Exclusive: Roger Appears at Core Meetup, Agrees That “The Bitcoin House Is on Fire”

On December 11, 2016, a Core meetup was held by an organization called "Shanghai Blockchain Meetup". Attendees included Core contributor and Hong Kong Chinese University scholar Johnson Lau, Blockstream Core contributor Matt Corralo, digital currency angel investor Chandler Guo, BTCC CTO Mikael Wang, BTCC COO Samson Mow, Weiyou founder and Bitcoin activist Eric Gu, and the world's first Bitocoin.com investor Roger Ver.

Lujiazui is a symbol of China's financial prosperity. On Sunday night last week, it witnessed a gathering of the two major camps of the Bitcoin community, with participants expressing their views and trying to convince each other.

Bitcoin Core contributor Johnson Lau first gave a general knowledge speech - the evolution of Bitcoin consensus mechanism. He compared the differences between Bitcoin and the consensus system of traditional financial systems. At the end of his speech, Johnson said: "Only by reaching consensus can we create the greatest value for Bitcoin", a view that was repeatedly cited in the subsequent discussion.

After the speech, some questions were raised, as follows :

●Audience : What do you think of Bitcoin Unlimited (BU)?

Johnson : I think everyone must understand whether the decision is in their best interest before making it. I am a Core contributor, but I will not say that BU's plan should not be tried. People just need to trust Core. I hope everyone in the community can have this mentality.

● Audience: In the past 7 years, no one was arguing about the block size, but Bitcoin still attracted people from all walks of life. But now that expansion has become a controversial topic and has produced controversial changes, can you tell us your thoughts on this trend change?

Johnson : The actual block size issue has been mentioned before, but it didn't heat up because only a few people knew about Bitcoin. Now some people think that 1MB block size is not enough, so we need to expand it and do it easily and quickly. I think what has changed is the transaction volume, but what remains unchanged is consensus, which is the rule of Bitcoin. Now, the issue of expansion does require community consensus and should take into account the interests of different parties.

● Babbitt : A question from the Babbitt forum. It is said that a high degree of consensus is required when Core members make decisions, and we also know that there are Core members who oppose the expansion plan. Therefore, we can conclude that Core as a whole will not support the expansion?

Johnson : Core members have never said that we will never support scaling. You may now hear some Core members say that they want the community to be faster, but Core as a whole cannot be represented by them because Core is not a legal entity. In addition, these people actually believe that the block size will eventually be increased, so it is only a matter of time for Core to increase the block size. Although I will not claim that segregated witness is the most ideal solution, it is indeed a way to increase the block size on the chain. What I mean is that Core members are all in favor of increasing the block size. However, as to how fast the expansion pace should be, this is the consensus of the entire community, not just the consensus of Core. Core just proposed a plan that is technically safer and more feasible. The issue of expansion requires not only the consensus of Core members, but also the consensus of the entire community. Core as a whole is only a part of the community. If the Core members themselves cannot reach a consensus, it will be more difficult for the community to reach a consensus. Finally, although I cannot represent Core, I want to say that I think it is still possible for Core to consider larger blocks than segregated witness. Finally, as I said in my speech, if the current plan is not conducive to the interests of some participants in the community, they can choose to withdraw, either propose a new proposal based on consensus, or create another system (competitive currency).

Matt Corralo's presentation on the Fast Internet Bitcoin Relay Engine (FIBER) was more technical. He tried to prove that FIBER is a very sophisticated technology: based on UDP and forward error correction (FEC), FIBRE is simple to run, has better compression, and propagates faster. It is worth noting that in 50% of cases, the speed of FIBRE on the public network is less than or equal to the speed of light plus 10 milliseconds, and in 90% of cases, it is less than or equal to the speed of light plus 18 milliseconds.

After the two speeches, the discussion began. Roger Ver, the first person in the world to personally invest in Bitcoin, appeared as scheduled.

The following are highlights from the discussion session.

● Roger : Lack of communication between enterprises and developers

Moderator: Who wants to talk about how developers and businesses work together?

Roger: There is a disagreement between the developers of Bitcoin and the actual users who use Bitcoin for commercial purposes such as payments about what is important to focus on. I hope there can be more communication between the two sides to ensure that both sides are on the same page about the issues that are important to focus on. I believe that everyone in the Bitcoin community wants Bitcoin to succeed. So my concern and worry is that there is not enough communication between the two sides.

● Guo Hongcai and Miao Yongquan : Ethereum fork caused loss of trust in the community

Moderator: What lessons can we learn from the Ethereum fork?

