - where all you need to hold is your own private keys - and you're not dependent on the next deadbeat debt-ridden fiat slave down the line coughing up to pay you. Some of those people at AXA and the rest of that mafia are probably quietly buying - sad that they missed out when Bitcoin was only $10 or $100 - but happy they can still get it for $1000 while Blockstream continues to suppress the price - and who knows, what the hell, they might as well throw some of that juicy "banker's bonus" into Bitcoin now just in case it really does go to $1 million a coin someday - which it could easily do with just 32MB blocks, and no modifications to the code (ie, no SegWit, no BU, no nuthin', just a slowly growing blocksize supporting a price growing roughly proportional to the square of the blocksize - like Bitcoin always actually did before the economically illiterate devs at Blockstream imposed their centrally planned blocksize on our previously decentralized system). Meanwhile, other people at AXA and other major finance firms might be taking a different tack: happy to see all the disinfo and discord being sown among the Bitcoin community like they've been doing since they were founded in late 2014 - buying out all the devs, dumbing down the community to the point where now even the CTO of Blockstream Greg Mawxell gets the whitepaper totally backwards. Maybe Core/Blockstream's failure-to-scale is a feature not a bug - for companies like AXA. After all, AXA - like most of the major banks in the Europe and the US - are now basically totally dependent on debt and derivatives to pretend they're not already bankrupt. Maybe Blockstream's dead-end road-map (written up by none other than Greg Maxwell), which has been slowly strangling Bitcoin for over two years now - and which could ultimately destroy Bitcoin via the poison pill of Core/Blockstream's SegWit trojan horse - maybe all this never-ending history of obstrution and foot-dragging and lying and failure from Blockstream is actually a feature and not a bug, as far as AXA and their banking buddies are concerned.
The insurance company with the biggest exposure to the 1.2 quadrillion dollar (ie, 1200 TRILLION dollar) derivatives casino is AXA. Yeah, that AXA, the company whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group, and whose "venture capital" arm bought out Bitcoin development by "investing" in Blockstream.
If Bitcoin becomes a major currency, then tens of trillions of dollars on the "legacy ledger of fantasy fiat" will evaporate, destroying AXA, whose CEO is head of the Bilderbergers. This is the real reason why AXA bought Blockstream: to artificially suppress Bitcoin volume and price with 1MB blocks.
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/4r2pw5/if_bitcoin_becomes_a_major_currency_then_tens_of/ AXA has even invented some kind of "climate catastrophe" derivative - a bet where if the global warming destroys an entire region of the world, the "winner" gets paid. Of course, derivatives would be something attractive to an insurance company - since basically most of their business is about making and taking bets. So who knows - maybe AXA is "betting against" Bitcoin - and their little investment in the loser devs at Core/Blockstream is part of their strategy for "winning" that bet.
This trader's price & volume graph / model predicted that we should be over $10,000 USD/BTC by now. The model broke in late 2014 - when AXA-funded Blockstream was founded, and started spreading propaganda and crippleware, centrally imposing artificially tiny blocksize to suppress the volume & price.
"I'm angry about AXA scraping some counterfeit money out of their fraudulent empire to pay autistic lunatics millions of dollars to stall the biggest sociotechnological phenomenon since the internet and then blame me and people like me for being upset about it." ~ u/dresden_k
Bitcoin can go to 10,000 USD with 4 MB blocks, so it will go to 10,000 USD with 4 MB blocks. All the censorship & shilling on r\bitcoin & fantasy fiat from AXA can't stop that. BitcoinCORE might STALL at 1,000 USD and 1 MB blocks, but BITCOIN will SCALE to 10,000 USD and 4 MB blocks - and beyond
AXA/Blockstream are suppressing Bitcoin price at 1000 bits = 1 USD. If 1 bit = 1 USD, then Bitcoin's market cap would be 15 trillion USD - close to the 82 trillion USD of "money" in the world. With Bitcoin Unlimited, we can get to 1 bit = 1 USD on-chain with 32MB blocksize ("Million-Dollar Bitcoin")
https://www.reddit.com/btc/comments/5u72va/axablockstream_are_suppressing_bitcoin_price_at/ Anyways, people are noticing that it's a little... odd... the way Greg Maxwell seems to go to such lengths, in order to cover up the fact that bigger blocks have always correlated to higher price. He seems to get very... uncomfortable... when people start pointing out that: It sure looks like AXA is paying Greg Maxwell to suppress the Bitcoin price.
Greg Maxwell has now publicly confessed that he is engaging in deliberate market manipulation to artificially suppress Bitcoin adoption and price. He could be doing this so that he and his associates can continue to accumulate while the price is still low (1 BTC = $570, ie 1 USD can buy 1750 "bits")
Why did Blockstream CTO u/nullc Greg Maxwell risk being exposed as a fraud, by lying about basic math? He tried to convince people that Bitcoin does not obey Metcalfe's Law (claiming that Bitcoin price & volume are not correlated, when they obviously are). Why is this lie so precious to him?
https://www.reddit.com/btc/comments/57dsgz/why_did_blockstream_cto_unullc_greg_maxwell_risk/ I don't know how a so-called Bitcoin dev can sleep at night knowing he's getting paid by fucking AXA - a company that would probably go bankrupt if Bitcoin becomes a major world currency. Greg must have to go through some pretty complicated mental gymastics to justify in his mind what everyone else can see: he is a fucking sellout to one of the biggest fiat finance firms in the world - he's getting paid by (and defending) a company which would probably go bankrupt if Bitcoin ever achieved multi-trillion dollar market cap. Greg is literally getting paid by the second-most-connected "systemically important" (ie, "too big to fail") finance firm in the world - which will probably go bankrupt if Bitcoin were ever to assume its rightful place as a major currency with total market cap measured in the tens of trillions of dollars, destroying most of the toxic sludge of debt and derivatives keeping a bank financial giant like AXA afloat. And it may at first sound batshit crazy (until You Do The Math), but Bitcoin actually really could go to one-million-dollars-a-coin in the next 8 years or so - without SegWit or BU or anything else - simply by continuing with Satoshi's original 32MB built-in blocksize limit and continuing to let miners keep blocks as small as possible to satisfy demand while avoiding orphans - a power which they've had this whole friggin' time and which they've been managing very well thank you.
Bitcoin Original: Reinstate Satoshi's original 32MB max blocksize. If actual blocks grow 54% per year (and price grows 1.542 = 2.37x per year - Metcalfe's Law), then in 8 years we'd have 32MB blocks, 100 txns/sec, 1 BTC = 1 million USD - 100% on-chain P2P cash, without SegWit/Lightning or Unlimited
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/5uljaf/bitcoin_original_reinstate_satoshis_original_32mb/ Meanwhile Greg continues to work for Blockstream which is getting tens of millions of dollars from a company which would go bankrupt if Bitcoin were to actually scale on-chain to 32MB blocks and 1 million dollars per coin without all of Greg's meddling. So Greg continues to get paid by AXA, spreading his ignorance about economics and his lies about Bitcoin on these forums. In the end, who knows what Greg's motivations are, or AXA's motivations are. But one thing we do know is this: Satoshi didn't put Greg Maxwell or AXA in charge of deciding the blocksize. The tricky part to understand about "one CPU, one vote" is that it does not mean there is some "pre-existing set of rules" which the miners somehow "enforce" (despite all the times when you hear some Core idiot using words like "consensus layer" or "enforcing the rules"). The tricky part about really understanding Bitcoin is this: Hashpower doesn't just enforce the rules - hashpower makes the rules. And if you think about it, this makes sense. It's the only way Bitcoin actually could be decentralized. It's kinda subtle - and it might be hard for someone to understand if they've been a slave to centralized authorities their whole life - but when we say that Bitcoin is "decentralized" then what it means is: We all make the rules. Because if hashpower doesn't make the rules - then you'd be right back where you started from, with some idiot like Greg Maxwell "making the rules" - or some corrupt too-big-to-fail bank debt-and-derivative-backed "fantasy fiat financial firm" like AXA making the rules - by buying out a dev team and telling us that that dev team "makes the rules". But fortunately, Greg's opinions and ignorance and lies don't matter anymore. Miners are waking up to the fact that they've always controlled the blocksize - and they always will control the blocksize - and there isn't a single goddamn thing Greg Maxwell or Blockstream or AXA can do to stop them from changing it - whether the miners end up using BU or Classic or BitcoinEC or they patch the code themselves.
