list of links for quick copypasting when debating on forums, also useful as a reading list
a trip to the moon requires a rocket with multiple stages by gmaxwell https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/438hx0/a_trip_to_the_moon_requires_a_rocket_with/
bram cohen, creator of bittorrent, argues against a hard fork to a larger block size https://medium.com/@bramcohen/bitcoin-s-ironic-crisis-32226a85e39f#.558vetum4
gmaxwell's summary of the debate https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1343716.msg13701818#msg13701818
mod of r/btc speaking against a hard fork https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/57hd14/core_reaction_to_viabtc_this_week/d8scokm/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/59kflj/its_becoming_clear_to_me_that_a_lot_of_people/
blockchain space must be costly, it can never be free https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4og24h/i_just_attended_the_distributed_trade_conference/
charlie lee with a nice analogy about the fundamental tradeoff https://medium.com/@SatoshiLite/eating-the-bitcoin-cake-fc2b4ebfb85e#.444vr8shw
gmaxwell on the tradeoffs https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1520693.msg15303746#msg15303746
jratcliff on the layering https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/59upyh/segwit_the_poison_pill_for_bitcoin/d9bstuw/
Peter Todd: How a floating blocksize limit inevitably leads towards centralization [Feb 2013] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144895.0 mailing list https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2013-February/002176.html with discussion on reddit in Aug 2015 https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3hnvi8/just_a_little_history_lesson_for_everyone_new_the/
http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2017/02/money-blockchains-and-social-scalability.html
There is academic research showing that even small (2MB) increases to the blocksize results in drastic node dropoff counts due to the non-linear increase of RAM needed. http://bravenewcoin.com/assets/Whitepapers/block-size-1.1.1.pdf
Reddit summary of above link. In this table, you can see it estimates a 40% drop immediately in node count with a 2MB upgrade and a 50% over 6 months. At 4mb, it becomes 75% immediately and 80% over 6 months. At 8, it becomes 90% and 95%. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5qw2wr/a_future_led_by_bitcoin_unlimited_is_a/dd442pw/
larger block sizes make centralization pressures worse (mathematical) https://petertodd.org/2016/block-publication-incentives-for-miners
talk at scalingbitcoin montreal, initial blockchain synchronization puts serious constraints on any increase in the block size https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgjrS-BPWDQ&t=2h02m06s with transcript https://scalingbitcoin.org/transcript/montreal2015/block-synchronization-time
Bitcoin's P2P Network: The Soft Underbelly of Bitcoin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6kibPzbrIc someone's notes: https://gist.github.com/romyilano/5e22394857a39889a1e5 reddit discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4py5df/so_f2pool_antpool_btcc_pool_are_actually_one_pool/
In adversarial environments blockchains dont scale https://scalingbitcoin.org/transcript/hongkong2015/in-adversarial-environments-blockchains-dont-scale
Why miners will not voluntarily individually produce smaller blocks https://scalingbitcoin.org/transcript/hongkong2015/why-miners-will-not-voluntarily-individually-produce-smaller-blocks
hal finney: bitcoin's blockchain can only be a settlement layer (mostly interesting because it's hal finney and its in 2010) https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3sb5nj/most_bitcoin_transactions_will_occur_between/
summary of all the above links in the discussion here https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/69jywp/a_practical_guide_to_accidental_low_fee/dh7eudr/?context=6
petertodd's 2013 video explaining this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZp7UGgBR0I
lukejr's summary https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/61yvvv/request_to_core_devs_please_explain_your_vision/dficjhj/
another jratcliff thread https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6lmpll/explaining_why_big_blocks_are_bad/
blocks must be always full https://medium.com/@bergealex4/bitcoin-is-unstable-without-the-block-size-size-limit-70db07070a54#.kh2vi86lr
backlogs arent that bad https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/49p011/was_the_fee_event_really_so_bad_my_mind_is/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4kxxvj/i_just_singlehandedly_increased_bitcoin_network/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/47d4m2/why_does_coinbase_make_2_transactions_per/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/53wucs/why_arent_blocks_full_yet/d7x19iv