Guo Hongcai: I am very familiar with Ethereum's hard fork. We support the tamper-proof mechanism and we oppose rollback. But Ethereum has split into two chains, which has led to a loss of trust. The original chain of Ethereum has become a forked chain. It is really difficult to establish trust internationally. Bitcoin now has international trust. If Bitcoin forks once or more, there will no longer be trust.

Miao Yongquan: I think the hard fork issue shows that we have to be cautious about hard forks. There are many lessons learned from Ethereum. What everyone needs to know is that hard forks are not that simple. Although Ethereum is still running, the lost trust cannot be recovered. If you still have smart contracts on Ethereum, do you believe that these contracts will remain the same or believe that there is a risk of tampering? I think ETC still has a chance to succeed because it maintains its tamper-proof properties, and the tamper-proof properties are precisely the reason why Bitcoin can remain strong. What we need is a well-functioning, tamper-proof chain.

Matt: Bitcoin is immutable and secure, and that's what people are interested in. We just need to push the community in a direction that we all believe in so that the community is more aligned. The Internet is sometimes a mess, and some people think that Roger and I might be enemies, but we are actually good friends. (Roger interrupted to say that he met Matt when he was a child, and the audience laughed).

Wang Lidong: The Ethereum issue has taught us that we need to be very careful when it comes to hard forks. If we want Bitcoin to be successful in the next 100 years, we cannot fight among ourselves, because fighting will only hinder progress. Another point is that we are now at a stage where we are regarded as experts in Bitcoin, but perhaps 99% of people outside our platform may only have 10% of our knowledge. Therefore, we need something simple and easy to implement that is accepted by the mainstream. The price of Ethereum has plummeted, while the price of Bitcoin has been rising, so Bitcoin is in a good situation now, and we need to be careful about what form Bitcoin will take in the end.

●Gu Ying : The Bitcoin house is on fire ; the current situation of Bitcoin is not good at all

After Wang Lidong finished talking about the good situation of Bitcoin, Gu Ying took over the conversation.

Gu Ying: I think Bitcoin is not working well. I believe everyone remembers Roger's dream for Bitcoin. I also want to say that when I first encountered Bitcoin, I also thought that Bitcoin could achieve "be your own bank", that is, fast cross-border payments. Now, it takes hours for small transactions to be confirmed. If this happened when I first encountered Bitcoin, I promise I would leave and I would not sit here as a Bitcoin enthusiast. So please stop debating! The Bitcoin house is on fire, you need to put out the fire first. Then discuss choosing BU or Core. So when Chandler asked me if I supported Core or BU, I said I just wanted to put out the fire first. I am not worried about the hard fork. If the hard fork does not succeed, then work on the original chain.

● Roger : The Bitcoin house is on fire ; Bitcoin's economic code is being destroyed by network congestion

Host: In addition to capacity expansion, what other features of Bitcoin should we pay attention to?

Roger: I was the first person in the world to invest in a Bitcoin startup, and I was attracted by the profound economic code of Bitcoin. I have enough technical background to understand the technical aspects of Bitcoin, and I understand the economic aspects of Bitcoin. The first time I used Bitcoin, the transaction was almost free, the confirmation was fast, and double-spending was basically impossible; Bitcoin just worked well. This economic code allowed Bitcoin to go from being used by no one to being used by millions of people around the world. Today, Bitcoin transactions are really too slow, it takes hours or even days to confirm; Bitcoin transactions are expensive and the risk of double spending is much higher than before. All the features that made Bitcoin popular have been lost due to network congestion. I would also like to say that there are two ways to scale, either make the software better or use better hardware. I feel that developers just want to make better software, but they completely ignore the fact that we have better hardware now than when Bitcoin came out 8 years ago. So I think the Bitcoin house is really on fire. Before Bitcoin became expensive and slow, no one talked about hard forks. Everyone had the same opinion about Bitcoin. Bitcoin used to work so well, so don't change it. People like me who have invested time and energy into Bitcoin are terrified of such a drastic change to Bitcoin's original economic code. I just wish more people would understand that Bitcoin's economic code is just as important as the software code. Lightning is great, and I look forward to it. But I just want to call on everyone to pay attention to the fact that it is Bitcoin's economic code that has grown Bitcoin from being worthless to a market cap of $12 billion, please don't change that. We need to move forward with the software side and the hardware side to ensure that Bitcoin's economic code does not change. I understand the risks of a hard fork, but there is also a huge risk that Bitcoin's economic code will be destroyed if changes are not made.