The debate is not "SHOULD THE BLOCKSIZE BE 1MB VERSUS 1.7MB?". The debate is: "WHO SHOULD DECIDE THE BLOCKSIZE?" (1) Should an obsolete temporary anti-spam hack freeze blocks at 1MB? (2) Should a centralized dev team soft-fork the blocksize to 1.7MB? (3) OR SHOULD THE MARKET DECIDE THE BLOCKSIZE?
Core/Blockstream are now in the Kübler-Ross "Bargaining" phase - talking about "compromise". Sorry, but markets don't do "compromise". Markets do COMPETITION. Markets do winner-takes-all. The whitepaper doesn't talk about "compromise" - it says that 51% of the hashpower determines WHAT IS BITCOIN.
Clearing up Some Widespread Confusions about BU Core deliberately provides software with a blocksize policy pre-baked in. The ONLY thing BU-style software changes is that baking in. It refuses to bundle controversial blocksize policy in with the rest of the code it is offering. It unties the blocksize settings from the dev teams, so that you don't have to shop for both as a packaged unit. The idea is that you can now have Core software security without having to submit to Core blocksize policy. Running Core is like buying a Sony TV that only lets you watch Fox, because the other channels are locked away and you have to know how to solder a circuit board to see them. To change the channel, you as a layman would have to switch to a different TV made by some other manufacturer, who you may not think makes as reliable of TVs. This is because Sony believes people should only ever watch Fox "because there are dangerous channels out there" or "because since everyone needs to watch the same channel, it is our job to decide what that channel is." So the community is stuck with either watching Fox on their nice, reliable Sony TVs, or switching to all watching ABC on some more questionable TVs made by some new maker (like, in 2015 the XT team was the new maker and BIP101 was ABC). BU (and now Classic and BitcoinEC) shatters that whole bizarre paradigm. BU is a TV that lets you tune to any channel you want, at your own risk. The community is free to converge on any channel it wants to, and since everyone in this analogy wants to watch the same channel they will coordinate to find one.
Adjustable blocksize cap (ABC) is dangerous? The blocksize cap has always been user-adjustable. Core just has a really shitty inferface for it. What does it tell you that Core and its supporters are up in arms about a change that merely makes something more convenient for users and couldn't be prevented from happening anyway? Attacking the adjustable blocksize feature in BU and Classic as "dangerous" is a kind of trap, as it is an implicit admission that Bitcoin was being protected only by a small barrier of inconvenience, and a completely temporary one at that. If this was such a "danger" or such a vector for an "attack," how come we never heard about it before? Even if we accept the improbable premise that inconvenience is the great bastion holding Bitcoin together and the paternalistic premise that stakeholders need to be fed consensus using a spoon of inconvenience, we still must ask, who shall do the spoonfeeding? Core accepts these two amazing premises and further declares that Core alone shall be allowed to do the spoonfeeding. Or rather, if you really want to you can be spoonfed by other implementation clients like libbitcoin and btcd as long as they are all feeding you the same stances on controversial consensus settings as Core does. It is high time the community see central planning and abuse of power for what it is, and reject both:
Throw off central planning by removing petty "inconvenience walls" (such as baked-in, dev-recommended blocksize caps) that interfere with stakeholders coordinating choices amongst themselves on controversial matters ...
Make such abuse of power impossible by encouraging many competing implementations to grow and blossom
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/617gf9/adjustable_blocksize_cap_abc_is_dangerous_the/ So it's time for Blockstream CTO Greg Maxwell u/nullc to get over his delusions of grandeur - and to admit he's just another dev, with just another opinion. He also needs to look in the mirror and search his soul and confront the sad reality that he's basically turned into a sellout working for a shitty startup getting paid by the 5th (or 4th or 2nd) "most connected", "systemically important", "too-big-to-fail", debt-and-derivative-dependent multinational bank mega-insurance giant in the world AXA - a major fiat firm firm which is terrified of going bankrupt just like that other mega-insurnace firm AIG already almost did before the Fed rescued them in 2008 - a fiat finance firm which is probably very conflicted about Bitcoin, at the very least. Blockstream CTO Greg Maxwell is getting paid by the most systemically important bank mega-insurance giant in the world, sitting at the rotten "core" of the our civilization's corrupt, dying fiat cartel. Blockstream CTO Greg Maxwell is getting paid by a mega-bank mega-insurance company that will probably go bankrupt if and when Bitcoin ever gets a multi-trillion dollar market cap, which it can easily do with just 32MB blocks and no code changes at all from clueless meddling devs like him.
AXA/Blockstream are suppressing Bitcoin price at 1000 bits = 1 USD. If 1 bit = 1 USD, then Bitcoin's market cap would be 15 trillion USD - close to the 82 trillion USD of "money" in the world. With Bitcoin Unlimited, we can get to 1 bit = 1 USD on-chain with 32MB blocksize ("Million-Dollar Bitcoin")
TL;DR:
Blockstream (fiat-financed by companies like AXA - which happens to be the 2nd-most connected financial firm in the world) is suppressing Bitcoin price - currently at 1000 "bits" = 1 USD (where 1 "bit" is one-millionth of a bitcoin) - ie 1 BTC = 1000 USD.
They're doing this by suppressing Bitcoin volume - by suppressing Bitcoin blocksize - in order to prevent debt- & war- & oil-backed fiat currencies (USD, etc.) from collapsing relative to Bitcoin.
AXA/Blockstream's suppression of the Bitcoin price is easy to see in Bitcoin price/volume graphs: Bitcoin price and volume were tightly correlated (almost in lockstep) until late 2014 - which is when Blockstream came on the scene. From then on, the price has been suppressed - due to AXA/Blockstream spreading their lies and propaganda that "Bitcoin can't scale on-chain".
The way to stop AXA/Blockstream's Bitcoin price suppression and let the Bitcoin price continue to rise again... is to let Bitcoin volume continue to rise again - by letting Bitcoin blocksize continue to rise again - by using the market-based blocksize supported by Bitcoin Unlimited.
We actually can reach 1 bit = 1 USD or 1 BTC = 1'000'000 USD ("Million-Dollar Bitcoin") on-chain. All it would require is (a) the price doubling 10 times (210 = 1024), and (b) the blocksize increasing by the square root of this (in accordance with Metcalfe's Law) - ie the blocksize would have to double only five times (25 = 32).
25 = 32 MB blocksize (which Satoshi actually did hard-code) would support 210 = 1000x higher price on-chain ("Million-Dollar Bitcoin") - without requiring off-chain pseudo-Bitcoin Lightning Network Central Banking Hubs!
~ YouDoTheMath u/ydtm Details: (1) Who is AXA? Why and how would they want to suppress the Bitcoin price?
Blockstream is now controlled by the Bilderberg Group - seriously! AXA Strategic Ventures, co-lead investor for Blockstream's $55 million financing round, is the investment arm of French insurance giant AXA Group - whose CEO Henri de Castries has been chairman of the Bilderberg Group since 2012.
If Bitcoin becomes a major currency, then tens of trillions of dollars on the "legacy ledger of fantasy fiat" will evaporate, destroying AXA, whose CEO is head of the Bilderbergers. This is the real reason why AXA bought Blockstream: to artificially suppress Bitcoin volume and price with 1MB blocks.
The insurance company with the biggest exposure to the 1.2 quadrillion dollar (ie, 1200 TRILLION dollar) derivatives casino is AXA. Yeah, that AXA, the company whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group, and whose "venture capital" arm bought out Bitcoin development by "investing" in Blockstream.
Greg Maxwell used to have intelligent, nuanced opinions about "max blocksize", until he started getting paid by AXA, whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group - the legacy financial elite which Bitcoin aims to disintermediate. Greg always refuses to address this massive conflict of interest. Why?
