Not quite:

* I posted a scenario whereby a cartel would force a protocol change that would NOT kill bitcoin.
* It took three or four posts for (some) people here to even read it; they kept arguing that a cartel would not want to "kill bitcoin".
* It took another three or four posts for (fewer) people to realize that the arguments that they had against that strawman did not work for that scenario.
* It took a couple more post for (even fewer of) them to realize that the scenario would in fact be profitable for the miners, and that the users would have no choice but accept the change.
* Finally, one of them claimed that, if the cartel decided to do that, the, rather than accept a small compatible change to the protocol, surely all users would make a big incompatible change to the protocol, alienate all the miners, and go back to the network of 2010. And closed the discussion with "QED".

But you are right, trying to argue a technical discussion here is a terrible waste of time.

So bitcoin's future is protected by the power of twitter storms and coindesk articles? Mind if I am not impressed? 

Seriously, I can't believe that a company would voluntarily shrink because some customers (who cannot choose their suppliers) complain about them being too big.  I would expect it to merely disguise its size, by using two or more diferent names.  Is anyone worried bout that?


2012:  3 companies had more than 50%
2013:  2 companies has more than 50%
2014:  1 company (GHash.io) had more than 50%
2015:  4(?) companies have more than 50%

Well, sorry, I dont see a trend there. 

What is your point?  The disaster did not happen until now, so the risk does not exist?

In 2012 and even in 2013 the miners were not as stressed as they are now.  There weren't as many big farms as there are now, were there?

Cartels and monopolies take years to form.  The big miners and pools are still in flux, but may soon stabilize (centralized). 

Do you really hope to save bitcoin by playing such stupid games?

Perhaps by sticking all those giant blue balloons in other people's properties?

And Jon at some point worked together with Danny "Neo&Bee" Brewster

Good joke (I supose  )

January 27, 2014 is when they struck the deal with Ross to auction their coins. 

That image must have been clipped rom the announcement of the last auction.

There is no magic number.  The fewer companies you have in the right half that chart, the higher is the risk that they will collude to act as one entity, each giving up their immediate gain (reward for getting the next block appended to orthodox chain) for a greater long-term gain (such as a larger reward per block). Why would their affiliated miners defect?  If the change will mean more money even for miners who are not in the cartel, why would they resist the change?

Not long ago there was just one pool, GHash.io, with more than 50% power.  Bitcoiners were scared, but considered the probem solved when it shrank to less than 50%.  No one asked where those miners who left the pool went.  No one asks who are the owners of all those pools.  How many of those big miners are in the Bitcoin Foundation, paying Gavin's salary?


In the real world, cartels and monopolies do not form to destroy their markets, but to extract more money from their customers than they could if the markets were free.  And there are plenty of things that a majority coalition of miners could do in that direction.

Yes, I know that you do not see anything wrong with that picture.  The top 6 companies have 60% of the hashrate.  What could possibly go wrong?  As long as there is sand around...

And year after year the bitcoin faithful bury their head in the sand, "if we don't worry about it, it is not a problem".

The transaction rate limits are fixable.  The real problem is the inevitable centralization of mining.  It seems that no one knows how to fix that.  Bitcoin with centralized mining does not make any sense.

Wait, bitcoin is now being supported by money stolen from hard-working enslaved singaporeans by parasitic corrupt government thugs, under threat of violent harm and loss of liberty? 

I haven't read the rest, but it was really nice of Mr. GHOSEIRI to inform the court that BFL did absolutely nothing wrong, that they are in fact the victims of the customers and the FTC, who have caused great harm to them.

I suppose it is no use complaining about the drastic rewind of the question chain, is it?

I suppose you are referring to the pump from 195 to 210 on Bitfinex, yesterday, correct?

Beware that any move is promptly carried to the other exchanges by arbitragers, in a fraction of 1 minute.  So, t is often hard to tell where a move really started.

In particular, those buys at Bitfinex could have been arbitrage.  Is there evidence that they were indeed the source?

I am not your mother, dear. 

Wait, is this it?

Is that slang for something that I do not really want to know, or do you actually mean, more of that thing that one hangs from a cow's neck so that she can go "dong dong" about?

Sorry, I did not mean anything demeaning.  Simply that Philosophy and Drama are two of the few majors here who do not have computer science as a required course. 

Read again, I did not write that at all.

But, given your irate answer, I now guess that you bought around 13.5 months ago.