Segwit Archives

Bitcoin Unlimited Creator: Only On Chain Scaling Helps Real Life Use Cases.

Posted on May 8, 2017 | by [email protected]

Bitcoin Unlimited is a full node software client for the Bitcoin network. It removes the limit, allowing the users to determine the block size by consensus.The B itcoin scaling debate is still ongoing since no decision has yet been made.

Bitcoin Unlimited developer Andrew Stone believes that on chain scaling and understanding how people use bitcoin are the most important issues to address. Solutions like SegWit and Lightning networks are good, he said, but they are not addressing the right problems the good way.

The extent the Scaling debate has reached

The Scaling debate has been on for the last two years and it is still heating up again to determine how many transactions can be put into each block on the bitcoin blockchain during the trading and transactions of bitcoins. In many bitcoin forums, there are mixed reactions from people but these reactions have a forward leaning trend towards Bitcoin Unlimited. As for the final decision, we are yet to see what the miners will decide in the recent coming months.

How Scaling will affect the end users

To my own understanding and opinion, I think the Scaling will not affect the end users negatively but positively, since it will protect the growing network against spam transactions from bad actors and it will also enable the end users to know the number of transactions that they are supposed to put or place in each block chain during the bitcoin transactions. Although the latter statement holds true, there are of course challenges with Bitcoin scaling. Some of the challenges will come in the form of Decentralization arguments, Minimum system requirements being undefined, Known unknowns and processes. This effect was pointed out by an undisclosed redditor saying,

“There would also be a related BIP describing the basic requirements for a full node in terms of RAM, CPU processing, storage and network upload bandwidth, based on experiments — not simulations. This would help determine quantitatively how many nodes could propagate information rapidly enough to maintain Bitcoin’s decentralized global consensus at a given block size.”

Scaling versus Fork: What are the connections?

Scaling refers to determining the number of transactions that are supposed to be placed into each block chain and Fork simply occurs when two miners find a valid hash within a short space of time. But the connections come in when the network splits into two, where a half of the network believes one block is the next to be included in the blockchain ledger, the other half of the network believes in a different block.

With Bitcoin Unlimited seeming to be the next Bitcoin processing platform and protocol, it has to be seen how Bitcoin price will react.

The War within: Bitcoin SegWit Vs Bitcoin Unlimited

Posted on May 5, 2017 | by [email protected]

There has been a debate for the last two years concerning whether to support Bitcoin Unlimited or SegWit to work as Bitcoin functioning platform.About 95% of all miners have to come to terms before SegWit can be activated while for Bitcoin Unlimited only requires 70% of the miner’s vote.

The long-awaited decision on whether to support Bitcoin Unlimited or SegWit has now been made. 70% of miners who now made a decision on whether to support Bitcoin Unlimited or SegWit but 30% of the miners have not yet decided but it would be interesting to see what they do decide once they get around to exercising their duty.

What does the 70% of miners who have decided mean to Bitcoin?

This decision simply means that this 70% have decided either to support Bitcoin Unlimited or SegWit. Their decisions depend on their benefits from both platforms whether Bitcoin Unlimited or SegWit and the platform with the highest percentage will be used or taken as Bitcoin platform. However, there is a possibility of a split due to some people refusing to use Segwit in preference to Bitcoin Unlimited or the other way round. This could lead to the inception of the idea of running both segwit and bitcoin unlimited concurrently.

And the 30% of the remaining Bitcoin miners?

The remaining 30% of Bitcoin miners will have to decide whether to support Bitcoin Unlimited or SegWit so as to exercise their duties as Bitcoin miners. Their decision will have to put the decision at place since they are the remaining people to decide the fate of Bitcoin as Bitcoin miners. This will greatly affect Bitcoin’s future as a trading and transaction currency. I don’t see any hope of a fork of any kind taking place due to the indecisiveness of the Bitcoin miners.

Is it possible for Bitcoin Unlimited to win this decision?

According to Bitcoin norms, Bitcoin Unlimited is likely to win this decision since it advocates for a platform that can support all Bitcoin transactions without interruption. Bitcoin Unlimited is likely to do all these without any problems. It still all depends on Bitcoin community whether they will give a majority vote to Bitcoin Unlimited or vote to keep using Bitcoin core. Many bitcoin enthusiasts and experts alike are not yet well convinced with the idea of Bitcoin unlimited as can be seen from this reddit thread from an anonymous redditor.

“Taking a get-rich-quick scam like BU seriously enough to do a comparison like this is akin to falling for the false “controversy”.There is no real controversy. BU is simply yet another hostile takeover attempt by large corporate interests.We’ve seen all too many of these scams before, with large advertising budgets to spread disinformation.”

This thread and many others that appear online is a clear indication that the cryptocurrency community might not yet be ready for a major shift of Bitcoin operations. At the point of writing this article, Bitcoin Unlimited was more likely to win the comparison.

Social Media Website Based on Bitcoin Prepares to Launch with Off-chain Transactions

Posted on April 6, 2017 | by [email protected]

Bitcoin and its underlying technology have numerous applications and millennials are reaping the comforts of the set-up. One such brilliant innovation has been built over the foundation of Bitcoin technology in a newly launched social media website called ‘Yours.’ The website has been launched on Bitcoin’s testnet to test out micropayments on the social network. The website claims to offer an ‘array of payment models’ that allow users to make money through their content.

How the website works

The website operates on a simple purchase model that is wrapped in a suspenseful way leading people into buying content. Any user who puts up content on ‘Yours’ can post anything as simple as an article, blog piece, pictures or a video and can select the point at which they want a pay wall. For viewing the content past that point, people have to pay the price and in turn, the creators of the content get paid. Ryan Charles, formerly Reddit’s cryptocurrency engineer explains:

“Everybody who posts content to Yours – including articles, video, images, audio – can pick a place in their content to put a pay wall. So, if you write a compelling article with a cliffhanger, you can hide the conclusion behind, say, a ten cent pay wall.”

Tackling the problem of micropayments

The website will offer a micropayments wallet in addition to content pay walls. This has been a technically controversial area for Bitcoin as the transactional costs of the Bitcoin network have gone up in the recent years. However, ‘Yours’ has set out to repair this problem by developing a smart contract similar to Lightning Network but doesn’t utilize Segwit. It is completely dependent on Bitcoin alone and hence is very complicated in design. Yours allows users to possess their private keys and have full custodial control over their funds at all times while being able to participate in off-chain zero fee transactions with other users.

Posting and various payment models

With the ‘Yours’ testnet launched, anybody can pay for content but not everyone can post. One has to do a one-on-one demo with the ‘Yours’ team so that they can get your real-time feedback about the experience. There are numerous models allowing individuals to get paid on Yours in addition to paywalls on content. A classic endorsement model will allow content creators to earn as users pay to upvote their content. Commenters can earn when their comments are upvoted. Individuals can also invest in a creator’s content, and earn returns on the content’s income over time.

How the platform will take off and revolutionize content writing and marketing domain is to be seen.