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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

So somebody invented a hardware optimization that provides a 20% improvement in mining power. Big deal. Bitcoin miners with a close connection to an ASIC fab, or who are close to a cheap power plant, have a bigger edge than that.

Now if someone comes up with a way that gives a much larger improvement, like an order of magnitude or two, that's a game-changer. But 20% is not.

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Exactly, this is not a "big deal" for Bitcoin users or Miners, but for Bitcoin Core Developers this is like a golden ticket. The "Core" Bitcoin implementation, headed by CTO (of BS) Greg Maxwell is currently being overtaken in popularity by the "Unlimited" implementation in mining power. Most of the Bitcoin community (by hashing power) support larger sized blocks and on chain scaling. Greg's BS company is trying to sell a solution called "off-chain scaling" which is only necessary if the block size is not increased.

One of the largest chip manufactures in the Bitcoin space supports Bitcoin growing on its own and not depending on a 2nd layer support system that is known as "SegWit". This is why Greg and his company are spending untold sums (like hiring Twitter hype man Samson Mow recently) pushing SegWit Code (which is copyrighted by BS) onto bitcoin, by trying to destory the competitioin with bull shit like saying there is a remote access bug, or some miners are "cheating" by optimizing their chips...

Bottom Line. ALL of the superficial infighting you see in the Bitcoin space right now is over scaling on chain as inventor Satoshi Nakamoto intended or using a patented second layer developed by BlockStream, Greg Maxwell's company. Most devs in the know, of course, support Bitcoin scaling on its own, but Blockstream is well funded and laser focused on getting their patent code into the Bitcoin codebase and any cost necessary.

>overtaken in popularity by the "Unlimited" implementation in mining power.

Remember when you guys accidentally DDoSed your own network with an assert statement

It is funny how much "support" a little money can buy.

My experiance is that a lot of "Core/SegWit supporters" don't really understand at first that Unlimited is trying to help Bitcoin continue what Satoish intended. They have been feed lies through the toxic reddit/r/bitcoin site that they assume if you are against "Core" you are attacking their beloved Bitcoin.

Just like Trump, Core has cornered the market on support from the under-educated and in both cases the tactic seems to be working.

No need to delve into politics for an apt metaphor.

No one ever lost betting against the stupidity of people.

For me, the second sentence parses into the opposite of what you mean

I don't see any evidence for the concrete claims in this comment (e.g. the copyright/patent stuff).

Rick Falkvinge wrote an interesting article today about the SegWit patent situation:

https://falkvinge.net/2017/05/01/blockstream-patents-segwit-...

I read that one, but... there's no evidence given there that Blockstream actually has any patents on any of this, right? It's just an idea that the author invented. It looks like Blockstream said they didn't have any patents, applications, etc. which would make it fairly surprising if they did (since they aren't going to remain secret for long).

I get that the author is describing that Blockstream's behavior to promote Segwit is evidence, but did that need an explanation? Their business gets way easier if Segwit turns on. Of course they would like to promote it.

The problem is that blockstream is continuing to push the "miners are blocking segwit" narrative.

They are trying to make it seem like Miners are Evil, therefore Segwit is good... as if they are related.

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