Who owns the world? (1) Barclays, (2) AXA, (3) State Street Bank. (Infographic in German - but you can understand it without knowing much German: "Wem gehört die Welt?" = "Who owns the world?") AXA is the #2 company with the most economic poweconnections in the world. And AXA owns Blockstream.
This trader's price & volume graph / model predicted that we should be over $10,000 USD/BTC by now. The model broke in late 2014 - when AXA-funded Blockstream was founded, and started spreading propaganda and crippleware, centrally imposing artificially tiny blocksize to suppress the volume & price.
This graph shows Bitcoin price and volume (ie, blocksize of transactions on the blockchain) rising hand-in-hand in 2011-2014. In 2015, Core/Blockstream tried to artificially freeze the blocksize - and artificially froze the price. Bitcoin Classic will allow volume - and price - to freely rise again.
Also see a similar graph in u/Peter__R's recent article on Medium - where the graph clearly shows the same Bitcoin price suppression - ie price uncoupling from adoption and dipping below the previous tightly correlated trend - starting right at that fateful moment when Blockstream came on the scene and told Bitcoiners that we can't have nice things anymore like on-chain scaling and increasing adoption and price: late 2014.
Graph - Visualizing Metcalfe's Law: The relationship between Bitcoin's market cap and the square of the number of transactions
Bitcoin has its own E = mc2 law: Market capitalization is proportional to the square of the number of transactions. But, since the number of transactions is proportional to the (actual) blocksize, then Blockstream's artificial blocksize limit is creating an artificial market capitalization limit!
1 BTC = 64 000 USD would be > $1 trillion market cap - versus $7 trillion market cap for gold, and $82 trillion of "money" in the world. Could "pure" Bitcoin get there without SegWit, Lightning, or Bitcoin Unlimited? Metcalfe's Law suggests that 8MB blocks could support a price of 1 BTC = 64 000 USD
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/5lzez2/1_btc_64_000_usd_would_be_1_trillion_market_cap/ (3) "But no - they'd never do that!" Actually - yes, they would. And "they" already are. For years, governments and central bankers have been spending trillions in fiat on wars - and eg suppressing precious metals prices by flooding the market with "fake (paper) gold" and "fake (paper) silver" - to prevent the debt- & war-backed PetroDollar from collapsing.
The owners of Blockstream are spending $76 million to do a "controlled demolition" of Bitcoin by manipulating the Core devs & the Chinese miners. This is cheap compared to the $ trillions spent on the wars on Iraq & Libya - who also defied the Fed / PetroDollar / BIS private central banking cartel.
JPMorgan suppresses gold & silver prices to prop up the USDollar - via "naked short selling" of GLD & SLV ETFs. Now AXA (which owns $94 million of JPMorgan stock) may be trying to suppress Bitcoin price - via tiny blocks. But AXA will fail - because the market will always "maximize coinholder value"
Why did Blockstream CTO u/nullc Greg Maxwell risk being exposed as a fraud, by lying about basic math? He tried to convince people that Bitcoin does not obey Metcalfe's Law (claiming that Bitcoin price & volume are not correlated, when they obviously are). Why is this lie so precious to him?
If you had $75 million invested in Blockstream, and you saw that stubbornly freezing the blocksize at 1 MB for the next year was clogging up the network and could kill the currency before LN even had a chance to roll out, wouldn't you support an immediate increase to 2 MB to protect your investment?
[Tinfoil] What do these seven countries have in common? (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran) In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
"Notice how anyone who has even remotely supported on-chain scaling has been censored, hounded, DDoS'd, attacked, slandered & removed from any area of Core influence. Community, business, Hearn, Gavin, Jeff, XT, Classic, Coinbase, Unlimited, ViaBTC, Ver, Jihan, Bitcoin.com, btc" ~ u/randy-lawnmole
"I was initially in the small block camp. My worry was decentralization & node count going down as a result. But when Core refused to increase the limit to 4MB, which at the time no Core developer thought would have a negative effect, except Luke-Jr, I began to see ulterior motives." u/majorpaynei86
Satoshi Nakamoto, October 04, 2010, 07:48:40 PM "It can be phased in, like: if (blocknumber > 115000) maxblocksize = largerlimit / It can start being in versions way ahead, so by the time it reaches that block number and goes into effect, the older versions that don't have it are already obsolete."
The debate is not "SHOULD THE BLOCKSIZE BE 1MB VERSUS 1.7MB?". The debate is: "WHO SHOULD DECIDE THE BLOCKSIZE?" (1) Should an obsolete temporary anti-spam hack freeze blocks at 1MB? (2) Should a centralized dev team soft-fork the blocksize to 1.7MB? (3) OR SHOULD THE MARKET DECIDE THE BLOCKSIZE?
"Bitcoin Unlimited ... makes it more convenient for miners and nodes to adjust the blocksize cap settings through a GUI menu, so users don't have to mod the Core code themselves (like some do now). There would be no reliance on Core (or XT) to determine 'from on high' what the options are." - ZB
Bitcoin Unlimited is the real Bitcoin, in line with Satoshi's vision. Meanwhile, BlockstreamCoin+RBF+SegWitAsASoftFork+LightningCentralizedHub-OfflineIOUCoin is some kind of weird unrecognizable double-spendable non-consensus-driven fiat-financed offline centralized settlement-only non-P2P "altcoin"
The Nine Miners of China: "Core is a red herring. Miners have alternative code they can run today that will solve the problem. Choosing not to run it is their fault, and could leave them with warehouses full of expensive heating units and income paid in worthless coins." – tsontar
ViABTC: "Why I support BU: We should give the question of block size to the free market to decide. It will naturally adjust to ever-improving network & technological constraints. Bitcoin Unlimited guarantees that block size will follow what the Bitcoin network is capable of handling safely."
Fun facts about ViaBTC: Founded by expert in distributed, highly concurrent networking from "China's Google". Inspired by Viaweb (first online store, from LISP guru / YCombinator founder Paul Graham). Uses a customized Bitcoin client on high-speed network of clusters in US, Japan, Europe, Hong Kong.
Bitcoin's specification (eg: Excess Blocksize (EB) & Acceptance Depth (AD), configurable via Bitcoin Unlimited) can, should & always WILL be decided by ALL the miners & users - not by a single FIAT-FUNDED, CENSORSHIP-SUPPORTED dev team (Core/Blockstream) & miner (BitFury) pushing SegWit 1.7MB blocks
The number of blocks being mined by Bitcoin Unlimited is now getting very close to surpassing the number of blocks being mined by SegWit! More and more people are supporting BU's MARKET-BASED BLOCKSIZE - because BU avoids needless transaction delays and ultimately increases Bitcoin adoption & price!
I think the Berlin Wall Principle will end up applying to Blockstream as well: (1) The Berlin Wall took longer than everyone expected to come tumbling down. (2) When it did finally come tumbling down, it happened faster than anyone expected (ie, in a matter of days) - and everyone was shocked.
Greg Maxwell used to have intelligent, nuanced opinions about "max blocksize", until he started getting paid by AXA, whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group - the legacy financial elite which Bitcoin aims to disintermediate. Greg always refuses to address this massive conflict of interest. Why?
Two other important threads discussing this strange and disturbing phenomenon:
So nice of nullc to engage /BTC lately - until, that is, someone mentions Blockstream's funders, that is. Suddenly, the topic is dropped like a white hot rock.