full blocks are fine https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5uld1a/misconception_full_blocks_mean_bitcoin_is_failing/
high miner fees imply a sustainable future for bitcoin https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/680tvf/fundamentals_friday_week_of_friday_april_28_2017/dgwmhl7/
gmaxwell on why full blocks are good https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6b57ca/full_blocks_good_or_bad/dhjxwbz/
luke-jr's longer summary https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6033h7/today_is_exactly_4_months_since_the_segwit_voting/df3tgwg/?context=1
Charlie Shrem's on upgrading to segwit https://twitter.com/CharlieShrem/status/842711238853513220
original segwit talk at scalingbitcoin hong kong + transcript https://youtu.be/zchzn7aPQjI?t=110
https://scalingbitcoin.org/transcript/hongkong2015/segregated-witness-and-its-impact-on-scalability
segwit is not too complex https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/57vjin/segwit_is_not_great/d8vos33/
segwit does not make it possible for miners to steal coins, contrary to what some people say https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/5e6bt0/concerns_with_segwit_and_anyone_can_spend/daa5jat/?context=1
https://keepingstock.net/segwit-eli5-misinformation-faq-19908ceacf23#.r8hlzaquz
segwit is required for a useful lightning network It's now known that without a malleability fix useful indefinite channels are not really possible.
Clearing up SegWit Lies and Myths: https://achow101.com/2016/04/Segwit-FUD-Clearup
segwit is bigger blocks https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5pb8vs/misinformation_is_working_54_incorrectly_believe/dcpz3en/
typical usage results in segwit allowing capacity equivalent to 2mb blocks https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/69i2md/observe_for_yourself_segwit_allows_2_mb_blocks_in/
jihan wu (head of largest bitcoin mining group) is blocking segwit because of perceived loss of income https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/60mb9e/complete_high_quality_translation_of_jihans/
witness discount creates aligned incentives https://segwit.org/why-a-discount-factor-of-4-why-not-2-or-8-bbcebe91721e#.h36odthq0 https://medium.com/@SegWit.co/what-is-behind-the-segwit-discount-988f29dc1edf#.sr91dg406
or because he wants his mining enterprise to have control over bitcoin https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6jdyk8/direct_report_of_jihan_wus_real_reason_for/
details and discovery by gmaxwell https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-April/013996.html
reddit thread with discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/63otrp/gregory_maxwell_major_asic_manufacturer_is/
simplified explaination by jonny1000 https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/64qq5g/attempted_explanation_of_the_alleged_asicboost/
http://www.mit.edu/~jlrubin/public/pdfs/Asicboost.pdf
https://medium.com/@jimmysong/examining-bitmains-claims-about-asicboost-1d61118c678d
evidence https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/63yo27/some_circumstantial_evidence_supporting_the_claim/
bitmain admits their chips have asicboost but they say they never used it on the network (haha a likely story) https://blog.bitmain.com/en/regarding-recent-allegations-smear-campaigns/
worth $100m per year to them (also in gmaxwell's original email) https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/849798529929424898
other calculations show less https://medium.com/@vcorem/the-real-savings-from-asicboost-to-bitmaintech-ff265c2d305b
this also blocks all these other cool updates, not just segwit https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/63otrp/gregory_maxwell_major_asic_manufacturer_is/dfw0ej3/
summary of bad consequences of asicboost https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/64qq5g/attempted_explanation_of_the_alleged_asicboost/dg4hyqk/?context=1
luke's summary of the entire situation https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6ego3s/why_is_killing_asicboost_not_a_priority/diagkkb/?context=1
prices goes up because now segwit looks more likely https://twitter.com/TuurDemeester/status/849846845425799168
asicboost discovery made the price rise https://twitter.com/TuurDemeester/status/851520094677200901
a pool was caught red handed doing asicboost, by this time it seemed fairly certain that segwit would get activated so it didnt produce as much interest as earlier https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6p7lr5/1hash_pool_has_mined_2_invalid_blocks/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6p95dl/interesting_1hash_pool_mined_some_invalid_blocks/ and https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/889475196322811904