● Miao Yongquan: The Bitcoin house is not on fire ; but transaction fees are not the only reason for slow confirmation

Miao Yongquan: I think better wallet software and more reasonable fee estimation are areas where we can work on it. I believe that more reasonable fee estimation will alleviate the problem of long confirmation times. I also think that real technology can also make Bitcoin transactions cheaper for everyone. Roger talked about the economic code, but one of the codes of Bitcoin is that Bitcoin cannot be free indefinitely. The unfortunate part of Bitcoin is that as the price of Bitcoin goes up, transaction fees will go up, and people should expect this.

I don't think the Bitcoin house is on fire, I think the Ethereum house is on fire. If you look at the market sentiment, India's economic policies and Venezuela's situation are not optimistic, but people are still buying Bitcoin like crazy. So you can't ignore the fact that the price of Bitcoin is rising and only talk about the cost of transactions rising. You should also consider the fact that large transactions will cost more than small transactions. Transaction fees are a more complex topic than just saying "transaction fees are high now." In addition, the information conveyed by Bitcoin confirmation time is not necessarily accurate. The current Bitcoin system is actually not conducive to payments. It can be used for payments, but it is not the best for payments. Sometimes, we may spend hours without finding a block. It has nothing to do with fees, but it is just the nature of the existing system.

● Roger: The most important thing is transaction processing capacity rather than block size

Roger: I think it's not the block size that matters, but the transaction processing capacity of Bitcoin. I want to say thank you to developers like Matt and others who are working to improve Bitcoin's transaction processing capacity. But it is clear that Bitcoin's economic code has undergone fundamental changes. The probability of double spending has become higher; transaction fees have skyrocketed. Some people say that the price of Bitcoin is also rising, but if Bitcoin's economic code had not undergone such fundamental changes, the price of Bitcoin might be much higher. People who understand economics will know that both the visible and the invisible things are worth paying attention to. What we can see is that the price of Bitcoin has risen. But what we don't see is that if Bitcoin maintains low costs, fast confirmations and low risk of double spending, the price of Bitcoin will be much higher.

I have been in contact with many venture capitalists, and I found that they are hesitant and waiting, wondering why Bitcoin is running at full capacity. Think about what will happen if more venture capitalists come to the Bitcoin circle? No engineer will tolerate his system running at 100% load for 6 months, which must be crazy. Although there are huge differences between the Bitcoin network and other computer networks, there are still many similarities in comparison. All the problems such as high fees and slow confirmations are caused by Bitcoin running at 100% load. We should work hard to ensure that we always have extra operating capacity. For Bitcoin to maintain the same level of network security as today, it only needs the price of Bitcoin (relative to fiat currency) to double every four years. Now Bitcoin has high fees, high risk of double spending, and slow confirmation. What we need to do is to quickly solve these problems. Remember that there are more than a thousand competing coins.

● Roger : BU is a plan to quickly solve problems

Roger: Frankly, I like BU because I think they are the closest to maintaining the economic code of Bitcoin. But I won't dislike Core. What we need is something that can maintain the economic code of Bitcoin. These economic codes cannot be erased. Think about it, Bitcoin was originally some project on a computer, but now it has become a market worth $12 billion. What a Cinderella story, it's Sunday night, but we are all here talking about Bitcoin. This is because of the software code and the economic code of Bitcoin. We do everything we can to maintain the economic code that makes Bitcoin successful, and BU has the best plan at the moment. BU's plan allows the block to increase capacity almost immediately. Lightning Network technology and sidechains are exciting, but they are not ready yet.

Miao Yongquan: Bitcoin cannot always have additional processing power.

Gu Ying: Miao Yongquan is biased, or he doesn’t understand how Bitcoin works

● Roger : The Core team has no sense of crisis

Block size issue

Miao Yongquan: Increasing the block size actually costs money. The cost is on the entire network. Bitcoin can be different things to different people. Some people buy Bitcoin as an asset, so they don't care how fast the transaction is; some people just want to use it to trade anonymously. So if you increase the block size, it seems like everyone has to sacrifice: everyone has to increase their data storage space. It's dangerous to force others. That's why I say we need a consensus. One element of consensus is patience. We have to wait, move slowly, and make sure everyone is on board, otherwise someone will be pulled off.

Increasing the block size not only requires more hard drive space, but also makes it harder for new Bitcoin participants to sync on the blockchain. We have been working on Ethereum mining pools. The Ethereum blockchain is so large that it is really not easy to sync. There are delays, and there are other additional costs besides more hard drive space. Broadcasting on a larger blockchain is also more expensive. So, while you don't want to change the economic code of the blockchain, you also don't want these disadvantages of scaling. Increasing the block size to 2 MB can now reduce the confirmation time from 3 hours to 2 hours. . .