Some people will be dogmatically promoting a 1MB limit that 1MB is a magic number rather than today's conservative trade-off. 200,000 - 500,000 transactions per day is a good start, indeed, but I'd certainly like to see Bitcoin doing more in the future - Gregory Maxwell
The important point of this is recognizing there is a set of engineering tradeoffs here [when talking about "max blocksize"]. Too big and everyone can transact but the transactions are worthless because no one can validate - basically that gives us what we have with the dollar. Too small and everyone can validate but the validation is worthless because no one can transact - this is what you have when you try to use real physical gold online or similar. The definition of too big / too small is a subtle trade-off that depends on a lot of things like the current capability of technology. ... Anonymization technology [Tor?] lags the already slow bandwidth scaling we see in the broader thinking, and the ability to potentially anonymize all Bitcoin activity is protective against certain failure scenarios. My general preference is to err[or] towards being more decentralized. There are three reasons for this: (1) We can build a multitude of systems of different kinds - decentralized and centralized ones - on top of a strongly decent[e]ralized system, but we can't really build something more decentralized on top of something which is less decentralized. The core of Bitcoin sets the maximum amount of decentralization possible in our ecosystem. (2) Decentralization is what makes what we're doing unique and valuable compared to the alternatives. If decentralization is not very important to you... you'd likely already be much happier with the USD and PayPal. (3) Regardless of the block size we need to have robust alternatives for transacting in BTC in order to improve privacy, instant confirmation, lower costs for low value transactions, permit very tiny femtopayments, and to (optionally!) better support reversible transactions ... and once we do the global blockchain throughput rate is less of an issue: Instead of a limit of how many transactions can be done it becomes a factor that controls how costly the alternatives are allowed to be at worst, and a factor in how often people need to depend on external (usually less secure) systems ... and also because I think it's easier to fix if you've gone too small and need to increase it, vs gone too large and shut out the general public from the validation process and handed it over to large entities. All that said, I do [...] worry a bit that in a couple years it will be clear that 2mb or 10mb or whatever is totally safe relative to all concerns - perhaps even mobile devices with Tor could be full nodes with 10mb blocks on the internet of 2023, and by then there may be plenty of transaction volume to keep fees high enough to support security - and maybe some people will be dogmatically promoting a 1MB limit [...] thinking that 1MB is a magic number rather than today's conservative trade-off.
Then, Blockstream was created in late 2014: Insurance giant AXA (with strong links to the Bilderberg Group representing the world's financial elite) became one of the main investors behind Blockstream:
Blockstream is now controlled by the Bilderberg Group - seriously! AXA Strategic Ventures, co-lead investor for Blockstream's $55 million financing round, is the investment arm of French insurance giant AXA Group - whose CEO Henri de Castries has been chairman of the Bilderberg Group since 2012.
The insurance company with the biggest exposure to the 1.2 quadrillion dollar (ie, 1200 TRILLION dollar) derivatives casino is AXA. Yeah, that AXA, the company whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group, and whose "venture capital" arm bought out Bitcoin development by "investing" in Blockstream.
People are starting to realize how toxic Gregory Maxwell is to Bitcoin, saying there are plenty of other coders who could do crypto and networking, and "he drives away more talent than he can attract." Plus, he has a 10-year record of damaging open-source projects, going back to Wikipedia in 2006.
he quietly disappears and avoids directly discussing how being paid by the head of the Bilderberg Group might lead to a disastrous conflict of interest.
I think it's pretty disingenuous of you to "pretend" you don't know exactly what I'm talking about. The chairman of Blockstream's biggest investor is also the chairman of the Bilderberg group, itself one of the biggest and most legitimate representatives of the very groups you are currently pretending Bitcoin is here to disintermediate. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by pretending to explain who these groups are and why they would prefer to see Bitcoin evolve into a settlement layer instead of Satoshi's "P2P cash" system, but, at the very least, I would appreciate it and it would benefit the community as a whole if at least you would stop pretending not to understand the implications of what is being discussed here. I'm sorry, but it absolutely galls me to watch someone steal this open source project and deliver it - bound and gagged, quite literally - at the feet of the very same rulers who will seek to integrate and extend the power of Bitcoin into their System, a system which, today, it cannot be argued, is the chief source of all the poverty, misery and inequality we see around us today. I'm sorry, but it's beyond the pale. It is clear to anyone with any business experience whatsoever that Bitcoin Core is controlled by different individuals than those who are presented to the public. [Austin] Hill, for instance, is a buffoon, and no legitimate tech CEO would take this person seriously or, for that matter, believe for one moment that they are dealing with a legitimate decision-maker. Furthermore, are you going to continue pretending that you have no opinion on the nature or agenda of AXA Strategic Partners Ventures, Blockstream's largest investors? Please. With all due respect, you CANNOT seriously expect anyone over the age of 30 to believe you.
A day later, Greg did finally re-appear with a non-specific and unconvincing response - of course, carefully avoiding using words such as "AXA" or "Bilderberg Group" (the owners of Blockstream, who pay his salary):
Huh? I've never heard from any of Blockstream's investors any comment or agenda or ... well, anything about the Bitcoin system. [...] The contrived conspiracy theory just falls flat on its face.
Well, I guess that settles that, right? Nothing to see here, just move along, everybody. Seriously, there are a couple of major problems with Greg's anemic denial here:
We have no actual proof whether Gregory Maxwell is telling the truth or lying about this possible massive conflict of interest involving his paymasters from the AXA and the Bilderberg Group;
Even if he is narrowly telling the truth when he states that "I've never heard from any of Blockstream's investors any comment or agenda or ... well, anything about the bitcoin system" - this is not enough: because the people involved with the AXA and the Bilderberg Group would certainly be smart enough to avoid saying anything directly to Greg - in order to avoid having their "fingerprints" all over the strangling of Bitcoin's on-chain throughput capacity;
It is quite possible that the financial elite behind the Bilderberg Group decided to fund a guy like Greg simply because they realized that they could use him as a "useful idiot" - a mouthpiece who happens to advance their agenda of continuing to control the world's legacy financial systems, by strangling Bitcoin's on-chain throughput capacity.
Greg is certainly smart enough to understand the implications of the leader of the Bilderberg Group being one of the main owners of his company - and it is simply evasive and unprofessional of him to continually avoid addressing this potential massive conflict of interest head-on.
This could actually be the biggest conflict of interest in the financial world today: The head of the Bilderberg Group pays the salary of Blockstream CTO Greg Maxwell, who has become the centralized leader of Bitcoin development, and the single person most to blame for strangling the Bitcoin network at artificially tiny 1 MB blocks - a size which he himself years ago admitted would be too small. There is probably ultimately really nothing that Gregory Maxwell can merely say to convince people that he is not somehow being used by the financial elite behind the Bilderberg Group - especially now when Bitcoin is unnecessarily hitting an artificial 1 MB "blocksize limit" which, more than anyone else, Greg Maxwell is directly to blame for. Summarizing, the simple facts are:
Greg Maxwell previously supported 2 MB or even 10 MB blocks - but now that he's getting paid by the people behind the Bilderberg Group, he mysteriously has turned into the main person to blame for preventing Bitcoin from having bigger blocks;
This is probably one of the biggest "conflicts of interest" in the financial world today - and more than enough to disqualify Greg Maxwell from any legitimacy in discussing any "max blocksize" for Bitcoin;
This is also probably the best explanation for the mysterious radical change in Greg's "beliefs" in this debate - from intelligent and nuanced, to simplistic and dogmatic and downright toxic and rude:
The day when the Bitcoin community realizes that Greg Maxwell and Core/Blockstream are the main thing holding us back (due to their dictatorship and censorship - and also due to being trapped in the procedural paradigm) - that will be the day when Bitcoin will start growing and prospering again.
NullC explains Cores position; bigger blocks creates a Bitcoin which cannot survive in the long run and Core doesn't write software to bring it about.
Core isn't interested in that kind of Bitcoin-- one with unbounded resource usage which will likely need to become and remaining highly centralized
My response to Greg: Stop creating lies like this ridiculous straw man which you just trotted out here. Nobody is asking for "unbounded" resource usage and you know it. People are asking for small blocksize increases (2 MB, 4 MB, maybe 8 MB) - which are well within the physical resources available. Everybody agrees that resource usage will be bounded - by the limits of the hardware / infrastructure - not by the paranoid, unrealistic fantasies of you Core / Blockstream devs (who seem to have become convinced that an artificial 1 MB "max blocksize" limit - originally intended to be a temporary anti-spam kludge, and intended to be removed - somehow magically coincides with the maximum physical resources available from the hardware / infrastructure). If you were a scientist, then you would recall that a blocksize of around 4 MB - 8 MB would be supported by the physical network (the hardware and infrastructure) - now. And you would also recall the empirical work by JToomim measuring physical blocksize limits in the field. And you would also understand that these numbers will continue to grow in the future as ISPs continue to deploy more bandwidth to users.