bitcoinmagazine's series on what lightning is and how it works https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/understanding-the-lightning-network-part-building-a-bidirectional-payment-channel-1464710791/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/understanding-the-lightning-network-part-creating-the-network-1465326903/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/understanding-the-lightning-network-part-completing-the-puzzle-and-closing-the-channel-1466178980/
The Lightning Network ELIDHDICACS (Explain Like I Don’t Have Degrees in Cryptography and Computer Science) https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/the-lightning-network-elidhdicacs
lightning will increases fees for miners, not lower them https://medium.com/lightning-resources/the-lightning-paradox-f15ce0e8e374#.erfgunumh
cost-benefit analysis of lightning from the point of view of miners https://medium.com/@rusty_lightning/miners-and-bitcoin-lightning-a133cd550310#.x42rovlg8
routing blog post by rusty https://medium.com/@rusty_lightning/routing-dijkstra-bellman-ford-and-bfg-7715840f004 and reddit comments https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4lzkz1/rusty_russell_on_lightning_routing_routing/
lightning protocol rfc https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lightning-rfc
blog post with screenshots of ln being used on testnet https://medium.com/@btc_coach/lightning-network-in-action-b18a035c955d video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxGiMu4V7ns
video of sending and receiving ln on testnet https://twitter.com/alexbosworth/status/844030573131706368
lightning tradeoffs http://www.coindesk.com/lightning-technical-challenges-bitcoin-scalability/
beer sold for testnet lightning https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/62uw23/lightning_network_is_working_room77_is_accepting/ and https://twitter.com/MrHodl/status/848265171269283845
lightning will result in far fewer coins being stored on third parties because it supports instant transactions https://medium.com/@thecryptoconomy/the-barely-discussed-incredible-benefit-of-the-lightning-network-4ce82c75eb58
jgarzik argues strongly against LN, he owns a coin tracking startup https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/860826532650123264 https://twitter.com/Beautyon_/status/886128801926795264
luke's great debunking / answer of some misinformation questions https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6st4eq/questions_about_lightning_network/dlfap0u/
The price history shows that the exchange rate drops every time a hard fork threatens: https://i.imgur.com/EVPYLR8.jpg
and this example from 2017 https://twitter.com/WhalePanda/status/845562763820912642
http://imgur.com/a/DuHAn r/btc users lose money
price supporting theymos' moderation https://i.imgur.com/0jZdF9h.png
old version https://i.imgur.com/BFTxTJl.png
older version https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxqtUakUQAEmC0d.jpg
about 50% of nodes updated to the soft fork node quite quickly https://imgur.com/O0xboVI
A Future Led by Bitcoin Unlimited is a Centralized Future https://blog.sia.tech/a-future-led-by-bitcoin-unlimited-is-a-centralized-future-e48ab52c817a#.p1ly6hldk
flexible transactions are bugged https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/57tf5g/bitcoindev_bluematt_on_flexible_transactions/
bugged BU software mines an invalid block, wasting 13 bitcoins or $12k
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5qwtr2/bitcoincom_loses_132btc_trying_to_fork_the/
https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/5qx18i/bitcoincom_loses_132btc_trying_to_fork_the/
bitcoin.com employees are moderators of r/btc https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/the-curious-relation-between-bitcoin-com-anti-segwit-propaganda-26c877249976#.vl02566k4
miners don't control stuff like the block size http://hackingdistributed.com/2016/01/03/time-for-bitcoin-user-voice/
even gavin agreed that economic majority controls things https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5ywoi9/in_2010_gavin_predicted_that_exchanges_ie_the/
fork clients are trying to steal bitcoin's brand and network effect, theyre no different from altcoins https://medium.com/@Coinosphere/why-bitcoin-unlimited-should-be-correctly-classified-as-an-attempted-robbery-of-bitcoin-not-a-9355d075763c#.qeaynlx5m
BU being active makes it easier to reverse payments, increases wasted work making the network less secure and giving an advantage to bigger miners https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5g1x84/bitcoin_unlimited_bu_median_value_of_miner_eb/
bitcoin unlimited takes power away from users and gives it to miners https://medium.com/@alpalpalp/bitcoin-unlimiteds-placebo-controls-6320cbc137d4#.q0dv15gd5
bitcoin unlimited's accepted depth https://twitter.com/tdryja/status/804770009272696832
BU's lying propaganda poster https://imgur.com/osrViDE
a downside of hard forks is damaging bitcoin's immutability https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5em6vu/what_happens_if_segwit_doesnt_activate/dae1r6c/?context=3
