Category Archives: Bitcoin

As ClassicCoin Client Hits Release, Miners Formally Reject It

Posted on by

With the client designed to fork ClassicCoin from Bitcoin hitting release, numerous outlets are reporting a group representing pools with a substantial amount of the Bitcoin network hashrate have signed a letter formally rejecting the Classic fork. Who could have forseen ClassicCoin enjoying the same failure mode as XTCoin:

For all the ways the manufactured crisis around the ClassicCoin hard fork push is made to seem more polished than the XTCoin manufactured crisis, the results of the effort somehow seem still more underwhelming.

Maybe it's the part where back in August fiat markets were just starting to show indicators of an impending downturn, but now things are solidly falling apart? Could it be the full depth of the wealthlust inspired in various fiat "law enforcement" agents upon their exposure to Bitcoin's promise coming to light? How about the months long game of good cop/bad cop various fiat backed start ups have been playing in an effort to see just how many forks they might be able to sell some Bitcoin holders on. Perhaps it is just the fact that Bitcoin absolutely trounced fiat in every way that matters over the course of 2015.

If it seems like various fiat interests, outlets, and agents are getting more desperate in their attempts to alternately dismiss or insert crises into Bitcoin, it is because they are. That line Satoshi inserted into the Genesis block:

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

is still there seven years later. That bit about what awaits fiat attempts to hard fork Bitcoin into something else remains one year later. Actual Bitcoin interests have abided the turmoil presented by various fiat/Bitcoin interfaces. By contrast fiat interests are struggling to handle fiat/Reality interfaces and are coping, as is their custom, through various forms of theft (archived). In the moral contest between Bitcoin's indifference to the hungry mouths of the world and fiat's theft from the mouths it promises to feed, there seems to be a clear winner. Sorry for your loss.

– From "Fiat Market Slide, fiat/Bitcoin Interfaces Follow In Friday Trading" published on Qntra January 16th, 2016

Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Crosses 144 Billion With 20.06% Rise

Posted on by

Mining difficulty is now 144,116,447,847.34866333, 20.06% above the previous value. This is the largest increase since August 19th, 2014, and is thus the largest increase covered by Qntra to date. Transaction fees totalled 530.03566591 Bitcoins, comprising 1.04% of total miner rewards, a similar rate to the previous period; for context, this rate was 0.77% in the antepenultimate, and 0.83% at the close of yesteryear. Stay tuned as Bitcoin's supply inflexibility keeps increasing usage costs to compensate for impending disinflation.

Popescu Opens Block Cipher Competition: 10 BTC Bounty + Peerage

Posted on by

Today Mircea Popescu opened a competition to find a block cipher suitable for advancing the causes of The Most Serence Republic.1 The rewards for the winner include a 10 Bitcoin payment and membership honoris causa in the peerage of The Most Serene Republic. Submissions with an implementation are preferred, but theoretical proposals will be considered.

  1. This Republic, Most Serene is nothing other than Bitcoin.  ↩

Alan Reiner Quits Armory as Multi-Year Commercialization Effort Fails

Posted on by

Today Alan Reiner announced he is quitting Armory wallet development, and that efforts to commercialize the Armory Bitcoin wallet have failed. Armory started life as a promising wallet management tool that runs on top of a local Bitcoin daemon, but when a "phone home" feature became public knowledge any potential of trusting Reiner as a software developer or Armory as a software product was lost. Reiner with the help of serial fundraiser Trace Mayer raised funds in an attempt to make a business out of the Armory software. Reiner's announcement is presented in full below: Continue reading →

Popescu Offers Condition For Accepting Future Hard Forks

Posted on by

Today Mircea Popescu offers a proposal which he is mulling as a necessary condition for any fundamental change to the Bitcoin protocol to receive his approval. The proposal would strengthen the bond between Bitcoin miners and nodes. Popescu is pledging to sink any hard fork proposal that does not include these changes, but if these changes are to be adopted he is willing to negotiate changes to the Bitcoin protocol including a maximum blocksize increase.

Bitcoin Foundation Address Recap: Next Release Imminent, Shiva Introduced

Posted on by

A flurry of activity at the Bitcoin Foundation in January, much of which has already been covered on Qntra, has lead up to a code freeze for the next release of the reference Bitcoin daemon. The address covers a number of developments relevant to the upcoming release including makefile contributions, Malleus Mikehearnificarum, a switch for toggling between enforcement of low-s or high-s signature creation, refinement of the programmable version strings mechanism, and further iteration of the V provenance management system.

One particularly interesting development which will miss this release, but likely play a key part in the future of the reference client was given a brief mention. In late January asciilifeform of No Such lAbs introduced Shiva, an experimental Lisp shell for interacting with bitcoind. Shiva's introduction introduces a number of possible development directions, all of which are far more interesting than various coups intending to impose governance upon Bitcoin through sloppy hard fork plans.

Gavin Andresen Proposes Same Hard Fork Again

Posted on by

United States Government saboteur and hard fork advocate Gavin Andresen has proposed the same hard fork yet another time. His latest proposal is exactly the same as the increase in "Bitcoin Classic" advocated by himself, Toomim, and serial scammer and morally bankrupt hamplanet Marshmallow Long1. As the exact same proposal has been roundly dismissed in the form of Bitcoin Classic, the chances of this gaining actual as opposed to astroturfed traction are likely the same.

  1. Long's most notable scam associations are with GAW miners and Cryptsy, but there are other smaller scams he's had his morbidly obese fingers in.  ↩

Bitcoin Network Difficulty Rises 5.89%

Posted on by

Bitcoin network difficulty has risen 5.89% to 120033340651.23696899 today. This is a more modest increase than many recent adjustments, but this difficulty period has been marked variance between block suggesting a full exahash per second of mining as well as multi hour stretches with substantially longer time between blocks. Miners appear to remain bullish on Bitcoin even as various agents of fiat attempt to inject artificial crises of their own imagining.