Gavin Andresen and Mike Hearn want to sabotage Bitcoin on behalf of the US government.
They're at it again. Bitcoin XT developers are releasing histrionic, emotionally charged blog posts declaring the failure of Bitcoin. These blog posts are promoted by their connections in the international media to try to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt around the status of Bitcoin and bully people into accepting their suicidal "solutions" to problems that don't really exist involving block size limits. Bitcoin's only problem is a public tantrum from two former developers who were disallowed radical protocol changes. Mike Hearn, the current tantrum thrower in chief, isn't even in Bitcoin Core's top 100 contributors.
Histrionic whining on Medium and Reddit is not the proper way to present engineering solutions. Their campaign looks more like some sort of intelligence operation than a patch submission. There's a reason for this: it is.
I have a lot of skin in the game on this issue. I am a target of the United States government, and as such I have a very hard time receiving money. It doesn't matter that I have left the United States because of continuing persecution there. Their control over wire transfers between all countries with Rothschild banks is complete. The United States seizes money on lawful transactions between EU states over things as insignificant as Cuban cigars, despite none of the countries involved participating in the US embargo against Cuba. I've had my bank accounts, payment processing services, and brokerage accounts shut off. Bitcoin is the only way I can engage with any financial services. If it is centralized and subject to controls similar to SWIFT wires and credit card processing, my continued existence would no longer be feasible. Bitcoin is the the most important development in human rights in centuries.
Here's the facts: Gavin Andresen and Mike Hearn want you to switch to something called Bitcoin XT or Bitcoin Unlimited or some other fork of Bitcoin that is under unilateral control so that they can centralize Bitcoin to a dangerous degree-- enough to put it under the control of a government hostile to liberty like the United States. While they do this, they hilariously complain about "oppression" and "censorship" on forums that clean away their bullshit altcoin spam postings.
There are two likely incentives for doing this:
1) They have placed short positions against Bitcoin.
2) They are funded by people that wish to see Bitcoin less free.
Now reflect for a moment that the only major industry supporter of the Bitcoin XT proposal is Coinbase whose gigantic series C round was lead by the New York Stock Exchange. I doubt their financial interests are aligned with a free and unregulated global marketplace.
The good news is that they seem to have lost most of this battle. Consensus on the network is determined by the nodes people run on it. Bitcoin XT only has about 500 nodes. Bitcoin Core, the real Bitcoin software, has about ten times that. The majority of the mining capacity is in China, and Chinese people have little incentive to centralize Bitcoin for the convenience of US intelligence and enforcement organizations. So I must celebrate China's shrewd rejection of XT today.
If you love liberty you should call XT's shilling and spamming out for what it is. If you are invested in Bitcoin you also must do so. If XT gets their way and centralizes Bitcoin, Bitcoin will lose its primary feature of freedom from centralized authorities and thus lose its source of value. You can also support Bitcoin's continued freedom by running a full Bitcoin Core node, and buying and saving Bitcoin.
Bitcoin transaction fees going up is not the end of the world. It's good for miners, and necessary to protect a limited resource like space on the blockchain. I'm willing to pay higher fees to see Bitcoin stay free from government control, and everyone else who loves Bitcoin should be so willing as well.
Histrionic whining on Medium and Reddit is not the proper way to present engineering solutions. Their campaign looks more like some sort of intelligence operation than a patch submission. There's a reason for this: it is.
I have a lot of skin in the game on this issue. I am a target of the United States government, and as such I have a very hard time receiving money. It doesn't matter that I have left the United States because of continuing persecution there. Their control over wire transfers between all countries with Rothschild banks is complete. The United States seizes money on lawful transactions between EU states over things as insignificant as Cuban cigars, despite none of the countries involved participating in the US embargo against Cuba. I've had my bank accounts, payment processing services, and brokerage accounts shut off. Bitcoin is the only way I can engage with any financial services. If it is centralized and subject to controls similar to SWIFT wires and credit card processing, my continued existence would no longer be feasible. Bitcoin is the the most important development in human rights in centuries.
Here's the facts: Gavin Andresen and Mike Hearn want you to switch to something called Bitcoin XT or Bitcoin Unlimited or some other fork of Bitcoin that is under unilateral control so that they can centralize Bitcoin to a dangerous degree-- enough to put it under the control of a government hostile to liberty like the United States. While they do this, they hilariously complain about "oppression" and "censorship" on forums that clean away their bullshit altcoin spam postings.
There are two likely incentives for doing this:
1) They have placed short positions against Bitcoin.
2) They are funded by people that wish to see Bitcoin less free.
Now reflect for a moment that the only major industry supporter of the Bitcoin XT proposal is Coinbase whose gigantic series C round was lead by the New York Stock Exchange. I doubt their financial interests are aligned with a free and unregulated global marketplace.
The good news is that they seem to have lost most of this battle. Consensus on the network is determined by the nodes people run on it. Bitcoin XT only has about 500 nodes. Bitcoin Core, the real Bitcoin software, has about ten times that. The majority of the mining capacity is in China, and Chinese people have little incentive to centralize Bitcoin for the convenience of US intelligence and enforcement organizations. So I must celebrate China's shrewd rejection of XT today.
If you love liberty you should call XT's shilling and spamming out for what it is. If you are invested in Bitcoin you also must do so. If XT gets their way and centralizes Bitcoin, Bitcoin will lose its primary feature of freedom from centralized authorities and thus lose its source of value. You can also support Bitcoin's continued freedom by running a full Bitcoin Core node, and buying and saving Bitcoin.
Bitcoin transaction fees going up is not the end of the world. It's good for miners, and necessary to protect a limited resource like space on the blockchain. I'm willing to pay higher fees to see Bitcoin stay free from government control, and everyone else who loves Bitcoin should be so willing as well.