Cornell Study Recommends 4MB Blocksize for Bitcoin
Actual Data from a serious test with blocks from 0MB - 10MB
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/3yqcj2/actual_data_from_a_serious_test_with_blocks_from/ If you were an economist, then you would be interested to allow Bitcoin's volume to grow naturally, especially in view of the fact that, with the world's first digital token, we may be discovering some new laws tending to suggest that the price is proportional to the square of the volume (where blocksize is a proxy for volume):
Adam Back & Greg Maxwell are experts in mathematics and engineering, but not in markets and economics. They should not be in charge of "central planning" for things like "max blocksize". They're desperately attempting to prevent the market from deciding on this. But it will, despite their efforts.
A scientist or economist who sees Satoshi's experiment running for these 7 years, with price and volume gradually increasing in remarkably tight correlation, would say: "This looks interesting and successful. Let's keep it running longer, unchanged, as-is."
Bitcoin has its own E = mc2 law: Market capitalization is proportional to the square of the number of transactions. But, since the number of transactions is proportional to the (actual) blocksize, then Blockstream's artificial blocksize limit is creating an artificial market capitalization limit!
Bitcoin's market price is trying to rally, but it is currently constrained by Core/Blockstream's artificial blocksize limit. Chinese miners can only win big by following the market - not by following Core/Blockstream. The market will always win - either with or without the Chinese miners.
If Bitcoin usage and blocksize increase, then mining would simply migrate from 4 conglomerates in China (and Luke-Jr's slow internet =) to the top cities worldwide with Gigabit broadban[d] - and price and volume would go way up. So how would this be "bad" for Bitcoin as a whole??
It may well be that small blocks are what is centralizing mining in China. Bigger blocks would have a strongly decentralizing effect by taming the relative influence China's power-cost edge has over other countries' connectivity edge. – ForkiusMaximus
The "official maintainer" of Bitcoin Core, Wladimir van der Laan, does not lead, does not understand economics or scaling, and seems afraid to upgrade. He thinks it's "difficult" and "hazardous" to hard-fork to increase the blocksize - because in 2008, some banks made a bunch of bad loans (??!?)
People are starting to realize how toxic Gregory Maxwell is to Bitcoin, saying there are plenty of other coders who could do crypto and networking, and "he drives away more talent than he can attract." Plus, he has a 10-year record of damaging open-source projects, going back to Wikipedia in 2006.
The most upvoted thread right now on r\bitcoin (part 4 of 5 on Xthin), is default-sorted to show the most downvoted comments first. This shows that r\bitcoin is anti-democratic, anti-Reddit - and anti-Bitcoin.
Greg Maxwell used to have intelligent, nuanced opinions about "max blocksize", until he started getting paid by AXA, whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group - the legacy financial elite which Bitcoin aims to disintermediate. Greg always refuses to address this massive conflict of interest. Why?
Blockstream is now controlled by the Bilderberg Group - seriously! AXA Strategic Ventures, co-lead investor for Blockstream's $55 million financing round, is the investment arm of French insurance giant AXA Group - whose CEO Henri de Castries has been chairman of the Bilderberg Group since 2012.
The insurance company with the biggest exposure to the 1.2 quadrillion dollar (ie, 1200 TRILLION dollar) derivatives casino is AXA. Yeah, that AXA, the company whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group, and whose "venture capital" arm bought out Bitcoin development by "investing" in Blockstream.
"Even a year ago I said I though we could probably survive 2MB" - nullc ... So why the fuck has Core/Blockstream done everything they can to obstruct this simple, safe scaling solution? And where is SegWit? When are we going to judge Core/Blockstream by their (in)actions - and not by their words?
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/4jzf05/even_a_year_ago_i_said_i_though_we_could_probably/ My message to Greg Maxwell: You are a petty dictator with no vision, who knows some crypto and networking and C/C++ coding (ie, you are in the procedural paradigm, not the functional paradigm), backed up by a censor and funded by legacy banksters. The real talent in mathematics and programming - humble and brilliant instead of pompous and bombastic like you - has already abandoned Bitcoin and is working on other cryptocurrencies - and it's all your fault. If you simply left Bitcoin (which you have occasionally threatened to do), the project would flourish without you. I would recommend that you continue to stay - but merely as one of many coders, not as a "leader". If you really believe that your ideas are so good, let the market decide fairly - without you being propped up by AXA and Theymos. The future The future of cryptocurrencies will not be brought to us by procedural C/C++ programmers getting paid by AXA working in a centralized dictatorship strangled by censorship from Theymos. The future of cryptocurrencies will come from functional programmers working in an open community - a kind of politics and mathematics which is totally foreign to a loser like you. Examples of what the real devs are talking about now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzahKc_ukfM&feature=youtu.be https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571066105051893 The above links are just a single example of a dev who knows stuff that Greg Maxwell has probably never even begun to study. There are many more examples like that which could be found. Basically this has to do with the divide between "procedural" programmers like Greg Maxwell, versus "functional" programmers like the guy in the above 2 links. Everybody knows that functional languages are more suitable than procedural languages for massively parallel distributed environments, so maybe it's time for us to start looking at ideas from functional programmers. Probably a lot of scaling problems would simply vanish if we used a functional approach. Meanwhile, being dictated to by procedural programmers, all we get is doom and gloom. So in the end, in addition to not being a scientist, not being an economist, not being honest, not being a leader - Greg Maxwell actually isn't even that much of a mathematician or programmer. What Bitcoin needs right now is not more tweaking around the edges - and certainly not a softfork which will bring us more spaghetti-code. It needs simple on-chain scaling now - and in the future, it needs visionary programmers - probably functional programmers - who use languages more suitable for massively distributed environments. Guys like Greg Maxwell and Core/Blockstream keep telling us that "Bitcoin can't scale". What they really mean is that "Bitcoin can't scale under its current leadership." But Bitcoin was never meant to be a dictatorship. It was meant to be a democracy. If we had better devs - eg, devs who are open to ideas from the functional programming paradigm, instead of just these procedural C/C++ pinheads - then we probably would see much more sophisticated approaches to scaling. We are in a dead-end because we are following Greg Maxwell and Core/Blockstream - who are not the most talented programmers around. The most talented programmers are functional programmers - and Core/Blockstream are a closed group, they don't even welcome innovations like Xthin, so they probably would welcome functional programmers even less. The day when the Bitcoin community realizes that Greg Maxwell & Core/Blockstream is the main thing holding us back - that will be the day when Bitcoin will start growing and prospering to its fullest again.
The insurance company with the biggest exposure to the 1.2 quadrillion dollar (ie, 1200 TRILLION dollar) derivatives casino is AXA. Yeah, *that* AXA, the company whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group, and whose "venture capital" arm bought out Bitcoin development by "investing" in Blockstream.
and whose "venture capital" arm AXA Strategic Investments "just happened" to participate in the latest ($55 million) investment round in Blockstream in February 2016:
https://www.axa.com/en/newsroom/news/axa-strategic-ventures-blockchain https://duckduckgo.com/?q=axa+strategic+investments+bitcoin&ia=web Every time I mention how AXA is in charge of Blockstream's payroll, a few "random" people come out of the woodwork on these threads trying to dismissively claim (while presenting absolutely no arguments or evidence) that it is a mere irrelevant "coincidence" that AXA's venture capital subsidiary is funding Core/Blockstream. But there are very few coincidences in the world of high finance. And meanwhile, here are a few things we do know:
Henri de Castries is not only the the CEO of insurance giant AXA (he's actually stepping down later this year) - he's also the chairman of the Bilderberg Group - the secretive group which includes most of the major players in the current global debt-backed financial system:
As of 2013, AXA already had $464 billion in derivatives exposure - over 50% of its balance sheet - far more than any other insurance company (both in $ and in % terms):
Many if not most major financial institutions would actually be considered insolvent now, if their so-called assets and liabilities were honestly valued (ie, "marked to market):
Bitcoin, by having no counterparty risk, threatens to expose this whole fraudulent casino of fantasy accounting on the part of major financial institutions - which is probably why companies like AXA want to control Bitcoin development - so they can artificially suppress the blocksize, and artificially suppress the the bitcoin price.
