Let's take a vote!

Who votes to increase the 21M cap, devaluing your own holdings?

Sir, it appears the nays have it..

It only takes one veto (bug) to nullify the entire network, CVE-2018-17144 for example.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposu...

this is actually really cool!

thank you for sharing I didn't know something this critical had been found in recent years

Unforeseen future circumstances could make people more amenable to any kind of changes imaginable. Either way, saying that it's impossible to print more is just not true.

Unforeseen future circumstances could make people less amenable. Saying "we just don't know what the future may hold" in support of a claim is an argument from ignorance.

> Unforeseen future circumstances could make people less amenable

True, but irrelevant. It doesn't matter either way. The point is that it can be done if that is what conventionial wisdom dictates is desirable at the time.

Conventional wisdom also dictates that it is desirable for Bitcoin to handle more than 7 transactions a second - and yet that problem isn't possible for Bitcoin to solve either.

Again, it's an argument from ignorance and gross oversimplification to claim "the future wisdom of the community" will solve problems for bitcoin.

You can equivocate all you like, but accusing me of ignorance doesn't make it so. It's an undeniable fact that it is possible for any of these properties to change and the poster that claimed it was impossible for them to change is wrong. There is no debate here, it's just reality.

I'm not accusing you of ignorance - An argument from ignorance (i.e. argumentum ad ignorantiam) is the name of a known fallacy, which you're making with your claims: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

You're engaged in the fallacy known as "straw-man", where you argue against a point I'm not making. I'm going to state my argument clearly so you can't continue to weasel around it.

The technical properties of bitcoin can be modified, saying that it is impossible to change them is wrong.

This is part of the argument from ignorance - the attempt to push a burden of proof when the claim you made was "Unforeseen future circumstances could make people more amenable to any kind of changes imaginable". I didn't say anything about impossibilities, maybe you're confusing me for someone else?

I dont think anyone with such possibility would put it to vote. They would just do it because they can.

You would essentially "vote" with which fork you were choosing to acknowledge with your own node, should you be running one.

Also I'm fairly certain a majority of hashpower, not just users would need to be on board with the change.

You could argue that as the primary beneficiaries of such a change (increase cap => increased distribution to miners) they would be for it, but I think most rational actors see the catch 22 of trying to profit by removing one of the core attributes that makes bitcoin valuable (it's scarcity)

Bitcoin works by consensus though. Nobody can be in that position. the best you can do is make a fork. Those who don't agree with the rule change will keep mining with the old rules in place

That is no longer Bitcoin, just a forked alt coin. See how well they did in the past. Unless there's some serious flaws preventing further adoption, why bend the rule everyone has been agreeing on?

That would result in a fork, split adoption, and is not nearly as easy as you imply.

There have been multiple forks.

Many of which are considered failures, which is the point.

Yeh and they all fuckin suck. I wonder why? Its because they compromise on the quixotic properties that make bitcoin valuable.

What is the substantive meaning behind "fuckn suck"? As an example, most exchanges and processors have both BTC and BCH so if you're not a speculator there isn't much functional difference. (I know there are technical differences, but those differences don't change the fact that they are fungible blockchain tokens)

There isn't that much difference from a functional perspective. However, they will never achieve the value of bitcoin because many of them have forsaken the properties that give bitcoin its value.

There is too much argument over which chain will win, imo, its like asking which nation will win- it doesn't have an answer. We are humans, we excel at patchworked cooperation, which is why we have so many nation states and governing systems. There will be more than enough room for users to have many choices when it comes to blockchains for the foreseeable future.

> However, they will never achieve the value of bitcoin because many of them have forsaken the properties that give bitcoin its value.

A subjective opinion that is also irrelevant to the point. It doesn't matter how likely you think a fork is to succeed, the argument that computer software is impossible to change because "nobody would ever agree to those changes" is incorrect.

the functional difference is that BCH doesn't have a meaningful portion of the SHA256 hashrate, so it's vulnerable to 51% attack all the time. But, it's basically worthless so nobody cares.

That's not a functional difference since it doesn't affect how the coin functions for users. BCH is certainly more at risk for a 51% attack but the risk is an abstract threat, not something that changes the fundamental nature of BCH. Your own logic actually demonstrates this because if some future event caused BCH to have a higher share of the hashrate then your own reasoning would demand that BTC be considered illegitimate without any technical qualities of BTC having to change.

BCH usage is laughable. See for yourself.

https://txhighway.com/

I don't disagree that the usage is laughable, but that doesn't really matter if you're trying to use BCH as a currency instead of a speculation vehicle. BCH converts to cash just as easily as BTC does once its in an exchange.

It is as easy as I imply since I specifically said if the leadership/community desire such a change. Saying "you can't print more" is 100% wrong.

Oh well if it's that simple then why has it been so hard just to do something as simple as increase the block size?

Is it possible to increase the block size?

Anything is Possible with Bitcoin ᵗᵐ

Except something as simple as increasing the block size to allow Bitcoin to process more than 7 transactions a second (Visa handles 42,000 tx/s comparatively). Theoretically it is possible, but the way Bitcoin is designed puts changes in control of people who stand to profit from preventing certain changes (i.e. Tragedy of the commons) like block size increases - and they are blocking it. The point is that Bitcoin isn't some piece of software that you can magically push any necessary changes to.

So is that a "yes, it's possible" or "no, it's impossible"? "Theoretically it's possible" sounds like it's possible. Saying "here are some examples of things that didn't happen" doesn't prove that they, or anything else, can't happen.

It's as possible as a number of rational actors collectively acting irrational. It's economics, not technology - so it's theoretically not impossible, just very highly improbable.

Yes it is possible and it is already done on Bitcoin SV (original bitcoin). Recently 128 MB block were mined as a proof that bitcoin can scale to hundreds of thousands of transactions per second

> Anything is Possible with Bitcoin ᵗᵐ

Just that the network known as Bitcoin can't do that. The block mined just 10 minutes ago was capped at 0.904 MB.

Anyone can mine a gigabyte sized block on their own computer, but that doesn't make it Bitcoin (even when branded as Bitcoin SV).

>Anyone can mine a gigabyte sized block on their own computer, but that doesn't make it Bitcoin

So you just pulling facts out of your ass? Read the white paper then come back

>Anyone can mine a gigabyte sized block on their own computer, but that doesn't make it Bitcoin (even when branded as Bitcoin SV).

Is the full context.

Cherry picking the sentence to be patronizing doesn't work very well when the context is actually your own example...

Mining is done in data centers. Get over with your 'everybody is a miner' mantra. It was never meant to be that. Check satoshi's early posts. Do you own research before spreading bullcrap

if the commons actually wanted larger blocks there was an opportunity with the bitcoin cash hardfork, but that chain has less value and less hashrate now. So when given the opportunity people didn't move to the chain with more transaction space, so it seems the votes are in.

Go back and read the whitepaper that's not how this works.

There's lots of things in Bitcoin that aren't in the whitepaper. The BTC chain is just what most people are agreeing on at the time. It is extremely mutable. The BTC mining limit is as mutable as anything else in the network.