Hearn: The resolution of the Bitcoin experiment

It's not a either or choice. Clients can continue to support using the old block chain, and then support using the new one.

This is the sort of thing that appears to be happening with the 'Classic Bitcoin' and it's predecessor effort 'TX' (which got shutdown due to massive DDOS attacks). I am not a big fan of bitcoin itself, but I think the concept has merit. So I am not 'hip' to all the technicalities.

This is what they claimed with TX:

> Bitcoin XT supports a larger block size.[9] As of version 0.11A the following is implemented to determine the maximum block size.[10][11]

> If a block is mined before the minimum forking date of 11 Jan 2016 00:00:00 UTC, the maximum stays at 1MB.

> According to mining consensus rules. If less than 750 of the last 1000 blocks (75%) support a bigger block size, the maximum stays at 1MB.

> After a block is encountered that triggers the 75% majority, a grace period of 2 weeks starts, during which the maximum stays at 1MB.

> Unless the above rules restrict size, the maximum block size starts at 8MB, doubling approximately every 2 years for a maximum of 10 times.

> This makes the new maximum block size range between 8MB and 8192MB depending on when the block is mined.

The thing that most people miss about free markets is that the 'client' or the 'consumer' is the one that has the real control, not the producers. Unless they face some sort of significant force/violence preventing them from acting in their own best interests.

The 'miners' can do whatever they want, but it's only the clients that assign what they doing any value. It's a lovely idea to be able to make 'free money' by mining bitcoins, but the reality is that they are compensated for providing what amounts to a public service. They are not the ones in control of the situation even though they seem to be trying to take control through other channels (DDOS, etc).

The point of bitcoin is to allow transactions _after_ the numbers are mined out. It's inevitable that the number of miners are going to drop down to small numbers because the cost of bitcoin mining is going to continue to rise exponentially as the pool of available numbers drops closer to zero. After a certain point it only becomes feasible for people with access to cheap power and cheap hardware to keep going.

I don't know if bitcoin itself is fatally flawed (it seems that it's very likely due to reasons unrelated to the newest drama or lack of active miners), but it's a massive step forward for the internet. The potential is to allow cheap and easy way to transfer wealth and lower transaction costs in significant way. a way that is not controlled by a small handful of banks (debit/credit cards) or a single company (paypal). Maybe even make things like 'micro-transactions' possible so a large number of internet folks will be able to survive the coming 'advertising market implosion' apocalypse.

So maybe not bitcoin, but what comes after bitcoin, or even after that.