My guess: The 2.1 quadrillion satoshis (21 million bitcoins x 100 million satoshis per bitcoin) of real money starting to circulate on the Bitcoin network threaten to expose the fact that the 1.2 quadrillion dollars of fantasy fiat circulating in the worldwide derivatives casino are actually worthless. And this is probably the real reason why AXA - the insurance company with the largest derivatives exposure - is trying to control Blockstream, in order to control Bitcoin development, and suppress Bitcoin price.
JPMorgan suppresses gold & silver prices to prop up the USDollar - via "naked short selling" of GLD & SLV ETFs. Now AXA (which owns $94 million of JPMorgan stock) may be trying to suppress Bitcoin price - via tiny blocks. But AXA will fail - because the market will always "maximize coinholder value"
TL;DR As a bitcoin user (miner, hodler, investor) you have all the power - simply due to the nature of markets and open-source software. Core/Blockstream, and their owners at AXA, can try to manipulate the market and the software for a while, by paying off devs who prefer tiny blocks, or censoring the news, or conducting endless meetings - but in the end, you know that they have no real control over you, because endless meetings are bullshit, and code and markets are everything. Bitcoin volume, adoption, blocksize and price have been rising steadily for the past 7 years. And they will continue to do so - with or without the cooperation of Core/Blockstream and the Chinese miners - because just like publicly held corporations always tend to "maximize shareholder value, publicly held cryptocurrencies always tend to "maximize coinholder value". How much of a position does AXA have in JPMorgan? AXA currently holds about $94 million in JPMorgan stock. http://zolmax.com/investing/axa-has-94718000-position-in-jpmorgan-chase-co-jpm/794122.html https://archive.is/HExxH Admittedly this is not a whole lot, when you consider that the total of JPMorgan's outstanding shares is currently around USD 3.657 billion. But still it does provide a suggestive indication of how these big financial firms are all in bed with each other. Plus the leaders of these big financial firms also tend to hang out which each other professionally and socially, and are motivated to protect the overall system of "the legacy ledger of fantasy fiat" which allows them to rule the world. How does JPMorgan use paper GLD and SLV ETFs to suppress the price of physical gold and silver? As many people know, whistleblower Andrew Maguire exposed the massive criminal scandal where JPMorgan has been fraudulently manipulating gold and silver prices for years. JPMorgan does this via the SLV and GLD ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). The reason they do it is in order to artificially suppress the price of gold and silver using "naked short-selling": https://duckduckgo.com/?q=andrew+maguire+gata+jpmorgan+nake+short&t=hd&ia=videos How exactly does JPMorgan manage to commit this kind of massive fraud? It's easy! There's actually about 100x more "phantom" or fake silver and gold in existence (in the form of "paper" certificates - SLV and GLD ETFs) - versus actual "physical" gold and silver that you can take delivery on and hold in your hand. That means that if everyone holding fake/paper SLV & GLD ETF certificates were to suddenly demand "physical delivery" at the same moment, then only 1% of those people would receive actual physical silver and gold - and the rest would get the "equivalent" in dollars. This is all well-known, and clearly spelled out in the fine print of the GLD and SLV ETF contracts. (This is similar to "fractional reserve" where almost no banks have enough actual money to cover all deposits. This means that if everyone showed up at the bank on the same day and demanded their money, the bank would go bankrupt.) So, in order to fraudulently suppress the price of gold and silver (and, in turn, prevent the USDollar from crashing), JPMorgan functions as a kind of "bear whale", dumping "phantom" gold and silver on the market in the form of worthless "paper" SLV and GLD ETF certificates, "whenever the need arises" - ie, whenever the US Dollar price starts to drop "too much", and/or whenever the gold and silver prices start to rise "too much". (This is similar to the "plunge protection team" liquidity providers, who are well-known for preventing stock market crashes, by throwing around their endlessly printed supply of "fantasy fiat", buying up stocks to artificially prevent their prices from crashing. This endless money-printing and market manipulation actually destroys one of the main purposes of capitalism - which is to facilitate "price discovery" in order to reward successful companies and punish unsuccessful ones, to make sure that they actually deliver the goods and services that people need in the real world.) Is there an ELI5 example of how "naked short selling" works in the real world? Yes there is! The following example was originally developed by Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne - who, as many people know, is very passionate about using Bitcoin not only as cash, but also to settle stock trades - because his company Overstock got burned when Wall Street illegally attacked it using naked short selling:
Here's how naked short-selling works: Imagine you travel to a small foreign island on vacation. Instead of going to an exchange office in your hotel to turn your dollars into Island Rubles, the country instead gives you a small printing press and makes you a deal: Print as many Island Rubles as you like, then on the way out of the country you can settle your account. So you take your printing press, print out gigantic quantities of Rubles and start buying goods and services. Before long, the cash you’ve churned out floods the market, and the currency's value plummets. Do this long enough and you'll crack the currency entirely; the loaf of bread that cost the equivalent of one American dollar the day you arrived now costs less than a cent. With prices completely depressed, you keep printing money and buy everything of value - homes, cars, priceless works of art. You then load it all into a cargo ship and head home. On the way out of the country, you have to settle your account with the currency office. But the Island Rubles you printed are now worthless, so it takes just a handful of U.S. dollars to settle your debt. Arriving home with your cargo ship, you sell all the island riches you bought at a discount and make a fortune.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/wall-streets-naked-swindle-20100405 Why isn't anybody stopping JPMorgan from using "naked short selling" to fraudulently suppress gold and silver prices? Because "certain people" benefit! Of course, this "naked short selling" (selling a "phantom" asset which doesn't actually exist in order to suppress the price of the "real" asset) is actually illegal - but JPMorgan is allowed to get away with it, because suppressing the gold and silver price helps prop up the United States and world's major "fantasy fiat" financial institutions - which would be bankrupt without this kind of "artificial life support." How does suppressing the gold and silver price help governments and banks? If gold and silver (and Bitcoin!) rose to their actual "fair market value", then the US dollar (and most other national "fiat" currencies) would crash - and many major financial institutions would be exposed as bankrupt. Also, many "derivatives contracts" would default - and only a tiny percentage of defaults would destroy most major financial companies' balance sheets. (For example, see Deutsche Bank - which is may become "the next Lehman", due to having around around $80 trillion in dangerous derivatives exposure.) So, major financial firms like JPMorgan are highly motivated to prevent a "real" (honest) market from existing for "counterparty-free" assets such as physical gold and silver (and Bitcoin!) So, JPMorgan fraudulently manipulate the precious-metals market, by flooding it with 100x more "phantom" "silver" and "gold" in the form of worthless GLD and SLV ETF certificates. Basically, JPMorgan is doing the "dirty work" to keep the US government and its "too-big-to-fail" banks and other financial institutions afloat, on "artificial life support". Otherwise, without this GLD & SLV ETF "naked short selling" involving market manipulation and fraud, the US government - and most major US financial institutions, as well as many major overseas financial institutions, and most central banks - would all be exposed as bankrupt, once traders and investors discovered the real price of gold and silver. So, what does this have to do with AXA and Bitcoin? Just like JPMorgan wants to suppress the price of gold and silver to prop up the USDollar, it is reasonable to assume that AXA and other major financial players probably also want to suppress the price of Bitcoin for the same reasons - in order to postpone the inevitable day when the so-called "assets" on their balance sheets (denominated in US Dollars and other "fantasy fiat" currencies, as well as derivatives) are exposed as being worthless. Actually, only the motives are the same, while the means would be quite different - ie, certain governments or banks might want to suppress the Bitcoin price - but they wouldn't be able to use "naked short selling" to do it. As we know, this is because with Bitcoin, people can now simply demand "cryptographic proof" of how many bitcoins are really out there - instead of just "trusting" some auditor claiming there is so much gold and silver in a vault - or "trusting" that a gold bar isn't actually filled with worthless tungsten (which happens to have about the same "molecular weight" as gold, so these kinds of counterfeit gold bars have been a serious problem). (And, by the way: hopefully it should also be impossible to do "fractional reserve" using "level 2" sidechains such as the Lightning Network - although that still remains to be seen. =) So, even though it should not be possible to flood the market with "phantom" Bitcoins (since people can always demand "cryptographic proof of reserves"), AXA could instead use a totally different tactic to suppress the price: by suppressing Bitcoin trading volume - explained further below. Does AXA does actually have the motives to be suppressing the Bitcoin price - right now? Yes, they do! As described above, the only thing which gives giant banking and finance companies like JPMorgan and AXA the appearance of solvency is massive accounting fraud and market manipulation. They use the "legacy ledger of fantasy fiat" (ie, debt-backed "currency", endlessly printed out of thin air) - and the never-ending carrousel of the worldwide derivatives casino, currently worth around 1.2 quadrillion dollars - to "paper over" their losses, and to prevent anyone from discovering that most major insurance firms like AXA - and most major banks - would already be considered bankrupt, if you counted only their real assets. (This is known as "mark-to-market" - which they hate to do. They much prefer to do "mark-to-model" which some people call "mark-to-fantasy" - ie, fraudulent accounting based on "phantom" assets" and rampant market manipulation.) So, it is public knowledge that nearly all "too-big-to-fail" financial companies like AXA (and JPMorgan) would be considered bankrupt if their fraudulent accounting practices were exposed - which rely on the "legacy ledger of fantasy fiat" and the "never-ending carrousel of the derivatives casino" to maintain the façade of solvency:
If Bitcoin becomes a major currency, then tens of trillions of dollars on the "legacy ledger of fantasy fiat" will evaporate, destroying AXA, whose CEO is head of the Bilderbergers. This is the real reason why AXA bought Blockstream: to artificially suppress Bitcoin volume and price with 1MB blocks.