interesting analysis of miners incentives and how failure is possible, don't trust the miners for long term https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5gtew4/why_an_increased_block_size_increases_the_cost_of/daybazj/?context=2
waxwing on the meaning of cash and settlement https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5ei7m3/unconfirmed_transactions_60k_total_fees_14btc/dad001v/
maaku on the cash question https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5i5iq5/we_are_spoiled/db5luiv/?context=1
digital gold funamentalists gain nothing from supporting a hard fork to larger block sizes https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5xzunq/core_please_compromise_before_we_end_up_with_bu/dem73xg/?context=1
those asking for a compromise don't understand the underlying political forces https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6ef7wb/some_comments_on_the_bip148_uasf_from_the/dia236b/?context=3
nobody wants a contentious hard fork actually, anti-core people got emotionally manipulated https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5sq5or/contentious_forks_vs_incremental_progress/ddip57o/
the hard work of the core developers has kept bitcoin scalable https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3hfgpo/an_initiative_to_bring_advanced_privacy_features/cu7mhw8?context=9
recent PRs to improve bitcoin scaleability ignored by the debate https://twitter.com/jfnewbery/status/883001356168167425
gmaxwell against hard forks since 2013 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=140233.20
maaku: hard forks are really bad https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5zxjza/adam_greg_core_devs_and_big_blockers_now_is_the/df275yk/?context=2
bitcoin unlimited allegedly funded by kraken stolen coins
https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/55ajuh/taint_analysis_on_bitcoin_stolen_from_kraken_on/
https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/559miz/taint_analysis_on_btc_allegedly_stolen_from_kraken/
other funding stuff
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5zozmn/damning_evidence_on_how_bitcoin_unlimited_pays/
a serious bug in BU https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5h70s3/bitcoin_unlimited_bu_the_developers_have_realized/
A summary of what's wrong with BU: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5z3wg2/jihanwu_we_will_switch_the_entire_pool_to/devak98/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5zdkv3/bitcoin_unlimited_remote_exploit_crash/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5zeb76/timber/ https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/5zdrru/peter_todd_bu_remote_crash_dos_wtf_bug_assert0_in/
BU devs calling it as disaster https://twitter.com/SooMartindale/status/841758265188966401 also r/btc deleted a thread about the exploit https://i.imgur.com/lVvFRqN.png
summary of incident https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5zf97j/i_was_undecided_now_im_not/
more than 20 exchanges will list BTU as an altcoin
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5zyg6g/bitcoin_exchanges_unveil_emergency_hard_fork/
again a few days later https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/60qmkt/bu_is_taking_another_shit_timberrrrrr/
site for it, including list of businesses supporting it http://www.uasf.co/
luke's view
conversation with bluematt and sipa
threat of UASF makes the miner fall into line in litecoin
UASF delivers the goods for vertcoin
UASF coin is more valuable https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6cgv44/a_uasf_chain_will_be_profoundly_more_valuable/
all the links together in one place https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6dzpew/hi_its_mkwia_again_maintainer_of_uasfbitcoin_on/
p2sh was a uasf https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/v0.6.0/src/main.cpp#L1281-L1283
jgarzik annoyed at the strict timeline that segwit2x has to follow because of bip148 https://twitter.com/jgarzik/status/886605836902162432
committed intolerant minority https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6d7dyt/a_plea_for_rational_intolerance_extremism_and/
heavily viral tweet "Bitcoin UASF demonstrated that users armed with code are more powerful than a billion dollar ASIC manufacturing cartel. #nodesrule" https://twitter.com/shaolinfry/status/895094737325223936
uasf delivered the goods for bitcoin, it forced antpool and others to signal (May 2016) https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/antpool-will-not-run-segwit-without-block-size-increase-hard-fork-1464028753/ "When asked specifically whether Antpool would run SegWit code without a hard fork increase in the block size also included in a release of Bitcoin Core, Wu responded: “No. It is acceptable that the hard fork code is not activated, but it needs to be included in a ‘release’ of Bitcoin Core. I have made it clear about the definition of ‘release,’ which is not ‘public.’”"