Roger interrupted and said: Actually it is reduced to 10 minutes.

Gu Ying said (to Miao Yongquan): You are biased.

Miao Yongquan: I am not biased.

Gu Ying and Roger: Then you don’t understand Bitcoin. 2 MB can reduce the confirmation time to 10 minutes.

Miao Yongquan: So, if all transactions are free, how do miners make money?

Gu Ying: Do you know how mining pools make money? They are making money in a wild way now. Now do you know what I can do to make my Bitcoin transaction fast? I have to pay 1 Bitcoin. Then my transaction can go through instantly. This is not the purpose of Bitcoin. I am against this.

Wang Lidong: In China, the mining pool business is very competitive. We see other mining pools cutting fees for miners, so what can we do? Either we follow them, or we will have no business. It is difficult for our mining pool to operate without transaction fees.

Roger: We did find some frustration during our discussion. Bitcoin has been running at 100% capacity for 6 months, but it feels like the Core team lacks a sense of crisis. We knew 8 years ago that the blockchain would be full as more people used Bitcoin. When I first came into contact with Bitcoin, my biggest concern was that Bitcoin could change the world, but it would somehow weaken every government's control over money. I thought the best way to avoid government interference was for Bitcoin to become popular in the world as quickly as possible. It's easy for governments to dismiss Bitcoin as a tool for drug dealers or other bad guys, but if billions of people accept Bitcoin, no government has any reason to say that Bitcoin is serving bad guys.

● Gu Ying: Developers and programmers please read some economics books

Gu Ying: I want to add one thing. I think everyone should have a say. But now developers have too much say in this decision. Do you programmers know monetary policy? Do you know economics? Bitcoin is no longer just a computer project. So, developers, before you write code, learn about economics. Otherwise, please don't vote.

● Johnson: Anti-censorship features are as important as speed and low cost

Johnson: For me, what is more important about Bitcoin is its anti-censorship characteristics, or the ability to monitor the entire ledger with ease. I must point out that in fact, there are already cheap and fast payment tools in the current financial system. Like China's Alipay or WeChat, it can handle hundreds of billions of yuan in transactions during the Chinese New Year. If all we need is cheap and fast, then we already have such things. But Bitcoin is unique, and Bitcoin's data is like the memory of the human brain, which cannot be taken away. This has never happened in the history of human civilization. This is why I want to participate in Bitcoin advancement. Therefore, we need to strike a balance between different needs to ensure that all unique features are not lost after any consensus changes.

● Roger : Segregated Witness is good; the voices on Reddit opposing Segregated Witness and Core should not be censored and blocked.

When talking about Segewit gaining support but not being implemented as expected, Roger said that the most direct way to increase transaction processing capacity is to expand capacity. In the past few weeks, Segregated Witness has been seen as a short-term solution for expansion. Because the main purpose of SegeWit is to end Bitcoin's malleability, and the increased transaction processing capacity is just a byproduct. So Segewit can only provide a small amount of expansion after 95% of the network's calculations agree. Bitcoin.com will not actively promote Segewit, but it will not stop Segewit. In addition, what Segewit supporters may not expect is that on Reddit, the most popular platform information platform, many opinions are suppressed. The people in charge of r/bitcoin delete any posts that criticize the Core team or SegeWit. I think this is a huge hindrance to the entire Bitcoin community. Censorship or deletion of posts also hinders the Core team. SegeWit is like a product on the Internet, and you (the Core team) may also be angry about the slow progress. I think this is a direct result of the suppression and deletion of opinions and opinions. People should be free to discuss issues online. If someone disagrees, tell them why you are wrong, don't censor or delete posts. .

Gu Ying: I think SegeWit is just a band-aid, treating the symptoms but not the root cause. It is effective in the short term, so I support SegeWit. But if it cannot fundamentally solve the problem, I will not support it.

Miao Yongquan: I think SW is good. I think wallets, especially hardware wallets, are interested in SW. They are also part of the community. I think the current activation speed is very fast. In addition, Core developers seem to be blamed for many things. But they really don't control everyone's choices. The Core team believes that segregated witness is a technological advancement, but it will not force anyone.

Wang Lidong: Segregated Witness is available to everyone. It can increase transaction processing capacity immediately. It is one of the fire extinguishers. I would encourage people to use it.