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/4r2pw5/if_bitcoin_becomes_a_major_currency_then_tens_of/ Does AXA actually have the means to to be suppressing the Bitcoin price... right now? Yes, they do! For example, AXA could decide to support economically ignorant devs like Greg Maxwell (CTO of Blockstream), Adam Back (CEO of Blockstream), and the other Core devs who support Blockstream's "roadmap" based on tiny blocks. Wait - isn't AXA already doing precisely that? Yes, they are! As we all know, AXA has invested tens of millions of dollars in Blockstream, and Blockstream is indeed fighting tooth and nail against bigger blocks for Bitcoin.
Blockstream is now controlled by the Bilderberg Group - seriously! AXA Strategic Ventures, co-lead investor for Blockstream's $55 million financing round, is the investment arm of French insurance giant AXA Group - whose CEO Henri de Castries has been chairman of the Bilderberg Group since 2012.
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/47zfzt/blockstream_is_now_controlled_by_the_bilderberg/ So, how would artificially tiny blocks artificially suppress the Bitcoin price? This is pretty much based on common sense - plus it's also been formalized and roughly quantified in concepts involving networking and economics, such as "Metcalfe's Law". Metcalfe's Law says pretty much what you'd expect it to say - ie: the more people that use a system, the more valuable that system is. More precisely: the value of a system is proportional to the square of the number of users in that system - which also makes sense, since when there are N users in a system, the number of connections between them is N*(N - 1)2 which is "on the order of" N squared. In fact, Metcalfe's Law has been shown to hold for various types of networks and markets - including faxes, internet, national currencies, etc. Does Metcalfe's Law apply to Bitcoin? Yes, it does! The past 7 years of data also indicates - as predicted - that Metcalfe's Law also does indeed apply to Bitcoin as well. Graphs show that during the 5 years before Blockstream got involved with trying to artificially suppress the Bitcoin price via their policy of artificially tiny blocks, Bitcoin prices were roughly in proportion to the square of the (actual) Bitcoin blocksizes.
Bitcoin has its own E = mc2 law: Market capitalization is proportional to the square of the number of transactions. But, since the number of transactions is proportional to the (actual) blocksize, then Blockstream's artificial blocksize limit is creating an artificial market capitalization limit!
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/4dfb3bitcoin_has_its_own_e_mc2_law_market/ During all those years, actual blocksizes were still low enough to not bump into the artificial "ceiling" of the artificial 1 MB "max blocksize" limit - which, remember, was only there as a temporary anti-spam measure, so it was deliberately set to be much higher than any actual blocksize, and everyone knew that this limit would be removed well before actual blocksizes started getting close to that 1 MB "max blocksize" limit. But now that Bitcoin volume can't go up due to hitting the artificial "max blocksize" 1 MB limit (unless perhaps some people do bigger-value transactions), Bitcoin price also can't go up either:
Bitcoin's market price is trying to rally, but it is currently constrained by Core/Blockstream's artificial blocksize limit. Chinese miners can only win big by following the market - not by following Core/Blockstream. The market will always win - either with or without the Chinese miners.
The Fed/FOMC holds meetings to decide on money supply. Core/Blockstream & Chinese miners now hold meetings to decide on money velocity. Both are centralized decision-making. Both are the wrong approach.
So, on the expiration date of the HK stalling / non-scaling non-agreement, Viacoin scammer u/btcdrak calls a meeting with no customer-facing businesses invited (just Chinese miners & Core/Blockstream), and no solutions/agreements allowed, and no transparency (just a transcript from u/kanzure). WTF!?
What is the purpose of this meeting? The "organizers" and other people involved - u/btcdrak and u/maaku7 - say that this is just a "friendly" meeting - and it is specifically forbidden for any "agreements" (or scaling solutions) to come out of this meeting. What good is a meeting if no agreements or solutions can some out of it? Good question! A meeting where solutions are explicitly prohibited is actually perfect for Blockstream's goals - because currently the status quo "max blocksize" is 1 MB, and they want to keep it that way. So, they want to leverage the "inertia" to maintain the status quo - while pretending to do something, and getting friendly with the miners (and possibly making them other "offers" or "inducements"). So this meeting is just another stalling tactic, like all the previous ones. Only now, after the community has seen this over and over, Blockstream has finally had to publicly admit that it is specifically forbidden for any "agreements" (or scaling solutions) to come out of this meeting - which makes it very obvious to everyone that this whole meeting is just an empty gesture. So, why is this never-ending shit-show still going on? Mainly due to inertia on the part of many users, and dishonesty on the part of Core/Blockstream devs. Currently there is a vocal group of 57 devs and wannabe devs who are associated with Core/Blockstream - who refuse to remove the obsolete, temporary anti-spam measure (or "kludge") which historically restricted Bitcoin throughput to a 1 MB "max blocksize". Somehow (via a combination of media manipulation, domain squatting, censorship, staged international Bitcoin stalling "scaling" meetings and congresses, fraudulent non-agreements, and other dishonest pressure tactics) they've managed to convince everyone that they can somehow dictate to everyone else how Bitcoin governance should be done.
vampireban wants you to believe that "a lot of people voted" and "there is consensus" for Core's "roadmap". But he really means only 57 people voted. And most of them aren't devs and/or don't understand markets. Satoshi designed Bitcoin for the economic majority to vote - not just 57 people.
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/4ecx69/uvampireban_wants_you_to_believe_that_a_lot_of/ Meanwhile, pretty much everyone else in Bitcoin - ie, everyone who's not involved with Blockstream - knows that Bitcoin can and should have bigger blocks by now, to enable increased adoption, volume, and price, as shown by the following points: (1) Most miners, and investors, and Satoshi himself, all expected Bitcoin to have much bigger blocks by now - but these facts are censored on most of the media controlled by Core/Blockstream-associated devs and their friends:
Satoshi Nakamoto, October 04, 2010, 07:48:40 PM "It can be phased in, like: if (blocknumber > 115000) maxblocksize = largerlimit / It can start being in versions way ahead, so by the time it reaches that block number and goes into effect, the older versions that don't have it are already obsolete."
theymos 1/31/2013: "I strongly disagree with the idea that changing the max block size is a violation of the 'Bitcoin currency guarantees'. Satoshi said that the max block size could be increased, and the max block size is never mentioned in any of the standard descriptions of the Bitcoin system"
Greg Maxwell used to have intelligent, nuanced opinions about "max blocksize", until he started getting paid by AXA, whose CEO is head of the Bilderberg Group - the legacy financial elite which Bitcoin aims to disintermediate. Greg always refuses to address this massive conflict of interest. Why?