https://twitter.com/MrHodl/status/895089909723049984
three year old account, only started posting today https://archive.is/3STjH
interesting post with some history pre-2015 https://btcmanager.com/the-long-history-of-the-fight-over-scaling-bitcoin/
hard fork proposals from some core devs https://bitcoinhardforkresearch.github.io/
the core scalabality roadmap + my summary from 3/2017 https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-December/011865.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5xa5fa/the_core_development_scalability_roadmap/
blockstream hasnt taken over the entire bitcoin core project https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/622bjp/bitcoin_core_blockstream/
blockstream is one of the good guys https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6cttkh/its_happening_blockstream_opens_liquid_sidechain/dhxu4er/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/61yvvv/request_to_core_devs_please_explain_your_vision/
what if segwit never activates? https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6ab8js/transaction_fees_are_now_making_btc_like_the_banks/dhdq3id/ with https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5ksu3o/blinded_bearer_certificates/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4xy0fm/scaling_quickly/
some stuff here along with that cool photoshopped poster https://medium.com/@jimmysong/bitcoin-realism-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-1mb-blocks-c191c35e74cb
nice graphic https://twitter.com/RNR_0/status/871070843698380800
gmaxwell saying how he is probably responsible for the most privacy tech in bitcoin, while mike hearn screwed up privacy https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/6azyme/hey_bu_wheres_your_testnet/dhiq3xo/?context=6
fairly cool propaganda poster https://twitter.com/urbanarson/status/880476631583924225
btc tankman https://i.redd.it/gxjqenzpr27z.png https://twitter.com/DanDarkPill/status/853653168151986177
asicboost discovery meme https://twitter.com/allenscottoshi/status/849888189124947971
https://twitter.com/urbanarson/status/882020516521013250
gavin wanted to kill the bitcoin chain https://twitter.com/allenscottoshi/status/849888189124947971
history from summer 2015 https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5xg7f8/the_origins_of_the_blocksize_debate/
stuff that r/btc believes https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6ld4a5/serious_is_the_rbtc_and_the_bu_crowd_a_joke_how/djszsqu/
after segwit2x NYA got agreed all the fee pressure disappeared, laurenmt found they were artificial spam https://twitter.com/i/moments/885827802775396352
brief reminders of the etc situation https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6nvlgo/simple_breakdown_of_bip91_its_simply_the_miners/dkcycrz/
point that the bigblocker side is only blocking segwit as a hostage https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/5sqhcq/daily_discussion_wednesday_february_08_2017/ddi3ctv/?context=3
theymos saying why victory isnt inevitable https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6lmpll/explaining_why_big_blocks_are_bad/djvxv2o/
with ignorant enemies like these its no wonder we won https://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/page-999 ""So, once segwit2x activates, from that moment on it will require a coordinated fork to avoid the up coming "baked in" HF. ""
jonny1000's recall of the history of r/bitcoin https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6s34gg/rbtc_spreading_misinformation_in_rbitcoinmarkets/dl9wkfx/
summary of craig wright, jihan wu and roger ver's positions https://medium.com/@HjalmarPeters/the-big-blockers-bead6027deb2
what happened to #oldjeffgarzik https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6ufv5x/a_reminder_of_some_of_jeff_garziks_greatest/