The most upvoted thread right now on r\bitcoin (part 4 of 5 on Xthin), is default-sorted to show the most downvoted comments first. This shows that r\bitcoin is anti-democratic, anti-Reddit - and anti-Bitcoin.
Be patient about Classic. It's already a "success" - in the sense that it has been tested, released, and deployed, with 1/6 nodes already accepting 2MB+ blocks. Now it can quietly wait in the wings, ready to be called into action on a moment's notice. And it probably will be - in 2016 (or 2017).
I think the Berlin Wall Principle will end up applying to Blockstream as well: (1) The Berlin Wall took longer than everyone expected to come tumbling down. (2) When it did finally come tumbling down, it happened faster than anyone expected (ie, in a matter of days) - and everyone was shocked.
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/4kxtq4/i_think_the_berlin_wall_principle_will_end_up/ So what is the actual point of this weekend's meeting between Core/Blockstream and the Chinese Miners? It's mainly just for show, and ultimately a meaningless distraction - the result of desperation and dishonesty on the part of Core/Blockstream. As mentioned above, real upgrades to Bitcoin like Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Unlimited have already been implemented and tested and are already running on the Bitcoin network - and the overall Bitcoin itself can and probably will switch over to them, regardless of any meaningless "meetings" and delaying tactics. Is it inevitable for Bitcoin to move to bigger blocks? Yes, for three reasons: (1) As mentioned above, studies show that the underlying hardware and bandwidth will already easily support actual blocksizes of 2 MB, and probably 4 MB - and everyone actually agrees on this point, including die-hard supporters of tiny blocks such as Blockstream CTO Gregory Maxwell u/nullc, and r\bitcoin censor moderator u/theymos. (2) The essential thing about a publicly held company is that it always seeks to maximize shareholder value - and, in a similar fashion, a publicly held cryptocurrency also always seeks to maximize "coinholder" value. (3) Even if Core/Blockstream continues to refuse to budge, the cat is already out of the bag - they can't put the toothpaste of open-source code back into the tube. Some people might sell their bitcoins for other cryptocurrencies which have better scaling - but a better solution would probably be to wait for a "spinoff" to happen. A "spinoff" is a special kind of "hard fork" where the existing ledger is preserved, so your coins remain spendable on both forks, and you can trade your coins on markets, depending on which fork you prefer. Further information on "spinoff technology" can be found here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563972.0 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Abitco.in%2Fforum+spinoff&ia=web An excellent discussion of the economic advantages of using a "spinoff" to keep the original ledger (and merely upgrade the ledger-appending software), can be found here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=678866.0 And today, based on new information learned from Ethereum's recent successful "hardfork split", people are already starting to talk about the specific details involved in implementing a "spinoff" or "hardfork split" for Bitcoin to support bigger blocks - eg, changing the PoW, getting exchanges to support trading on both sides of the fork, upgrading wallets, preventing replay attacks, etc:
We now know the miners aren't going to do anything. We now know that a minority fork can survive. Why are we not forking right now?
https://np.reddit.com/btc/comments/4vieve/we_now_know_the_miners_arent_going_to_do_anything/ So - whether it's via a hardfork upgrade, or a hardfork split or "spinoff" - it is probably inevitable that Bitcoin will eventually move to bigger blocks (within the underlying hardware and bandwidth constraints of course - which would currently support 2-4 MB blocksizes). Why are bigger blocks inevitable for Bitcoin? Because that's how markets always have and always will behave - and there's nothing that Blockstream/Core or AXA can do to stop this - no matter how many pointless stalling scaling meetings they conduct, and no matter how many non-agreements they sign and then break. Conclusion Endless centralized meetings and dishonest agreements are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is decentralized markets and open-source code. Users and markets decide on what code to install, and what size blocks to accept. Bitcoin adoption, volume - and price - will continue to grow, with or without the cooperation of the dishonest devs from Core/Blockstream, or misguided miners - or banksters at "fantasy fiat" financial firms like JPMorgan or AXA.
Les données de la page Casino Castries Supermarche Carte, Avis, Site proviennent de SOURCES : Contient des données des contributeurs de OpenStreetMap disponibles sous la licence ODbL, nous les avons vérifiées et mise à jour le lundi 28 décembre 2020. Le producteur des données émet les notes suivantes : Les Données sont partielles, selon les sources locales OPEN DATA. Une autre Ville Treasure Bay Casino - St Lucia main page: This casino is found in Gros Islet, Saint Lucia. Treasure Bay Casino - St Lucia features 200 slot machines for your entertainment. World Casino Directory also books casino hotel reservations in Gros Islet. Browse our gallery of photos of Treasure Bay Casino - St Lucia or see the latest news headlines about Treasure Bay Casino - St Lucia on our site. Trouvez les coordonnées et adresses de vos magasins Casino supermarché à Castries- 34160 | Casino supermarché et drive Supermarché Casino Castries Supermarchés, hypermarchés Stations-service : horaires, avis, retrouvez les coordonnées et informations sur le professionnel Castries-Gros Islet Hwy St. Lucia. Website +1 758-459-2901. Email. Best nearby. 27 Restaurants within 0.3 miles. 3 Other Attractions within 0.3 miles. Spice Of India (2,024) 1 min $$ - $$$ Indian. Big Chef Steakhouse (1,500) 2 min $$$$ Steakhouse. Matthews Rooftop (1,015) 2 min $$ - $$$ Caribbean. See all. Island Mix (106) 2 min. Speciality & Gift Shops. Baywalk Shopping Mall (152) 1 min Rodney Bay: Casino! - See 1,102 traveler reviews, 404 candid photos, and great deals for Castries, St. Lucia, at Tripadvisor. Casino Supermarché Castries. 28b Avenue de Montpellier, 34160 Castries Leader Price Castries. 135 Rue de l'Abrivado, 34160 Castries Intermarché Contact Et Drive +33 4 67 87 45 30. Avenue de la Biste, 34670 Baillargues ALDI St-Aunès. 250 Avenue des Romarins, 34130 Saint-Aunès Vival Saint Drézéry . 51 Rue de la Liberté, 34160 Saint-Geniès-des-Mourgues Lidl Saint Bres. 486 Avenue de Drive et courses en ligne dans votre magasin Casino Supermarché - Le 4 Casino Castries | Votre supermarché à Castries - 34160 Ouvert le Dimanche - Horaires d'ouverture de Casino supermarché Castries, 28 bis avenue de Montpellier, 34160 Castries (Services / Alimentation / Beauté / Téléphonie / Supermarché) Adresses et plans d'accès des différents ma... Castries. Castries Tourism Castries Hotels Castries Bed and Breakfast Castries Holiday Rentals
Philipsburg Downtown & Port Sint Maarten - Details [4K ...
Rendezvous is within 30 minutesТ drive of Grand Bois Forest and you can reach Treasure Bay Casino St. Lucia in about 10 minutes by car. The Ferry Terminal is about 2.5 km away. Malabar Beach ... Cruise Vlog Day 5 Carnival Fascination Cruise Port St. Kitts . Not my favourite beach I went to this trip but overall it was still a good day. What do in St.... This video is unavailable. Watch Queue Queue. Watch Queue Queue view Piton's, Soufriere, Sugar Beach, Castries, Vieux FortHewanorra International AirportCondor Boeing 767-330ER Reg. D-ABUCLandung Flughafenlądowanie lotnisko Saint Lucia home to lush rainforest, stunning beaches, delicious food and romance. August 2020 - Aqueduc de Castries, France // (c) JV.REYMONDON - All rights reserved Cambodia's Casino Gamble 101 East - Duration: 26:01. ... Castries leaves businesses counting losses - Duration: 2:41. MBC PRIME NEWS - SAINT LUCIA 3,190 views. 2:41. Top 10 Beginner RV Mistakes ... In today's video, we explore our first time visit to Philipsburg, St. Maarten - Certainly Worth A Visit!Day 4 of our 7 day Royal Caribbean cruise ( our first... Gopro time lapse capture from cruise ship bridge. Downtown #Philipsburg, capital of the Sint Maarten (Dutch side of the island), Cruise Port St Maarten by #8KNext.0:01 - Downtown Philipsburg, Great Bay beach...
